Showing posts with label Guantanamo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guantanamo. Show all posts
Monday, November 16, 2009
Proud To House Terrorists In My State
TW: To those nattering nabobs of wussiness, the chicken hawks etc. who talk a big game about all things martial, I say- "Nut up". I am proud my state may potentially house some Gitmo prisoners. As I stated months ago, if our condo association would permit I would love to house a couple in our storage rooms (for an appropriately outrageous fee). The Republicans in our state caring little about things like solutions (thats you Mark Kirk) merely shriek and moan about mean, old Al-Qaeda coming after their fellow travelers in life.
Friday, May 22, 2009
De-Bunking the Myths
TW: We house terrorists including al-Qaeda adherents within the U.S. at federal prisons. We have pre-9/11 terrorists, post-9/11 terrorists, not to mention untold numbers of very, very evil and whacked serial rapists, racists, mass murderers etc. Yet ignorance reins and folks still quiver at the concept of bringing several more dozen into the U.S. Hopefully as time passes calmer heads will prevail. And kudos to the folks of Hardin, Montana I would be right there with them. Not sure the wife would agree but if the Feds wanted to provide me with several million in funds I would construct my own little cell block and house them.
From WaPo:
"...lawmakers from both parties, as well as the director of the FBI, have sounded alarms about moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to federal prisons, where they could launch riots, hatch radical plots or somehow be released among the populace.
"No good purpose is served by allowing known terrorists, who trained at terrorist training camps, to come to the U.S. to live among us," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.). Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said Tuesday, before saying he was open to changing his position, "Part of what we don't want is them be put in prisons in the United States."
But the apocalyptic rhetoric rarely addresses this: Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.
Detained in the supermax facility in Colorado are Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993; Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Ahmed Ressam, of the Dec. 31, 1999, Los Angeles airport millennium attack plots; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, conspirator in several plots, including one to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Wadih el-Hage, convicted of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.
..."We have a vast amount of experience in how to judge the continued incarceration of highly dangerous prisoners, since we do this with thousands of prisoners every month, all over the United States, including some really quite dangerous people," Philip D. Zelikow, who was counselor to Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
....Still, one economically pressed community in Montana is bucking the trend of "not in my back yard." Some residents in Hardin are volunteering to open their unused, 464-bed Two Rivers Regional Detention Facility to the detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The City Council recently passed a resolution in support.
But Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) put his foot down. "We're not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country -- no way, not on my watch," he told Time magazine this month."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052102009.html
From WaPo:
"...lawmakers from both parties, as well as the director of the FBI, have sounded alarms about moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to federal prisons, where they could launch riots, hatch radical plots or somehow be released among the populace.
"No good purpose is served by allowing known terrorists, who trained at terrorist training camps, to come to the U.S. to live among us," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.). Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said Tuesday, before saying he was open to changing his position, "Part of what we don't want is them be put in prisons in the United States."
But the apocalyptic rhetoric rarely addresses this: Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.
Detained in the supermax facility in Colorado are Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993; Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Ahmed Ressam, of the Dec. 31, 1999, Los Angeles airport millennium attack plots; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, conspirator in several plots, including one to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Wadih el-Hage, convicted of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.
..."We have a vast amount of experience in how to judge the continued incarceration of highly dangerous prisoners, since we do this with thousands of prisoners every month, all over the United States, including some really quite dangerous people," Philip D. Zelikow, who was counselor to Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
....Still, one economically pressed community in Montana is bucking the trend of "not in my back yard." Some residents in Hardin are volunteering to open their unused, 464-bed Two Rivers Regional Detention Facility to the detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The City Council recently passed a resolution in support.
But Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) put his foot down. "We're not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country -- no way, not on my watch," he told Time magazine this month."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052102009.html
You Go Jesse!!! (cont.)
TW: These Ventura appearances keep providing substance to the debate. Listening to the admittedly lame Fox entertainers really begins to remind me of the Iraq War rationalizations, the proponents just jumped from one rationale to the next as each one lost any credibility (recall- WMD, 9-11, building democracy, protecting the Iraqis people etc.).
Here the Fox guy goes from it is not torture to it works to well we should just kill "them" all.
Torture is only a part of the overall approach to dealing with terrorism. Torture reflects some folks willingness to do anything even if it is technically illegal, contravenes longstanding American morals, is of dubious efficacy and greatly harms our reputation across the world. This trade in search of the hint of security is fundamental. Gitmo and how it is shut down feeds into the same theme- will we except any risk.
What is often missed in these debates is the cost of heading down the path of trading security for our liberties and reputation. Folks debate the efficacy and semantics of torture but not the costs. Losing our moral grounding and interanational repuatation are very serious prices to be paid. We cannot forget this.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Gitmo Come On!!
From NBC:
"Just askin’: By the way, we have this one question for the GOP straw-man argument on Gitmo: So is living near a prison with CONVICTED rapists or murderers safer than living next to a prison with SUSPECTED terrorists?"
The answer from a Republican:
"...a spokeswoman to House Minority Leader John Boehner, adds: "Last I checked, most rapists and murderers are NOT part of a radical, world-wide terrorist network. And remember, if the folks remaining at Gitmo weren’t that dangerous, they would have already been released. These are the most dangerous. AND lastly, you put one of these guys in a prison you up the chances of an attack on that prison."
And from Economist:
"WHEN Republicans (and, increasingly, Democrats like Jim Webb) panic about the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison, they often worry that some of the prisoners will be "released". Not just sent to a maximum security jail somewhere stateside—dumped into an American town. And exhibit A for that is the case of the Uighurs, Chinese Muslims whom George Bush's administration viewed as harmless enough to release, but who have become politically toxic.
Hilzoy, an academic blogger, runs down the reasons why they shouldn't be feared. It's worth reading, but the quick takeaway: There is no evidence whatsoever... that the Uighurs were instructed by al Qaeda—and a whole lot of evidence that it is false.
But the situation has gotten bad enough to make Harry Reid promise that no Gitmo prisoners will come to America. "We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States," he's said. It's a case of the facts being unable to overpower the buzz words."
TW: A fair question from NBC. When the Senate voted to slow down the closure of Gitmo until homes for the prisoners were found, I was very disappointed. I know the conservatives are creating their tempest about where the prisoners will go but I expect the conservatives to make spurious arguments. I have higher aspirations for the Democrats.
If there is one thing the U.S. has, it is high-security prisons. For folks to want to keep a cancerous, puss oozing symbol of American moral failure open because little old "Mericans cannot countenance imprisoning alleged terrorists on their own soil. Or because we might just release a falsely accused detainee in the U.S. is pathetic.
Are we so weak that we cannot accept ANY risk but will perpetuate torture and false imprisonment in the ephemeral pursuit of security. This is not about Gitmo and terrorists this is about how we function as a society.
"Just askin’: By the way, we have this one question for the GOP straw-man argument on Gitmo: So is living near a prison with CONVICTED rapists or murderers safer than living next to a prison with SUSPECTED terrorists?"
The answer from a Republican:
"...a spokeswoman to House Minority Leader John Boehner, adds: "Last I checked, most rapists and murderers are NOT part of a radical, world-wide terrorist network. And remember, if the folks remaining at Gitmo weren’t that dangerous, they would have already been released. These are the most dangerous. AND lastly, you put one of these guys in a prison you up the chances of an attack on that prison."
And from Economist:
"WHEN Republicans (and, increasingly, Democrats like Jim Webb) panic about the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison, they often worry that some of the prisoners will be "released". Not just sent to a maximum security jail somewhere stateside—dumped into an American town. And exhibit A for that is the case of the Uighurs, Chinese Muslims whom George Bush's administration viewed as harmless enough to release, but who have become politically toxic.
Hilzoy, an academic blogger, runs down the reasons why they shouldn't be feared. It's worth reading, but the quick takeaway: There is no evidence whatsoever... that the Uighurs were instructed by al Qaeda—and a whole lot of evidence that it is false.
But the situation has gotten bad enough to make Harry Reid promise that no Gitmo prisoners will come to America. "We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States," he's said. It's a case of the facts being unable to overpower the buzz words."
TW: A fair question from NBC. When the Senate voted to slow down the closure of Gitmo until homes for the prisoners were found, I was very disappointed. I know the conservatives are creating their tempest about where the prisoners will go but I expect the conservatives to make spurious arguments. I have higher aspirations for the Democrats.
If there is one thing the U.S. has, it is high-security prisons. For folks to want to keep a cancerous, puss oozing symbol of American moral failure open because little old "Mericans cannot countenance imprisoning alleged terrorists on their own soil. Or because we might just release a falsely accused detainee in the U.S. is pathetic.
Are we so weak that we cannot accept ANY risk but will perpetuate torture and false imprisonment in the ephemeral pursuit of security. This is not about Gitmo and terrorists this is about how we function as a society.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Lets Debate It
From Economist:
"These kinds of debates [on torture and detainees] didn't really happen during the last administration, and not just because detainees were being sent to Cuba. The Bush administration's stance was that anything was justified in the war on terror, so it didn't do to ask questions. But Barack Obama has set some ground rules, and that leads politicians to believe that they can set a few more to protect their own political bases. So a lot more war-on-terror policy making is happening in public, and in Congress, than might help the administration."
TW: I think the above is important to keep in mind amidst the back and forth occurring since W. Bush left office. One advantage of brooking no dissent and hiding what you are doing is the debate is inherently limited. As a result Americans have not had to face up to the questions of whether we tortured and if so do they support it and whether we are prepared to live with places like Guantanamo etc. The debate about did we torture is a cynical fandango based upon our country trying to "torture" whilst not getting the perpetrators in legal jeopardy and tarnishing our nation's reputation too badly. We tortured, I know it, you know it and the rest of the world most definitely knows its. Having people like the guy below appear on TV and dance only makes us all appear stupid and/or liars.
TW: The fundamental question remains should the United States of America support state sanctioned torture in pursuit of security. Dick Cheney will apparently make the bull case on Thursday to a conservative think tank audience. This is a a good thing as it puts the question front and center. Some will trade vast liberties in pursuit of ephemeral security. I do not, it is really no more complex than paranoia will destroia.
"These kinds of debates [on torture and detainees] didn't really happen during the last administration, and not just because detainees were being sent to Cuba. The Bush administration's stance was that anything was justified in the war on terror, so it didn't do to ask questions. But Barack Obama has set some ground rules, and that leads politicians to believe that they can set a few more to protect their own political bases. So a lot more war-on-terror policy making is happening in public, and in Congress, than might help the administration."
TW: I think the above is important to keep in mind amidst the back and forth occurring since W. Bush left office. One advantage of brooking no dissent and hiding what you are doing is the debate is inherently limited. As a result Americans have not had to face up to the questions of whether we tortured and if so do they support it and whether we are prepared to live with places like Guantanamo etc. The debate about did we torture is a cynical fandango based upon our country trying to "torture" whilst not getting the perpetrators in legal jeopardy and tarnishing our nation's reputation too badly. We tortured, I know it, you know it and the rest of the world most definitely knows its. Having people like the guy below appear on TV and dance only makes us all appear stupid and/or liars.
TW: The fundamental question remains should the United States of America support state sanctioned torture in pursuit of security. Dick Cheney will apparently make the bull case on Thursday to a conservative think tank audience. This is a a good thing as it puts the question front and center. Some will trade vast liberties in pursuit of ephemeral security. I do not, it is really no more complex than paranoia will destroia.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Closing Gitmo And Putting an End To Torture
TW: Certainly I am excited about Obama's aggressive moves to close Gitmo and end our disastrous foray into torture. I understand there will be procedural and practical challenges some of which may end up being quite thorny but the benefits to our national reputation and moral authority will be worth the efforts.
But we must understand the current consensus supporting the moves are potentially ephemeral. The Republicans explicitly take the position that they will sacrifice much liberty for the possibility of much security. No one will ever know whether torture increased our security. I personally have no doubts that it did not.
Pat Buchanan framed the issue well the other day. The test will come if and when the next terrorist attack of some materiality occurs, will the American people stand with those of my (and our POTUS) ilk. We shall see.
From Economist:
"BARACK OBAMA has signed an executive order that shuts down Guantánamo Bay "as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order." Another executive order...goes further.
That underestimated the disregard Mr Obama had for Mr Bush's policies: the neoconservative assumption that Democrats need to talk and act tough, so as not to be blamed if things go wrong, is not shared by the new administration."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/01/erasing_the_bush_era.cfm
But we must understand the current consensus supporting the moves are potentially ephemeral. The Republicans explicitly take the position that they will sacrifice much liberty for the possibility of much security. No one will ever know whether torture increased our security. I personally have no doubts that it did not.
Pat Buchanan framed the issue well the other day. The test will come if and when the next terrorist attack of some materiality occurs, will the American people stand with those of my (and our POTUS) ilk. We shall see.
From Economist:
"BARACK OBAMA has signed an executive order that shuts down Guantánamo Bay "as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order." Another executive order...goes further.
The Order also prohibits reliance on any Department of Justice or other legalGlenn Greenwald, a libertarian-leaning constitutional lawyer, is overjoyed: the president is on track to "meet or actually exceed even the most optimistic expectations of civil libertarians for what he could or would do quickly." Indeed, the conventional wisdom after the election was that President Obama, by his choice of intelligence advisers and his vote for retroactive immunity for telecom companies that let the National Security Agency tap phones, had revealed that he wouldn't actually roll back many of Mr Bush's war-on-terror reforms.
advice concerning interrogation that was issued between September 11, 2001 and
January 20, 2009.
That underestimated the disregard Mr Obama had for Mr Bush's policies: the neoconservative assumption that Democrats need to talk and act tough, so as not to be blamed if things go wrong, is not shared by the new administration."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/01/erasing_the_bush_era.cfm
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Return Of Competence (cont.): Trading Much Liberty For a Little More Security
TW: Part 2 of Cohen's piece focuses on Obama re-asserting respect for constitutional law. This is by no means a given, most POTUSes run afoul of the Constitution one way or the other, but some push the envelope too far. The Bush Administration set new lows. In the piece Cohen focuses on the diminution of habeus corpus under Bush. When we start cutting serious corners with the law in the pursuit of some sort of ephemeral security, we more than erode our corresponding liberty.
From Cohen at Int'l Herald Tribune:
"I'm thankful for many things right now, despite the stock market, and first among them is the fact that the next U.S. commander-in-chief is a constitutional law expert and former law professor.
...the law, which is what defines the United States, for it is a nation of laws. Or was until Bush, in the aftermath of 9/11, unfurled what the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called "the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history."
There is no need to rehash here the whole sordid history of the Bush administration's work on Vice President Dick Cheney's "dark side": the "enhanced" interrogation techniques in "black sites" outside the United States justified by invocation of a "New Paradigm" that rendered the Geneva Conventions "quaint."
When governments veer onto the dark side, language always goes murky. Direct speech makes dirty deeds too clear. A new paradigm sounds bland enough. What it meant was trashing habeas corpus...
...Of the 770 detainees grabbed here and there and flown to Guantánamo, only 23 have ever been charged with a crime. Of the more than 500 so far released, many traumatized by those "enhanced" techniques, not one has received an apology or compensation for their season in hell.
What they got on release was a single piece of paper from the U.S. government. A U.S. official met one of the dozens of Afghans now released from Guantánamo and was so appalled by this document that he forwarded me a copy.
Dated Oct. 7, 2006, it reads as follows:
"An Administrative Review Board has reviewed the information about you that was talked about at the meeting on 02 December 2005 and the deciding official in the United States has made a decision about what will happen to you. You will be sent to the country of Afghanistan. Your departure will occur as soon as possible."
That's it, the one and only record on paper of protracted U.S. incarceration: three sentences for four years of a young Afghan's life, written in language Orwell would have recognized.
We have "the deciding official," not an officer, or a judge. We have "the information about you," not allegations, or accusations, let alone charges. We have "a decision about what will happen to you," not a judgment, ruling or verdict. This is the lexicon of totalitarianism. It is acutely embarrassing to the United States...
That is why I am thankful above all that the next U.S. commander-in-chief is a constitutional lawyer. Nothing has been more damaging to the United States than debasing the legal principles at the heart of the American idea...Give thanks on this day for the law. It's what stands between the shining city on a hill and the dark side.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/26/opinion/edcohen.php
Part 1 is here
http://treylaura.blogspot.com/2008/12/return-of-competence.html
From Cohen at Int'l Herald Tribune:
"I'm thankful for many things right now, despite the stock market, and first among them is the fact that the next U.S. commander-in-chief is a constitutional law expert and former law professor.
...the law, which is what defines the United States, for it is a nation of laws. Or was until Bush, in the aftermath of 9/11, unfurled what the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called "the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history."
There is no need to rehash here the whole sordid history of the Bush administration's work on Vice President Dick Cheney's "dark side": the "enhanced" interrogation techniques in "black sites" outside the United States justified by invocation of a "New Paradigm" that rendered the Geneva Conventions "quaint."
When governments veer onto the dark side, language always goes murky. Direct speech makes dirty deeds too clear. A new paradigm sounds bland enough. What it meant was trashing habeas corpus...
...Of the 770 detainees grabbed here and there and flown to Guantánamo, only 23 have ever been charged with a crime. Of the more than 500 so far released, many traumatized by those "enhanced" techniques, not one has received an apology or compensation for their season in hell.
What they got on release was a single piece of paper from the U.S. government. A U.S. official met one of the dozens of Afghans now released from Guantánamo and was so appalled by this document that he forwarded me a copy.
Dated Oct. 7, 2006, it reads as follows:
"An Administrative Review Board has reviewed the information about you that was talked about at the meeting on 02 December 2005 and the deciding official in the United States has made a decision about what will happen to you. You will be sent to the country of Afghanistan. Your departure will occur as soon as possible."
That's it, the one and only record on paper of protracted U.S. incarceration: three sentences for four years of a young Afghan's life, written in language Orwell would have recognized.
We have "the deciding official," not an officer, or a judge. We have "the information about you," not allegations, or accusations, let alone charges. We have "a decision about what will happen to you," not a judgment, ruling or verdict. This is the lexicon of totalitarianism. It is acutely embarrassing to the United States...
That is why I am thankful above all that the next U.S. commander-in-chief is a constitutional lawyer. Nothing has been more damaging to the United States than debasing the legal principles at the heart of the American idea...Give thanks on this day for the law. It's what stands between the shining city on a hill and the dark side.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/26/opinion/edcohen.php
Part 1 is here
http://treylaura.blogspot.com/2008/12/return-of-competence.html
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Closing Guantanamo
TW: Have quoted Mr. Calabresi previously, I typically do not care for him. This entry is interesting in that he advocates something I would agree with, closing Guantanamo, but with a much different twist. Given that even folks like Calabresi are advocating the closure one can safely assume it will be closed much sooner rather than later.
Calabresi's stance is basically that while creating a Gulag maybe constitutional and a Gulag was initially needed post 9/11, the Gulag's usefullness has run out hence it should be closed. There in rests the rub, personally I believe our Constitution is sufficiently robust to exclude the creation of Gulags and furthermore creating Gulags were, are and shall ever more (lets hope) be unneccessary. Mr. Calabresi and his ilk within the Bush Administration certainly felt otherwise. He truly seems non-pulsed by the notion of an American Gulag merely realistic that cost in lost reputation to the US internationally outweighs the benefits. He acknowledges in his last sentence that compromising the rule of law violates our own principles yet earlier attempts to argue that Guantanamo was needed. Outrageous.
From Calabresi:
"Obama should announce the immediate closing of Guantanamo in his inaugural address. The base there made sense as a brief holding pen in the early days of the War on Terror and the war in Afghanistan, but it has long since outlived its usefulness. We cannot win the War on Terror without winning the battle for global public opinion just as we could not have won the Cold War without winning the battle for global public opinion. Terrorists who have committed crimes should be detained and tried in the same way that other violent criminals are detained and tried. That means moving them to the mainland United States and holding them in a very secure federal prison possibly in solitary confinement. Our federal trial courts are conviction machines, and there is no need for a separate prison or system of military commissions to try terrorists for crimes.
The Bush Administration has argued rightly that the War on Terror is a war and not just a law enforcement problem. I agree with that. Prisoners of war can be detained without trial until the war in question ends. The problem is that the War on Terror could easily go on for thirty years, unlike World War II, and it is unfair, unjust, and frankly un-American to detain prisoners for that long without a trial. It is also unnecessary. Federal trial courts can handle these cases perfectly well with some accommodation for the use of classified evidence. It has been seven years since 9/11. Detention of prisoners of war is justifiable for maybe five years but not indefinitely. It is time to try these folks and then to punish those who are found to be guilty. The Bush Administration believed war crimes should be punished by military tribunals as was done when the Nuremburg Trials punished leading Nazis. The problem with that is that it means setting up a dual system of justice: one with civil liberties for Americans who commit crimes and a second class system of justice where the rules are sharply different for terrorists. This approach may or may not be constitutional, but it is certainly unwise. We cannot and will not win the battle for global opinion in the War on Terror if we are seen as suspending the rule of law and offering a second class system of justice to terrorists who we have caught. Such a second class system of justice would be called a Gulag, and its existence would do far more harm to our ability to win the War on Terror than would the acquittal of a few detained terrorists by American courts. One of the principles America stands for in the War on Terror is a belief in the Rule of Law. We compromise that belief whenever we suspend the Rule of Law as to suspected terrorists by using different rules and procedures as to them from the ones we use as to American criminals. "
http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Steven_G__Calabresi_BF137191-6650-482A-AD30-15694927673E.html
Calabresi's stance is basically that while creating a Gulag maybe constitutional and a Gulag was initially needed post 9/11, the Gulag's usefullness has run out hence it should be closed. There in rests the rub, personally I believe our Constitution is sufficiently robust to exclude the creation of Gulags and furthermore creating Gulags were, are and shall ever more (lets hope) be unneccessary. Mr. Calabresi and his ilk within the Bush Administration certainly felt otherwise. He truly seems non-pulsed by the notion of an American Gulag merely realistic that cost in lost reputation to the US internationally outweighs the benefits. He acknowledges in his last sentence that compromising the rule of law violates our own principles yet earlier attempts to argue that Guantanamo was needed. Outrageous.
From Calabresi:
"Obama should announce the immediate closing of Guantanamo in his inaugural address. The base there made sense as a brief holding pen in the early days of the War on Terror and the war in Afghanistan, but it has long since outlived its usefulness. We cannot win the War on Terror without winning the battle for global public opinion just as we could not have won the Cold War without winning the battle for global public opinion. Terrorists who have committed crimes should be detained and tried in the same way that other violent criminals are detained and tried. That means moving them to the mainland United States and holding them in a very secure federal prison possibly in solitary confinement. Our federal trial courts are conviction machines, and there is no need for a separate prison or system of military commissions to try terrorists for crimes.
The Bush Administration has argued rightly that the War on Terror is a war and not just a law enforcement problem. I agree with that. Prisoners of war can be detained without trial until the war in question ends. The problem is that the War on Terror could easily go on for thirty years, unlike World War II, and it is unfair, unjust, and frankly un-American to detain prisoners for that long without a trial. It is also unnecessary. Federal trial courts can handle these cases perfectly well with some accommodation for the use of classified evidence. It has been seven years since 9/11. Detention of prisoners of war is justifiable for maybe five years but not indefinitely. It is time to try these folks and then to punish those who are found to be guilty. The Bush Administration believed war crimes should be punished by military tribunals as was done when the Nuremburg Trials punished leading Nazis. The problem with that is that it means setting up a dual system of justice: one with civil liberties for Americans who commit crimes and a second class system of justice where the rules are sharply different for terrorists. This approach may or may not be constitutional, but it is certainly unwise. We cannot and will not win the battle for global opinion in the War on Terror if we are seen as suspending the rule of law and offering a second class system of justice to terrorists who we have caught. Such a second class system of justice would be called a Gulag, and its existence would do far more harm to our ability to win the War on Terror than would the acquittal of a few detained terrorists by American courts. One of the principles America stands for in the War on Terror is a belief in the Rule of Law. We compromise that belief whenever we suspend the Rule of Law as to suspected terrorists by using different rules and procedures as to them from the ones we use as to American criminals. "
http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Steven_G__Calabresi_BF137191-6650-482A-AD30-15694927673E.html
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