<p>The Military Commissions Act IS a law.</p>
<p>Also, its pretty ridiculous to say everyone we released was harmless and is currently peacefully walking the streets.</p>
<p><a href=“http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/15/worldupdates/2007-05-15T100333Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-298215-1&sec=Worldupdates[/url]”>http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/15/worldupdates/2007-05-15T100333Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-298215-1&sec=Worldupdates</a>
<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1433833520070514[/url]”>http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1433833520070514</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It hasn’t withstood judicial review yet.</p>
<p>You’re kidding, right?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The D.C. judge is the same one who made the initial ruling in hadman vs Rumsfeld that made the Act possible anyway.</p>
<p>A law hasn’t passed through judicial review until it is heard by the supreme court.</p>
<p>And as for your post #22…30 of 390 released prisoners have rejoined the fight, according to our government? That means that the vast majority–more than 90%–have not.</p>
<p>Additionally, I didn’t find in either of your sources where our government is claiming that any of these men has committed an act of terrorism since his release.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Did you miss the part where the Supreme Court let the lower courts’ ruling stand? That part of the law has withstood all the judicial review it’s going to.</p>
<p>But what did you mean to suggest with your post #23? Are you trying to suggest that the suspension of habeas corpus by the MCA doesn’t apply yet because the Supreme Court hasn’t specifically ruled on it? That it applies but might get striken down later?</p>
<p>Neither of these can be supported by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the detainee’s appeal.</p>
<p>ETA: Not to mention that that’s a bizarre interpretation of “judicial review.”</p>
<p>I saw you make an unsourced allusion to it.</p>
<p>Ah, so you haven’t been following the issue well enough to know what’s going on. Just as I suspected.</p>
<p>I’ll find you a source so you can get up to speed.</p>
<p>ETA: Here’s one: <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/washington/03gitmo.html?ex=1333339200&en=8799a18c0c0f7559&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/washington/03gitmo.html?ex=1333339200&en=8799a18c0c0f7559&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg</a></p>
<p>The MCA is law and does apply to the detainees. Nothing in the Constitution says that a law isn’t a law till the Supreme Court has heard it. </p>
<p>So your statement that habeas corpus and the American defense system apply to the detainees is just as laughable now as when you first made it.</p>
<p>Your implication in post #18 that people are being released from Gitmo now due to habeas corpus concerns even though they’re terrorists is even more risible.</p>
<p>Are you seriously suggesting that the Bush administration is letting terrorists go free simply because of legal provisions that don’t even apply?</p>
<p>Why else would Bush release a group in which 10% has been identified as an enemy combatant AFTER being release? Out of the goodness of his heart?</p>
<p>Wait, they’re enemy combatants now? I thought they were terrorists?</p>
<p>And did you read the articles you linked? The administration is saying it released them because it didn’t realise who they were. Not because it thought habeas corpus applied to them. Had they known who they were, they would have held them, habeas corpus or no.</p>
<p>But if you want to believe that the administration is so inept it’s knowingly letting terrorists go free for no real reason, but just in case the court one day decides to overturn the MCA…I guess there’s nothing but facts to stop you. Say hi to the Great Pumpkin for me.</p>
<p>All kidding aside, where did you pick up the unshakeable belief that the detainees are being released out of concern for their legally non-existent right to habeas corpus? As far as I know, it’s not even a claim the administration has made. </p>
<p>I can’t think of any source that’s made this claim, even when you take Fox, Rush, etc into account.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What an amazing display of logic. It (as well as the OP) reminds me once again why the left can’t be trusted with the war on terrorism. Just one question, conyat: Where do you get your data that only 30 have rejoined the battle? Or do you just assume that every single one of those who re-joined the battle has been re-captured or killed? Or, perhaps there is a terrorist registry and the other 360 never registered so therefore they must be back taking care of their goats.</p>
<p>
So, what should we have changed to keep Timothy McVeigh from committing his terrorist act? What was it that we erred in that, had it been corrected, would have saved the lives of all those innocent people in Oklahoma City? What is it that the people of Bangladesh or Morocco or Jordan or Indonesia should be doing to prevent the acts of terrorism committed there? Should they adopt Sharia law so that they prove themselves to be “Muslim enough” to appease the terrorists? Maybe more beheadings or stonings or honor killings of “their” women would keep the terrorists happy?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From interviews given by our government.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because we might actually capture some (cough<em>bin Ladin</em>cough), instead of haring after rabbits. </p>
<p>Or do you share Vyse’s bizarre belief that your administration is deliberately and knowingly releasing terrorists for reasons of its own, when there is no legal compulsion for them to do so?</p>
<p>The right hasn’t captured the person most responsible for 9-11. By the government’s NIE reports, you’ve made the world less safe, and made Al Queda stronger. </p>
<p>Why is making the terrorists responsible for 9-11 stronger such a good thing in your world? Why are you so proud of this? Why are you so happy to see them able to recruit more easily, train more easily, and raise money more easily, that you wouldn’t have it any other way?</p>
<p><a href=“http://lugar.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=277751&&year=2007&[/url]”>http://lugar.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=277751&&year=2007&</a></p>
<p>Senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on whether the surge should continue:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army, retired:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You see, FF, it’s not about “left” and “right.” Pretending it is, is about in the same category as pretending Saddam was behind 9-11 or had WMD.</p>
<p>The divide is not between left and right but between people who believe in making decisions based on facts and professional experience–and people who believe in being pulled around by whatever the AEI dreams up next.</p>
<p>Bush releases prisoners from Guantanamo that he cant charge for political reasons. The midterm elections were sort of a referendum on Rumsfeld style punishment.</p>
<p>Conyat, I see that you have cherry-picked another general to support your views. I also see that you are no longer using McCaffery as your anti-war spokes-general after I pointed out that he was pro war. At least you are consistent - find someone with some stars on their shoulder that supports your view and tout them as having divine wisdom and join Harry Reid in claiming all those who don’t support your views are either incompetent or liars.</p>
<p>Your cherry-picking continues with respect to the NIE - only this time the “cherry” isn’t even the complete sentence.</p>
<p>I assume that you are referring to these niblets:</p>
<p>We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>The Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.</p>
<p>But then leave out the key conclusion:</p>
<p>We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>The Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.</p>
<p>Yet, that is the position of the Democratic party - bug out as soon as possible and let al Qaeda have the glory of victory and the ability to inspire more recruits to the effort.</p>
<p>Fundingfather:</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that the phrases conyat used are factual statements about the present and the phrases you have highlighted are predictive phrases about the future. I think they have somewhat different status.</p>
<p>Except that they aren’t really predictive statements about the future. The jihadists in Iraq – who, of course, represent only a small slice of our enemies there – are already perceived to have succeeded, and are already inspiring more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere. There is no chance that jihadists leaving Iraq will perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, because their standard of success is merely keeping the Americans from dominating the country. There is no future course of events which will make the al-Qaeda strategy of 9/11 through the present not look like a success to the audience to whom it is directed (essentially observant Arab Muslims and their rulers).</p>
<p>No one in the Democratic party is happy with this situation. The question is how best to deal with it. The Republican position seems to be to string it along and to dump it on the next President, a Democrat (even if he’s Giuliani or McCain, as far as the Bushies are concerned), so that they can claim some day that someone else lost Iraq. I don’t know what I think, in all honesty, but I agree completely that we need a long-term strategy that we can win, and I don’t think it’s irresponsible to suggest that that won’t happen as long as we are fighting in a civil war in Iraq. Despite our hypothetical ability to accomplish any short-term military objective imaginable, our real advantage is social and economic, not military. And I don’t believe that 20,000 extra troops for a few months is going to rout al-Qaeda OR restore general order (two very different things).</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I don’t believe many of the world’s Muslims will prefer to live like their cousins along the Afghan-Pakistani border compared to living like their cousins in Michigan. That’s a fight we win constantly, as long as we don’t try to win it at gunpoint. The only way to lose that fight is to try to carry it on militarily, which is essentially where we’ve stuck ourselves.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps this is true for “many of the world’s Muslims”, but it doesn’t hold for the minority that is causing the mayhem. Mohammed Atta and others in his crew were college educated and could easily have chosen life in Dearborn or its equivalent but instead chose to kill non-Muslims. Likewise, radicals in other countries have chosen to follow the path of blood versus the pocketbook. Even suburban white Americans have heeded the call for jihad and joined al Qaeda. If there is one thing that we need to “understand” about terrorists it is that they are not motivated by money or “the good life”. To assume that that is the solution is pure folly IMO.</p>