Our current administration has found it fit to bring the 9/11 terrorists to NYC. They will sit in a civilian criminal court. They will be given the rights of an American citizen and have the U.S. Constitution in their corner. Besides the concern of further Muslim extremist attacks during the trial, there is a greater fear – the evisceration of our Constitution.
Let me explain, there are four Constitutional issues that will be put into question: Miranda, chain of evidence, illegal search and seizure, and coercion/torture. It is almost certain that the detainees weren’t Mirandized prior to questioning. The chain of evidence was more than likely not followed in the villages and mountain of Afghanistan and Pakistan where these individuals were captured. I highly doubt there was a search warrant issued for the military team that captured them. Finally, any amount of information gathered without the presence of an attorney could be suggested to be coerced.
What does this mean? Every stitch of evidence against these terrorists could be thrown out. Within a civil criminal court it will be hard to convict these individuals, but that won’t happen. The citizens of this country won’t allow it. We are being put into a Catch-22. We are being given a choice between justice for those who died in 9/11 or our civil liberties. That is the trade off. The reality is that they will be convicted, and in doing so we will gut our own Constitution. This trial will create legal arguments for the government to walk all over our civil rights. If evidence is allowed with disregard to the Constitution we will have set a precedent that there is no turning back from.
The fact that we are allowing foreign war criminals the use of our constitution is ludicrous. I have fought the urge to question the motivation of this administration, but this act makes me doubt their motives and intent.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Brian,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in academic world. The questions would have been . Who made the decision ? What reasoning did he use ? What result are you trying to achieve ? I'd like to hear the answers in view that security and perserving citizens freedoms and rights rank the highest based on what the governments documents say. Fritz
The reality is that our constitution is being gutted everyday by people that want to make there own law's. The bible is read in every church and it seems that there are more ways to tell the story about God . The constitution started very clear and it is seems to change every 4 years just to make the power in office happy . Would it not be simple to live by those law's set forth by our founding fathers or by ( KISS ) kind of like the 10 commandments
ReplyDeleteFritz,
ReplyDeleteI would love to get the answers to your questions. This is one of the biggest problems with the political machine. They refuse to actually provide us transparency, so we can understand their motives. Maybe because their motives aren't in our best interest?
Simplicity is the key. Complexity is just a mask worn by those who are afraid they might be wrong. As I keep saying, it is about common sense! Common Sense is never complex or long winded.
ReplyDeleteSo if we keep it simple, let's just try them in court. The key is to not sentence them to death since that will take too long. Instead,release them into general population and let the prisoners have their way with them. Just a suggestion although that will never happen.
ReplyDelete"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1775
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting John...I’m not sure if I’m interpreting your comment correctly, but I think that many liberties have been unwound in our effort to protect ourselves. I’m not a big fan of giving up our freedoms as an excuse for finding a shortcut to gather intelligence. On the other hand, I think that anyone who is not in this country legally shouldn’t be protected under the constitution. This includes enemies’ combatants.
ReplyDeleteBrian, do you truly not yet know the motivations of this administration? The "administration", i.e. Obama, is motivated to do the following:
ReplyDelete* Gain and consolidate political power for a growing Federal government, and in particular, for a subset of that government that is anti-capitalism, anti-democracy, and essentially socialist in their approach.
* Wield that power to enforce what he thinks is best for everybody.
* Change the United States from a free-market economy, capitalist society, federal republic government based on individual liberties and rights to a a government planned economy (ref. the President of the United States firing the CEO of General Motors, or an unelected "czar" -- which is an ironically apt word -- determining unilaterally the compensation for executives of legally incorporated, publicly held corporations), a socialist society (ref. health care "reform" which in all forms MANDATES that all citizens must buy in), and fascist centralized government (ref. the illegal usurping of states' rights, the illegal legislation creating the bailouts, and the illegal use of an illegal federal income tax to enact social legislation and enforcement). I believe that the current president is working from a well-conceived plan to essentially replace the current form of government and our Constitution with a new form of socialized government and some sort of new governing law. I believe that the evidence already shows that the current president did not take office in order to serve his country (if it even IS his country!), but rather to obtain the power necessary to literally overthrow our democratic, federal republic, free market way of life. I think the activities we've seen in less than a year (or maybe more if you start to look at the events of the campaign and its funding) are direct indications that this person and his supporters are very deliberately changing our country to a socialist/communist country. The only remaining piece of the puzzle is "WHY?". Is Obama a megalomaniac and power-monger (a la Hitler or Castro) with a nicer demeanor (so far)? Is Obama merely the front for an organized movement? Does Obama actually in his heart of hearts believe that he knows better than the people how the people should take care of themselves? (Not likely) Is this the result of a long-term Democratic Party plan? (DEFINITELY not likely. They didn't even know who he was until 2006, and they have shown that they are entirely inept in actually planning a true movement.) Is he damning and condemning the United States and our way of life to the scrap heap because he believes the "people" are being exploited and he and his movement are here to help (a la Lenin and Castro)? Possibly. Remember, this guy's life's work has been as a "community organizer" in the most corrupt city and state government in the country.
Other than a takeover of the country and its government, there simply is no good explanation for a President taking over General Motors and Chrysler (production), taking over banks and insurance companies (capital), jamming a ridiculous "reform" of "health care" down the people's throats (the will of the proletariat, the socialization of something that touches all 300 million people whether we like it or not -- Remember, Hitler used health care as a tool to consolidate power), and handing out $775 BILLION in money that wasn't his to give to people who hadn't earned it. All in less than a year. His bloodless communist revolution is moving faster than either Russia's or Cuba's bloody revolutions went -- and much MUCH faster than Hitler's takeover of Germany.
How the United States and its people could spend 50 years, trillions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of young mens' lives fighting communism everywhere else in the world, but apparently fail to notice it when it slipped in the White House's back door is a horrible, terrifying, disgusting mystery.
Re: the liberties/security quote from our Ben Franklin:
ReplyDeleteI quoted it to agree with you, that the concept of giving these barbarians civil trials rather than military tribunals will open up years of subjecting our own constitutional rights to scrutinies, which will ultimately lead to less liberties for us, the citizens. It may also lead to less security for us as well, as our military's tactics and actions will be argued in open court.
These people declared war on the U.S. years ago. They should be tried as enemy combatants, so that our system of civil laws cannot be subjected to the breaking-down and erosion that will inevitably result from the circus that will play out on the worldwide news.
Separately, U.S. law has always held that all people committing crimes on U.S. soil are afforded U.S. rights. I've never understood why, but I also can't propose a better way. What's the opposite? No U.S. rights in a trial taking place in the U.S.? Who could be the judge? Who could prosecute or defend? If you can't try someone for their crime on U.S. soil in a trial based on U.S. law, how can you try them? Subject all non-citizens who commit crimes on U.S. soil to a military tribunal? That doesn't work either. See the dilemma here? We can all agree that when U.S. rights create a BENEFIT for a non-citizen defendant, we should not afford them those rights. But in the absence of those rights, what manner of trial can be proposed? Are we going to put every shoplifter who happens to be here on a work visa in front of a military trial? No, of course not. The case of the enemy combatant captured in Iraq seems easier. It's a military tribunal. And yet, this isn't so straight forward either. Armies don't prosecute their POW's at trials. They release them at the end of hostilities. An international Court could try them on war crimes, but frankly, these guys (Khalid, etc.) haven't committed war crimes. The 9/11 perpetrators committed non-war crimes. Hijacking, conspiracy to commit murder, property damage, possibly all with a hate crime tag. They didn't use mustard gas. They didn't use chemical warfare. They didn't do anything against the Geneva Convention. Therefore, no international Court. They didn't commit crimes while serving IN the U.S. military (except Hasan, and we'll leave that out), so no U.S. military tribunal. I think we're probably in hole in the justice system that doesn't have an easy answer.
Again thanks for the comment...Let me break this down into parts...first, I'm not clear that they’re smart enough to orchestrate the type of national shift that you describe. They may want it, but making it happen is another thing.
ReplyDeleteAs conspiracies go, I am more likely to follow the direction that this isn't national at all, but instead international. Between the Copenhagen (Global Warming) Agreement which clearly states that we would have to secede some of our constitution to a World Court, the selling of our debt to other countries, and the taxes (see the latest post) that will drive more businesses and jobs offshore; I’m more concerned that there is a movement to embrace a EU style merger.
In that vein, I couldn’t agree more that it is time to take a stand. I believe that this is an issue of parties though, and not just this administration. We need to discard the Democratic and Republican incumbents for people who really want to do the job of protecting and supporting the citizens of the United States. It is time we found some courage and sent it to Washington.
Gotcha, you make some very good points. I think the defining point for me is that they were captured as part of a military defense of our nation. If I have my facts straight, they are not in uniform, but have proclaimed war on our nation. This means they should be dealt with as spies and that is done in a military court.
ReplyDelete