US Army to release kidnapped Australian.

[Mycroft]

Does an abuse of power have to happen before we can decide, intellectually, that a power of government has too much potential for abuse? And I don't think it is so far fetched... given this power, what is to stop the US government from, TOMORROW if they wanted to, picking up anyone they liked, telling the press some completely fabricated information that causes the detainee to be painted as a terrorist in most people's minds, calling them an "illegal combatant" and denying them any access to legal assistance or the court system? Please explain how such a scenario would play out in the real world.

If you're going to start with the assumption that the government will lie to get around the rules, then it doesn’t really matter what the rules are, the government will just lie to get around them.

If the rule is everyone detained gets a lawyer, then the government could just deny they have the person in custody. If the rule is you need reasonable cause before interrogation, then evidence can just be manufactured. To the conspiracy oriented mind, no assurance can ever bee good enough.

In Habib’s case, the various governments involved are not the only sources of information involved. The reporter that did the profile on him spoke to his family and acquaintances, and that provides the most accurate information on his character.

 

[Zep]

If you're going to start with the assumption that the government will lie to get around the rules, then it doesn’t really matter what the rules are, the government will just lie to get around them.

If the rule is everyone detained gets a lawyer, then the government could just deny they have the person in custody. If the rule is you need reasonable cause before interrogation, then evidence can just be manufactured. To the conspiracy oriented mind, no assurance can ever bee good enough.

In Habib’s case, the various governments involved are not the only sources of information involved. The reporter that did the profile on him spoke to his family and acquaintances, and that provides the most accurate information on his character.

Mycroft, it appears to me that you subscribe to the general theory that it is always better to arrest and detain suspicious characters than to allow them to carry through and do something illegal. And this applies especially so in the "War On Terror", where even national boundaries and due process of national and international law are no deterrents.

You do know this guy?

He liked to groundlessly accuse people of stuff too, and have them harangued and spied on by the US authorities and publicly ridiculed. He also wanted to define what "type of person" was a criminal of a certain type, then force-fit people he didn't like into that mold, and then publicly accuse them of these "crimes". Then he had them arrested and put through kangaroo courts. In short, it was a campaign of persecution and hysteria which ruined many thousands of peoples' lives, and very often on trumped-up evidence or even on just suspicion and hearsay.

You see, Senator Joe McCarthy felt just the same way about "communists" then as you seem to do about "jihadists" now. Anyone you don't like the look of - paint 'em with a broad brush of suspicion, then round 'em up, lock 'em up, let 'em rot in jail - we'll all sleep better tonight with them bastards gone. If a few innocents get hurt then that's the price. Sound familiar? (Hint: Read back in this thread on the reasons why Habib ended up in Gitmo.)

But did Joe actually catch any commies? Yep, but only a very few. Were they each and every one a commie agitator? Say what?! Were they ever a national threat? *snort* A half-dozen outspoken armchair socialists and one or two crazed banner-waving party members?? They were less of a threat then than the Michigan Militia are now. What about the REAL commies? Well, the Russians went on to become a major armed nuclear threat to the USA for the next 35 years, regardless of Joe's tirades. Again, sounding familiar? (Hint: Read back in this thread where we pointed out that there are many more "worthy" targets than Habib.)

I happen to think this business of "arrest based on suspicion" is hardly new territory for the USA; it's just a re-run of McCarthyism but with "jihadists" as the chosen scapegoat instead of "commies". By all balanced accounts, McCarthyism is still seen as a low point in US history. What's that saying about those who fail to learn the lessons of history...??

 

[a_unique_person]

If you're going to start with the assumption that the government will lie to get around the rules, then it doesn’t really matter what the rules are, the government will just lie to get around them.

Hence the old and often defended concept of the separation of powers. Look it up some time.

 

[gnome]

If you're going to start with the assumption that the government will lie to get around the rules, then it doesn’t really matter what the rules are, the government will just lie to get around them.

If the rule is everyone detained gets a lawyer, then the government could just deny they have the person in custody. If the rule is you need reasonable cause before interrogation, then evidence can just be manufactured. To the conspiracy oriented mind, no assurance can ever bee good enough.

In Habib’s case, the various governments involved are not the only sources of information involved. The reporter that did the profile on him spoke to his family and acquaintances, and that provides the most accurate information on his character.

But if you make them lie to get around the rules, they can be caught and stopped. A nice writ of habeus corpus with leaked information could save the person.

Under the rules you seem to support (and I'm still waiting for you to say whether these rules are good or bad) they could brazenly do as they wish with no legal recourse, even if their deceptions were exposed.

 

[rikzilla]

Does an abuse of power have to happen before we can decide, intellectually, that a power of government has too much potential for abuse? And I don't think it is so far fetched... given this power, what is to stop the US government from, TOMORROW if they wanted to, picking up anyone they liked, telling the press some completely fabricated information that causes the detainee to be painted as a terrorist in most people's minds, calling them an "illegal combatant" and denying them any access to legal assistance or the court system? Please explain how such a scenario would play out in the real world.

Gnome,
Let's take your fantasy a step further. What's to stop an evil US government bent on global conquest from invading a state based on trumped up charges of that state's possession of WMD?? I mean c'mon...right after the invasion we could plant a few untraceable WMD's and justify the whole damned thing!

Let's let reality set in some....when a government conspires to do the illegal....and that government has a free press.....that government gets caught. Now I'm not saying they always get caught, but enough of them do so that we can see a trail of failed government coverups throughout history.

Let's see, there's Nixon's "plummers". Reagan's Iran-Contra connection. Kennedy's Cuban ex-pats. Harding's Teapot-Dome oil scam. Clinton's perjury. These days a guy can't even get away with a little thing like remaking himself into an "anti-war" candidate without being busted.

Gnome, the very fact that we are even speaking of Habib, etal speaks to the fact that the process is open to public scrutiny. If the US was a success at being secretive enough to "disappear" someone to a gulag as you suggest then why did we even see the Abu Ghraib photos? Why didn't they just plant some WMD's in Iraq??

So your question again?

" what is to stop the US government from, TOMORROW if they wanted to, picking up anyone they liked, telling the press some completely fabricated information that causes the detainee to be painted as a terrorist in most people's minds, calling them an "illegal combatant" and denying them any access to legal assistance or the court system?

Obviously the consequences of being caught at it are too high. The benefits too low. Government wonks are usually pretty good at the old cost/benefit analysis.

Another misunderstanding of my position. I don't trust Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, or Indonesia to respect human rights. I do, however, expect the US to. And it is a proposed power of the US government that I am objecting to.

The simple problem is this: supporters make a good case why ACTUAL illegal enemy combatants have no right to counsel. My problem is the ability to slap that label on anyone.

...and the government has had that ability all along, yet we have only a few controversial cases out of...how many total??? Sorry, but you'd have a point if a certain high percentage of Gitmo cases were just like Habib. Right now we're looking at a controversial cases in Gitmo as a fraction of one percent of the total detainees.

Your scenario has had plenty of time to play out...yet it hasn't. It's a non-starter.

-z

 

[Mycroft]

Mycroft, it appears to me that you subscribe to the general theory that it is always better to arrest and detain suspicious characters than to allow them to carry through and do something illegal...

It depends entirely on who the person is and the circumstances of the arrest.

If Habib had been arrested in Australia by Australian police, I would expect him to get whatever rights Australia affords its accused criminals. I assume Australia has constitutional protections of the rights of its citizens similar to what we enjoy here in the United States.

He wasn't.

He was arrested in Pakistan by Pakistani police.

It's very possible that his rights under Pakistani law were violated. I don't know, I know nothing about Pakistani law. If they were, then shame on Pakistan!

The truth is a soldier in Gitmo or Afghanistan or Iraq has different duties and responsibilities than a police officer in Los Angeles. Although they both might serve the same government, the do so in very different ways.

What I'm arguing for here is the rule of law. In all these pages of discussion, I have yet to see anyone point out a specific law that should have protected Habib.

 

[rikzilla]

He liked to groundlessly accuse people of stuff too, and have them harangued and spied on by the US authorities and publicly ridiculed. He also wanted to define what "type of person" was a criminal of a certain type, then force-fit people he didn't like into that mold, and then publicly accuse them of these "crimes". Then he had them arrested and put through kangaroo courts. In short, it was a campaign of persecution and hysteria which ruined many thousands of peoples' lives, and very often on trumped-up evidence or even on just suspicion and hearsay.

Well that's not entirely true. Ole Joe had alot of problems with alcohol...and generally he was an arrogant a-hole who engaged in dirty political tricks. But how did he get to chair a House committee and launch all these baseless interrogations and investigations in the first place?

Zep, you should read the book "Clever Girl" by Lauren Kessler. It's very well written and interesting. It won't make you respect McCarty, but it will clue you in on the real evidence which sparked his historic little tirade.

You see, Senator Joe McCarthy felt just the same way about "communists" then as you seem to do about "jihadists" now. Anyone you don't like the look of - paint 'em with a broad brush of suspicion, then round 'em up, lock 'em up, let 'em rot in jail - we'll all sleep better tonight with them bastards gone. If a few innocents get hurt then that's the price. Sound familiar? (Hint: Read back in this thread on the reasons why Habib ended up in Gitmo.)

If you read the book you'll realise that during the whole McCarthy era the CIA was intercepting and decrypting Soviet signals traffic. The decryption itself was so secret that none of the evidence was released to be used during the trials of communist moles outted by Elizabeth Bently. The project, code named VENONA was declassified in 1996.

If the information had available to use in court during McCarthy's era there would have been many more convictions. VENONA proved that the UnderSecretary of Treasury, Harry Dexter White, was a Soviet spy who had hired literally hundreds of Communists and fellow travellers to sensitive positions @ that department.

But did Joe actually catch any commies? Yep, but only a very few. Were they each and every one a commie agitator? Say what?! Were they ever a national threat? *snort* A half-dozen outspoken armchair socialists and one or two crazed banner-waving party members?? They were less of a threat then than the Michigan Militia are now. What about the REAL commies? Well, the Russians went on to become a major armed nuclear threat to the USA for the next 35 years, regardless of Joe's tirades. Again, sounding familiar? (Hint: Read back in this thread where we pointed out that there are many more "worthy" targets than Habib.)

Yep...how 'bout that? He still managed to catch Hiss, the Silvermaster group, and the Perlo group...without getting anything from VENONA. Remarkable really. Not bad for a loudmouth drunk.

I happen to think this business of "arrest based on suspicion" is hardly new territory for the USA; it's just a re-run of McCarthyism but with "jihadists" as the chosen scapegoat instead of "commies". By all balanced accounts, McCarthyism is still seen as a low point in US history. What's that saying about those who fail to learn the lessons of history...??

But as we see by looking in our 20/20 rearview mirror of history is that it wasn't just "suspicion". We knew...we just couldn't take that knowledge to court without alerting the Sovs to the reality that we were reading their mail.

Read the book...you'll like it. It doesn't exhonorate McCarthyism, what it does is give us a peek behind the curtain and a good balanced view of the realities of the early 50's.

-z

Edited to add this:

"There can no longer be any doubt about the widespread and successful Soviet espionage operations against the United States and Great Britain during the 1940s, and that, aside from their own professional skill, Soviet intelligence services could count on the aid of the Communist parties of the target countries."
William P. Crowell
Deputy Director
National Security Agency
August 1996

(Speaking on the release of VENONA transcripts)

 

[The Fool]

Obviously the consequences of being caught at it are too high. The benefits too low. Government wonks are usually pretty good at the old cost/benefit analysis.





-z

What consequences ricky? You don't have a problem with that sort of thing and there are plenty of apologists just like you to continue to support governments that do it...so what consequences are we talking about?

The US government will not imprison without charge or trial or evidence because of the consequences????? Whatever....

 

[gnome]

Gnome,
Let's take your fantasy a step further. What's to stop an evil US government bent on global conquest from invading a state based on trumped up charges of that state's possession of WMD?? I mean c'mon...right after the invasion we could plant a few untraceable WMD's and justify the whole damned thing!

Let's let reality set in some....when a government conspires to do the illegal....and that government has a free press.....that government gets caught. Now I'm not saying they always get caught, but enough of them do so that we can see a trail of failed government coverups throughout history.

Let's see, there's Nixon's "plummers". Reagan's Iran-Contra connection. Kennedy's Cuban ex-pats. Harding's Teapot-Dome oil scam. Clinton's perjury. These days a guy can't even get away with a little thing like remaking himself into an "anti-war" candidate without being busted.

Gnome, the very fact that we are even speaking of Habib, etal speaks to the fact that the process is open to public scrutiny. If the US was a success at being secretive enough to "disappear" someone to a gulag as you suggest then why did we even see the Abu Ghraib photos? Why didn't they just plant some WMD's in Iraq??

So your question again?

" what is to stop the US government from, TOMORROW if they wanted to, picking up anyone they liked, telling the press some completely fabricated information that causes the detainee to be painted as a terrorist in most people's minds, calling them an "illegal combatant" and denying them any access to legal assistance or the court system?

Obviously the consequences of being caught at it are too high. The benefits too low. Government wonks are usually pretty good at the old cost/benefit analysis.

...and the government has had that ability all along, yet we have only a few controversial cases out of...how many total??? Sorry, but you'd have a point if a certain high percentage of Gitmo cases were just like Habib. Right now we're looking at a controversial cases in Gitmo as a fraction of one percent of the total detainees.

Your scenario has had plenty of time to play out...yet it hasn't. It's a non-starter.

-z

I don't necessarily believe that it's THIS administration that would abuse such power. But I refuse to let them lay the groundwork... yes, it's possible for the government to get around the rules, and a lot of times they get caught. But giving someone held by the government access to legal counsel is one of the safeguards that makes it more likely for them to be caught.

Yes, the needs and rules are different for the military. But I don't like to see two magic words from the government give them the ability to claim military jurisdiction. It should require more. You might even get me to budge on the lawyer thing, if there was some kind of review of the person's status. But it seems like what they want is just to be able to call "enemy combatant" and suddenly shortcut any process of review... which is great if you have a dangerous person to hold... but not so great if someone wants to lump someone else in with the "dangerous" people for insufficient reason. Or laziness. Or mistaken identity. Or political suppresion.

Our rules of justice need not become a suicide pact when faced with enemies... however, nor should the fact that we're faced with enemies (which is nothing new) become a suicide pact for our rules of justice.

 

[gnome]

But as we see by looking in our 20/20 rearview mirror of history is that it wasn't just "suspicion". We knew...we just couldn't take that knowledge to court without alerting the Sovs to the reality that we were reading their mail.

I just wanted to point out that if Senator McCarthy had not used the fear of communism as a weapon against his political opponents, he might have caught more real communists.

 

[rikzilla]

I don't necessarily believe that it's THIS administration that would abuse such power. But I refuse to let them lay the groundwork... yes, it's possible for the government to get around the rules, and a lot of times they get caught. But giving someone held by the government access to legal counsel is one of the safeguards that makes it more likely for them to be caught.

Yeah, but if we listen to the cacaphony from the left this administration is the embodiment of the anti-Christ. If this demon-laden admin won't abuse power then which one will?

Obviously (to all except the Fool) planting WMD's in Iraq, or making people "disappear into gulags" is not only dishonest, but also a (near)zero-sum gain for this (or really any) government to contemplate.

As for the legality of declaring someone an "illegal enemy combatant"? Well there is precedent....

Less than a week after the last of the saboteurs was arrested, President Franklin Roosevelt issued a proclamation creating a military tribunal to prosecute the Germans. Besides being Roosevelt's preference, the military court was seen as the best option, because it would prevent immediate notification to the public that German submarines had reached American shores undetected and because it could recommend the death penalty for the perpetrators. The proclamation forbid the Germans access to civil courts, directed the Attorney General to handle the prosecution, and permitted a two‑thirds vote for conviction and sentencing, all of which were inconsistent with existing judicial procedure. Although defense lawyers petitioned for review of the constitutionality of President Roosevelt's proclamation, the request was rejected by a federal district court. After nineteen days of hearings and two days of deliberation, the tribunal recommended death for all eight Germans. Less than a week later, six of eight were electrocuted in Washington, DC.

...of course the liberals back then were also up in arms about the "illegality" of it all, but indeed these were not citizens charged with a crime....they were literally un-uniformed "illegal enemy combatants". They were not sent to a gulag, they were fried on the electric chair. BTW the book website quoted is by an author arguing against the legality of what Roosevelt did. Yet somehow our justice system survived....

Yes, the needs and rules are different for the military. But I don't like to see two magic words from the government give them the ability to claim military jurisdiction. It should require more. You might even get me to budge on the lawyer thing, if there was some kind of review of the person's status. But it seems like what they want is just to be able to call "enemy combatant" and suddenly shortcut any process of review... which is great if you have a dangerous person to hold... but not so great if someone wants to lump someone else in with the "dangerous" people for insufficient reason. Or laziness. Or mistaken identity. Or political suppresion.

The German sabateurs in my example certainly got a swift "review" yet somehow I bet you'd call it a "rush to judgement" instead. So which way do you think is better?

Our rules of justice need not become a suicide pact when faced with enemies... however, nor should the fact that we're faced with enemies (which is nothing new) become a suicide pact for our rules of justice.

Indeed not...but sometimes a little common sense is a good thing too. Our system of justice survived Roosevelt's war-time justice... it will similarly survive GWB's wartime justice. Actually the dem hero Roosevelt looks alot more bloodthirsty than the repub hero GWB. The words "kinder....gentler" seem to spring to mind.


-z

 

[rikzilla]

I just wanted to point out that if Senator McCarthy had not used the fear of communism as a weapon against his political opponents, he might have caught more real communists.

And I just wanted to point out that despite the demonization from the left Sen. McCarthy did have real communist "witches" to hunt. Funny, it's been 9 years since the declassification of VENONA and still the left holds up the "red scare" as baseless witch-huntery....the facts laid bare by VENONA show how extensive the communist infiltration was back then. Hell, even one of the President's closest advisors was sending information to "Old Joe".

Read that book....you'll like it. It's well written and interesting. Best of all it's well sourced. You'll see how hard the legitimate left as well as real Communist party members worked to discredit Elizabeth Bentley....but the facts have stood up....she was the real thing. Her testimony led to the capture of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg....the Rosenbergs have been held up for many years by the left as vicitms, yet VENONA proves their guilt.

Interesting stuff. It only goes to show how the information you get from the media is only the surface story.

-z

 

[a_unique_person]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/War-o...ustice-on-trial/2005/02/04/1107476799620.html

The most extraordinary claim by United States officials was that Habib helped train the terrorists who carried out the September 11 assault on the World Trade Centre - and even considered hijacking a plane himself.

Australian government sources have told The Age that both of those claims, made to a United States district court in October 2004, were untrue.

...

He was about to head home from Pakistan in October 2001 when he met two German men, Ibrahim Diab and Bekim Ademi, and decided to travel with them to Karachi. Pakistani police stopped the bus and detained the two Germans. The police did not show any interest in Habib until he remonstrated with them about the arrest of the Germans and they took him away too.

The Germans, who reportedly admitted spending time in al-Qaeda training camps, were sent home several weeks later, after their Government insisted that they be freed. Habib was sent to Egypt before being handed over to the Americans and flown to Guantanamo Bay.

 

[The Fool]

Late Breaking news.....

Habib still has not blown anything up....

 

[Mycroft]

Late Breaking news.....

Habib still has not blown anything up....

Well, it seems that having been kept busy in Gitmo for the past three years has done some good.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Wow.

Right-wing Americans.

Wow.

We get so many fools on the other JREF forums claiming to be the one true prophet of God, or to have built a perpetual motion machine, or to be able to debunk Darwin, or that they can dowse... and then I come over here.

Wow.

Right-wing Americans.

There are millions of them.

And they're the craziest nutters of all.

I'm scared. Someone hold my hand.

 

[a_unique_person]

Well, it seems that having been kept busy in Gitmo for the past three years has done some good.

You have no idea what you are playing with, do you?

 

[Mycroft]

You have no idea what you are playing with, do you?

A rather thick Australian who’s blind to his own prejudices and who thinks sarcasm is a reasonable substitute for rational debate.

Why, who did you think I was playing with?

 

[rikzilla]

A rather thick Australian who’s blind to his own prejudices and who thinks sarcasm is a reasonable substitute for rational debate.

Why, who did you think I was playing with?

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhahahahahahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!


Who'da thunk that a statement of the obvious'd be so damned funny!

-z

 

[a_unique_person]

A rather thick Australian who’s blind to his own prejudices and who thinks sarcasm is a reasonable substitute for rational debate.

Why, who did you think I was playing with?

Not who, what. One of the fundamental basis of our society, the rule of law. Without that, the rest just crumbles in a heap. "he who would give up an essential liberty for a temporary safety..."