Miranda Rights for Terrorists

[Andy9o8 2]

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Bush was so focused on denying them the protections of the third Geneva convention that he completely forgot about the fourth one.

Oopsie.

[carmenc 0]

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You might like to take a closer look at what the Allies did at the end of WWII with German and Japanese military leaders. Many were tried, some were imprisoned, some were executed.

And, many POWs were held for a number of years at the end of hostilities...especially by the Soviets but by other Allied powers as well.

The fact that things happened does not make them right.

Some people really did do terrible things, and deserved punishment. But some probably got scapegoated by the victors, which was pretty unfair.

I don't think anyone was executed after WWII except for war crimes, which are well defined. Normal POWs who had been following legal orders were returned home after the war.

[TomAiello 26]

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I don't think anyone was executed after WWII except for war crimes, which are well defined. Normal POWs who had been following legal orders were returned home after the war.

The Soviets really did hold a number of prisoners well past the wars end.

Regardless, "it happened before" is poor justification for it to happen again.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[carmenc 0]

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I don't think anyone was executed after WWII except for war crimes, which are well defined. Normal POWs who had been following legal orders were returned home after the war.

The Soviets really did hold a number of prisoners well past the wars end.

Regardless, "it happened before" is poor justification for it to happen again.

True. I now see that bodypilot90 and piper think the USA should emulate the USSR under Stalin.

[Andy9o8 2]

By the way, Carmen, don't forget the all-important Carmen Miranda rights:

http://www.beaugrande.com/Miranda%20Rights%20UPP.jpg

[SivaGanesha 2]

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You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.

Give me a break,

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/miranda_rights_for_terrorists.asp

I guess my immediate reaction--I may need to think more about it--is that people should ALWAYS have a right to a lawyer, and if the government has a compelling need to use force to get someone to answer questions immediately, then there should be a mechanism for the government to go directly to the US Supreme Court to get an injunction authorizing such force. The person would still have a right to an attorney in dealing with the Supreme Court, but the Court would make its decision in a matter of hours.

If it's not important enough to immediately demand the attention of all nine justices of the Supreme Court, then it's not important enough to bypass the usual due process/Miranda procedures.

If it's TRULY a matter of imminent national security--and the government isn't just BS'ing--then it's important enough to require the immediate, full, and undivided attention of the Supreme Court.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[rhaig 0]

miranda applies to the US civilian court system. If they are arrested and processed in the civilian court system, then miranda applies. If they are processed through military court system, or not the US court system, then miranda doesn't apply.

edit to add: miranda doesn't just apply to US citizens.

--
Rob

[StreetScooby 5]

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Our morality as a nation is...

To quote Paul Tibbets, there is no morality in war. He got it right.

We are all engines of karma

[billvon 3,067]

>To quote Paul Tibbets, there is no morality in war. He got it right.

Then why are we up in arms about North Korea's weapons programs? T hey are as moral in pursuing them, and have as much right to do so, as we did.

[SivaGanesha 2]

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miranda applies to the US civilian court system. If they are arrested and processed in the civilian court system, then miranda applies. If they are processed through military court system, or not the US court system, then miranda doesn't apply.

edit to add: miranda doesn't just apply to US citizens.

how it should work:

in civilian custody-->miranda applies but with some mechanism for expediting the process in extreme cases

in military custody and us citizen and/or on us soil-->military justice system applies

in military custody and non-us citizen outside us-->geneva convention applies, no exceptions whatsoever no matter how extreme the situation

Ie if the military feels that harsh treatment of a non-US citizen, beyond what international law normally allows, is necessary to prevent grave harm to the national interest, the civilian court system must first become involved. However there should be a method for handling such situations expeditiously in extreme situations, through direct involvement of the civilian Supreme Court, when time is of the essence to prevent a catastrophe.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[kelpdiver 2]

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I don't think anyone was executed after WWII except for war crimes, which are well defined. Normal POWs who had been following legal orders were returned home after the war.

Let's get real - the Soviets killed a hell of a lot of people who committed no war crimes at all. Unless not dying by the hands of the Nazis counts as a crime. People in German territories were told they could come home without reprisals. It was a lie.

[georgerussia 0]

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The Soviets really did hold a number of prisoners well past the wars end.

I have to say that according to the latest researches vast majority of those were hold for real crimes (for example, voluntarily joining Nazi police to participate in acts against humanity). Most of them actually deserved death penalty, but were forgiven (it was replaced by 5-10-15 years in prison) for political reasons.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[Andy9o8 2]

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The Soviets really did hold a number of prisoners well past the wars end.

I have to say that according to the latest researches vast majority of those were hold for real crimes (for example, voluntarily joining Nazi police to participate in acts against humanity). Most of them actually deserved death penalty, but were forgiven (it was replaced by 5-10-15 years in prison) for political reasons.

Revisionist history, and I'm not buying it.

[georgerussia 0]

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Revisionist history, and I'm not buying it.

This one seems to be true. I've read a couple of analysis based on World War II-era NKVD documents which became recently (2005) available. I did my cross-reference check with some of them when I was last time in Russia. Seems to be pretty consistent with analysis and the other data I have.

We live in quite interesting times. Basically each year more and more documents become available, which often significantly change the history comparing to what we were taught in school. More World War II documents became available just a couple of months ago in Ukraine (april 2009), released by Ukrainian SBU (ex-KGB). And I gonna work with them this Tue, as there are several popular historic works on this topic (Ukrainian Rebel Army vs Wehrmacht), which disagree in details. Not all revisions are false.

Too bad it took so long.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[warpedskydiver 0]

It all depends on whom is designating whom as a terrorist.

A guy caught on a battlefield in a foreign country?

A guy who has ties and financial support from an organization such as Al Qaeda?

Someone who has a a hundred firearms and tens or hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition?

Some poor Veteran who speaks his mind?

A little old lady whose husband was a Korean war Veteran and left a few goodies in the basement when he died?

[nerdgirl 0]

The underlying strategic policy change, which include legal ramifications, (if that is what this is signaling) is to treat counter-terrorism as a principally a law enforcement effort rather than military issue. That is more interesting to me. One result of that potential change is a clear route to prosecution as opposed to indefinite detainment outside of any domestic or international legal framework, as [Nightingale] has well-explained & others have mentioned. Frankly, the military has more than enough to do with counterinsurgency. But, as always, don’t believe me.

From Foxnews.com:

“Gen. David Petraeus, head of Central Command, said Thursday that FBI agents, not members of the U.S. military, have read rights to detainees in only a ‘very limited number of cases’ and that the practice had been used in other countries previously.

“‘This is the FBI doing what the FBI does,’ Petraeus said. ‘So we are comfortable with this.’”

If one’s argument is that it is interfering with military operations and the military’s counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, that argument may need revisiting.

While a bit dated (the figures are from late 2003),

“It is a little-publicized fact that police have arrested more [radical Islamist] terrorists than military operations have captured or killed. Police in more than 100 countries have arrested more than 3,000 suspects linked to al-Qaeda, while the military has captured some 650 enemy combatants.” (Of which some percentage were ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ - some credible estimates are as high as 90%. Want to get the bad guys not metaphorically clog the system with every sheep herder, poppy farmer, or taxi driver or radicalize additional folks.)

Reducing and eliminating a terrorist threat is critically tied to local law enforcement whether they are in Los Angeles or Lahore. This is one of the reasons why the military is training more police trainers in Afghanistan. US and allied uniformed service members are not supposed *to be* local law enforcement officers, even if more and more are training them.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying