Newshoggers Comments
Cernig - there is no url for your rightwing bloggers link (in the second para).
Thanks Kathy, I couldn't get back to the original link I wanted to use - a memeorandum snapshot at a point when this was top story - but I've linked a representative sample. Actually, it's more thoughtful than most.
Regards, C
Apparently the timing of the story is designed to cover for: (1) the USAID story, (2) the DOJ document dump and (3) the high level resignation from the DOJ that appears to be Abramoff related.
The real scandal is what Bush is *not* doing with such prisoners.
Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi should be tried by court-martial or military commission and, if found guilty of fighting out of uniform or targeting civilians ( proving membership in AQI is sufficient here), executed.
The Laws of War are crystal clear about such crimes which AQI claims credit for committing. Enforcing the law would have spared the Bush administration many headaches caused by its Alice-in -Wonderland detantion policies.
Granted, most of the same critics would still be just as unhappy with prompt military trials and executions as they are now with indefinite detention but they'd lack any legal foundation for complaint.
Hi Zen,
You and I almost agree here. I would add that if such convictions could be acheived without taint of torture and with the usual panoply of military justice - including habeas corpus.
Add that, you and I agree.
For those who have a problem with the death penalty even where there is no possibility of rehabilitation, there's always an alternative of life without parole. I'd settle for that.
And it is so obvious that it begs the question: Why didn't Bush do it that way?
What's your answer?
Regards, C
"And it is so obvious that it begs the question: Why didn't Bush do it that way?"
Fair question.
My presumption is that there are both reasons of intent and a general inability or willingness to make strategic choices.
Initially, with the first AQ prisoners each bureaucracy -DOJ, CIA, Defense, NSC and State had different prescriptions for judicial and detention priocedures. Instead of choosing, Bush more or less let each department muddle through with their own prisoners. In my view this was an error - they should have gone the route suggested by SCOTUS, which was the Ex Parte Quirin precedent.
The consensus that I believe emerged for indefinite detention favored two groups. Those at State, DOJ and political operatives for whom a death-penalty assembly line was an unwanted headache ( appeals, Euro diplo protests etc.) and those in the IC desiring to maximize the de-briefing process and shield sources and methods.
Overruled were the DoD who were left holding the bag for a policy they did not favor for a variety of reasons as well as State folks concerned with publc diplomacy and international treaty observance.
Those are my speculations at any rate.
Hi Zen,
Those seem like fair speculations. But I think you're underestimating the "playing to the base" factor - those who wish to just throw any suspects in a deep dark oubliette no matter what precepts of justice say.
Regards, C
While the Bush base shed no tears over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being given the once over, I think the base would rather see a few hangings and Bush simply lacked the nerve.
Truman or Eisenhower would have had KSM swinging from a rope in Leavenworth.
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