Poll: Overwhelming majority oppose preventive detention without charges

[AlexanderProgressive]

From the NYT/CBS poll released today:



More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/18/detention/index.html

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Some Americans still clinging forlornly to the Rule of Law

even when it has been abandoned by their leaders.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Pockets of resistance, Phoebe, crumbling islands in a mighty river

Holdouts shaking impotent fists in the imperturbable face of Progress.

The Corporate State is on autopilot now and nothing can stop it.

[MarjorieG]

2. Of course, goes against everything we're about. The same are NIMBY if actually released, still

marginally dangerous or culpable (but deserving to let go because we tortured, or sloppy evidence, etc).

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Part of this is because it is presented as either/or -

Charge them OR release them. OR hold them indefinitely.

The truth is, there are at least 3 different populations being held.

1) Terrorists. These are the guys who have either committed crimes or conspired to commit crimes. They should be brought up on criminal charges.

2) Prisoners of war. These are the guys who were fighting as insurgents, but their only fight was against the invaders - when the fight is over, their fight is over.

3) Innocents. Those who were turned in for the bounty on bogus charges - this includes the Uighurs who were never terrorists, but cannot be sent home because if they are they will be killed by their own governments.

We brought this on ourselves by allowing the so-called "enemy combatants" to be a classification outside the Geneva Conventions. The Terrorists are not 'enemy combatants' - they are criminal terrorists and can be tried in US federal courts, as has been done many times before. The Innocents are not 'enemy combatants' - they are victims. The only 'enemy combatants' would actually be the captured insurgents, who SHOULD be considered prisoners of war, and who will be released upon negotiations or at the end of the conflict, as are all prisoners of war. If they are legitmate prisoners of war we don't need a special detention camp in Cuba - we safely incarcerated tens of thousands of German, Italians and Japanese in WW2 who were captured in battle.

Instead of the term 'indefinite detention' which sounds like it could be for life, define the parameters of indefinite detention to meet Geneva Convention standards of holding POWs.

Holding POWs in the same camp as radical jihadists can only result in radicalizing the POWs.

[endarkenment]

5. As we are not currently in a state of conflict with any nation

we have no right to hold any prisoners of war. Category (2) people need to be repatriated as per the GC.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Which would mean, in this case, sent to a prison camp in Iraq or

Afghanistan. And that is an improvement how?

If we are not "in a state of conflict" what the fuck is going on over there?

[endarkenment]

8. Well that (if not a state of conflict, what?) would be a good question.

We made sure that in Iraq we are not an 'occupying authority' as per the GC, and I believe we have done the same in Afghanistan. In each case these are sovereign nations that we are not in a state of conflict with. The fact that we have our armies deployed in both countries actively killing the people of those countries is not relevant to a state of conflict between nations as it is understood in the GC. It would be relevant if we were an occupying authority, but we made sure we weren't precisely so we could ignore the GC with respect to how an OC has to behave. We have no legal choice for those people who were captured in battle - they have to be repatriated. As far as I know, none of them are Iraqis, so they (those few actually captured on a battle field) all need to be sent back to Afghanistan where the sovereign nation of Afghanistan can decide what to do with them.

[kenny blankenship]

7. True we are not in a war with any country. We just have troops deployed carrying guns

and supporting comabat-like operations in a broad swathe from the Red Sea to the Himalayas.
It's not like we are at war, or driving some kind of regional campaign for imperial dominance or anything!

[endarkenment]

9. Not by the terms of the GC.

But yes that is exactly what we are doing. The issue I am addressing is our legal responsibility with respect to the people we have illegally detained for nearly eight years. We have to let them all go, for various reasons. Specifically for those few actually captured in battle, they always have been POWs, badly mistreated POWs, and they must be repatriated.