McCain attacks Guantánamo ruling
By Andrew Ward and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: June 13 2008 21:44 | Last updated: June 13 2008 21:44


John McCain on Friday described the decision by the Supreme Court to allow Guantánamo Bay prisoners to challenge their detention in US courts as “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country”.
The Republican presidential candidate said he agreed with the four dissenting justices on the nine-member court that foreign fighters held at the detention camp were not entitled to the rights of US citizens.

He criticised Barack Obama, his Democratic opponent, for supporting the decision and said it highlighted the importance of nominating conservative judges to the Supreme Court. His remarks represented a hardening of his position from his more moderate initial response to the ruling on Thursday, signalling a strategic decision by the McCain campaign to make it an election issue.


Mr McCain’s stance appeared designed to demonstrate his toughness on national security, while casting Mr Obama as soft on terrorists. It also looked calculated to spark debate on the future of the Supreme Court – one of the most important election issues for many conservative voters.
But his support for President George W. Bush’s position on Guantánamo risked undermining his appeal among moderates and reinforcing his association with the unpopular president.
Mr McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, had previously sought to distance himself from Mr Bush on the treatment of detainees, arguing for Guantánamo to be closed and torture to be banned. He said he stood by those positions on Friday but insisted the Supreme Court ruling would weaken national security. “These are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they are not and never have been given the rights that the citizens of this country have,” he said. “Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that.”
The debate surrounding Guantánamo has been a complex issue for Mr McCain, a former navy pilot tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. While Mr McCain has been one of the loudest critics of the Bush administration over interrogation policies, he has supported legislation that stripped prisoners at Guantánamo of habeas corpus, the right to challenge their detention in federal court.
Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said the Arizona senator’s willingness to support the legislation contradicts his overall position on Guantánamo.
“To this day, he strongly believes Guantánamo has hurt the US and should be closed,” said Mr Malinowski. “And yet he has not been able to distance himself from the principle [of] detention without charge.”


Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

". . . detention without charge", makes me laugh. How hard is it for the Left to understand, Git'mo houses prisoners of war. POWs may be held until hostilities have ended. POWs may be charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity, but it is not required for their continued detention. This whole controversy is a partisan joke.

As far as McCain's position on Git'mo, he needs to focus less on his own POW experience and more on the lessons of his naval training and experience. The purpose of war is to destroy the enemy. It ain't neat and tidy.

There are four separate issues about Guantamano Bay.
Git’mo its self
Torture of Detainees
Length of Detention
Habeas Corpus, Civilian Law as apposed to Military Tribunal Law

The arguments on one side are:
The Place called Git’mo:
The detention center itself harms the image of the United States in the fact that it brings unwanted attention. It gives other countries fodder to use to ramp up anti-American support whether its a communist country, socialist country or your garden variety dictatorship country. It also gives the terrorist and those who support terrorist regimes ammunition for a renewed battle cry for Death to Americans.  
It also hardens the minds of those that are there that ‘Americans are no friends of mine’, so if and when they may return home they take that attitude with them and a spread their descent.

Torture:
The torture or more specifically water boarding, of detainees causes all of the above plus it puts American and its allies Soldiers and Citizens at risk for like treatment. It does not fit with the tone of the Geneva Convention but does not directly break any rules of the Geneva Convention. The information gained in such actions is suspect of being factual enough to even render it useful.

Length of Detention:
Keeping these people locked up with no plans to do anything else is but keep them locked up is immoral for one human being to do to another human being with out being given a specific stated explanation of why.

Habeas Corpus: Civilian Law as apposed to Military Tribunal Law
Our constitution guarantees citizens us certain rights for alleged crimes. Innocent until proven guilty and a speedy trial before a body of peers.

The arguments on the other side are:
The Place called Git’mo:
The detention center limits contact with those held there with any other type of person held for other crimes against this country. Git’mo is a safe, well maintained facility and those held there are given medical care, access to materials as well a  spiritual contact person and the right to practice their chosen religion. Clothed, fed, given room to exercise, allowed contact with others within the facility.

Torture of Detainees:
That only those detainees who would have been high level operatives of terrorism would even be subject to the possibility of being water boarded and that would have information that could not be gained by other intelligence gathering means, leaves only a few detainee in the position of facing such techniques. One small piece of information gained by this technique may be able to stop or disrupt an act of terror that would cause life threatening or infrastructure harm.

Length of Detention:
Keeping them for an undetermined amount of time is because it not clear enough based on what is known about them that they would not just turn around and commit another act of terror if let go or that they our without a doubt an enemy combatant.

Habeas Corpus: Civilian Law as opposed to Military Tribunal Law
The detainees are not citizens of this country, nor are they a member of any countries military. They make no claim of acting for a specific countries name and the act was not done on American soil so they are not eligible to be afforded the laws of our constitution. Since we have declared a War on Terror these detainees fall under just Military Tribunal Law and those proceedings afford them much the same rights but the procedures for prosecution are not open to a public venue. By allowing them to fall under our constitutional Civil Law they have to be charged with specifics crimes and then the right to defend themselves against those crimes. More importantly, for America to prosecute those crimes effectively in a Civil Court we must now show names and sensitive security gathering information in an open public court.  It also turns military operations that result in taking prisoners into crime scenes where evidence must be gathered and witness testimony must be secured. This could effetely halt many military operations because this is just not practical or just impossible. This basically castrates our armed forces to a state of impotence or brings cause to ‘take no prisoners’ which reduces us to the same barbaric level as the enemy.

Senator Obama is for shutting down Git’mo, has not said anything clear about where else they would go or for how long, supports giving them Habeas Corpus, not using torture
Senator McCain is for shutting down Git’mo and holding prisoners in a regular military prison, Expedite judicial proceedings under Military Law and not using torture.

Illegal enemy combatants are a different designation than Prisoner of War.  
Prisoners of a Different War by Professor Ruth Wedgwood Yale Law School June 2002
http://www.law.yale.edu/news/3345.htm

watcher wrote:This basically castrates our armed forces to a state of impotence or brings cause to ‘take no prisoners’ which reduces us to the same barbaric level as the enemy.

Hey, 'take no prisoners'.  I like the sound of that.  I'm not above a little "barbarity" where war is concerned - especially if that "barbarity" keeps us and our troops safe.  War is a barbarous business, it's about time that we treated it as such.

Eyas wrote:War is a barbarous business, it's about time that we treated it as such.

.

Yes it is. We have a bunch of weak knee, whinny, instant gratification seeking jerks in this country with short term memory problems who have no clue what war is. They also have no grasp on history either.
Politics have no business in prosecuting a war. That is what we get for having a Legislature filled with lawyers. It's a just game to them.

Yes, I expect that "Boumediene v. Bush" will eventually become know as the "Take No Prisoners" decision.  

A soldier will now have to be insane to even attempt to capture one of these court-designated "freedom fighters" at this point.  Reading a Jihadi his "Miranda Rights" as he fondles the detonation cord on his "Martyr's Vest" is going to be quite low on Lance Corporal Smith's agenda from now on.  

The battlefield is a chaotic place and accidents do happen when you have 4 to 10 pounds of C4 strapped to your body.  Who can say for sure what "Mahmoud" was reaching for under those circumstances?  It's a shame more of them don't understand "Freeze!  Put your hands on your head!"  Tsk, Tsk.