""My opinion is," she said, "if the death of 3,000 people isn't sufficient for a death penalty in this country, then why do we even have the death penalty?""
Oh, I dunno, for cases where there's been a guilty conviction and evidence not obtained under tortured and actual legal processes?
I'm going to take the opposite view and say this is a good thing:
"Neither the system is ready, nor are the defense attorneys ready to do a death penalty case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba," Major Fleener said.We/They will be forced to hash out some things relating to the system that otherwise might not get done, and I suspect that it's harder to avert one's eyes when the death penalty is on the table. Imperfect, but there it is.
Cala's quote and response is right on, but I want to draw attention to the previous sentence, which caused my jaw to drop.
Ms. Burlingame said such a case could help refocus the public's attention on what she called the calculated brutality of the attacks, which she said has been largely forgotten.
The brutality has been forgotten, ever since 9/11 has been co-opted to sell sundries like SUVs, shoes, and Rudy Giuliani.
SCMTim has a good point, if one that it is a sad commentary on us.
1- Holy crap! I didn't read the article, but yeah, whatever sicko killed 3,000 people has to get the chair!
One consequence might be that the miserable lack of due process in these trials will be glazed over because, fuck, it's KSM!!! 9/11!!! ... and then there will be a precedent for similar injustice in the trial of people who may very well be innocent.
I do think this makes the contrast between Clinton and Obama that much more important. We know the way she handles this sort of challenge.
Obama has shown some willingness to take this logic head on, though mostly before he was in a national campaign. Maybe it will work against a Republican machine that's beginning to grind and hiccup. Maybe it won't, but I'm willing to take a chance.
"My opinion is," she said, "if the death of 3,000 people isn't sufficient for a death penalty in this country, then why do we even have the death penalty?"
I assume she's all in favor of strapping down Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, everyone in Congress who voted to authorize the war, and giving them all lethal injections then, right?
One consequence might be
Or that might be the whole point.
Okay, we've been down this path before, right? The Palmer raids, Sacco and Vanzetti, even the Scottsboro Boys -- we've had a lot of panics in this country about how some evil, evil force is Destroying Our Way of Life Forever.
It's a terrible cycle of purge-and-burn, and we should fight as hard as humanly possible to preserve our values and principles (not to mention people's lives) in the face of it. But we will survive it, we will get through it.
At least that's how I'm feeling today. Also, my good friend has graduated from her gyn-oncologist. More than four years cancer-free! He drew a little cap-and-gown figure on her medical chart and sang Pomp and Circumstance to her to celebrate.
Am I just out of touch, or is it odd that the "courtroom" pictured appears to have a giant telescreen directly behind the judge's chair?
As far as using this as a GOP campaign tactic: this is one area where I think it definitely helps to have McCain as the general election opponent. The subtext of this move is that anything goes in the Great and Glorious War on Terror, and McCain has gone out of his way to try to make himself look like one of the good guys on torture. This is one flip-flop he's going to have trouble on - not because flip-flopping conflicts with his Straight Talk image, but because it conflicts with his life narrative (the grizzled POW torture victim who's against using torture). It's going to be tricky for McCain to demagogue on this without looking like he's betrayed his past.
Also, note that the timing of these trials appears to be the work of Jim Haynes, rump neocon DOD general counsel. (Scroll down to "The Political Prosecutions Initiative.")
11: I assume that the accused are to make video appearances. It happens often enough in civil US courts; why would they transport prisoners to another location within Gitmo if they don't have to?
14: Doesn't that make the whole thing way too McLuhan and Baudrillard and shit? Don't they know they just end up aiding and abetting the postmodernists who are even now marshalling a fascist clone army at Swarthmore?
It's not like any of those issues got ironed out in the Padilla trial. I see no reason why these trials will be less heinous miscarriages of justice than that was.
17: from the admin point of view, why mess with a good thing?
They are playing games with the EU over passenger info and flights, too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/11/usa.theairlineindustry
He drew a little cap-and-gown figure on her medical chart and sang Pomp and Circumstance to her to celebrate.
That's totally awesome.
10: I don't see how those historical analogues hold up. How is Gitmo/Bagram/etc. like Sacco and Venzetti? What prolonged, open-ended foreign wars had the US committed itself to that resulted in the Palmer Raids? The events you're talking about are largely linked to waves of anti-immigration sentiment that arose in response to new waves of immigration, and subsided as those immigrants became more widely accepted in the US. The police state mentality building now is a purported response to a supposed external threat, which in turn exacerbates whatever threat actually exists, as extended foreign occupations, violations of civil liberties and harassment of American Muslims increases the possibility of another terrorist attack on US soil, which will presumably increase the same destructive policies in response. I don't see this simply blowing over, absent a sea change in the way American foreign policy is conducted.
EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America
Holy crap, man. It was bad enough when they insisted on their right to arrest folks who were merely switching planes in the US. Now you don't even have to land, or make a phone call, for us to be spying on you.
Also, my good friend has graduated from her gyn-oncologist. More than four years cancer-free! He drew a little cap-and-gown figure on her medical chart and sang Pomp and Circumstance to her to celebrate.
Witt, that is fabulous. Both for your friend and the doc's action.
re: 22
The linked article is shorter than the print article. Which made clear that they also want full sets of data on people accompanying passengers to the airport but not actually flying themselves.
I know! Let's make that Mexico wall go all the way around the US, and build it a little higher. Like, we could make a GIANT DOME.
Or, a shorter version of 21: there are a bunch of crazy people on the right and the left that want US security policy to basically look more and more like Israeli security policy. We shouldn't be surprised when the US justice system becomes the permanent civil liberties clusterfuck that Israel's has become.
people accompanying passengers to the airport
The linked article says people accompanying passengers past the security checkpoint (e.g., parents escorting their kids onto planes). Do you mean that, or do you mean they actually want data on the person who gives you a ride to the airport?!?
What if you take public transit?
He drew a little cap-and-gown figure on her medical chart and sang Pomp and Circumstance to her to celebrate.
Hate to be a `me too' but damn, this is excellent. Both the result, and the doc. I'm going to suggest a graduation party for my mother if when she gets there.
God, that EU passenger information business is seriously unhinged. Why isn't there more of an outcry from the business community in this country? Seems like this kind of shit is terrible for international commerce.
re: 27
Yeah, they mean the non-flying people who are going through the security checkpoints at the airport.
30: Oh, well then. That's completely reasonable!
Not. But by comparison, I mean.
they mean the non-flying people who are going through the security checkpoints at the airport
Huh, here, non-flying people aren't allowed past the security checkpoints.
23: You are if you're accompanying someone with special needs--a child, an elderly disabled person--who is flying alone, actually.
I presume it's for people like medical staff accompanying people with disabilities, or parents accompanying children. That sort of thing.
34 --- right, you can't go just to have another 20 minutes of sappy goodbyes. Net win, that.
I know! Let's make that Mexico wall go all the way around the US, and build it a little higher. Like, we could make a GIANT DOME.
Domes can crack. The safest thing to do is simply to move the U.S. underground, adapt to the dark, and abandon the surface world to the Islamofascists.
36: Exactly. With extra bonus feature that we'll have to use tons of electricity lighting the place, which will create more global warming for the Islamofascists. Maybe in like a few hundred years they'll all have died out and we can surface and take back what is rightfully ours.
Also, are you the same felix that was around for a while several months ago? Where'd you go, dammit? Also, welcome back.
37: That, and the rest of the world could help it's energy problems by pumping water into the tunnels.
Yes. Thanks!
And I went underground, B, for fear of Islamofascists. I thought that was clear.
sang Pomp and Circumstance to her
Beautiful.
One of the memorable moments of my college years was Simon Schama trying to get a whole lecture hall to follow the bouncing ball and sing along with the rather hilarious lyrics of the thing at the last session of a class on the British Empire.
Yeah, her doctor sounds terrific. Apparently the receptionist later mock-groused that she can't get the doctor to stop drawing on the front of the charts. I say hooray for oncologists with a sense of humor.
41: So you've got internet down in the tunnels now? Hmmmm.
Witt, 10.3 made me grin, and then call up Mom and share it with her, and she laughed. (I mention Mom here from time to time, particularly in how wishing well for her influences my thinking about political priorities. I should also mention that she's now more than 15 years clean after a severe case of breast cancer, and continuing to do well.)
The events you're talking about are largely linked to waves of anti-immigration sentiment that arose in response to new waves of immigration, and subsided as those immigrants became more widely accepted in the US. The police state mentality building now is a purported response to a supposed external threat
I think the boundary between those two areas is pretty permeable. What was anti-German sentiment in the US in the early 1910s if not in part a response to immigration, but also to a supposed external threat?
I'm not minimizing or glossing over the tremendous danger we face now. I'm just saying that we've jumped hysterically off cliffs before, as a country, and then painstakingly crawled our way back up. Just ask Fred Korematsu.
44: So you've got internet down in the tunnels now? Hmmmm.
We're not barbarians down here, B.
The first order of business after the Great Retreat Into Darkness was to make sure we could all still read Instapundit.
One consequence might be that the miserable lack of due process in these trials will be glazed over because, fuck, it's KSM!!! 9/11!!! ... and then there will be a precedent for similar injustice in the trial of people who may very well be innocent.
My initial thought is that any trial does such work as you reference, but amping up the punishment makes it more likely we'll reconsider. That said, I'm pretty willing to believe that Bush strategy is to constantly try to hit the long ball: force an egregious choice, and all of the ones underneath it become OK. I think--or hope, anyway--that they've misjudged the public's mood.
I'm just saying that we've jumped hysterically off cliffs before, as a country, and then painstakingly crawled our way back up. Just ask Fred Korematsu.
Except that it's not clear to me that we've ever done it with less reason. I don't know that we've ever faced a more trivial major threat than the Islam-scaries.
I don't know that we've ever faced a more trivial major threat than the Islam-scaries.
Yeah, you may well be right. I'm not informed enough to be certain. Where's a historian when you need 'em?
It's not like any of those issues got ironed out in the Padilla trial.
That was a model of due process compared to the kangaroo-court "military tribunals" that these 6 guys will face. Two words suffice: "secret evidence." YES, we're going to execute you. NO, we can't let you know why.
Military justice is actually pretty fair, don't get me wrong on that, but these guys aren't being given real courts-martial. They're getting exactly the kind of bogus tribunals excluded by the Geneva Conventions.
Also, it's amazing that the article doesn't even mention Moe Davis, the former chief prosecutor down there who quit rather than participate in, among other things, rushing up these capital trials in time for the 2008 elections.
The WSJ story on the trials is better.
There are several things going on here, but another factor, imo, is that even as the government is losing some public momentum, they're also losing momentum in the courts. They only got 5 votes in the DC Circuit (out of 10) a couple weeks ago to prevent lawyers for ordinary prisoners -- and judges -- from seeing the pertinent records. The lack of seriousness of the whole thing is distressing to anyone paying attention: instead of going after the big guys -- which was the basis of getting the MCA through -- it's been the little guys. Given the amount of time it's going to take to get anything meaningful under way, I'd say that this is probably a whole lot more about legacy than about electoral politics. (Although a political benefit in 2010 is a fine bonus). Nothing will happen in 2006 that forces either senator to take any position.
This is a good post from the ACS blog. Lessons Learned at Guantanamo Bay.
Lesson 1: Many long-standing principles of fundamental justice - American or international - seem not to count in Guantanamo (Part A: juvenile justice).
Lesson 2: Many long-standing principles of fundamental justice - American or international - seem not to count in Guantanamo (Part B: ex post facto laws).
Lesson 3: Military commission proceedings are transparent only when the government wants transparency, and remain shrouded in secrecy when the government does not.
Lesson Number 4: The government seems to have forgotten the meaning of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The lesson of these four lessons? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. What we saw yesterday in Guantanamo are precisely the kinds of short-cuts around, and even wholesale abandonment of, core principles that can lead to unjust convictions - or to the government's inability we've see for years to be able to obtain sustainable convictions at all, even in cases that demand prosecution and conviction.
Keeping the serious issues in the serious thread...
No more masturbating to Tom Lantos. I'm kind of sad about that.
It'll be interesting to see how soon (and if) the congressional Democrats' Israel policy changes. His seniority (and life story) really made him powerful.
Anyone in the PNW have any particular insight as to WTF is going on with the Washington Republican caucuses? Did they just believe so much of their own rhetoric after the 2006 gubernatorial race that they now believe that whoever controls the counting gets to decide the outcome?
Yay, political thread! Obamunards, to the barricades!
Back to the topic, I'm getting worn out trying to parse out the nefarious neocon reason for everything that happens. Is there a chance that--maybe--this is happening now because of some natural process internal to the Gitmo parallel justice system? Maybe they're ready to announce this because they're ready, and for no other political motive? A guy can dream.
58: You do realize this is the Bush Administration we're talking about?
Maybe they're ready to announce this because they're ready, and for no other political motive?
And that's why the chief PROSECUTOR resigned?
Is there a chance that--maybe--this is happening now because of some natural process internal to the Gitmo parallel justice system?
As to the timing: maybe. Napi says no issues will be raised that affect the 2008 election.
You should all follow the link in 13 to disabuse yourselves of the notion that the time is coincidental.
The title of this post, "Outrage On" is of course an allusion to the famous cry of the Human Torch, "Flame On". The Torch's refrain of course found resonance with the homosexual community ("flaming" being a common colloquialism for showing very obvious signs of homosexuality) and gained popularity there. Ergo, ipso facto and lopso opso by his employment of this slang Ogged is subtly letting us know that he is becoming more comfortable with the gay lifestyle. Very soon new he will open the closet door.
I didn't say it was likely. Perhaps they have to peg the politicization meter to make the deserved retribution unpalatable to the just.
Part of me is tired of this constant outrage. Part of me wants the new McCarthyism. "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Republican party?"
Anyone in the PNW have any particular insight as to WTF is going on with the Washington Republican caucuses?
Weird. I haven't been able to find anything more up-to-date than what's up at Josh Marshall's site, but the count is still stopped at 93%. The later it goes the more persuasive the explanation will have to be, but Huckabee's already demanding a recount. Hurrah for GOP internecine strife. On the Dem side, party officials reversed their call of Douglas County for Clinton, which means that Obama won every single county.
The safest thing to do is simply to move the U.S. underground, adapt to the dark, and abandon the surface world to the Islamofascists.
Yeah, just like in Day of the Dead! The liberal mad scientists will run a lab down there where they try to "cure" Islamofascists.
67: And if that doesn't work we'll just go all Morlock on their Eloi asses.
62 -- But a recitation of the crimes of KSM isn't going to help McCain. (I downloaded the indictment today, by the way, which gives a bit of detail on how the plot unfolded -- anyone who wants to read it should send me an email). And what's going to happen is that the system is going to be bogged down on some stupid crap, but nothing that requires anyone to take a stand.
69: But the Administration has shown every sign of believing that Those People Are Trying To Kill Us is a winning message for Republicans, and if that's the thinking they may just want KSM et al. back on front pages.
Asked about it, the Dem candidate can say 'he's been in jail for 5 years already, and their just finally getting their Katrina-like quasi-court system in gear. Cutting corners doesn't make us safe, and it doesn't speed things up. It just makes us look lame.'
He's on the front page today. No one cares. No one is going to care about some argument over access to witnesses, or production of documents, or whatever they'll be fighting about come October.
They will if that's what the Republican talking points dictate the Republicans should all start talking about.
72 -- If there's really something going on, a uniformed military officer will appear on TV, and talk about the importance of doing the thing right. There's 29% of people for whom this won't work. So?
And actually, McCain isn't Bush on these things: the trial will be going along under the law that he wrote/sponsored. He won't be constitutionally capable of calling the officer a traitor, and he might just be persuaded to tell surrogates not to either.
I don't think a lot of McCain, but he has a lot more vanity than the current guy. Rather, a different vanity: McCain wants to believe in an America that stands for honor and stuff. Bush wants to believe that his petulance is divinely inspired.
71: Oh, I agree that it's silly and I believe--as, admittedly, I did in 2004--that people will finally see through this bullshit. All I'm saying is that I assume that the Administration still believes that it's in the political interest of the Republican Party to do this now.
And I'm starting to see signs that at least one of the D candidates is working at framing this stuff as lame and pathetic. It's also evil, and I hope very much that the next administration will get to that (although I'm not optimistic), but for electoral purposes lame and pathetic looks like a good place to start.
PGD, as a long-time Pacific Northwest resident, I'm slightly baffled by the Washington State Republican Party right now. Beyond the obvious - they figured nobody in a position to get a hearing would make a complaint - I couldn't tell you what they're up to. I must say it's odd to feel any sympathy for Huckabee, but I don't like blatant cheating even on other side(s).
They're getting exactly the kind of bogus tribunals excluded by the Geneva Conventions.
The what?
Those are for the Swiss and other foreigners.
You surfaceworlders, with your "conventions" and your "tribunals" and your "rule of law"!
Down here in the tunnels we understand that the most important civil liberty is the right to be kept alive -- though admittedly in a cave, in the dark, eating mole.
eating mole.
It could be worse.
Odors distinguish friends from foes. To achieve a recognizable odor, naked mole-rats often roll about in the burrow's toilet chamber, coating their body with the familiar scent of the colony's feces and urine
We can identify our enemies by scent, and all we have to do is coat ourselves in our own urine?
I will bring this up at the next Cave Meeting, or maybe if I can find my laptop in the dark I'll post a thread about it on RedState.
