I postulate that there is no course of events which will result in Guantanamo being closed before January 2009.

Join the Army, get assigned to Guantánamo, and discreetly film an expose which you release to YouTube. What else can one man do?

To do what about it?

Regardless, I'm pretty sure the answer is "not a damn thing."

I would encourage the restoration of habeas corpus rights, at the very least, although I'm unsure of the exact status of this legislation, and what the hell does it matter anyway, my two Senators (Hutchinson and Cornyn) are both pod-people wastoids.

I pass the query along for a friend. I suspect 1 is about the truth of the matter. I don't know of any pending legislation either, so even the feeble rep. phone call is more futile than usual.

(There's probably room for discussing what is the best way to insure that Guantanamo be closed down as soon as possible following Jan. 2009.)

Suggested title: How to Close Gitmo Without Really Trying

Loudly and publicly claim allegiance and support for al-Qaeda, so as ...nah that won't work. I was trying to think of something like the King of Denmark and all his subjects wearing the star patch or the white college kids in Freedom Summer.

Take a sheet, probably one you aren't planning to use anymore. Then find a large paintbrush, and some black paint. Use them to write the words, "Close Gitmo Now" on the sheet, and hang it from the front porch of your house. Presto! That should do the trick.

If check-writing's your thing, then the Center for Constitutional Rights is doing as much or more than anyone else I'm aware of, and could use the money. I think they also have some action suggestions on their website, but I don't think there's much of anything to do beyond letters to elected officials and to newspapers.

Starting a blog with posts on Guantanamo titled in a contrasting color is also a time-honored method of getting stuff done.

LB, thanks for the pointer.

This new news today about Gitmo seems really remarkably strange to me. It's being described as unexpected but it looks like it was totally anticipatable, and was anticipated by the lawyers on either side.

As I understand it, the MCA law that passed last year that we all hated so much provided for giving trials to "alien unlawful enemy combatants," but the Combatant Status Review Tribunal has been classifying only "enemy combatants" and is apparently not even equipped to classify "alien unlawful enemy combatants." So there are no detainees at Guantánamo who can be tried under the new law.

It's baffling. Did Congress not know this when they wrote the law? Did the military not know this when they were setting up the tribunals? Why haven't they been working on the proper legal classification? The only idea that makes any sense to me is that the military doesn't want Gitmo and wants desperately not to be responsible for it, and is turfing it back to Congress now. But why wasn't Bush ordering that they work on the classification issue? Maybe some of the lawyers here have some awareness of the power dynamics at play.

If anyone who comments here would know, it'd be CharleyCarp -- I'm clueless. I wouldn't be unbearably surprised if it were just an error on the military's part, though.

Is the military punting back to Congress with this decision? Was Congress punting to the military in the first place by passing a law which didn't apply to the current situation?

Not directly related to Gitmo, but doesn't John Yoo work at Boalt Hall? I'm no advocate of running people out of town, but surely if anyone is going to get run out of any town it should be Yoo and Berkeley. At the very least he should be rendered incapable of ordering a non-spat latte.

A bunch of people tried to have him removed (protests, etc.) but to no avail.

When I worked at a café in Berkeley, I had the right to refuse service to anyone. I think it would be appropriate for waiters and counter-staff all over Berkeley to exercise this right.

FL: What ordinary-citizen sorts of things might you do about Guantanamo Bay?

Vote Democratic and vote often.

Neil: Did Congress not know this when they wrote the law? Did the military not know this when they were setting up the tribunals?

The "Military Commissions Act" was not rushed through because of any pressing need for military commissions. It was rushed through, before the Democrats could take either house (or both! ha!), in order to immunize CIA torturers and their legal enablers (Yoo, etc.) from prosecution for the laws and treaties they flouted.

Once you bear that in mind, any little mistakes in the legislation become easier to understand.

Then they'd run you out of town for being anti-Asian.

I doubt it, ogged.

As long as you successfully identified Yoo---and not some random middle-aged, professional-looking, Asian-American dude---that is.

Or,you could rent a billboard with his picture and the caption, "This man suffers from organ failure."

Is he Captain Nut-Crusher? If so I figure if you just set out a c-clamp or something with a "1/2 off! Day-olds!" sign next to it and then refuse to serve the first middle-aged Asian-American who picks it up with a look of excited malice.

12: Here's a link

Judges Ruling ...Yahoo/Reuters

OK, AFAIK there are not a lot of new additions to Gitmo, other than the High-Value guys moved from Europe. The Bush simply suspended the rules for a while in a panic over getting intelligence, and are now stuck. By treating the prisoners neither as POW's or as criminals with rights, and because the treatment would be extremely embarrassing in a War Crimes trial, which should have an international structure, they are fucked. Fact is, the "unlawful enemy combatant" designation was always supposed to extremely rare, for a spy or saboteur captured on the battlefield.

Whether it was necessary or not to break the rule of law to gain quick intelligence, a price should be paid. The simplest price would be to give KSM a thousand dollars, a new suit, and a plane ride to Kaziristan.

The entire nation should pay for the torture and suspension of basic human rights and violation of the Convenyions. We knew it, allowed it, many even celebrated it. Let KSM free to plot again.

I just watched the "Spying in the Home Front" episode of Frontline and John Yoo was making all of the "we can do whatever we damn well want for the sake of the country" arguments. He needs a whack to the face with the Calabat.

Or,you could rent a billboard with his picture and the caption, "This man suffers from organ failure."

I was thinking along those lines -- little "Wanted" posters around town -- but it gets too much like those websites posting pix of abortion doctors. Someone would end up popping a cap in Yoo, and then we would have to listen to the reaction to THAT for six months.

Btw, if anyone's foolish enough to mistrust my vatic pronouncements, here's Elizabeth Holtzman on Bush's immunizing himself & others in the MCA.

The simplest price would be to give KSM a thousand dollars, a new suit, and a plane ride to Kaziristan.

Yes, the Democrats would ride *that* to victory in 2010 and thereafter. Sorry, Bob, but I think that's a nonstarter.

Surely, I tell myself, we have enough circumstantial, non-poisoned evidence to convict KSM, if we actually let our law-enforcement types give it a try?

KSM: scared straight?

"Or,you could rent a billboard with his picture and the caption, "This man suffers from organ failure."

I was thinking along those lines -- little "Wanted" posters around town -- but it gets too much like those websites posting pix of abortion doctors. Someone would end up popping a cap in Yoo, and then we would have to listen to the reaction to THAT for six months."

As someone who has felt the brunt of the receiving end, I strongly disagree with those Wanted posters, no matter who is wanted.

Fuck. Doesn't anyone see the obvious oxymoron in "unlawful enemy combatant"? The 15-yr-old throwing a grenade without a uniform is a criminal under Afghani or occupation law, or a POW. You really don't get a third choice, for very important reasons. The conventions wanted the world divided into soldiers and civilians to protect civilians, who got shafted in two World Wars.. You do not fucking get to treat civilians in a war zone this way. Motherfuckers.

Hitlerian war crimes in comparable quality if not quantity, and if Bushco doesn't pay, then may my country...fuck it.

26:
Yeah, I know, ultimately I don't want that, which is why I went for the mockery more than the "wanted" angle. But hell, as the OP asked, what is there to do? Sweet fuck all.

and if Bushco doesn't pay

Bushco wouldn't "pay" if KSM walked. They'd chortle. Attacks on America are *good* for Bushco.

Both the prosecutors and defenders are under a gag rule in the Padilla trial, not allowed to mention Padilla's 3 1/2 years in confinement to the jury. This has led to some ridiculous testimony. Padilla is being tried with unrelated defendants, IIRC, to make him easier to convict.

An example of the Mulligan America wants for itself. Can we start over, just forgetting all the torture and habeus stuff? Sure, says Anderson at 27.

KSM walks. He was fucking tortured, for Christ's sake. Give me Bush or give me KSM. Your choice.

I think McManus has it right -- you're a soldier or a civilian. If you're shooting at people and you aren't a soldier, you may be a civilian criminal, and if you want to call that an 'unlawful enemy combatant' that's great, but it doesn't mean you don't get the Geneva protections civilians get.

I think McManus has it right

Can I ban you, LB?

KSM walks. He was fucking tortured, for Christ's sake.

So was Padilla, as you note, and the court thus excluded any evidence arguably obtained thereby, but found no legal basis for letting him walk. That is probably how it will shake out with the appellate courts.

If I shoot John Yoo and the cops then beat the hell out of me in the jail, why should that get me off the hook? (I guess they would have to be Oakland, not Berkeley, cops.)

Can we start over, just forgetting all the torture and habeus stuff? Sure, says Anderson at 27.

All the choices are bad, thanks to Bushco's contempt for American values. Some choices are worse than others. I wouldn't really fancy explaining to the relatives of KSM's next batch of victims, exactly what arcane moral considerations led to my letting him go without at least *trying* to put him on trial, in a U.S. district court, with whatever legit evidence we've got.

Someone would end up popping a cap in Yoo, and then we would have to listen to the reaction to THAT for six months.

:-)

[analogy here]

:-)

21: Or someone could distribute flyers to all the cafes in town, to be kept by the register or in employee-only areas, kind of like what some restaurants do with photos of restaurant critics. And should be easy enough to prove you're not John Yoo, even if you happen to be a middle-aged Asian man who resembles him, because either you're not wearing a suit (only Republicans wear suits in Berkeley) or you can produce ID.

Really, there are only two potential problems with this: middle-aged Asian Republicans get tired of being carded at Peet's and start blocking off Shattuck with their BMWs in protest, or the real John Yoo gets a fake ID and passes undetected.

36:I think the torture and illegal detention speak to the credibility of the gov't prosecuting Padilla, and the witnesses as functionaries of the gov't, and the fairness of the fucking court and all US courts in these cases.

I wouldn't let Saddam or Stalin or their officials tell me of their victims: "They really were bad guys" and allow the fucking torturers to testify under gag rules about the torture. The interrogators have a direct interest in the conviction of Padilla.

"They really were bad guys." Maybe so, but they and we don't get to participate in that decision. Or shouldn't. These judges are spinning and doing cartwheels. Godamn, the whole country, from sea to shining sea, is being corrupted in the effort to escape responsibility. I cannot read about the Padilla trial without feeling filthy dirty in my soul.

What ordinary-citizen sorts of things might you do about Guantanamo Bay?

support any candidate who ius dedicated to closing the place and restoring habeas corpus (not to mention all other rights of criminal defendants) to all of its detainees. by support, i mean vote for, volunteer for, give money too.

that's pretty much all an ordinary person can do. the place will close some day. at this point it's become more of a liability for the u.s. the only thing that needs to happen now is getting political leaders in who are capable of recognizing that it is a liability.

Writing letters to the local paper, just to remind the common man what the government is doing.

And of course remember that Gitmo is shorthand -- if it closes tomorrow and we move the prisoners elsewhere under the same conditions, no progress has been made. (I know this is obvious, but it's the kind of mistake I slip into.)

Re: "Attacks on America are *good* for Bushco," see this from the Arkansas Republican Party's new chairman:

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country," Milligan said.

Just like uterine bleeding is good for Christians.

Good lord is Dobson a piece of work.

Dobson? I'm just looking for the reference.

I'll look for the link -- he was quoted somewhere as saying that part of the point of the 'partial birth' abortion ban was that it would increase injuries, and the prospect of uterine perforation might discourage some women.

I'm not finding it with a quick google -- I may have it garbled.

I'll be your google, LB.

Here it is, although the quote isn't from Dobson, but from a spokesman for his organization.

A Focus on the Family spokesman said that Dobson would not comment. But the organization's vice president, Tom Minnery, said that Dobson rejoiced over the ruling "because we, and most pro-lifers, are sophisticated enough to know we're not going to win a total victory all at once. We're going to win piece by piece."

Doctors adopted the late-term procedure "out of convenience," Minnery added. "The old procedure, which is still legal, involves using forceps to pull the baby apart in utero, which means there is greater legal liability and danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus. So we firmly believe there will be fewer later-term abortions as a result of this ruling."

I'll be your google, LB.

Sifu, I never before appreciated your Nico-esque voice ...

I think that death is among the possible complications of uterine bleeding.

Hopefully, Guantanamo will close as soon as this administration is out of power.

Personally, I'd like to see a lot of smart lawyers funded with bottomless wells of cash spend the next 10 years hunting down, prosecuting and jailing every single person actively involved in the creation, sustenance and operation of this system.

A sustained 'deNazification' process is needed. Both in your country, and in mine.

Dare to dream, ttaM.

Oh, I know it won't happen. But it bloody well should. I rest my hopes that some bunch of Dutch or Belgian lawyers will get it together and Blair will get arrested one day when he steps off a plane in mainland Europe.

I agree, it should happen, but it's way too late for all that. Decline of the republic, baby! Enjoy the Paris Hilton show!

56: Holy cow, ogged. That's pretty damn cynical. Surely there's an outside chance somebody will be held to account somehow or other. I thought we were supposed to be believing in positive changes, here.

re: 57

Nah, I think ogged is probably right. Without wanting to sound too much like McManus, or Emerson, but right now, in so many ways, collectively we're fucked.

Was anyone held to account for Iran-Contra?

Meh, I gave up a few years ago, but I don't want to harsh your mellow, so ignore 56.

Surely there's an outside chance somebody will be held to account somehow

The monster will soon be in jail, biting at the bars. Beyond that though, the MCA 2006 pretty much ex post facto grants everyone amnesty, so all the smart lawyers in the world won't do you any good.

Eventually, bob's predicted changes will appear positive.

59: briefly, sure. I'm not talking about directly, here. I just still have a little hope that the negative consequences of this will boomerang back on the perpetrators perceptibly more than on the rest of us. I suppose that's probably naive.

re: 63

I'd be inclined to run a 'pessimistic meta-induction' on that one and ask, as in Ned's 59 -- when has anyone ever really paid? I can think of truly egregious acts carried out by governments in my country and in yours just in my lifetime, acts that deserve criminal prosecution at the very least.

The perpetrators of these acts are not only not in jail, they are generally rich, contented and still partly in control.

You don't have to read far between the lines of the Walsh Report to know that GHW Bush was a major player in Iran Contra. His staff stonewalled and rope-a-doped to protect him, and when he took office he pardoned a few key people.

A much bigger story than Clinton's pardons, but the noise machine isn't working for us.

The end of 64 is as good a description of the late life of Augusto Pinochet as one could hope for.

Hey, a couple of the Watergate guys went to jail. And MacNamara was somewhat discontented towards the end of his life.

Libby's gonna be in jail, Dukester's in jail for a while; I'm certainly not saying they'll get what they deserve, but maybe some of them will get a little taste of it.

Uphill battle to be sure.

I don't know, 56 doesn't sound cynical so much as just the way things are and have been for some time, even beyond the current administration's innovations in crapitude.

My answer to the question in the post is that you should be on the streets *every single day*, protesting, and that you should be doing everything in your power to get as many people as possible to join you. I don't mean a march on the Mall every six months. I mean large numbers of people in the streets every day. Continuing mass demonstrations does seem to be one way in which people do, very occasionally, bring about real change.

Or you could shrug your shoulders and go back to talking about Paris Hilton and Harry Potter.

Okay, let's do it.

My answer to the question in the post is that you should be on the streets *every single day*, protesting, and that you should be doing everything in your power to get as many people as possible to join you.

If this isn't a "heroic level of activism" I don't know what would be.

And should be easy enough to prove you're not John Yoo, even if you happen to be a middle-aged Asian man who resembles him, because either you're not wearing a suit (only Republicans wear suits in Berkeley) or you can produce ID.

Yoo only wore a suit when lecturing, so this plan is partially flawed.

Good to see that the FBI hasn't picked up bob yet.

72: Well, I was interpreting "heroic" as something like "carrying significant risk of imprisonment or physical harm". But I agree that that may be setting the bar higher than was intended.

Or you could shrug your shoulders and go back to talking about Paris Hilton and Harry Potter.

Are they an item??????

This thread goes completely italics from comment 37 to the end, but only in the Bloglines pane (post + comments), not in the window with comment box. No other comment thread shows this malfunction. I have seen this phenomenon before on this blog, and find it satisfyingly perplexing.

So many ways a troll can bore.

Hmm. I don't know the Guantanamo litigation as well as Charley, but I know people who know it and they sound pretty pessimistic at the moment...(my case is Abu Ghraib, suing the contractors. They are very satisfying people sue, though God knows how my tiny little firm is going to pull this one off without making my head explode. I wish I could write about it but the good stuff is under a protective order & I'm generally wary of blogging about it anyway. But anyway, that's obviously more retrospective; it's not habeas litigation on behalf of people currently being held as prisoners).

CCR is certainly the NGO that works most directly on the Guantanamo issue, and the most involved in litigation on detainee issues in general. So if you're looking to donate specifically about Guantanamo, they're the place to go. I also think very highly of Human Rights Watch and the ACLU but they're bigger & probably better funded organizations, probably less tightly focused on this issue.

I reluctantly agree that it's probably going to close if and when a Democrat takes office in January 2009, and probably not before then. Of the Democratic candidates, I trust Edwards a little more than Obama & both of them a fair bit more than Clinton, but I think all three are pretty solidly committed to closing Guantanamo.

It does not follow that your best chance of influencing the issue is donating or stuffing envelopes for a Presidential campaign. I take a pretty dim view these days of how efficiently presidential campaigns use donors' money and low level volunteers' time. It's on account of the habeas cases, and the attending press coverage & public revelations about Guantanamo, that the issue is important enough to Democratic primary voters that all of the major candidates have called for closing Guantanamo. (There's a reason they talk about Guantanamo in their speeches and not Bagram.) So I would say that donating to CCR is still very much worthwile. There's plenty of room for pressure for release in individual cases even if the whole base is unlikely to be shut down before 2009, and the litigation has helped drive the legislative effort, press coverage, etc. If you're interested in or devoting time to this instead of money, for someone with a blog with decent readership, the best thing to do is actually to keep writing about it.

More generally, I think people who care about these issues need to start doing some serious thinking about what happens after the election. If someone like Giuliani or Romney wins, we're fairly screwed, but the strategy is similar to what it was under Bush. But if (as I think more likely) a Democrat wins? There will be an opportunity to make this better. But it's sure as hell not going to happen spontaneously just because a Democrat takes office. They've promised to close Guantanamo, and that is a necessary step, but what that actually means for the prisoners is not clear. Are we going to release or try everyone? If no, what does the administrative detention system look like? If so, what kind of trials--military comissions, courts martial, civilian criminal trials--what? What about people who there's no evidence to try but can't go back to their countries--are we going to offer any of them asylum? If not, how are we going to convince other countries to do so? What about Bagram? What about the CIA program, in whatever form it now exists? What about rendition? I don't want to go back to the situation under Clinton. What statutory changes do we need to make sure that this doesn't happen again? And is anyone ever going to be prosecuted for any of this?

Even among the people who have been actively working against the Bush administration's detainee policies, I don't think there's agreement on those issues, or any kind of consensus about what needs to happen if a Democrat takes office. The tendency was to focus on exposing and stopping the worst excesses and abuses, which everyone agreed about & which was the only thing that had half a chance while this administration was in power. We weren't ready when the Democrats took Congress--these issues have been a low, low priority for the Democrats in Congress, and there's been depressingly little progress. If we want a Democratic President to seriously begin to undo the damage, we need to start getting ready now. We need to figure out what to ask for, and pressure the Presidential candidates to promise it to us during the primaries, when they still care about bleeding heart liberals' opinions.

My bottom line, beyond the obvious steps they've promised already, is this: we need to at least learn the truth about exactly what the Bush administration did wrong if we're going to have any hope of getting it right. We need a serious, comprehensive, investigation into everything: from the Vice President's Office, to the OLC, to the Pentagon, to rendition, to the CIA secret prisons, to the joint CIA-special forces task forces, Bagram, Kandahar, Guantanamo, the Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan, the Forward Operating Bases in Iraq, Camp Nama, Abu Ghraib--all of it.

There've been attempts to do this through litigation. Most have been thrown out, a few are ongoing--but they all run into state secrets privilege, which are going to seriously limit the scope of any litigation even if it doesn't get it tossed out of court. I had some hopes of Congress doing it, but they really just don't seem especially interested, and even if they miraculously get interested, they'll eventually run smack into the classification power. So I think it's going to take either a special prosecutor--but I don't know what authority DOJ has to investigate the military & I don't know how realistic prosecution is--or some sort of special commission with serious investigative powers & an investigative staff.

I don't know, though. I don't know if that's realistic, I don't know if it should be the highest priority, I may be overly influenced by my personal desire to see the parts I know about exposed & find out the rest. And I have no idea how to actually go about a serious attempt to make this happen. The point is, if things are going to get seriously better in January 2009, it's going be because people start thinking about & working towards that day right now.

no offense intended,Katherine, but does this sound credible to the law-talkers among us?

Is 71 to 69 or 70?

I'm not offended, but confused...I am a law talker. And does what sound credible?

Credible, as is this in earnest? As in, thanks for giving a shit.

Oh. Yeah, extremely earnest. This is how it started; it kind of snowballed from there.

I should temper my snark in 70 by saying that I know there are regular contributors here (Katherine, m.leblanc, probably others) who really are making a difference, and I for one appreciate that beyond words.

Katherine is where I go for credible, myself. (They didn't cover much of this at Ole Miss Law.)

I mean this in the most sincere way, but what were we supposed to do about the detainees who ended up in Gitmo? They were not exactly POWs, in that they are non state actors, and a criminal investigation and prosecution is not only logistically impossible but ridiculous on its face. And yet, these non state actors include people with the intent and the capacity to do us great harm, as well as cooks and bakers who could be released. They are not US citizens, or foreign persons in the US, so I don't see how habeus corpus applies, but IANAL. I don't think rendition is the answer, but keeping classified which high level targets we have captured doesn't seem like it violates anyone's rights, as long as there is some kind of oversight. I wish there were less need for blame and assignment of guilt, and more consensus on the problem and attempt to come up with solutions rather than finger pointing.

And yet, these non state actors include people with the intent and the capacity to do us great harm, as well as cooks and bakers who could be released.

First, there seem to be plenty of them who were affiliated with the Taliban, which was the government of Afghanistan at the time. So, some who aren't so much non-state actors. More who we have no strong reason to think of as having the potential to do us great harm; while they may have fought the US at a time when the US was invading Afghanistan, that doesn't make them different from the thousands of Afghans who fought us and weren't captured.

If we've got anyone who we do have good reason to think is a terrorist who is still a danger to us, then let's try them in a court of law.

85: Well, the ones that were POWs were POWs. The others, we kidnapped. I think the "non state actors" thing is hair-splitting; inasmuch as we capture people in battle, then they're soldiers, whether or not they're wearing uniforms.

86. First, there seem to be plenty of them who were affiliated with the Taliban, which was the government of Afghanistan at the time. So, some who aren't so much non-state actors

But those aren't the guys at Gitmo, as I understand it. They are still at Bagram or whatever. The problem of tribal units is one can't tell rank, status, etc. Very non Western, which needs to be sorted out in more than a "You can't do that" way.

87. POWs are held until the war is over. The war in Afghanistan is by no means over.

The problem I am having is that this war has been overlawyered, and not well lawyered. But I also find the concept of Law in war problematic. As the General said- War is hell, plain and unadulterated, and trying to civilize war and make it acceptable to civilized people is part of the problem, in my opinion.

87. POWs are held until the war is over. The war in Afghanistan is by no means over.

You know, this is true and false. Do you think we're detaining anything like all the Afghan men who fought for the Taliban back in 2001/02? Obviously not, and we're not detaining all the Afghan men that we could be fairly sure fought for the Taliban either. If we don't need to keep the entire army we fought back then detained, what makes the prisoners we're holding now different from all the soldiers who fought us then and are now living freely in Afghanistan? An answer that I'd accept is that "We can prove that our current prisoners committed crimes for which we will prosecute them in a court of law." Other than that, let them go.

"But those aren't the guys at Gitmo, as I understand it. They are still at Bagram or whatever."

Some of them were at Bagram all along; some of them were sent to GTMO and remain there; some off them were released. If you are going to treat the Bush administration's characterization of the detainees as credible I'm going to get mad.

"War is hell"--this is easy to say; do you mean it? Do you think all wars are equally hellish, and armies are equally prone to atrocity? Do you think the legal prohibitions on torture and genocide were mistakes? Do you think the Geneva Conventions were a mistake? What exactly do you mean by "over-lawyered," anyway?

Guantanamo has been open for over five years now, and I have less and less patience for people who haven't learned anything about it since 2002.

What war in Afghanistan?

Also, for starters: we should have had hearings in the field, to figure out who exactly we had detained--whether they were civilians or combatants, and unlawful or lawful combatants, like we did in every other war for years. See Army Regulation 190-8. We didn't do that, basically out of sheer spite: the President decided he had the power to declare every person that we bought off some Afghan bounty hunter to be an unlawful enemy combatant, and this made them legal unpersons whom we could imprison for the rest of a war that won't end & interrogate them using whatever techniques the President chose.

I'll grant you that those hearings wouldn't have prevented us from detaining some of the wrong guys. I'll grant that the war on terror poses potentially hard questions about how to treat suspects. To be honest, I don't know the answers to the hard questions, because the administration has been so busy fucking up the easy ones.

There was a guy there for four years who Osama Bin Laden had personally accused of trying to assassinate him. I'm not even joking. He's out now because of his lawyer; overlawyered indeed. There's still two guys there who we captured in a Taliban prison, where they had been held in 2000 since being tortured by high level Al Qaeda members into confessing that they were Israeli spies.

Without something at least resembling a fair hearing, how are we actually supposed to determine whether someone is a combatant and who is a civilian?

(warning: for your own good, do not tell me "we know because they were captured on a battlefield...")

90. Yes I mean it and I am a combat veteran who does not take kindly to people second guessing what happened. War has been romanticized by a whole series of cultures for a specific purpose, to fool the unwary. Having lawyers around makes everything seen tidy when the reality is far from it. I don't believe in victor's justice, but the victors do write the history books. (except in Japan, when certain actions have been conveniently forgotten).
P.S. I don't know from Army, I am a former Marine.

To be honest, I don't know the answers to the hard questions, because the administration has been so busy fucking up the easy ones.

This I agree with on too many levels.

If you're a combat veteran than presumably you understand why the Geneva Conventions matter and don't like their being undermined. No?

If you're a combat veteran than presumably you understand why the Geneva Conventions matter and don't like their being undermined

I really am of two minds on that. I think that it's putting lipstick on a pig. If you make war a gentleman's game, with rules to be obeyed, then I am afraid one is more likely to engage in such a wasteful passtime. But certainly it is to the benefit of those involved when all play by the rules. One problem that I have is that American soldiers have rarely been the beneficiaries of their hosts following the "rules". But we should follow them because it is the right thing to do, not in fear of retaliation.

"One problem that I have is that American soldiers have rarely been the beneficiaries of their hosts following the "rules". But we should follow them because it is the right thing to do, not in fear of retaliation."

How about a soldier benefiting from the other side being willing to surrender bc he knows he will not be tortured? Otherwise, why not fight longer?

I really am of two minds on that. I think that it's putting lipstick on a pig. If you make war a gentleman's game, with rules to be obeyed, then I am afraid one is more likely to engage in such a wasteful passtime.

Think this if you like, but it makes conversations about Gitmo kind of pointless. If you're opposed to the idea of there being a law of war at all, then there's not much to be said about it.

we should follow them because it is the right thing to do

Precisely.

If you make war a gentleman's game, with rules to be obeyed, then I am afraid one is more likely to engage in such a wasteful passtime.

Unfortunately it seems that the reverse has happened. In war there are no rules, so Bush worked quickly to get into a war and stay there.

Without a war, if the President had tried to incarcerate hundreds of people indefinitely without charges or even habeas hearings, I think we'd have seen an honest-to-god attempt at armed insurrection. People were nearly that pissed off just over Janet Reno.

Anybody still here? What do you make of this?

But the director of Terrorism and Counter-terrorism at Human Rights Watch in New York, Joanne Mariner, says that technicality has some important substance behind it.

"There is a question about whether some people held at Guantanamo are lawful combatants, members of the Taleban who were the armed forces of Afghanistan during the conflict with the United States, so, in fact, under international law, were considered soldiers and had the right to fight," said Joanne Mariner. "This is something that the United States has always dismissed. The court is correct to say there is a meaningful distinction between lawful and unlawful enemy combatants."

Are we buying that there's such a thing as an "unlawful enemy combatant" now, outside the bizarro-land of the MCA?