Tonus
06-11-2009, 01:51 PM
If this is true, then this is where the next 9/11 begins.
Miranda Warnings In The Battlefield? (http://www.qando.net/?p=2992)
This simply can’t be right, can it? That the Obama administration secretly directed the military to Mirandize combatants and terrorists when captured? Surely this is just crazy talk: (http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/miranda_rights_for_terrorists.asp)
… the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but it is clearly a part of this new global justice initiative.”
Ever since the Boumediene decision I’ve been warning that we’re turning legitimate military actions into law enforcement nightmares. No matter how badly we may want to achieve a world where transparency and the rule of law are the basis for all government action, the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people out there who want to see the US destroyed regardless of the cost to themselves or their families. If we start dealing with these people as if they were common criminals, then we erode the very fabric that binds us as a nation. No longer does the word “jurisdiction” mean anything. Instead, we hand our enemies the keys to the castle.
Consider the following:
A lawyer who has worked on detainee issues for the U.S. government offers this rationale for the Obama administration’s approach. “If the US is mirandizing certain suspects in Afghanistan, they’re likely doing it to ensure that the treatment of the suspect and the collection of information is done in a manner that will ensure the suspect can be prosecuted in a US court at some point in the future.”
But Republicans on Capitol Hill are not happy. “When they mirandize a suspect, the first thing they do is warn them that they have the ‘right to remain silent,’” says Representative Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “It would seem the last thing we want is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other al-Qaeda terrorist to remain silent. Our focus should be on preventing the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation–lawyering up.”
According to Mike Rogers, that is precisely what some human rights organizations are advising detainees to do. “The International Red Cross, when they go into these detention facilities, has now started telling people – ‘Take the option. You want a lawyer.’”
Rogers adds: “The problem is you take that guy at three in the morning off of a compound right outside of Kabul where he’s building bomb materials to kill US soldiers, and read him his rights by four, and the Red Cross is saying take the lawyer – you have now created quite a confusion amongst the FBI, the CIA and the United States military. And confusion is the last thing you want in a combat zone.”
Prosecution of any war, regardless of what your betters may think, is absolutely impossible in a law enforcement setting. Imagine having to “arrest” enemy soldiers instead of shooting them on sight. Or worse, think about the complications involved when a soldier shoots anyone, as compared to when a policeman is involved in a shooting. How would it work to take custody or extract intelligence from any enemy soldier if our soldiers have to apply mercurial Supreme Court precedent to each situation before risking their lives? Any cop will tell you that it’s hard enough keeping up with the norms as laid down by the high court (and interpreted by the administrators) in order to simply arrest common criminals. The idea that soldiers in the field of battle have the time or ability to “arrest” terrorists and the like, in places where English is not likely to be a common language (N.B. does that mean the military will be required to provide interpreters before apprehending anyone?) is simply ludicrous.
War is not pretty, and anyone who pretends to make it so is simply a fool. Ugly, unmentionable, outrageous and despicable things happen in war, as they do in any struggle for life. Creating an imaginary world in which there are breaks for tea and the enemy plays by the same (or any) rules is how the British lost North America. Subjecting ourselves to the vagaries or our enemy’s backwardness, by ignoring their complete denial of our moral superiority, will only serve to hasten our defeat.
For the foregoing reasons, I have to assume that Stephen Hayes is on the wrong end of some very bad information. As much as I may disagree with the Obama administration on a great many things, I have a hard time believing that they could be this naive and unconcerned about the future of our country that they would grant unprecedented gratuity to those who most wish us ill. The policies are most certainly wrong, but they can’t possibly be this misguided.
Special thanks are in order to the International Red Cross for aiding and abetting terrorists captured in the field, by advising them not to talk until they get their Constitutionally-guaranteed lawyer at their side. What's that? They're not protected by the US Constitution? Apparently, they are now!
If this is true, then the present administration has taken steps that even Jimmy Carter didn't have the stones to take, although I don't doubt that he would have wanted to. This means that the fanatical scumbags who continue to target America and its citizens for death have been granted even more protection... BY THE PEOPLE ELECTED TO PROTECT THOSE CITIZENS.
As Ed at Hot Air likes to say, elections have consequences. I hope that even the most fervent Obama supporter understands the consequences of this policy change. Hey, can we perform a late-term abortion of the election results?
Miranda Warnings In The Battlefield? (http://www.qando.net/?p=2992)
This simply can’t be right, can it? That the Obama administration secretly directed the military to Mirandize combatants and terrorists when captured? Surely this is just crazy talk: (http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/miranda_rights_for_terrorists.asp)
… the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.
Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but it is clearly a part of this new global justice initiative.”
Ever since the Boumediene decision I’ve been warning that we’re turning legitimate military actions into law enforcement nightmares. No matter how badly we may want to achieve a world where transparency and the rule of law are the basis for all government action, the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people out there who want to see the US destroyed regardless of the cost to themselves or their families. If we start dealing with these people as if they were common criminals, then we erode the very fabric that binds us as a nation. No longer does the word “jurisdiction” mean anything. Instead, we hand our enemies the keys to the castle.
Consider the following:
A lawyer who has worked on detainee issues for the U.S. government offers this rationale for the Obama administration’s approach. “If the US is mirandizing certain suspects in Afghanistan, they’re likely doing it to ensure that the treatment of the suspect and the collection of information is done in a manner that will ensure the suspect can be prosecuted in a US court at some point in the future.”
But Republicans on Capitol Hill are not happy. “When they mirandize a suspect, the first thing they do is warn them that they have the ‘right to remain silent,’” says Representative Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “It would seem the last thing we want is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other al-Qaeda terrorist to remain silent. Our focus should be on preventing the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation–lawyering up.”
According to Mike Rogers, that is precisely what some human rights organizations are advising detainees to do. “The International Red Cross, when they go into these detention facilities, has now started telling people – ‘Take the option. You want a lawyer.’”
Rogers adds: “The problem is you take that guy at three in the morning off of a compound right outside of Kabul where he’s building bomb materials to kill US soldiers, and read him his rights by four, and the Red Cross is saying take the lawyer – you have now created quite a confusion amongst the FBI, the CIA and the United States military. And confusion is the last thing you want in a combat zone.”
Prosecution of any war, regardless of what your betters may think, is absolutely impossible in a law enforcement setting. Imagine having to “arrest” enemy soldiers instead of shooting them on sight. Or worse, think about the complications involved when a soldier shoots anyone, as compared to when a policeman is involved in a shooting. How would it work to take custody or extract intelligence from any enemy soldier if our soldiers have to apply mercurial Supreme Court precedent to each situation before risking their lives? Any cop will tell you that it’s hard enough keeping up with the norms as laid down by the high court (and interpreted by the administrators) in order to simply arrest common criminals. The idea that soldiers in the field of battle have the time or ability to “arrest” terrorists and the like, in places where English is not likely to be a common language (N.B. does that mean the military will be required to provide interpreters before apprehending anyone?) is simply ludicrous.
War is not pretty, and anyone who pretends to make it so is simply a fool. Ugly, unmentionable, outrageous and despicable things happen in war, as they do in any struggle for life. Creating an imaginary world in which there are breaks for tea and the enemy plays by the same (or any) rules is how the British lost North America. Subjecting ourselves to the vagaries or our enemy’s backwardness, by ignoring their complete denial of our moral superiority, will only serve to hasten our defeat.
For the foregoing reasons, I have to assume that Stephen Hayes is on the wrong end of some very bad information. As much as I may disagree with the Obama administration on a great many things, I have a hard time believing that they could be this naive and unconcerned about the future of our country that they would grant unprecedented gratuity to those who most wish us ill. The policies are most certainly wrong, but they can’t possibly be this misguided.
Special thanks are in order to the International Red Cross for aiding and abetting terrorists captured in the field, by advising them not to talk until they get their Constitutionally-guaranteed lawyer at their side. What's that? They're not protected by the US Constitution? Apparently, they are now!
If this is true, then the present administration has taken steps that even Jimmy Carter didn't have the stones to take, although I don't doubt that he would have wanted to. This means that the fanatical scumbags who continue to target America and its citizens for death have been granted even more protection... BY THE PEOPLE ELECTED TO PROTECT THOSE CITIZENS.
As Ed at Hot Air likes to say, elections have consequences. I hope that even the most fervent Obama supporter understands the consequences of this policy change. Hey, can we perform a late-term abortion of the election results?