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(no subject)
So Chimpy McFuckstick doesn't think we're heading into a recession.
He thinks it's "patentedly" unfair if the telecom companies are actually held accountable for their illegal actions.
...
I can't even go on. My brain wants to implode from listening to that dipshit.
He thinks it's "patentedly" unfair if the telecom companies are actually held accountable for their illegal actions.
...
I can't even go on. My brain wants to implode from listening to that dipshit.
no subject
When is this war going to end, not just "when we win," but what specific event will or even can ever occur that will trigger the end of this so-called war?
If a drug cartel decides to shoot some police, is every drug dealer now an illegal combatant if we declare war on them?
If someone threatens government authority, like say... if they own firearms, belong to a domestic militia, and make statements about armed insurrection, could the government declare war on these people too by the same logic?
Next, who gets to decide exactly who is an illegal combatant and who is not?
What is the legal process for this?
What oversight is there?
What evidence is sufficient to give someone this title and suspend all their rights, and what right does someone have to contest this status decision?
no subject
If a drug cartel decides to shoot some police, is every drug dealer now an illegal combatant if we declare war on them?
If say the Columbian Drug Cartels set up operations in the US and started lobbing Mortar rounds at the Pentagon and other Government offices, I bloody well expect we'd see some Marines landing in Columbia. Beyond a certain point criminal acts come under the purview of the Army and not the police. I'd say that 9/11 pretty much was that clear turning point if the Cole and other prior incidents were not.
Next, who gets to decide exactly who is an illegal combatant and who is not?
What is the legal process for this?
What oversight is there?
What evidence is sufficient to give someone this title and suspend all their rights, and what right does someone have to contest this status decision?
I take it then that you've not actually read anything connected to relevant case law have you? Typical. Pronouncements about habeas corpus being suspended and you haven't even cracked a single case or looked at the Geneva Conventions.
I'll try to summarize from memory.
Joe spy/insurgent/terrorist/freedom fighter is captured on the battlefield or in territory where our soldiers are working with the allies. This could be a friendly allied country or on a true battle field.
Joe goes gets disarmed, frisked, he keeps his helmet and water if he has it, gets medical attention and is treated according to the rules of war and then goes to the POW cages. If joe was in civilian clothes with nothing showing he was a soldier or a maquis then he's likely being stuck in cages or handed off to the MPs because he's an illegal combatant.
Obvious insurgents/maquis who wear an armband or some sort of recognizable symbol showing that they're combatants are treated just like other soldiers. Not so obvious spies or insurgents or terrorists who aren't wearing some sort of symbol as I said are handed off to MPs who then put them in separate detention.
Civilians captured in an area are set aside in a different sort of detention. Just as Allied Civilians were in axis territories and axis civilians were in allied territories. They went under house arrest. Rules are now that the detaining power has to have a hearing on their status every 6 months if possible and that the detention must be as similar to military housing as possible.
POWs don't get a hearing to determine their status as POWs. They wore a symbol stating they were soldiers. They stay in facilities similar to what the soldiers of the detaining power are staying in and are removed from the combat zone to a place of safety in as expedient a manner as possible. Officers don't work, the men may be put to work for reasonable amounts of time. They get recreation time and infractions can be dealt with in certain ways. Military law still applies, if they break military law (strike someone) then they may be punished as is normal for that force. Their release occurs when the negotiations for such release are effected or the controlling power wants to release them with a word of honor that they will not engage in combat against that power again(parole). Traditionally, if paroled troops were captured again, they lost all rights to just treatment.
continued
Illegal Combatants are detained in either POW type camps or in military prisons. Note that the German War Criminals were mostly soldiers, they were detained after the cessation of hostilities in a military prison in individual cells and were very limited in their movements. Their status as an illegal combatant is decided by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal which determines that status. It's not a habeas corpus hearing, it's a status hearing. If they're found by the evidence to NOT have violated the rules of war, they're put back into general holding with the POW's or released if the detaining power so chooses. If they are found to have been illegal combatants THEN they get a military trial, under military rules which decide the facts of the case like a soldier who was charged with say murder or desertion, with a military lawyer as defense and are found guilty or innocent.
Those found guilty have penalties up to murder to a few months or years in jail. Jail terms can last years after the clear cessation of the hostilities.
Terrorists fall under the category of saboteurs and spies. They don't wear uniforms, they attack illegal targets and they often don't adhere to other rules of war like respecting medical personnel and non combatants. Clearly defined soldiers who violate the rules of war (SS who executed prisoners or were pointed out by civilians as to have murdered civilians) were set aside from POW camps and were detained by the MPs in special camps and tried for those violations of war crimes.
To my knowledge, the Guantanamo Bay detainees have reached the point where they're getting the initial hearings. Some have been checked out already by earlier hearings which had issues under US law (the GC's state that the initial hearing MUST be codified in law, "Regularly Constituted"). A great number have been released while others have been detained. Due to the problems with the initial hearings those hearings must be redone because the Supreme Court found issue with the hearings as they were erected by the President's side. They found that Regularly Constituted meant that the courts must be legally erected under law. So, congress had to work out the procedures and pass a law articulating those procedures. I think some of that goes to powers allocated to the president vs those allocated to congress (To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court as it were).
Once their status is determined they'll start getting trials with a military lawyer or other lawyers assisting as it's a court case heard under UCMJ. I suggest you read up on Ex parte Quirin as well as Ex Parte Milligan. Johnson v Eisentrager is also interesting. Reviewing the relevant sections of the GC's might also be a good idea.
Also of note is that the accommodations of the prisoners, especially in the POW sense must be similar to than that which the guards who watch them are. Considering that the guards at Camp x-ray were staying in canvas tents in the Cuban heat, I was surprised at the number of people complaining about the covered but open air cages that the prisoners had at Camp X-ray.