Bean votes for H R 6166
From WaPo,
The House approved an administration-backed system of questioning and prosecuting terrorism suspects yesterday, setting clearer limits on CIA interrogation techniques but denying access to courts for detainees seeking to challenge their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere.
Bean one of 38 Democrats voting for the bill.
I think captured enemy combatants should sit in Gitmo for the duration. They should wait until UBL issues a Fatwa of surrender. Last thing US should do is extend any rights for judicial review.
So good for Congresswoman Bean. Now what do Duckworth, Hare, Laesh, and Seals think?
15 comments:
Again, I only ask what are the goals of the Global War on Terrorism.
Last night I went up to Northwestern to see a true hero speak, Akbar Ganji, an Iranian Jornalist who spent the last 6 years in prison for reading and talking to intellectuals. Basically, as this man spoke, I realized that he wants what I want. But he knows far more than me about the situation, there is more at stake for him and he has put more on the line than I will ever need to.
This Washington Post article is a decent summary of Ganji's trip to the West. He believes that the worst thing for the democratic refrom movement in Iran right now would be American bombs or cruise missles. If any of you are around the University of Chicago tongiht, I strongly encourage you to listen to what he has to say and also the watch the questions that people ask.
Thursday September 28th, 5:30PM, University Of Chicago, International House, Assembly Hall.
Which brings me to my point, and that is we need to take a stand on human rights. I'm fine with creating a redefinition of the Geneva Conventions, mainly becuase I agree the wording is vague. Am I worried about terrorists being aware of our techniques and thus they become less effective? sure, but it is a tradeoff I think is necessary to make. I think this is a bad bill because it does not go far enough.
I look at Israel, and I think the only way they will "win" is by killing every last Palestinian. Freedom, Peace, and Democracy can't develope in a place that is largely illiterate, who's infrastructure and economy is destroyed. We need joint investment and open markets. Democracies without a middle class is pointless. A free and functioning middle class gives the society a reason to care about the government and the government a reason to care about the society.
I apologize for the incoherence. I just wanted to get a bunch of ideas out there worth considering. I just want to know what is winning? And what do we need to do? And what are we willing to sacrifice?
I hope the other Democrats will honor American values like habeas corpus and the rule of law, unlike Bean.
Too many false premises in this post to list 'em all, but for starters:
(1) This isn't WW2. If UBL surrenders or dies, it won't end. So what we do now will stand for a very long time.
(2) The bill is badly drafted and being hurried through. It's not just about "enemy combantants." And it includes a preemptive pardon for any Americans who commit war crimes.
(3) Bullying men in suits are often mistaken. Our country is already responsible for many innocent people being held in Guantanamo and at least one innocent Canadian citizen being tortured overseas. This bill guarantees more of the same, with no accountability.
Obama in true Obama form stands with a pragmatic progressive message. Video and text can be seen over at Soap Box Chicago.
This seems like something that a lot of people can get behind. Its not everything I want, but I understand that the rest of the country does not agree with me and further more that there are people in power with more information and training than me.
Obama should read Musharraf's memoir and the chapter on how Pakistani Intel found Daniel Pearl buried in ten pieces. Butchered by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed now in Gitmo who Sen Obama would have use extend rights too.
Bill,
Let me get this right:
Our enemies are brutal and lawless, and as a result, we should be brutal and lawless?
Remember when Ronald Reagan talked about America as a bright shining city on a hill? Where is that sort of leadership when we need it most?
Bill,
What happens if some president in the future decides, for whatever executive reason, you are an enemy combatant?
How much torture can you withstand, my friend?
Under the House bill as written nothing in the above scenario is outside the realm of possibility.
McCain's "non-compromise" with Bush allows the president (whether the current president or a future president) to decide the definition of enemy combatant and also decide how to treat those prisoners.
Harold Henderson is right -- this was a legislative rush job. Bush and the Republicans have had 4 years of majority rule in which to come up with a rational, well-thought-out plan to deal with enemy combatants and to divine the innocent from the guilty (many of those men, women and children tortured at Abu Ghraib and other US-controlled Iraqi prisons were actually found innocent in later months).
But no, Bush and the Republicans are rushing through tyrannical legislation in the short weeks just before the recess for an election.
Why do you think that is Bill?
Bush, with Bean's sorry help, has turned America into a nation that tortures people.
And you cheer them on.
Pathetic.
I stand with Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington and all the other Founding Fathers who fought against tyranny and oppression and stood up for God-given human rights.
You stand with torturers like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Saddam Hussein, and other nefarious characters of history recent and past.
And though you may try, you cannot argue otherwise. Facts are stubborn things -- an honest and clear reading of HR 6166 allows our president the ability to sanction torture.
As Americans, we ought to be better than that. But, once more as we've seen from Katrina to healthcare and from port security to economic policy Republicans are putting America on a race toward the gutter and the worst of human tendencies.
The City on a Hill is to our backsides now as Bush, Rove, McCain and Bill Baar have us running headlong down that hill.
I remember riding a train in Germany during the Reagan years. Explaining to the guy next to me in broken German whether Reagan was really going to wage nuclear war.
Yes, Skeeter, this is a brutal war and it's going to require brutality on our part. I can't think of a war that isn't brutal.
One guy in Afganistan with a lazer guide and radio in contact to F16's killed 6,000 taliban... (google around to confirm but that's what I recall). That's brutal.
Lawless, no, not at all, and in fact the problem is were rewriting some laws that have served well.
We've never in our history extended habeas corpus to POWs or combatents captured fighting outside the rules of war.
Obama is wrong. These guys aren't criminals unless we decide to go after them for War Crimes.
Otherwise, we agreed to treat them as though they're POWs and the should sit it out for the duration.
It was wrong to try Reed the shoe bomber, or Moussaui we just convicted for 911. They should have gone to Gitmo, for the duration; maybe try them for War Crimes after it's over and passions cooled.
Obama nees to reread Chief Justice Stone and William O. Douglas's criticism of Justice Jackson's participation in Nuremburg war crime trials. They felt it was a mockery of our constitution to participate. We paraded vengency as justice and shamed justice by doing so (according to Stone and the civil libertarian Douglas.)
Chief Justice Stone wrote privately in November 1945 that it would not disturb him greatly if the power of the Allied victors was "openly and frankly used to punish the German leaders for being a bad lot, but it disturbs me some to have it dressed up in the habiliments of the common law and the Constitutional safeguards to those charged with crime."
That's what Obama's doing here. Dressing a POW cage with habiliments of constitutional safeguards.
You declare war on the United States you ask for death, or if captured, a cage for the duration.
That's it.
Geez, Obama talks about his kids getting a knock on the door if this law passed. How can a guy from Chicago of Jon Burge think that of Republicans and this bill.
That's real fear peddling.
After you invoked Pearl, I feel the need to plug Daniel Pearl's Music Days.
http://www.music-days.org/
Your sentiments about Justice Jackson and his critics is noted. I believe they had/have a legit point.
So who are we going to hold? everyone who shows up for a Hamas rally?
I just don't see how incursions into other countries to capture their citizens, wars that destroy regional economies, and the backing of oppressive dictators such as the Saudi's will win this war.
As I stated yesterday and will continue to state, we saw how that worked out for us in Iran. Now we are in a much tougher situation regarding Iran. Will I surprised if Iraq or Saudi Arabia becomes more like the current Iranian administration in terms of world view. I would call this pre-9/11 thinking, but it is actually pre-WWII thinking.
I think Baar is a terrorist.
Let's lock him up just in case.
No trial, no access to an attorney, no limit to the time of his detention.
Mr. Bush can decide on how to make Baar talk.
Baar won't mind. He will realize that this will make us all safe.
That's reasonable, right Bill?
I think Military Tribunals a reasonable way to go. I have no problem going before one since you and NW seem to think it necessary.
The bill codifies what in fact we've already practiced: detainment indefinitly, for the duration, of enemy combatants.
Many detainess have gone before tribunals already and for one reason or another released and repatriated to their home countries.
I certainly would have no problem going before a Military Tribunal too establish if I should be detained as an enemy combatant for the duration in Gitmo.
I'm disgusted Obama would advocate revising this to Federal Courts instead for the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (who Obama acknowledge in that speech). A guy who hacked an American reporter into ten pieces and video taped his beheading... google around for it. I'm sure it's still there.
The video is probably right next to the one of us using Chemical Weapons or the ones of the military contractors driving around shooting indescriminately at other cars.
How are we even having a discussion about morality with us and terrorist organizations?
Not hard Crash_dev...
We have Marines facing the death penalty for murder.
We have guards from Abu Garib serving hard labor for abuse of prisoners.
We're not morally superior people. But we have a Military which where service members report abuse, the reports acted on, and people punished; sometimes harshly.
I have no problem comparing the morality of our system with theirs.
None what so ever.
Bill,
You will go before one if and when we say so. You don't get to decide on that.
And you will do so without access to trial, since the government knows that if we allow you to communicate with counsel, you might just be engage in more of your terroristic activities.
And as for that trial: Don't worry about Bill. We have enough secret testimony to keep you locked up for a long time.
Of coure you won't get to confront those making the accusations against you. That might be dangerous.
And if we have to use unusual methods to get people to tell us the truth about you, that won't bother you? After all, you believe that people tell the truth under torture, right?
This is just the sort of thing we need to keep America safe for our enemies. Right Bill?
That's all O.K. with you?
You are one fine American Bill
This is just the sort of thing we need to keep America safe for our enemies. Right Bill?
Yes, I think we need it. In fact we've always had the tribunals. This law simply codifies and endoreses past practices which have served us well.
That's all O.K. with you?
Yes, it is ok with me.
PS I don't think water boarding is torture and from what I read it's very effective for getting the truth.
I'm more leery of the alternatives to waterboarding. You eliminate techniques that work without causing perm damage for what?
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