rssKate Martin: Well, Preventive Detention for Whom?
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 4:06 pm
- 4 Comments
Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, read my piece today and emailed over a couple of thoughts about the current debate over preventive detention. (Martin attended the June 9 meeting of the administration’s detention policy task force that I reported on.) She makes the solid point — insufficiently distinguished in my piece, truth be told — that the real controversy is about detainees who aren’t collected on the battlefields of Afghanistan, but rather, say, the streets of Milan.
The debate over so-called “preventive detention” has obscured the real issues facing the administration. The laws of war have always allowed the military to detain fighters seized on the battlefield, indefinitely without charge until the end of hostilities. The Supreme Court’s Hamdi decision in 2004 approved such traditional law of war detention for fighters seized in Afghanistan. Some such fighters are now detained in Guantanamo (where they are entitled to habeas) and some are detained in Afghanistan. US forces are still engaged in combat in Afghanistan and now in the border region of Pakistan and will be for some indefinite period. I have no doubt that the Obama administration will continue to claim the authority to “preventively” detain fighters seized on the battlefields of Afghanistan or the mountains of Pakistan. No additional authority from Congress is necessary for them to do so and we and other civil libertarians for many years have recognized that such traditional law of war detentions without charge are perfectly proper.
The issue that has yet to be resolved by the Obama administration is whether they will continue the Bush administration’s claim of authority to pick up suspected terrorists far from any zone of active hostilities and hold them without criminal charge but with some form of ersatz due process. The [Jack] Goldsmith/[Benjamin] Wittes etc. faction has long been urging a new statute to allow detentions of suspected terrorists without any criminal trials based on secret evidence from intelligence agencies. I take the Washington Post article that the administration may not endorse legislation as a potentially positive sign that this pernicious idea may be rejected.
If that happens, we will have much to rejoice about. At the same time, the Obama administration will still have to deal with the so-called “legacy” cases; individuals who should never have been picked up under the laws of war, who are now in Guantanamo (and a handful in Bagram) and who in order to continue to be detained, should immediately be charged with criminal offenses.
Recall that Martin told me on Friday that she was a civil-libertarian defender of using an executive order as a way of forestalling an over-broad legislative proposal for preventive detentions.
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4 Comments
Comment posted July 2, 2009 @ 6:44 pm
I am not a lawyer, but I read through the pertinent articles in the Geneva Conventions, and over half of Army Regulation 190-8, a couple of times, and I think I understand them.
If I really do understand them, what Kate Martin wrote is not completely right. The Geneva Conventions do allow individuals to be picked up in a war zone. And when the USA complied with the Geneva Conventions, there had to be a Tribunal, to determine captives' status, if there was any doubt as to whether or not they should be considered POWs. The USA convened 1300 of the Tribunals whose procedures were laid out in AR 190-8 during the 1991 Gulf War. AR 190-8 lays out the details of how the USA should comply with the Geneva Conventions. These Tribunals set 900 captives free, because they weren't combatants.
My reading of the Guantanamo captives' transcripts convinced me that a very large portion of the captives apprehended in Afghanistan would be considered innocent civilians who should have been set free seven years ago.
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Comment posted July 24, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
OUR “MOST BELOVED” AMERICA'S MOST EVIL ANTI-AMERICAN “CORPORATISM”!
Most Respectfully, this Most Earnest Patriotic Appeal was also submitted to both All The Presidents of The Universities and to Their Provosts – submitted to both personally.
UNIVERSAL “CORPORATISM”!!!
This Most-Loving Prayer was also addressed to Pope Benedict XVI – Most Faithfully!
THE WORST CRIME, EVER, AGAINST ALMIGHTY GOD’S HUMANITY – FOREVER?
(In True Honor to Dr. Martin Luther King’s Most Patriotic Legacy!)
The Nucleus of Our Whole World Ever-Growing Suicidal Nuclear Crisis was invented by no other than The Most Defrauding and Most Greedy Ultra-Conservative and/or by The Ultra-Libertine Politico-Religionism everywhere – Universally! Our Whole World has No True Religion Anywhere!
The Nucleus of The Most Dominant Ambition of This Universal True Atheism is none other than The Most Voracious Global Inhuman Corporatist Economic Exploitation. All by Extreme Global Disregard to The Most Fundamental Human Universal Literacy and The Most Fundamental Universal Good-Samaritan Health Insurance. The Two Together Indeed Constitute Almighty God’s True Universal Democracy’s Vitally Essential Means for True Individual Equal Opportunity to reach THOSE INDISPENSABLE ALMIGHTY GOD’S BEST PERSONAL HUMAN GIFTS (RIGHTS), NO-MORE, NO-LESS!!!
All of Our Vast Perpetually Dehumanized – as Illiterate and Sick – Western World, is ever more and more so “CRUCIFIED” or threatened with impunity by The Religionist Instilled Fear of “GOING TO HELL” if they have “NO FAITH” – if disobedient to their Politico-Religionist “Leadership”; that is, “’HEAVEN’ IS LIVING IN SATANIC EXPLOITATION”!
Our Totally Politico-Religionist Western World has always even tried to expand Our Most Voracious Greedy Corporatism to Our Islamic Eastern World’s “Friendly” Governments, but I most- strongly suspect that Islamic Religionism has an opposite but Equally Religionist-Inhuman Self-Defense: when Our Western Corporatistic Inhuman Intervention reach their Eastern Critical Level – as in Our Unending Warring Perplexity with The Islamic World – The Islamic Religionist Counteracting “’Inspiration’-To-Go-Heaven” is no other than Their Ultra-Terrorist “Salvific” Individual Self-Immolation.
ALL OF THESE, FOR SURE SO FAR, ARE THE PORTENDING SYMBOLISM OF A-MOST-CERTAIN-NUCLEAR-ARMAGEDDON: THERE IS NO WAY FOR NUCLEAR SALVATION!!!
MAY WE TRULY PRAY, SO THAT WE ALL – TRUE SOLID-AMERICANS – REALLY ENABLE THE ALMIGHTY GOD TO BLESS (SAVE) OUR MOST BELOVED TRUE AMERICA!!!
OTHERWISE ANY OTHER “CRIME” OR “ABORTION” IS AN “INNOCENT” BY-PRODUCT!!!
Comment posted July 24, 2009 @ 11:36 pm
OUR “MOST BELOVED” AMERICA'S MOST SATANIC ANTI-AMERICAN RELIGIONISM!
Most Reverently, This Most Earnest Patriotic Appeal was also submitted to both All The Presidents of The Universities, and to Their Provosts – submitted to both personally.
UNIVERSAL RELIGIONISM !!!
This Most Loving Prayer was also addressed to Pope Benedict XVI – Most Faithfully!
This is about The Most Criminal, World Wide, RELIGIONISM – Ever!
All that Our Whole World has ever needed – and still presently needs, foremost and more than ever – is A TRULY AMERICAN National Incorrupt Reevaluation!
“HAPPY HOLIDAYS”!!!
“MERRY CHRISTMAS”!!!
“HAPPY NEW YEAR”!!!
“HAPPY NEW CENTURY!!!”
ALMIGHTY GOD’S “NUCLEAR” WORLD’S TRUE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY; THAT IS, UNIVERSAL INDIVIDUAL EQUAL HUMAN OPPORTUNITY TO ACHIEVE ALMIGHTY GOD-GIVEN HUMAN RIGHTS (HIS “BEST” “GIFTS”), – NO-MORE AND NO-LESS – shall never exist for us in “Our America”, and in our “Free” “Nuclear” World, UNTIL BOTH MOST CRUCIAL GOD’S DETERMINANTS – UNIVERSAL FUNCTIONAL LITERACY AND UNIVERSAL “GOD-SAMARITAN” HEALTH INSURANCE – are Legislatively COMPELLED (CONSTITUTIONALLY) as a Fully-Punishing TRULY HUMANITARIAN CRIMINAL LAW; that is, until Our Insatiable Ultra Filthy-Wealthy CORPORATIST “American” Government so give The True Example, OF SUCH A SACRED UNIVERSALLY HUMAN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY, for the sake of Our Most Exploited and Most Suffering Illiterate and Sick “American” World!
Almighty God did not write HIS BIBLE just to “Inspire” The Implacable Religionist “Sacrosanct” Church-like Corporations of This World to use IT as toilet paper – that is, to use IT as Such a Globalized, Religionist, Materialist, PIOUSLY MUM, AND SO ULTIMATELY EQUALLY SUICIDAL-TERRORIST, SUBLIMINAL INHUMAN EXPLOITATION!
Why “THE TRULY UNIVERSAL CHURCH” – as “FREE AND SEPARATE FROM THE STATE” NEVER TAKES ALL OF THESE, AS ITS TRUE DAILY PREACHING INITIATIVE – AS ITS TRUE RELIGIOUS LEADERS DID???!!! BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT ANY- MORE “THE TRUE SERVANTS OF ALMIGHTY GOD” (AS THEY SO “FERVENTLY” CLAIM) BUT OF THE GOVERNMENTAL “COMFORTABLY” RAPACIOUS CORPORATIST MOST INHUMAN WORLD POLITICS!!!
WHY ABSOLUTELY NOBODY SAY ANYTHING – SPECIALLY AT THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTIONS’ TIME — ABOUT DENOUNCING AND UPROOTING ONCE AND FOR ALL OUR EVER ANTI-AMERICAN AND ANTI-DEMOCRATIC MOST SHAMELESSLY “HIDDEN” ILLITERACY AND LACK OF “GOD-SAMARITAN” MOST BASIC HEALTH INSURANCE!
THE TRUTHFULNESS EVER MISSING IN ALL OF OUR POLITICAL SPEECHES PRETENDING TO “HONOR” OUR MOST BELOVED AMERICA – AND MOST SORELY MISSING FOR OUR SALVATION – IS THE TRULY POLITICAL AND TRULY RELIGIOUS TRULY DEMOCRATIC INSPIRATION!
WHY ARE WE SO SILENT AND OBSTINATE?
MAY WE TRULY PRAY THAT WE ALL TRUE SOLID AMERICANS REALLY ENABLE ALMIGHTY GOD TO BLESS (SAVE) OUR MOST BELOVED TRUE AMERICA!!!
OTHERWISE, ANY OTHER “CRIME” OR “ABORTION” IS AN “INNOCENT” BY-PRODUCT!!!
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