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Douglas Jehl has a NY Times article that provides an excellent summary of the current legal issues with regard to the prisoners at Guantnamo.
To start with, the Supreme Court ruled last June that detainees at Guantnamo could have access to U.S. courts:
...last June, the Supreme Court ruled that United States law applied to Guantnamo and that prisoners there could challenge their detentions in federal courts.
So the Supreme Court is trying to protect American civil rights by extending those rights to those who are trying to kill us.
American citizens are not the same as citizens from other countries who are trying to kill them. You’d think that wouldn’t be that hard to figure out.
The law has more functions than only to protect Americans from possible wrongful use of power by the State, although that is surely one of its key functions.
The law is intended to make Americans safer in every way. By empowering those who are trying to kill us, the Supreme Court has perhaps lost sight of this.
In August, a federal district judge ruled that the Geneva Conventions apply to Guantnamo prisoners and that the special military commissions to try war crimes were unconstitutional. The government’s appeal of that ruling is scheduled to be heard next month.
The federal district judge’s ruling is not in the best interests of the people of the U.S., and is not supported by the Geneva Conventions, which are silent on the status of prisoners of war who have willfully violated those conventions. See this post for details.
Now check this out:
As many as 200 of those now at Guantnamo will most likely remain there indefinitely, the officials said, on grounds that they are too dangerous to be turned over to other nations or would probably face mistreatment if returned to those nations.
The Left often claims that when we turn prisoners over to other governments for detention, it is so that they can be tortured. So the Left doesn’t want these prisoners imprisoned elsewhere, and they don’t want them treated as what they are—prisoners of war—at Guantnamo. They want them treated as common criminals, with access to the U.S. court system to defend themselves—which is exactly what works best for Al Qaeda: the U.S. would have to reveal classified information to prosecute them; and the U.S. would be bogged down with hundreds of such prosecutions.
Once again the Left is doing exactly what the terrorists want them to do.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that future transfers into Guantnamo remained a “possibility,” but made clear that the court decisions and the burdens of detaining prisoners at the American facility had made it seem less attractive to administration policymakers than before.
“It’s fair to say that the calculus now is different than it was before, because the legal landscape has changed and those are factors that might be considered,” a senior Defense Department official said.
The rulings of the courts are making America less safe:
Indeed, officials have been concerned that transfer of some detainees could threaten American security because they might escape from foreign prisons or the foreign governments might free them.
...In November, a lawyer for Mamdouh Habib, a prisoner who claimed he had been tortured in Egypt before being transferred to Guantnamo, asked a federal district court to stop the Bush administration from returning him to Egypt. Before the court ruled, he was sent to Australia in January and freed.
The opposition of the Left to pro-American views of any nature under any circumstances, results in a de facto collaboration of the Left with our enemies, and increases the danger to the Liberals themselves as well as to all Americans.
SEOUL, March 11 (UPI)—North Korea has recently tightened state control over its hunger-hit population amid U.S.-led pressure over its nuclear weapons program and human right conditions, sources here say.
South Korean officials and analysts interpret the move as part of efforts to prevent mounting outside threats over the nuclear standoff from triggering internal threats or opposition to the Stalinist leadership.
..In the face of growing cracks in the system, North Korea amended its criminal code last year increasing penalties for expressing criticism of the government and other “anti-state” crimes. The revision, the fifth since 1950, also calls for tougher regulation on new crimes caused by infiltration of outside information.
North Korea also postponed its legislative session, which was due to open this month, in an apparent bid to tighten domestic control over the people by fanning a sense of crisis across the country.
...So far this year, North Korea has executed more than 60 citizens to warn its people against committing any “anti-republic” behaviors, such as illegal border crossing and information leakage, according to a Seoul-based relief group.
“North Korea executed in public 60 people sent back from China in January,” said the Headquarters for Protection of North Korean Defectors. The victims were repatriated to the North after failed attempts to find political asylum by forcing their way into a diplomatic compound in Beijing.
The open execution was the first one reported since 1998, according to North Korea watchers in Seoul. “The North’s regime may have needed a scapegoat to warn the people against committing any deviation behaviors,” a defector said.
The influence of the outside world is considered destabilizing to the oppressive dictatorship of Kim Jong Il:
In its New Year message, North Korea put top priority on preventing the influx of any capitalist culture into the closed society. Under the message, North Korean security agents have launched aggressive crackdown on “anti-socialist” behaviors in border areas since January.
...How to maintain the closure of the society in this globalized world community? This is a huge dilemma for North Korea to keep the hermit kingdom afloat.
But information is getting in—via cell phone:
...North Koreans are using Chinese telecommunication networks to reach South Korean phones, intelligence sources here say. Chinese communication firms, which have rapidly expanded their cell phone services, recently installed relay stations along the border with North Korea, which has kindled a cell phone boom in North Korea.
The Chinese devices are charged using pre-paid phone cards, and cost some 400 Chinese yuan (less than $50) for three month’s use.
Despite the strict measures, mobile phones have served as conveyer belts of information from the outside world to help combat decades of state-sponsored propaganda and misinformation, defectors say.
The New Editor has tracked down an English translation of an article written by a Dutch reporter— Harald Doornbos—who was sitting next to Sgrena on the plane flying into Baghdad right before she was kidnapped. It’s extremely illuminating:
Be careful not to get kidnapped,’ I told the female Italian journalist sitting next to me in the small plane that was headed for Baghdad. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘That won’t happen. We are siding with the oppressed Iraqi people. No Iraqi would kidnap us.’
... ‘The Americans are the biggest enemies of mankind,’ the three women behind me had told me, for Sgrena travelled to Iraq with two Italian colleagues who hated the Americans as well.
...’You don’t understand the situation. We are anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, communists,’ they said. The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers, the enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear.
(Doornbos tells them they’re out of their mind.)
But they knew better. When we arrived at Baghdad Airport, I was waiting for a jeep from the American army to come pick me up. I saw one of the Italian women walking around crying. An Iraqi had stolen her computer and television equipment. They were standing outside shivering, waiting for a cab to take them to Baghdad.
They were told they were about to get kidnapped, responded that nothing of the kind would happen, and continued to disregard the danger they’d been warned of even after all their gear had been stolen. It is worth noting that the root of the word, “ignorance,” is “to ignore.”
Per The New Editor:
So there we have it. A reporter from a communist newspaper in Italy, thinking she has nothing to fear from Iraqi insurgents because of her anti-American stance, gets kidnapped, and as a result, lots of time, money, manpower, and ultimately—tragically—a life is expended because her adherence to a failed political ideology renders her incapable of seeing reality. Yet, the system she so loathes secures her release. As if to cover for her own foolishness, she now claims the US purposely tried to have her killed. If her political viewpoint offered any hint, it would seem she did that quite well enough on her own—without anyone elses help.
Sgrena is a perfect representative of mainstream media, providing a striking example of how MSM’s ignorance and disregard for the truth is leading them—and others—into danger.
Update 3-11-05: An automatic translation from the original Dutch article, confirms that the English translation presented here is a reasonable translation from the original.
A conversation at the Video Store… from Timothy McSweeney:
CUSTOMER: Right. When’s it due back?
CASHIER: The day after tomorrow.
CUSTOMER: I mean the movie. The Day After Tomorrow. When is it due?
CASHIER: Oh! I get it. That’s funny. You thought I meantright, OK. It’s due the day after tomorrow.
CUSTOMER: The Day After Tomorrow is due the day after tomorrow?
CASHIER: Exactly.
CUSTOMER: And Before Sunset?
CASHIER: Anytime before 10.
CUSTOMER: Is it the same as The Day After Tomorrow?
CASHIER: We close the same time every day. Ten o’clock.
CUSTOMER: But what day is the video due?
CASHIER: The Day After Tomorrow?
CUSTOMER: Why are you asking me?
CASHIER: The Day After Tomorrow is due the day after tomorrow.
CUSTOMER: I know, but what about Before Sunset?
CASHIER: Anytime before closing.
CUSTOMER: But what day?
CASHIER: The day after tomorrow.
CUSTOMER: Before Sunset?
It’s pretty funny. He’s got a lot more.
(via GeekPress. )
