Comments on: Gitmo Will Be this Year’s Campaign Issue

By: george7

george7 — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:39:16 +0000

Thanks for this reply. I think that anyone who reads Philippe Sands and Scott Horton carefully will see that they do not take the unreasonable stands that some have ascribed to them in this thread. Life will be made unpleasant for certain putative war criminals well after this administration is history. No one has held out any expectation that they will actually end up in the Hague. Obviously that did not happen even for Pinochet. I can’t think that the real point is too subtle for most people to grasp. Peace.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:45:24 +0000

50 - I wouldn’t much, because that was the pattern of what they did with Padilla. Once a court was about to order his release, they moved him to a different jurisdiction. That’s why I think the lawyers in the habeas cases or challenging the CSRTs under the DTA better get cracking with some orders from the court to the Executive to NOT move them without permission of court. But I’m not a litigator so I may be not seeing the whole picture on that one or be a little naive.

Re: Horton’s piece, I agree with bmaz that in the short run in particular nothing will come from this. But EOH has some points and as the US power continues to wane bc of all Bush years and their ripple effects, something might change.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7482940.stm
That’s a link to the very recent conviction of one of Pinochet’s men for the 1974 killing of Carlos Prats and his wife.

A judge gave Manuel Contreras two consecutive life terms for the murder of retired army chief Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires in 1974.

BTW - is it that there is no SOL for all war crimes, or more so that the war crimes that come most to mind involve murders?

72 - far from the dock, didn’t the rocket scientist behind the whole operation get a promotion? Why would they be promoting someone who has international warrants outstanding?

By: KenMuldrew

KenMuldrew — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:34:03 +0000

Bmaz is taking the realist’s view. You would be hard pressed to find any non-US citizen living outside the US who wouldn’t tell you that Bmaz’s position was obviously correct. I don’t know what Horton was thinking when he wrote that article, but it was wishful in the extreme. Retribution against these bad actors will not be done by any state other than the US. Non-state retribution (e.g. terrorism) is obviously in play, but there will be no war crimes trials that aren’t sanctioned by the US. The idea really is quite ridiculous.

By: JohnLopresti

JohnLopresti — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:33:57 +0000

errata Lara Jakes Jordan

By: JohnLopresti

JohnLopresti — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:32:41 +0000

Something like the Sara Taylor opo research adware approach would seem to be part of the profiling of communities of interest concept currently Mukasey and Mueller are rolling out, according to Lara Lakes Jordan of AP in a story yesterday. This is part of my futurist vision of what the degree of success of the 2001 disasters portended. Our system of government is adaptive. As suggested in the discussion of the anomalous Pinoch, the US dynamic is more legit, although the Church report might detract in punctilio from that depiction.

By: dosido

dosido — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:24:49 +0000

If we are discussing other venues to house the detainees from GITMO, it would have to be a jail vs. a prison, wouldn’t it? I mean, can we send accused people to prison before trial? Speaking hypothetically in the good old pre 9/11 world of US law, of course. Wouldn’t that rule out any prison as a place of detention?

By: whitebeard

whitebeard — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:36:12 +0000

“where to imprison those detainees if GTMO does, in fact, shut its doors”

two words: Crawford, Texas

By: bmaz

bmaz — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:28:53 +0000

I am with you on the hope. I have mixed thoughts on the agents; as lame as they were, it is their superiors that ought to be in the dock.

By: JTMinIA

JTMinIA — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:23:03 +0000

Agreed, but you have to start somewhere. If the current admin’s ability to avoid any prosecution were perfect, those agents in Italy would not have been indicted. That’s why my rosy specs allow me (force me?) to see this as a positive opening.

Of course, that was during a Berlusconi Interregnum.

By: bmaz

bmaz — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:16:53 +0000

Maybe, but there is a difference between “rogue” agents (and that is how they have been characterized so far; arguably not fairly, but nevertheless) and formal government officials. I think for purposes of this discussion, that is a pretty significant distinction.