Centerfield

What positive reinforcement would you give bin Laden, al-Zawahiri or Abu Hamza al-Muhajir?? Let them plea down to avoid the death penalty? Would they take it? How about letting them have contact with the rest of the world so they can continue to run AQ from inside the prison the same way the mafia does. Torture should be very rare; it’s useless when dealing with the foot solders. The cowards who send others out to blow themselves up are a different matter.

Our legal system is a great way to handle criminals; it does not work for terrorists. The quickest way to gain the rights of an American is to attempt mass murder?
I think we have enough information to convict them without hearing a word they say. I’m not concerned with convicting them; I want to know the information they have. What attacks are planned, by whom, and who pays them. I don’t see any way the traditional legal process will get that information. I don’t want them to plead the fifth.

The goal is to eliminate the threat. Just the threat of torture may work to enhance other methods, using both carrots and sticks. The ability, even if its never used would be a huge benefit. When someone is caught, the plans he know about must be scrapped just in case he talks. Disrupting the enemy is a key concept of war fighting and every change in plans increases the odds of catching them using traditional law enforcement.

The real danger in what the President wants is what it opens up. You might get a little extra info from what the President wants; but it reduces the US in both prestige and moral authority. Along with opening up our own people to the same things in a legal way. I am firmly with the Senate Republicans on this one.

The President was very unpresidential and seemed more like an angry kid who was threatening to take his football home with him if he did not get his way. It gave the impression to me of desperation and exasperation void of leadership. I watched the entire news conference today and was shocked.

Jim, When has the Geneva Convention ever been applied to our troops? I cannot find one example.

Jon, I'm pretty familiar with the Patriot Act and I'm not aware of any provision which gives the President the authority to "intercept communications without warrants both internationally and domestically among terror suspects".

I'm more or less with McCain and Graham on their alternative to the tribunals and interrogation techniques (though I also agree with Bernie above, for some or even many Al Qaeda, "positive" techniques aren't going to work), but I'm 100% with the President on providing explicit statutory authorization for the NSA wiretapping program. If a soldier finds a phone list at a terrorist hide-out, I want somebody listening to the calls to and from those numbers NOW, without delay for filling out bureaucratic B.S.

As for our treatment of prisoners, we should treat them humanely because that's who we are, but I don't for a second buy the usual canard of we have to do it to protect our own troops. The closest our POWs have ever come to being treated humanely was with the Nazis, and even there they certainly weren't treated fully in accordance with the conventions. The enemies we fight today do not share our cultural values and the importance we give to individual human lives and suffering. Our soft treatment of the captives we take probably makes them consider us weak and stupid, hurting us rather than helping us. And if we ever get in a war with someone more on our cultural playing field, like Russia or somebody, then it's going to be clear it's a very different ballgame and both they and we will know that how we treated illegal combatant terrorists (who are not protected by the Geneva Convention, remember) will have nothing to do with how we treat their prisoners.

So moral high ground, fine, I'll go with that, but protect our troops by making it more likely our own soldiers will be treated decently as POWs? Never.

If you want to look into short sighted here and now definitions, then you may be right.

Pat, I seem to recall a recent Supreme Court decision that refutes part of your contention that the combantants are not covered by the Geneva Convention. If it was not for that ruling, we would not even be talking about this.

Redfining the Geneva Convention will set a bad precedent for future actions. Only a fool will assume that the US will be the top dog forever. What goes around comes around and if we start to redefine the rules now, we have no leg to stand on when others do it when they are in better positions.

You're right, Pat, about the Patriot Act not containing warrantless communications interception authority, though the roving intercept authority, which might be worse, comes close, if you can find a judge willing to give you a blank check (which I guess the NSA couldn't if I recall, so it would'n't be such a big deal if the NSA hadn't gone ahead anyway).

Nonetheless, my point stands concerning the President's speech, since he was speaking only of intercepting communications into the US, which he already has a blank check for.

And my point about the President's sullenness also still stands. I think he knows he's doing the wrong thing here.

When it comes to special detention for terrorism, there was an example during during the Clinton Administration. A US woman was imprisoned in Peru for association with the Shining Path there. There was no evidence that she'd supported terrorism in any way herself, just the kind of stupidity that leads some to hang with Hezbollah. The Clinton Administration got Peru to free her.

Should stupid association have merited indefinite imprisonment? I think not. Will we be able to get people like her back after we've done this ourselves?

If Peru had freed her simply because of the high moral values of America, wouldn't they have let her go as soon as she said she was an American? I think diplomatic pressure would have the same effect reguardless of our treatment of terrorists.

Jim, I may indeed be a fool, but I do believe that America will be top dog forever. The Roman empire lasted over 1000 years, and we're a hell of a lot better than they were.

Bernie, I am not even sure we will be top dog at 2100, let alone a thousand years from now. A very special set of circumstances came to fruition in the first half of the 20th century that allowed the US to become the world leader instead of the UK. I can forsee any number of circumstances where the US as the primary power can end. None, by military or terroist attack. We are too strong to lose to those. The free market is an equalizer. It will bring other countries up to our level and, if they manage things right, they could even pass us. The advantages the US has are not something that can not be duplicated elsewhere.

Now if we are intending to use our military to keep us top dog, then that is a different story; but it sure won't make us any better than the Roman Empire.

And my point about the President's sullenness also still stands.

I don't think the word "sullen" means what you think it means, Jon. Seriously. Better check a dictionary. I'm sure there are many useful adjectives that actually say what you mean.

You're right, Pat, about the Patriot Act not containing warrantless communications interception authority

Arguable. The Patriot Act contains provisions modifying FISA to allow the treatment of non-state-aligned terrorists as "agents of foreign powers" under FISA. In some cases, this would place them under the foreign/military intel provisions of the act, exempting them from the Act's protective provisions entirely. But it would be entirely case-specific.

I seem to recall a recent Supreme Court decision that refutes part of your contention that the combantants are not covered by the Geneva Convention. If it was not for that ruling, we would not even be talking about this.

Hamdan is much more complicated than that, and no, it did NOT say Hamdan was entitled to GC Art III protections. It did not determine Hamdan's status at all. It said that until his status had been properly determined he could only be tried under UCMJ or Geneva. It also said that Congress could specifically authorize such tribunals as were being used, but contra the admin's argument that such authorization was part of the AUMF, it was not. What the admin is asking for is that specific authorization--and they have gone to enormous lengths to satisfy it in every detail. Including statutory clarification of the rather vague GC Art III.

A rather snarky but still clear explanation can be found here.

RE: McCain and torture--yeah, respect for the GC's really helped him avoid torture. Not! The best reason for treating prisoners well (and the Gitmo prisoners live better than the troops guarding them) is our own psychic welfare, not theirs.

I remember reading a letter recently on some other blog, sorry I can't recall which to cite it, but it was from a Desert Storm veteran.

The vet recalled the hundreds upon hundreds of Iraqi soldiers who surrendered to approaching US forces rather than fight back. He discovered they were well armed, well equipped, well fed, and had everything they needed to fight, and fight well. They would not have, and could not have, won, but they could have killed a lot of US soldiers in holding out.

They did not. The vet surmises they surrendered because they knew they were going to get a fair deal from the US. If that changes... what happens if we do have to go into N. Korea or Iran with troops? What happens when our enemy thinks they have to fight to the death, else be tortured or dishonored?

Its a practical matter, as well as a moral one, I think.

Troller, you are completely correct. That is why we are commited to treating enemy soilders better than the GC requires, and no one has ever proposed changing that. What we do want is to maintain the incentives to remain in uniform and not hide among the civillian population.

What happens when our enemy thinks they have to fight to the death, else be tortured or dishonored?

The U.S. has never treated genuine POW's poorly in any foreign war, so the logic there is bad and the example is not germane. That isn't the group the proposed statute applies to at all.

What we do want is to maintain the incentives to remain in uniform and not hide among the civillian population.

Those who hide among the civilian population and themselves completely ignore the Conventions are precisely the people whom are affected by the bill. What is the incentive to unlawful combatants to comply with the Conventions when their own Convention-violating behavior results in no adverse consequences at all?

> I don't think the word "sullen" means what you think it means,
> Jon. Seriously. Better check a dictionary. I'm sure there are many
> useful adjectives that actually say what you mean.

I can only call them as I see them.

Tully, the Geneva Conventions may not have helped McCain avoid torture. But even so, he seems pretty passionate about not "redefining" them. Which might just give those arguing for the President's position pause for thought. (But probably won't.)

Jim, I may indeed be a fool, but I do believe that America will be top dog forever. The Roman empire lasted over 1000 years, and we're a hell of a lot better than they were.

The Roman Empire lasted less than 500 years. The Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453. It claimed to be the heir of the Roman Empire, but but it's really stretching facts to say that it was the same "Roman Empire."

But this is a sidenote. The real point is that empires and hegemonies come and go. Rome fell, Byzantium fell. I mean no disrespect, but certainly, only a fool thinks "America will be top dog forever."

Don't get me wrong, Jon, I think I know what you mean. But it's the wrong word. "Sullen" implies an accompanying lack of verbiage. Had he stood at the podium and glowered and not said anything, he'd have managed sullen. (Teenagers are often sullen.)

I mean no disrespect, but certainly, only a fool thinks "America will be top dog forever."

True. Note on the Romans: It's all in how you look at it. The Roman state lasted from the founding of Rome to the fall of the Byzantine Empire--over 2200 years. (And the Byzantines called themselves Romans right up until the end.) The resurgent church-backed offshoot Holy Roman Empire lasted nearly a millenia in Europe, until the Napoleanic wars. The original Roman Empire based in Rome lasted just under 500, but the Roman state was over 700 years old before the first Emperor was declared. But no state lasts forever. Not yet.

Tully, the Geneva Conventions may not have helped McCain avoid torture. But even so, he seems pretty passionate about not "redefining" them.

We are NOT "redefining" the GC's. That's a base canard (a polite expression meaning "utter bullshit"). The proposed legislation is to clarify a very vague area of the interpretation of parts of the Conventions for our own domestic law purposes, and it is accepted law that the clarification of vague and ambiguous treaties is done in our country by statute, not by any deference to the claims of others. McCain's criticism is simply not a legal argument--especially considering that he already got his way in writing the definition proposed and passed into law last year, the very definitions that are in the new legislation. The "rewriting" McCain is ranting about is the actual incorporation of his very own words into the new legislation. When he pushed through the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 it was "vital," and somehow that's transmogrified into "rewriting" the Conventions. Yet it's McCain's own standards being used that McCain is objecting to. So I'm not sure what the hell kind of argument it really is, other than passionate populist noise-making, as McCain already got his way. He's objecting to his own standards.

The GC's did indeed apply to McCain's captors and to McCain--and the NV completely ignored them. You can work out your own interpretations of his current motives.

> "Sullen" implies an accompanying lack of verbiage. Had he stood at
> the podium and glowered and not said anything, he'd have managed
> sullen. (Teenagers are often sullen.)

As a teenager, I'd say I said plenty of things sullenly. OK, I guess I wasn't a tenth as verbose as that speech. But actually, I was at times mentally comparing Bush' tone of voice with a teenager's.

But actually, I was at times mentally comparing Bush' tone of voice with a teenager's.

Aha! I think I know exactly what you mean, then. How 'bout "surly" or "churlish?" Same roots, but somewhat different (if related) meanings. Sorry to play grammar cop, but "sullen" draws images of the Prez standing at the podium, glowering at the press, and not answering at all.

I freely admit to skipping ALL live political speeches that I can possibly avoid in favor of the transcripts, and in doing so miss the tone and tenor that the words can't or don't convey. Life's too short, IMHO--I have to listen to too many in my local functions to (voluntarily) sit through broadcast ones if I can find anything more constructive to do. Like washing my hair, or....