Rep. Duncan Hunter : US too Soft on detainees

Despite the Hamdan Decision, the Rethuglicans still don't seem to understand what "Equal Protection of the Laws" means. From the AP.

WASHINGTON - The House Armed Services chairman, who advocates a tough stance on terrorist prisoner suspects, warned Wednesday against being too lax in prosecuting detainees.

Hunter said relying on the Pentagon's court-martial system could force the release of dangerous terrorists and put them back on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Which is code for saying the trying these people according to the law might mean that some of them will be found not guilty - even if they aren't guilty - and we can't have that, now can we?

In one sense, Hunter is at least partially correct - we have released some detainees from Gitmo only to run into them again back on the battlefield, at least according to right-wing sites like Brent Bozell's Media Research Center.

In her October 21 NBC Nightly News piece, Lisa Myers reported how Abdullah Mehsud is wanted for kidnappings in Pakistans. She asserted that "the Mehsud story is more than a bit embarrassing for the United States. Until last March, Mehsud was in prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, having been captured fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, a Pentagon review board decided to release him, ruling Mehsud was not a security threat."

Let's ignore for a moment the very strong likelyhood that even an innocent person who is subjected to torture at Gitmo is more likely to become a terrorist after such an experience, than they would have otherwise - but the fact is one guy showing back up in Afghanistan is not an epidemic for which we need to completely trash the Constitution. Where's the dis-insentive to keep people from hating our guts when we trash our own values for a petty sense of revenge? We already know many criminals are repeated offenders and you simply can't give life sentences or the death penalty for everything, it's just not practical. Why expect the terrorist situation to be different? It's only natural that some will be let go, either legitimately or mistakenly and that some of those will come back again for various reasons.

Then on the other hand we have cases of perfectly innocent people like Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, an Egyptian man who was apparently kidnapped by the CIA in Italy and rendered back to Egypt where he was tortured.

An Italian judge on Friday ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers for secretly transporting the Muslim preacher to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts -- a rare public objection to the practice by a close American ally.

The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, which 60 Minutes reported on earlier this year, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture.

The BBC reports that critics have branded it "torture by proxy," to deport terror suspects to countries known to use torture.

Were we "too lax" with Nasr too? Apparently so, as he was eventually released and not U.S. is being sued over his treatment. Yep, We've just got too much darn due process in our Justice System according to Hunter.

Hunter's panel was conducting a hearing on the legal rights of detainees following a June 29 Supreme Court ruling that the Pentagon's planned military tribunal system violates international law. The debate comes just as election season is heating up, when both parties will try to appear strong on national security issues

The [recent SCOTUS] 5-to-3 ruling has prompted Congress to try to pass legislation authorizing the tribunals -- or an alternative before detainees could be prosecuted.

Hunter, in opening remarks at the hearing, suggested that Congress must not grant detainees access to the military's courts-martial system because it would afford them certain rights, such as immediately being informed of charges against them and immediate access to legal counsel.

And you know you just can't trust those slimey trial attorneys - even if they happen to be uniform like Lt. Cmd Swift, who is now expecting to soon be out of a gig.

And the Facism just keep getting thicker. Back to Hunter...

Some Democrats have contended that the Pentagon should rely on the courts-martial system -- a suggestion opposed by the administration, which contends doing so would expose sensitive information and hinder interrogations.

But I thought we didn't use "torturous, degrading or humiliating" interrogations methods? I thought that the DTA (Detainee Treatment Act) of 2005 banned all that? (Except of course, for the fact that it didn't).

Here's the real problem, just as the DOJ has put forth the ridiculous suggestion that Hamdan doesn't mean that the Terrorist Surveillance Program is illegal, the deep seated need to keep the sources of their information secret have nothing to do with protecting our methods other than the fact that the methods used to gather this information have been, and continue to be illegal under the rules either of Crimnal law or a Military Court Marshall (As has been pointed out by Reddhedd at FDL, in regards to the evidence gather via unwarranted NSA wiretap). All of that NSA evidence, and any evidence discovered as result of that information is inadmissable in court as "fruits of the poison tree". The same principle applies to evidence gathered using coercion at Gitmo or elsewhere. Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice states.

(a) No person subject to this chapter may compel any person to incriminate himself or to answer any questions the answer to which may tend to incriminate him.

(b) No person subject to this chapter may interrogate, or request any statement from an accused or a person suspected of an offense without first informing him of the nature of the accusation and advising him that he does not have to make any statement regarding the offense of which he is accused or suspected and that any statement made by him may be used as evidence against him in a trial by court-martial.

(c) No person subject to this chapter may compel any person to make a statement or produce evidence before any military tribunal if the statement or evidence in not material to the issue and may tend to degrade him.

(d) No statement obtained from any person in violation of this article, or through the use of coercion, unlawful influence, or unlawful inducement may be received in evidence against him in a trial by court-martial.

This is what Hunter is complaining about. According to him, we can't protect the rights of the accused and succesfully protect this country, but here's the rub - if we've failed to protect the rights of the accused, whether innocent of guilty of the charges, we've already failed to protect the country from people like Hunter.

Vyan