Poll on Bush v Clinton impeachment sentiment

[WildCat]

Which other presidents argued for the legality of perpetual detention of enemies without giving them prisoner of war status?

Holding combatants who do not qualify for POW status under the Geneva Conventions is a relatively new policy. In prior wars they would likely have been summarily executed.

Or keeping them after the war is over?

When was this argued? Certainly not by me, nor the Bush Admin. to my knowledge.

Or arguing that they don't deserve pow status because they're criminals, but they can't have criminal trials because they were fighting in a war?

There is a difference between a combatant who fails to meet the criteria to be a POW and a criminal. Whle the law is unclear as what can be done with the former, there is no reason to then assume they gain more rights by violating the rules of war.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Holding combatants who do not qualify for POW status under the Geneva Conventions is a relatively new policy. In prior wars they would likely have been summarily executed.

Like in the Civil War? And the Revolutionary? Before the Geneva Conventions? Oh wait, no, that didn't happen. We were civilized, then.

When was this argued? Certainly not by me, nor the Bush Admin. to my knowledge.

Only because the "war" wasn't declared against a specific state. Afghanistan was conquered. That's where the Gitmo prisoners came from. Unless you think that by fighting back, in their own country of Afghanistan, that somehow makes them terrorists in Iraq?

There is a difference between a combatant who fails to meet the criteria to be a POW and a criminal. Whle the law is unclear as what can be done with the former, there is no reason to then assume they gain more rights by violating the rules of war.

They are either criminals or not. They are either POWs or not. Assign a status and use it. Deciding they fall into a crack between definitions and therefore you can do whatever you feel like to them is barbarous. Pick one or the other and abide by the rules. What's so controversial about wanting to get things settled, instead of letting them sit around in expensive limbo forever?

 

[jamrat]

skeptigirl

Since you have already excused Clinton for conspiring to deprive a citizen her rights I won't go there. Are you upset with the lies (sorry, "bad intelligence") he used to invade Yugoslavia? Would you consider that an impeachable offense?

 

[Schneibster]

But since your criteria is that enemies captured in a war should have the rights to habeas corpus that effectively includes all wartime Presidents.

So basically all the government has to do is claim they were captured in a war and that does it for you. Habeas corpus is show cause. Show that they were captured in a war, in front of a judge. Cite the law under which they are being detained. Done deal. It should be a slam-dunk. If it's not, then obviously there is a problem. And if they're not showing cause in front of a judge, then obviously it is not a slam-dunk. In which case, people are being unjustly detained, for crimes they did not commit, or for acts that are not crimes.

This is called the "rule of law." You might have heard that phrase from time to time, here and there. Then again, judging from your posting record, perhaps not.

Why do you hate American law?

 

[Darth Rotor]

skeptigirl

Since you have already excused Clinton for conspiring to deprive a citizen her rights I won't go there. Are you upset with the lies (sorry, "bad intelligence") he used to invade Yugoslavia? Would you consider that an impeachable offense?

Huh? Are you talking about Operation Joint Endeavour?

DR

 

[corplinx]

Is this going to be the new pastime? Support impeachment when you don't like the person in charge and you sense popular opinion of them is low enough to push it through?

What a strange take on the republic we have.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But since your criteria is that enemies captured in a war should have the rights to habeas corpus that effectively includes all wartime Presidents.

Tragic's issues aside, it is a false premise that the people Bush has sanctioned being arrested and detained indefinitely without due process were all, "enemies captured in a war". Bush made up a label, enemy combatant, which can be defined to include anyone, anywhere. Detaining an innocent Canadian citizen changing planes in the US on his way to Canada after an erroneous report was hardly someone captured in a war. Kidnapping an innocent German citizen who had crossed the border into Macedonia was hardly an enemy captured in a war. Both men were held for an extended time, tortured, and then dropped off to find their own way back to their homes. Their families did not know what had happened to them. The German man was detained a couple extra months after the US knew he was innocent because Bush and Rice were trying to figure out how to tell the German government without looking really bad. Both had their court cases seeking restitution thrown out when the Bush administration claimed the government could not defend its actions without endangering national security.

Khaled El-Masri, a German national, was abducted on a trip to Macedonia. He was detained and interrogated by Macedonian agents, then handed over to U.S. officials and secretly flown to Afghanistan where he was locked-up in a U.S.-run prison for four months. After el-Masri’s captors realized they had mistaken him for someone else, he was then shuttled to somewhere in the Balkans, driven for hours in a car and finally left by the side of a road in Albania.

U.S. authorities detained Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent, at New York’s JFK airport while he was in transit on his way home to Canada. He was interrogated for several days and denied access to counsel and family. He was flown against his will to Jordan where he reports being beaten during detention. Arar was then forcibly transferred to Syria where he was held for ten months and reportedly tortured. Canadian officials secured his release and he’s now back with his family in Canada. The Syrian government acknowledged that they took Arar as a favor to the Americans and that during his detention shared information with them.

Both Arar and El-Masri filed law suits in the United States pertaining to their rendition. Both cases were thrown out on national security grounds. The number of people like Arar and El-Masri who have been rendered over the past five years by the U.S. government could be in the hundreds.

These are the two most blatant cases we know of. Who knows how many other innocent people are still being detained.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Quote: Or keeping them after the war is over?

When was this argued? Certainly not by me, nor the Bush Admin. to my knowledge....

And just which war would you be talking about? The "War on Terror" which means never? The War in Afghanistan? The War in Iraq? And when would those two be over? When we withdraw our troops? When they stop blowing each other up? Bush claims the terrorists haven't attacked in the US since 9/11. How will you know when the 'war' is over? After 10 years with no attacks? After 20?

There is no war in the typical sense.

I would have less of an issue with the US holding people in Gitmo if there actually was evidence these were people who wanted to take up arms against the US. But the fact there is not sufficient evidence to show the charges are true makes me ask then how the heck does the government know the charges are true? They don't.

Some of the supposed 'enemy combatants' were just poor saps someone turned in for a reward in Afghanistan. Want to settle a score or take over someone's house or business? Turn them in to US soldiers claiming they are Taliban and you can earn a few thousand dollars while you're at it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

skeptigirl

Since you have already excused Clinton for conspiring to deprive a citizen her rights I won't go there. Are you upset with the lies (sorry, "bad intelligence") he used to invade Yugoslavia? Would you consider that an impeachable offense?

You mean that deprived citizen who got a huge payoff from some Republicans to claim damages for a wrong which she ignored for 2 years after it happened, still working the same job where she saw Clinton on a regular basis, never complaining to her boss nor to any agency regarding sexual harassment?

It's hard to call Clinton's actions in Yugoslavia precedent setting. No US soldiers were killed, there was a successful outcome, and it isn't like we hadn't sent US troops into any other countries before that.

Just which lies/bad intelligence would you be referring to?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Is this going to be the new pastime? Support impeachment when you don't like the person in charge and you sense popular opinion of them is low enough to push it through?

What a strange take on the republic we have.

That would be another false assumption and a straw man argument, corp.

If you go to the thread, The I-Word, Swapping Presidents and make an effort to read what the reasons are for wanting to impeach Bush, you may see why >50% of the people on the board here chose, 'Bush has committed high crimes and Clinton's were low'. In post #24 I wrote,

Allow me to attempt to actually return this thread to the issues. Who succeeds the Bush regime is not the issue. New Ager's immature rants about the left are not the issue. The discussion on Moyers Journal was intelligent and of value to discuss.

From Moyer's web page on the program,

Recently, Fein has been in the national spotlight after his editorial in the online newsmagazine SLATE called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he outlines the various cases against the Vice President. Fein also testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2007 about President Bush's use of "signing statement."

* According to Fein, Cheney has: Asserted Presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes.
* Claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the President's say-so alone.
* Initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists.
* Championed a Presidential power to torture in contravention of federal statutes and treaties.
* Engineered the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance program targeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
* Orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications.
* Summoned the privilege to refuse to disclose his consulting of business executives in conjunction with his Energy Task Force.
* Retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, through chief of staff Scooter Libby, for questioning the administration's evidence of weapons of mass destruction as justification for invading Iraq. (Read Fein's SLATE article)
The point made in the interview is that the Bush administration has overstepped the authority of the Constitution. What Fein is saying is that if the aberrations are not addressed, then a precedent will remain in place which essentially threatens the Constitutional government which this country has enjoyed for 200+ years. Fein made a very good case for his conclusion in the Moyer's discussion.

To be sidetracked by the continual claims everything is simply 'politics' is to resign yourself to being led around by the nose. Surely we can discuss the actual relevance of the issues without wasting time on irrelevant things like Pelosi vs Bush.

Dismissing this as something akin to wanting a different presidential choice is a mistake. The issues people are discussing here and in the other thread are ones of abuse of power to a degree large enough that citizens are concerned.

 

[Gregoire]

Since you have already excused Clinton for conspiring to deprive a citizen her rights I won't go there. Are you upset with the lies (sorry, "bad intelligence") he used to invade Yugoslavia? Would you consider that an impeachable offense?

I personally am not a Clinton (or a W) fan. From the very beginning I believed what Monica Lewisky had told Ms. Tripp. And I never believed the "vast right-wing conspiracy" defense.

(And I am already on record that neither President should be impeached..... Don't get me started about the so-called "domestic" wire tapping which really only involved international calls between people in the US and abroad.)

However, the argument Clinton's lawyers made which I referred to in my last post turned out to be completely correct. The sexual harassment suit did take a great deal of time away from governing the country and I don't think that that is a good idea regardless of who the President is.

I am no Constitutional scholar and I admit I have not read fully the 9-0 decision, but putting off the lawsuit until after he was out of office appears to me to be the lesser of two evils.

 

[Complexity]

Impeachment?

I tend to be conservative in my politics. I think that any president who attempts to suspend habeas corpus should be tried for treason and, if found guilty, publicly executed.

 

[Complexity]

Impeachment?

I tend to be conservative in my politics. I think that any president who attempts to suspend habeas corpus should be tried for treason and, if found guilty, publicly executed.

So you think Lincoln should have been impeached.

Lincoln should have been impeached.

The ends do not justify the means.

Any state had and has the right to secede.

I despise slavery. I also despise what occurred on both sides in the Civil War.

I despise Bush, Cheney, and the people who put twice put them in power.

I despise the Clintons and Gore.

I despise both houses of congress.

I increasingly have contempt for most members and most decisions of the supreme court.

I loathe both the republican and the democratic parties. "A plague o' both your houses!"

I recommend the reading of Thucydides.

I love kittens and Bach and chocolate-chip cookies.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Like in the Civil War? And the Revolutionary? Before the Geneva Conventions? Oh wait, no, that didn't happen.

Are you really so ignorant as to deny that blacks were summarily executed as unlawful combatants?

Pick one or the other and abide by the rules.

Why are those the only two categories allowed?

Maybe we'll double the number of countries with which we're at war: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. War is the only way out for Stupid-Boy, and he and dickie-bird know it.

So you're just going to ignore the fact that Afghanistan started the war, not us? And the fact that you can name so many countries that Bush hasn't attacked belies your claim that that is the only solution that Bush knows. What options were there other than going to war with Iraq?

 

[davefoc]

The question hinges on what constitutes an impeachable offense. And the answer is, in essence, whatever you can get through a supermajority of both houses of Congress.

So neither President Clinton nor President Bush have committed impeachable offenses.

I think this is the technically correct answer to the poll questions, but I decided to interpret the option I selected in the spirit of the way I thought it was intended. That is the option meant something like: "IMO, Clinton's transgressions didn't justify impeachment and Bush's transgressions do justify impeachment".

But, as I stated in the other thread, I don't think the Democrats should pursue impeachment.

Gnome pretty well summed up my view on that:

...however, to do so requires the votes... and it's clear that there just aren't the votes to do it. To try to push something through is just a waste of our congresspeople's time at this point.

I think the Democrats had it about right on the Clinton/Lewinsky thing. Pass some kind of censure and move on.

I wonder about Clinton's pardons though. There seems to be no legitimate reason for the Mark Rich pardon or some of the drug dealer pardons. Suppose that it was proved that those pardons were granted in return for some kind of benefit that was received by Clinton. In other words suppose it could be proved that Clinton took a bribe of some sort to grant those pardons. Would Clinton have been guilty of an offense that deserved impeachment under those circumstances?

 

[Cylinder]

Bush made up a label, enemy combatant, which can be defined to include anyone, anywhere.

By the law of war, lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war; unlawful combatants, in addition, are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful.

It has long been accepted practice by our military authorities to treat those who, during time of war, pass surreptitiously from enemy territory into our own, discarding their uniforms upon entry, for the commission of hostile acts involving destruction of life or property, as unlawful combatants punishable as such by military commission. This practice, accepted and followed by other governments, must be regarded as a rule or principle of the law of war recognized by this Government by its enactment of the Fifteenth Article of War.

Citizens of the United States who associate themselves with the military arm of an enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts, are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war.

Even when committed by a citizen, the offense here charged is distinct from the crime of treason defined in Article III, @ 3 of the Constitution, since the absence of uniform essential to one is irrelevant to the other.

Article III, @ 2, and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution did not extend the right to demand a jury to trials by military commission or require that offenses against the law of war, not triable by jury at common law, be tried only in civil courts.

That passage[PDF] was written in 1942. When was George W. Bush born?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That passage[PDF] was written in 1942. When was George W. Bush born?

I stand corrected that Bush didn't originate the idea, only expanded it to apply in an undeclared war to people not directly engaging in activities in the United States.

It's interesting and a tricky issue. But it doesn't change the nature of Bush overstepping his Constitutional authority in a dangerous precedent. The Supreme Court rulings on the Gitmo cases were not decided on the precedent of the Germans who were caught in the act of sneaking into the US to attack on our soil at a time we were at war with Germany. And those Germans had access to the courts at least to be heard on where their cases were to be heard. The people abducted in the secret renditions have no way of petitioning the Supreme Court and those at Gitmo had a couple of years just trying to be heard in our courts to rule if their detainment was Constitutional.

 

[Damien Evans]

Lincoln should have been impeached.

The ends do not justify the means.

Any state had and has the right to secede.

I despise slavery. I also despise what occurred on both sides in the Civil War.

I despise Bush, Cheney, and the people who put twice put them in power.

I despise the Clintons and Gore.

I despise both houses of congress.

I increasingly have contempt for most members and most decisions of the supreme court.

I loathe both the republican and the democratic parties. "A plague o' both your houses!"

I recommend the reading of Thucydides.

I love kittens and Bach and chocolate-chip cookies.

Thucydides would have been much better if he had actually bothered to finish what he started.

 

[Cain]

Bush and Cheney should be in leg irons, preferably in the care of international authorities. It's too late to impeach and too much of hassle. Let's just get through this term.

That said, I don't think the people on this board who voted for Bush, or at least the wankers who shilled for him here, have been told to "**** off" a sufficient number of times. He was a disaster before he physically occupied the White House, where he would metaphorically wipe his ass with the Constitution. Remember the halcyon days when Republicans would cry about Clinton's embarrassing relaxation techniques? "What will our allies think of us?" Now, it's "**** our allies, who cares? Let's bomb the **** outta thems terrists!"

 

[Upchurch]

So you're just going to ignore the fact that Afghanistan started the war, not us?

I'll never forget the day that the Afghani army came rolling into my town in their tanks, blasting away....

wait. that's not right.

-----------------------------------

I'll never forget the day that people in Afghani uniforms marched......

no, still not right.

-----------------------------------

I'll never forget when the Afghani people took up arms against....

nuh-uh.



Okay, explain the fact how Afghanistan started the war again? Wasn't it pretty much these guys (with not an Afghani in the bunch)?