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Gitmo Is Killing Me

nytimes.com

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Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#351

Post by acjohnson55 »

richardjordan wrote: post #16
cjh_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case I think the hypocrisy is positive; I would much rather NYT be hypocritical by speaking out against Guantanamo rather than holding their old position.

Yes this is a great point. One thing that I don't want to fall into the habit of doing, and I got close to in my initial point, in my disgust for their hypocrisy is something I see as a problem in modern politics. Hypocrisy isn't the greatest sin in the world, but we sometimes act like it is and make the consequences of hypocrisy (or changing your mind) so great (electoral defeat) that people will hold onto a bad pol…

Hypocrisy and changing ones mind aren't the same thing. To me hypocrisy implies playing both sides of an issue at the same time, or disingenuously trying to appear to have changed your mind, when you're pursuing an ulterior motive. Maybe the NYT is doing this, I don't know. But if so, it's more than simply changing their minds.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#354

Post by cpncrunch »

mpyne wrote: post #272
r0s wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Civil War is a slightly different context, just throwing that out there.

Perhaps, but America is still operating under the context of two massive skyscrapers plummeting to the ground from an attack carried out with almost military precision. It's not as if Bush Jr. just woke up one day and decided that it was time to whip up some secret prisons. So if "context" is a defense then there's at least a little of it to spread around here as well.

So that excuses any human rights abuses?

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#355

Post by rayiner »

Zak wrote: post #336
rayiner wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bill of Rights only applies to "people" within the jurisdiction of the American government. The Constitution is not a document that has extraterritorial force of international extent.

I'm pretty sure that jurisdiction includes people in prisons operatedby the US government.

Control in the physical military sense is not the same as legislative jurisdiction. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_v._Eisentrager. E.g. the U.S. may have had control of occupied Baghdad, but that doesn't mean Congress had legislative jurisdiction over Baghdad.

Now, the Supreme Court has decided that Congress has de facto legislative jurisdiction over Guantanamo (in an opinion comparing the historical treatment of Scotland, in which English habeas rights did not apply, to Ireland, in which they did): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush.

Scalia's dissent was the most legally sensible: 'Justice Scalia added that the Court's majority "admits that it cannot determine whether the writ historically extended to aliens held abroad, and it concedes (necessarily) that Guantanamo Bay lies outside the sovereign territory of the United States."[27] Justice Scalia pointed out that Johnson v. Eisentrager (where the Supreme Court decided that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over German war criminals held in a U.S.-administered German prison in China) "thus held—held beyond any doubt—that the Constitution does not ensure habeas for aliens held by the United States in areas over which our Government is not sovereign.'

But the Court stopped short of saying that foreigners in Guantanamo have the same habeas rights as U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, probably because of the strained nature of their conclusion that they had any habeas rights at all.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#356

Post by smokinjoe »

gitmothrow wrote: post #335
smokinjoe wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, throwaway so I don't get called a fascist nazi or whatever. Don't worry, I just consider you a coward for that. If you seriously want to call someone out, do it from your account and stand by your words.

If only I could be as brave as you.

It's not being brave, it's being responsible for your own actions.

If you didn't use a throwaway, I'm sure you'd also do a much better job at making your comment a little more eloquent instead of just aggressive and angry.

Posting with a throwaway shows me that you probably don't even 100% believe what you just said.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#357

Post by rayiner »

Zak wrote: post #348
rayiner wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's in the Declaration of Independence not the Constitution. The former is high prose. The latter is a legal document. As a legal document, it cannot purport to give rights to people outside of its jurisdiction.

The Constitution does not purport to give rights to anybody. It declares that certain things are rights and prohibits the US government from violating them.

You're confusing the declaration of independence, a fluff document, with the Constitution, a legal document. Fluffy language aside, in the Anglo-American tradition, rights derive from legal documents (or precedents), and the right to habeas corpus or a jury trial derives from the Constitution and is circumscribed the the territorial jurisdiction of the Constitution.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#358

Post by tibbon »

digitallogic wrote: post #340
tibbon wrote: post #330

I make no apologies for Obama- he should have closed Gitmo. Yet, there's one tiny tiny possibility that I have considered for why he hasn't. Before becoming president, you make promises, have goals, and overall think you know what you're going to do on day one. However, after inauguration you go for your first big debriefing with the CIA, FBI, etc... The things you learn there completely change the course what you wa…

Presidential candidates have been getting security briefings since Eisenhower: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig... So it's not the case that there was a huge cache of information that he didn't have access too until entering office. It could have been the case that there were some details that weren't made available to him, but that seems unlikely to amount to anything that would lead to a…

Oh interesting. Well that blows that theory out of the water.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#359

Post by binxbolling »

rmc wrote: post #146
davedx wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But those other countries do not claim moral high ground in the same way the US does on so many other issues, or claim to lead the world with respect to values such as freedom and democracy (of which the right to a fair trial can be considered a part).

Yes they do. All countries claim to be the best.

No, not at all. And many rightly recognize that "best" is an absurd term to apply to a country.

What people will say is, "This country is the best for me" or "We're not perfect, but I love it" or "We have our ups and downs, but I'm proud to be here." Often people will say, "My country is the best" in the same way they say, "My wife is the best."

When I came to the US I was shocked at how many people openly, earnestly, unconditionally claim America is the best, the greatest, #1, etc. "On any objective scale, especially morally, America is the unqualified best." It's crazy.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#360

Post by rayiner »

randallsquared wrote: post #322
rayiner wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The double standard is Constitutional. The Constitution was never contemplated to give rights to foreigners not on U.S. soil. Indeed, every society has different rules for "its people" versus "other people." It's one of the things that makes war possible.

> The Constitution was never contemplated to give rights to foreigners not on U.S. soil. Or to anyone. The Constitution is supposed to limit what the federal government can do, not grant any rights at all. When it was written, the assumption was that those rights were already held.

Held by who? Held by the citizens of the sovereign states, not every human.
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