Foregone Conclusion
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the form of law
than that he should escape
--Thomas Jefferson
___________
Yesterday the AP reported "U.S. May ask for Death for 9-11 Suspects," concluding with the following paragraph, which has since been scrubbed:
"Throughout the many challenges to the system, no suspect has actually been brought before a tribunal for trial. And it could be months before trials begin for the six Sept. 11 defendants. With the appeals process, it would likely be some time after any convictions before executions would be possible."
The new conclusion hints at the "chilling string of other terror plots last March" which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to in a possibly coerced statement.
There seems no doubt in anybody's mind that these defendants are going to be found guilty; the only question is, how soon? Why even conduct a trial?
If the Pentagon and the Department of Defense are now dispensing civilian justice, why not just out the Department of Justice under the DoD umbrella and do away with all civilian concepts of justice that were the old hallmark of the U.S. judicial system?
"Among those held at Guantanamo is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attack six years ago in which hijacked planes were flown into buildings in New York and Washington. Five others are expected to be named in sworn charges."
What's the rush? It has only been six years and these bad boys have been imprisoned for five or more. Let us slow down a bit so the defense doesn't get whiplash.
"The decision to seek the death penalty also is likely to draw criticism from within the international community." Surely if guilty these people deserve a death sentence, but not from a secret, closed-door, phony kangaroo court.
If the death sentence is considered, then it should be before a real court that meets that standards of civilized nations. Which is of course stretching it, as many civilized nations refuse to accept the death penalty.
These fine points seem to escape American logic.
Labels: death sentence for gitmo detainee, guantanamo detainees to be charged, PWOT, war on terrror
posted by rangeragainstwar at 12:00 AM
8 Comments:
that statements made while under torture, the threat of torture, and in the case of khalid mohammed, the threat to torture his two young sons in front of him, will be considered as anything but fruit from the poison tree is reprehensible. that this will be called evidence in a capital proceeding is beyond depraved. it is true inquisition territory. what's next? implicate others and we promise you a quick and relatively painless death? why not? all pretense of morality and decency is gone. maybe gone forever.
MB,I'll go out on a limb here. I predict that nothing will change , even after GWB exits the scene. McCain will not repudiate Bush policy and Obama is too shallow to do so. Hillary will not swim upstream against the intell/ military shakers. jim
i simply do not understand how we were able to sink this low ranger. i am not a torture moralist by any stretch of the imagination. i am a torture pragmatist. if the goal is the truth and good intelligence my personal experience has shown that you get quicker and better intel with hot chow and showers, clean clothes, and a promise of a trip to the big px. on the battlefields i found that i could be brutal and violent, i could be as ruthless as the situations demanded but i refused to debase myself, or dishonor my country or my unit by becoming cruel. it worked against every sound practice on the battlefield. it was counter productive and not conducive to the mission. i took as my creed the slogan that lucius corneilius sulla had for his epitaph.
no better friend.
no worse enemy.
torture only serves the torturer. it does not produce truth, it does not save lives on the battlefield. quite the contrary. if the enemy knows that the result of a surrender would be ill treatment and torture they will tend to fight to the death. if they know that they will be treated decently and with all the respect due to a fellow soldier they will flock to our side when the battle appears lost. the american army used to be the world wide choice for surrendering enemies. during the revolution hessian troops used to kill their noncoms and officers and surrender to the continental army as units. they believed that we would treat them better than their own officers, and that there was more opportunity here than to continue being rented out by their princes. during ww2 there were cases of german units that marched hundreds of miles to surrender to the american army rather than the russians. during the first gulf war whole units of even the vaunted republican guard surrendered as fast as they could make contact.
it's a black mark that was casually wiped out by idiots without honor or pride.
Not only do I question use of "evidence" from torture...but the list of charges ties my little blonde brain in knots. If these are not POWs from a military point of view, how can they be charged with "breaking the laws of war"...because wouldn't that be something only a SOLDIER was capable of doing? And if they are "soldiers" shouldn't the Geneva Convention apply outlawing torture? How can they play that "quaint" old Geneva record from both directions?
This is truly a black mark against America. Then you have the Omar Khadr case where they accidently leaked a testimony where a soldier said that Omar, at 15 yrs old, wasn't the only one alive in that mud hut when the grenade was thrown, but that won't matter.
This month's Rollling Stone magazine has an article on the FBI and the Joint Terrorist Task Force. These guys have a $ billion budget and all they can do is entrap small time crooks and try turn them into terrorists. Scary cause they could set anyone of us up. This is what America has become under GWB and the neocons. Torture, set ups, kangaroo courts, eroded civil liberties, not to mention the economy going in the tank. I'm affraid it's going to get alot worse before it gets better. As Ben Franklin said, "justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are" and I think there is still alot of so called "Christians" out there who believe that GWB talks directly to God. I agree with Ranger. I don't think much is going to change with this election. To get this far they've all prostituted themselves to the max!
MB, cruelty is not a soldierly trait.As we both espouse this is what happens to those who are warriors.Nor do soldiers have the luxury of hatred which seems to propel our national policies.Hatred leads directly to
torture.
We are in strange days indeed.! jim
Labrys, the concept of justice has been turned on it's little head also.Terrorists are criminals, plain and simple and we have courts to deal with this behavior.But for some reason we are led to believe that justice cannot be served in a traditional jurisprudent manner.The question is why is this attitude adopted by our leaders.
And of course secrecy is always the answer. News flash; justice is not served by secrecy and closed courts.The present crop of detainees is irrelevent, the key point is where is this taking us as a nation.Wherever the destination it's not good.It's like being in the final scenes of Apocolyps Now and not being able to leave the theater. jim
TW, I hope things will get better BUT don't plan on holding my breath.
As for the economy in an election year i can't help but ask what relevence any president has over the economy. Isn't this controlled by a non-elected ,appointed for life Czar?Who can't be fired. The economic concerns of America can easily rest on Greenspans porch. jim
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