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Home Front: WoT
Dems Likely to Resurrect Detainee Issue
2006-12-29
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democrats plan to use their newfound power to revisit one of the most contentious national security matters of 2006: Deciding what legal rights must be protected for detainees held in the war on terrorism.
Um, none?
In September, Congress passed a bill that gave President Bush wide latitude in interrogating and detaining captured enemy combatants. The legislation, backed by the White House, prompted more than three months of debate - exposing Republican fissures and prompting angry rebukes by Democrats of the administration's interrogation policies.

With the Nov. 7 elections handing control to the Democrats, the issue is far from settled. A group of Senate Democrats and one Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, want to resurrect the bill to fix at least one provision they say threatens the nation's credibility on human rights issues.

The proposed revisions to the terrorism detainee bill could surface in the new Congress early in the year, staffers say - with new sympathetic ears in leadership and a slim Democratic majority in Congress. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who will take control of the Senate as majority leader next year, ``would support attempts to revisit some of the most extreme elements of the bill'' including language stripping detainees of habeas corpus rights, although no immediate action is planned, said Reid spokesman Jim Manley.
Why is it 'extreme' to deny foreign terrorists the protection of habeas corpus?
Under the law, the president can convene military commissions to prosecute terror suspects so long as he follows certain guidelines, such as granting defendants legal counsel and access to evidence used against them. The bill also for the first time provides specific definitions of abusive treatment of prisoners, prohibiting some of the worst abuses like mutilation and rape but granting the president leeway to decide which specific interrogation techniques are permissible.
Which was, as we all recall, the product of considerable debate, wailing and gnashing of teeth. It didn't go the way Leahy wanted to go so now we're back at it again.
While the White House initially backed a harder line that would have left the president's interrogation policies virtually unchecked, Sens. John Warner, R-Va., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and John McCain, R-Ariz., insisted on language they said would protect U.S. international commitments on prisoner abuse.

But Specter, R-Pa., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, say a disturbing provision left in the bill specifically prohibits a detainee from protesting his detention in court. This provision barring habeas corpus petitions means that only detainees selected for trial by the military are able to confront charges against them, leaving a vast majority of the estimated 14,000 military detainees in custody without a chance to plead their case.
Real shame for them: perhaps they shouldn't have picked up a rifle and come at us.
``I hope think the courts are going to declare that part of the legislation unconstitutional,'' Specter said in an interview this month.

Leahy and other Democrats, led by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., have another proposal that would go much further by eliminating other provisions of the White House bill. Among other things, Dodd's legislation would specifically bar coerced statements as testimony and limit the president's authority in interpreting international standards for prisoner treatment. In contrast, the bill signed by Bush in October allows coerced evidence under narrow circumstances and leaves it up to the president to implement Geneva Convention standards.

Dodd and other Democrats say such protections should be afforded to terror suspects because the U.S. would want other nations to apply similar rights to troops captured in war. ``I strongly believe that terrorists who seek to destroy America must be punished for any wrongs they commit against this country,'' Dodd told Bush in a November letter, urging the president to delay implementation of the bill. ``But in my view, in order to sustain America's moral authority and win a lasting victory against our enemies, such punishment must be meted out only in accordance with the rule of law,'' Dodd added.
Which we have. We have a law and it writes the rules. Passed by the Congress and signed by the President. What part of 'rule of law' are we missing here?
Both proposals were similar to ones shot down earlier this year by the Republican-led Congress. But while Dodd's proposal might not attract enough Republicans, who are reluctant to revisit the issue, Specter and Leahy's plan to restore habeas corpus rights to detainees could get through narrowly in the new Senate.
And then be vetoed by the President, leaving the current law as it is. Leahy and Specter know this, and so this is so much dinner theater.
In September, a similar proposal offered by Specter as an amendment to the detainee bill was narrowly defeated in a 51-48 vote. Sen. Olympia Snowe - a moderate Republican who this year expressed skepticism about the White House policy toward detainees - did not vote. With 49 Democrats in power next year, Snowe, R-Maine, and the four Republicans who supported the measure could tip the scales in another vote.

While the charge to revise the bill is expected to be led by the Senate, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also may want to take another look at it. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said House Democrats ``have a number of concerns about whether the bill is constitutional, and the impact that it will have on the treatment accorded our troops if they are captured in combat.''
Nonsense. How have our troops been treated so far? We've seen a couple that have been captured. Anyone think they wouldn't have been tortured and executed if only we had allowed the Gitmo thugs habeas corpus rights?
Posted by:Steve White

#5  OK, so we have a law on the books. If the Donks think it is unconstitutional, then get one of their puppets to sue and get it run up to the SCOTUS. Of course you can expect them to use the 9th district.
Any revisions will need to be attached as riders to a bill that the Prez is absolutley in love with and that is a stretch, thinking the Donks would draft something that yummy for him to veto because then they would have to go on record as supporting something that they very likely campaigned hard against. Like an earlier post: just theater.
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2006-12-29 16:20  

#4  These lefties just can't resist. We're going to see nothing but two years of investigations of every tidbit these fools have jotted on the back of their hands for the last six years. Nothing will get done. And, nothing will come of their grandstanding and hot air except one very good thing. They will demonstrate that they are incapable of governing. Republicans, get your candidates in order. Give us some good people to vote for, who really support the USA.
Posted by: SpecOp35   2006-12-29 11:58  

#3  "Dodd and other Democrats say such protections should be afforded to terror suspects because the U.S. would want other nations to apply similar rights to troops captured in war."

I think I finally get it: these people actually believe that if only we were more "nice" to the crazy little savages rest of the world, they would be nicer to us in return.

WTF is it with these people? Did they grow up watching too much Sesame Street or something??? If so, they need to listen up: BIG BIRD LIED.

I've come to two conclusions: 1) there is absolutely nothing that will shake these idiots' belief in this fantasy, fairy-tale, "peaceable kingdom" world they so long for, and 2) we have precisely ZERO chance of prevailing against the Islamic menace until these dimwits are shoved out of the way.

I'll leave the logical consequences unsaid...

Posted by: Dave D.   2006-12-29 10:28  

#2  Why don't they ask Privates First Class Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker their opinions on this subject?
Oh, that's right. They can't, because the PFC's were butchered like animals by people just like those whose rights these assholes wanna protect.
I hope there's a special place in hell waiting for ignorant pricks like Leahy, Specter and Dodd...
Posted by: tu3031   2006-12-29 08:24  

#1  Dodd and other Democrats say such protections should be afforded to terror suspects because the U.S. would want other nations to apply similar rights to troops captured in war.

No Dumbass you have it wrong (again!). That is why you do not want to give the illegal combatants GC protections. Does AQ or the 'insurgency' (or Iran) give our people GC protections? That would tend to prove that your full of shit.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2006-12-29 07:30  

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