Here we go again

[Lothar]

your lovely Obama govt have decided to eschew all judicial processes by drone killing suspects along with the innocent people around them. Yeah Gitmo is a terrible situation. At least the prisoners are well taken care of and their families and friends are still alive.

You act like those are the only choices.

Like the people who think there's either surrender or global thermonuclear war, you're letting your opposition to one bad solution drive support to another barely-less-bad solution.

[Tunnelcat]

So while you both are asleep at the wheel, have you ever asked yourself why no new prisoners have been caught and sent to Gitmo? While you go on about your precious rights and protecting the innocent, your lovely Obama govt have decided to eschew all judicial processes by drone killing suspects along with the innocent people around them. Yeah Gitmo is a terrible situation. At least the prisoners are well taken care of and their families and friends are still alive. Any idea how many of these extra-judicial killings have occurred? As of Feb of last year over 2500. And that's not counting the collateral damage.

So if we are not at war and need to follow the law, why are we committing murder with drones...all with your presidents approval. Crocodile tears? You bet.

Because we are still at war. It's called the "War on Terror", or have you forgotten all about that? You yourself have complained that Obama didn't cross his "red line" and go into Syria militarily to overthrow Assad and kill every ISIS fighter he could throw our military at. Have you even asked yourself "who" gave Obama that extraordinary power he's now using? Obama just didn't take over like some tinpot dictator, it was handed to him on a silver platter by a previous president and a revenge-minded Congress, and very few Americans batted an eye about it back when he did it. Does the Patriot Act ring a bell?

http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/on- ... a-is-bush/

As for Obama relying on drones to kill terrorists, he's doing it because it's easier than sending in troops. Besides, the American people don't want to see our own soldiers die while trying to kill those terrorists. So Obama is taking the easy out, so that he doesn't have a bunch of dead soldier's caskets plastered all over the evening news. Drones are "clean", dead bodies never seen. Is it the "right" policy for Obama to pursue? No, not in a million years IMHO. If we as a nation decide that we want to kill foreign terrorists in an act of war, we need to get off our butts, sully our hands on the ground and do it surgically, taking those inevitable casualties. We should not be standing back like a bunch of wussies throwing stones at random targets, taking out innocents as collateral damage, because in reality, WE created those terrorists, WE are a militaristic nation now and WE now have to clean up our mess, not create a bigger one.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/blackwhite ... nd-drones/

[Spidey]

International law says if a combatant uses an internationally recognized sign of surrender, you must not kill them, you must take them into custody, and treat them according to the Geneva convention, which provides for their containment until hostilities cease.

So, as you can guess a “no prisoners” policy would be against international law…that leaves killing from the air, because without a POW camp, you can’t take prisoners…can you.

[woodchip]

Tell me slick, during ww2, did the pows held here have due process?

[callmeslick]

Tell me slick, during ww2, did the pows held here have due process?

the POWs or the Interred? The former, yes, under International Law, the latter, not so much.

[Tunnelcat]

Tell me slick, during ww2, did the pows held here have due process?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_pr ... ted_States

However, as slick noted, Japanese Americans were NOT afforded due process. Their homes and property were confiscated and never returned to them afterwards and they were locked up in miserable camps in the middle of nowhere, under force, without any freedoms of their own, even though they were technically NOT enemy combatants.

You may want to read this woody. Bush ran into the "due process" issue and lost, even with Scalia.

http://global.oup.com/us/companion.webs ... es/terror/

Although Justice Scalia, joined in a rare pairing with Justice Stevens, dissented from the reasoning in O'Connor's opinion in Hamdi, they went even further in rejecting the administration's position. Reading from his partial dissent, Scalia said the Constitution offered only one way to achieve the administration's goal -- suspension of habeas corpus by a vote of Congress, a step that has not been taken in the contiguous states since the end of Reconstruction. "If civil rights are to be curtailed during wartime," Scalia wrote, "it must be done openly and democratically as the Constitution requires."

[Spidey]

The only trials the prisoners of WWII got were after the war ended, and they were only given for war crimes. So please tell me what due process these prisoners are not getting that WWII prisoners did get?

We haven’t declared an “official” war since WWII and I’m pretty sure whatever you want to call them, there were a few wars fought since that time.

So if declaring an “official” war is an issue here, then the Congress should pass a law stating that any person or group that engages in hostile actions against the US shall be considered members of a larger group (give it some lawyered up name) and declare war on them. The Congress has authorized the use of military force against these groups, so screw it, and take the last step.

Using the military against “criminals” seems a little extreme, so are we at war or not, that seems to be the main issue here.

But in my opinion, the fact that these groups have declared war on us is enough to make it “official” no matter what we do.

But maybe we should just move Gitmo to D.C. and be done with it.

[callmeslick]

The only trials the prisoners of WWII got were after the war ended, and they were only given for war crimes. So please tell me what due process these prisoners are not getting that WWII prisoners did get?

they got international oversight, and strict adherence to international law around Prisoners of War. That was due process for a prisoner of war. Hell, even the Nazis did that much(not so the Japanese or Russians). They were NOT subjected to being held without outside contact, they were NOT subjected to torture or solitiary confinement without cause, they were NOT subject to trials.

[Spidey]

Any of those things can be fixed without closing the camp.

The question is whether the thing should be in operation in the first place.

And in my opinion that impinges on whether we are at war or not, we can move these people to the states, and still face all of the questions we face now.

[callmeslick]

The question is whether the thing should be in operation in the first place.

the fact that there is a question should be a source of national embarrassment.