Guantanamo House of Cards ...

at Guantanamo Throw Out 2 Cases

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GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- With one word _ "unlawful" _ the only two war-crimes trials against Guantanamo detainees fell apart in a single day, marking a stunning setback to Washington's attempts to try dozens of detainees in military court.

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Defense attorneys and legal experts blamed the rush by Congress and President Bush last year to restore the war-crimes trials after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the previous system, declaring it unconstitutional. In a remarkable coincidence, it was Hamdan's lawsuit that wound up in the Supreme Court.

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In both of Monday's cases, the judges ruled that the new legislation says only "unlawful enemy combatants" can be tried by the military trials, known as commissions. But Khadr and Hamdan previously had been identified by military panels here only as enemy combatants, lacking the critical "unlawful" designation.

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"The fundamental problem is that the law was not carefully written," said Madeline Morris, a Duke University law professor. "It was rushed through in a flurry of political pressure from the White House ... and it is quite riddled with internal contradictions and anomalies."

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How much easier it would be to START within the laws. Wasn't it Gonzales that originally said the Guantanamo system was legal?abe: (one read free without signup?) try these
Tribunal System, Newly Righted, Stumbles Again - The New York Times
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/252/story/52707.html

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The distinction between classifications of enemy combatants is important because if they were "lawful," they would be entitled to prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions.

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For those of us who have felt that this system was inherently illegal under US law can feel a little better with these results. These prisoners should have been dealt with as enemy soldiers and given full legal status under the Geneva Conventions, and that to do otherwise was in violation of international treaties that the US signed into law.Playing semantic word games also does not make it compatible with basic AMERICAN values of justice. This is just one more example of the disregard for Core American values by the Botch Administration.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : addedEdited by RAZD, : fix smiley

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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And Khadr was fifteen years old when he was captured, right? This whole thing seems to be a screenplay by Kafka.

That started in 2000 in Florida.Time for the show to close down eh?

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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its the age old problem playing semantic word games is what international politics is all about ..
they cant be "lawfull enemies" as that mean you reconise the authority under which they operate as a lawfully formed organization , which in turn means they must be operate outside the law , so you have no legal method of dealing with them .It is the classic case ... how can a goverment declear war on a goverment it does not legally recongnise ??maybe instead of charging them as enemy combatants the should have arrested them on non payment of taxes ... that used top work

Which is, in a nutshell, why the "war" or terror (or drugs etc) will never work. This is why the only logical approach is to use justice and the rule of law, including international law, to attack these problems.

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I don't really understand who decides or how its decided whether or not someone is a "legal soldier". What makes the U.S. soldiers soldiers but the enemy simply enemy combatants? How can a country declare war on another, yet at the same time declare there are no soldiers in that country?What is stopping the enemy from declaring the U.S. as enemy combatants and thereby able to ignore the geneva convention? I admit my questions sound ridiculous, but I really don't understand why the word games don't play both directions.ABE:
Not that the U.S. is the only guilty country involved. Look at Canada. We simply give up our captured soldiers to the Afgans, then declare the number of captured to be top secret. Then if any alegations of torture come about we have wiped our hands of the whole mess. At least the U.S. keeps its prisoners and has to answer for their treatment.Edited by Vacate, : No reason given.

When you have a situation where someone is fighting for a Nation State in the Uniform of the Nation State, under the command of duly authorized military of the Nation State, it is a legal enemy.When dealing with Terrorist organizations, they do not have the legal standing of a Nation State. In addition, people who might fight in support of a Nation State but outside the formal, recognized military structure would not have legal standing. Finally, a legitimate member of a legal Military who participates in war making while in the uniform of either the opposing military or civilian clothes would not have legal standing. A good example would be John André. Not exactly.One of the other scandals that the current US Administration must answer to is that we were shipping prisoners off to other countries that have less legal protection than the US. What is worse we did so using facilities in Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Turkey and possibly other countries in direct violation of existing Treaties.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Of course it does, just as our treatment of prisoners allows our enemies to do the same without need to justify it. This include torture by inference even when there is no overt evidence due to the failure of the administration to be convincing that it is not used. If US soldiers are legal then they are fighting legal combatants, IMH(ysa)O. And yes it cuts both ways too.Enjoy.

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What I read on this in the article was that these would still be legal combatants. Think militia and minute men and lack of funds for uniforms.In this interpretation any terrorists supporting a country (say Afghanistan) would still be legal combatants when fighting against US forces. Terrorists attacking citizens would be illegal activity and should treated as such through international law and justice.abe War crimes.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : war crimes

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The key issues are that first there must be a recognized Nation State. To be legal there has t be some recognized government.The second thing is that they must be formally accepted and acknowledged as authorized military by that government.If, for example, the wear noting that differentiates them from the general population, they would be considered illegal. Even without uniforms, to be legal, they are expected to be distinguishable from the general populus.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

From Tribunal System, Newly Righted, Stumbles Again (New York Times)

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The Bush administration’s attempt to create an alternative justice system for terrorism suspects, in the works for more than five years, has yet to complete a single trial.

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But the system took two more blows yesterday, when, in separate proceedings, military judges dismissed charges against prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on the ground that the administration had not managed to comply with the new law it pushed through Congress just last fall.

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The question at the heart of the cases is a jurisdictional one arising from the fact that there are two kinds of tribunals at Guantánamo. One, the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, created by Pentagon regulations, makes a threshold determination about whether detainees were properly designated “enemy combatants” and are therefore eligible to be held at Guantánamo. That tribunal has not ” and this turns out to be important ” made determinations about whether those same people are “unlawful” enemy combatants.

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The second kind of tribunal is the military commissions. They are intended to hear war crimes cases, and resemble conventional courts. There have been no completed trials before a military commission at Guantánamo. Yesterday’s decisions mean there are not likely to be any soon.

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The Military Commissions Act said the commissions could hear only war crimes cases involving violations of the laws of war “by an alien unlawful enemy combatant.” It added that the commissions “shall not have jurisdiction over lawful enemy combatants.”

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The distinction is an important one, said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It’s not a crime to be an enemy combatant,” he said.

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Lawful enemy combatants are, broadly speaking, uniformed soldiers fighting for a government.

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“This just reinforces the notion that the system is in chaos and that they’re making it up on the fly,” said Steven R. Shapiro, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The time is long overdue for all these cases to be transferred to military courts-martial or civilian courts.”

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"Broadly speaking" does not mean always, and it is not illegal to fight in a war. So they need to show that the prisoners are(A) enemy combatants - fighting for the invaded lands would, imho, qualify - and(B) unlawful combatants, breaking the rules of war - using torture and the like (oops?) We invaded therefore anyone resisting the invasion is fighting for the invaded country. That rules out the French Resistance in WWII yet they were fighting for France. It also leaves out many Colonial Americans before the new government was formed. Thus I consider this to be a lesser "thing" and not a required element.This pretty well makes any prisoners collected from Afghanistan or Iraq that did not engage in terrorist activity to be lawful enemy combatants, subject to the Geneva Conventions and international law from treaties signed by the USof(N)A. Treating them otherwise is a war crime.That is most of the prisoners at GITMO. IMHNMPI(ysa)O...And this posses another problem for the Botch Administration: enemy soldiers are supposed to be returned to the other side once the war is over ("Mission Accomplished").Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : finish

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Correct. They would not be considered "Legal enemies" and protected under the Conventions. And they weren't. It was also true here in the US. The German Soldiers that came ashore in the US were not considered as "legal Soldiers".

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So you are saying that they were terrorists? (blowing up trains etc) Even though they were fighting for their country against invaders, targeting the invaders, and not trying to terrorize civilians?Where is the line eh?

The line is very legalistic and yet very important.The rules we are talking about are those governing Military operations. Legally they were terrorists.The importance is in how we will will proceed in the future.A major consideration in Terrorism is that it is not a conflict between Nation States. The current rules of war (those we are discussing) are based on the concept that there IS a Nation State - Nation State conflict. In what we may well be facing in the future, there is no enemy Nation State. There can be no end of a war where combatants are repatriated, a treaty signed and next steps taken.The rules of war developed for Nation State conflicts just don't work, and we have not yet agreed on a new set of rules.The closest things we have on hand now are the rules of engagement developed to deal with organized crime. Those include the rights and limitations found in law. Even though only one side (criminals do not follow the laws by definition) follows the current rules (usually) they are still the best set of guidelines we have.IMHO if we are ever to bring terrorism within the realm of livability, we need to follow the practices used to combat international crime. The key tools will be information AND the puclic legal courts systems.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

That is what you have with both the French Resistance and "insurgents" of Iraq and the enemy fighters in Afghanistan and any rag-tag militias that fight back against invaders that have obliterated their government: the problem is that there may be no government to authorize these forces, but they are fighting in the same manner a soldiers that could be so sanctified if their government continued to exist (think of Saddam in jail asking all Iraqiis to fight the invaders too). So we need a universal definition of terrorism versus where resistance fighters are making lawful responses to invasions. I think that can be done just by considering who the opposition is. If they are fighting a force that invaded the land where the fighting is occurring then they are lawful (unless there is still a remaining government for the country and it has signed a peace agreement with the invaders - thinking Israel here). If they engage in unlawful enemy behavior (torture, beheadings, etc.) then it is war crimes with subsequent rules for prosecutions etc. (legal justice response, same as for terrorists that blow up non-military targets in other countries).I think there are sufficient policies and programs available, they just need to be used correctly, something the Botch Administration seems to be particularly adept at missing. GITMO is one more case in point.Enjoy.

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