This is pretty much what we can expect from giving jihadis the same legal rights as American citizens and trying them in civilian court:
A federal judge has tossed out most of the government's evidence against a tarrorism detainee on grounds his confessions were coerced, allegedly by U.S. forces, before he became a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.
In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also said the government failed to establish that 23 statements the detainee made to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were untainted by the earlier coerced statements made while he was held under harsh conditions in Afghanistan.
However, the judge said statements he made during two military administrative hearings at the U.S. detention center in Cuba, where he was assisted by a personal representative, were reliable and sufficient to justify holding the detainee.
Musa'ab Omar Al Madhwani allegedly engaged in a 2 1/2-hour firefight with Pakistani authorities before his capture in a Karachi apartment in 2002.
The detainee says that after five days in a Pakistani prison, he was handed over to U.S. forces and flown to a pitch-black prison he believes was in Afghanistan. He says he was suspended in his cell by his left hand and that guards blasted his cell with music 24 hours a day.
He said that he confessed to whatever allegations his interrogators made and that harassment and threats continued after he was moved to a different prison in Afghanistan.
Al Madhwani said that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay on multiple occasions threatened him when he tried to retract what he now claims was a false confession.
The judge said he was particularly concerned that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay relied on or had access to the coerced confessions from Afghanistan made by Al Madhwani.
Needless to say, the allegations of abuse came after this particular jihadi got lawyered up for his civilian trial.
What's more, this judge was completely within his rights in this decision. Once the Obama Administration decided that Al Madhwani was to be Mirandized and sent through our court system to receive the same Constitutional protections due all criminal suspects who are US citizens, there's no way to put the toothpaste back in the tube without violating the Equal Protection provision of the Constitution.
That's exactly why the Bush Administration created military tribunals, to ensure basic fairness and rule of Law while still recognizing the difference between jihadis caught on the battlefield in Afghanistan and domestic criminals and resolving this quandary. Now that Obama has rejected the tribunals and insisted on getting civilian courts involved, he's going to be stuck with the results. Or rather, the rest of us without Secret Service protection will when some of these jihadis go free and return to their former pursuits.
Hoax n' change, suckahs!
Just a little point. I hear all the time that they are getting the same rights as American citizens. It is not the same rights as citizens it is the same rights as anyone who is in the territorial boundaries of the US. Anyone who is here is entitled to all the rights under the US Constitution. These include persons here illegally as well.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not argue that they should be getting military tribunals as befits the rules of war, there are some legal issues, such as an undeclared war and other consitutional issues that should be hashed out in the courts. The US Supreme court did declare that GITMO is US property for the purposes of attachment of the US Consitution. The additional issues could be hashed out by the Nine Supremes and that really would end the on going debate as to jurisdiction.
Hello Elise,
ReplyDeleteLeave it to you to get to the heart of the matter.
The undeclared war is exactly the problem. Bush should have gone directly to Congress on 9/12/01 and asked them to formally declare war on Al-Qaeda, their associated Islamist groups and any nation found aiding and abetting them.
Given the mood of the country at that point, even creeps like Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel would have had little choice but to vote in favor.
However, an actual declaration of war would likely have created some problems with certain Arab nations that a lot of influential Americans ( including both the Clintons and the Bush family)regarded as friends and important bidness partners, so that didn't happen.
It's also why we ended up attacking Iraq, a country that was not an imminent threat to us..but was to the Saudis.
And that's also the whole reason for the ridiculous notion of a 'war on terror', rather than correctly naming whom we were really fighting, why we're still embroiled in this nonsense today and why this site is subtitled 'a digest and commentary on the War Against Jihad. '
These people are properly POW's who ordinarily aren't entitled to a 'trial' at all. As I point out, the entire system of military tribunals was created to try and fill the gap, and in an absence of a proper declaration of war was of course found contrary to US law even during the Bush Administration.
Club Gitmo was likewise intended as a solution, since it is a US Military reservation under military law, and thus not part of our civilian court system, with its inherent civilian legal protections.
Obama, of course, has taken it one stoo-pid step further by compounding Bush's mistake,bringing the jihadis here,putting them under US criminal jurisdiction and thus making damned sure a lot of them will have to be kicked loose. Especially when you consider that all of these cases will now be covered by the Rules of Discovery,mandating that secret information and how it was obtained be revealed to the jihadi's lawyers in order to get a conviction.
Regards,
Rob
Iraq was an imminent threat to the Saudis? That's interesting. The Saudis didn't think so. They and their leaders were and are vehmently opposed to the Iraq war.
ReplyDeleteI think the government and the intellegence community really thought Iraq had wmd and was an immenent threat to us. Unfortunately the intellegence on wmd turnded out to be inaccurate. The wmd were not where we expected them to be. This has been compounded by the fact that no significant efforts have been made to fix these problems.
In the mean timem we remain vunerable to Islamic terrorists and to more serious threats from the likes of Russia and China. Its not a pretty situation when our country is being targeted by the two most powerful countries on earth and we don't have an intellegence agency service or a military adequate to deal with the situation.
The intellegence failures in Iraq could have been a learning experience for us. Unforuntuately some chose to use them to score partisian politcal points. As for the military situation, we have worn our military down and seriously compromised its fighting capabilities in fruitless efforts to bring "democracy" to Iraq and Afghanistan. It cannot be sugar coated. We are not in a good situation.
As for business relationships between the Bush's, Clinton's and others with the Saudis or other powrful Arabs, until the envrio whackos and others will allow us to drill for our own oil and gas resources, government officials have to what ever they can to ensure we have access to oil sources somewhere. As such, they may little choice but to be junior partners to the Saudis at this point.
Not a good situation, however, it is fixable. Open up all of our own oil and gas reserves for drilling. This will give us a more reliable source of oil, it will lower the price of oil, and in time it will give us more leverage in negotiations with Saudi Arabia and otther OPEC countries.
If the US attempted to hold another country hostage the way Saudi Arabia holds us hostage, the media would be beside themselves with rage over the actions of "arrogant"m "imperial" Aemricans. When the Saudis do this to Aemrica, its leaders, and its citizens the media is silent. Truly disgusting.
What happens when some of those released from Gitmo or other Islamic terrorists detonate multiple "dirty bombs" or suit case nukes in multiple American cities and millions are killed? Given the nature of the threat, I'm surprised Barack Obama and others want to take the chance that lawerying these people up entails. I thin their ideology may blind them to the threat.
Hi Poster,
ReplyDeleteI suggest you read the link if you haven't already.
Saddam was using the oil for food money to rebuild his conventional forces, and keep in mind that Saddam had already successfully overrun Kuwait in the past and threatened the Saudis. That's what the First Gulf War was about.
Of course what the Saudis expected was a new Sunni strongman installed while we went after the Shi'ites in Iran.
They never suspected that Bush would massage his fetish of 'Arab democracy' and allow the Iranian-allied Shi'ites in Iraq to take over.
Regards,
Rob
FF,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply to my post. I tried a reply to you but it was to long. I'll try and shorten it.
I read your link. It is as insightful as any in the blogsphere. i may not alwasy agree with you but it makes me think. Please keep up the excellent work!!
Saddam had used the oil for food money to achieve a de facto end to sanctions. He and Iraq had all but defeated the United States as there was no international support for continuing the sanctions let alone removing Saddam. Not that the sanctions were effective any way. They were not. Nevertheless they were all but over any way.
The events of 911 changed how America and many other nations evaluated threats to their national interests. Saddam failed to anticipate how things had changed. In other words, without 911 the sanctions would have completely collapsed, Saddam would still be in power, his conventional and non conventional forces would have been rebuilt, and he would probably be a serious threat to the American homeland and to American interests world wide.
The Saudis expected a new Sunni strongman? Who was going to provide the security for this strongman. Presumably Saddam's forces would have done every thing in their power to topple this strong man. Were the Saudis planning to use their own forces to prop this man up? At least with the Democratic system the new government whether it be Shi'ite or Sunni has some legitmacy. If we installed a new Sunni strong man, he would have had no legitimacy. Besides I think we had our fill of Sunni strongmen with Saddam.
We were supposed to go after the Shi'ites in iran? Given Saddam and Iraq's history of invading Kuwait, threatening Saudi Arabia, and even the invasion of Iran in the 80s we had some international backing to remove Saddam. This was especially true post 911. After all, it largely agreed that Saddam had ties to Islamic terrorists. We had no internatinal backing to go after the Shi'ites in Iran. Besides where were we going to get the forces to do this? Were the Saudis planning to send in their ground forces while we provided air support?
Bush talked endlessly of Arab democracy. How could the Saudis have been confused. It sounds as if Saudi foregin policy officials may be as inept as American foreign policy officials. Perhaps more so. This is especially distressing when one considers the fact that Saudi Arabia wields substantial influence over American foreign policy.
No the Saudis were not going to provide security for their strong man nor were they ever going to help us go after the Iranian Shi'ites. The Saudis have never done a thing to help us that I'm aware of. Instead the criticize and they dictate to us.
Its long past time we jettisoned the Saudi parasite. A good place to start would be by developing all of our own oil and gas reserves. Simply by doing that, that alone would give us more utility for our national security interests than any thing we are currently doing.
Thanks for the kind words, Poster.
ReplyDeleteLet me try to address the points you've mentioned.
As far as security for the new Sunni strongman, the Saudis expected that to come from the US occupying force, obviously! They never expected Bush to empower the Shi'ites, and fully expected him to go after Shi'ite Iran, which Sunni autocracies like the Saudis regard as a threat.
Aside from Iran's possible closing of the Persian Gulf ( thus endangering all that oil money) the Saudis have a Shi'ite underclass living in the Eastern part of their country..exactly where the oil is.
As it is now, the Saudis and the UAE are livid at Obama because of his non-policy on Iran.They know he wants out of Iraq as soon as possible, meaning that the country stands a fair chance of becoming Lebanon south and a further threat to them.