y,m&g and u Watch These K----s Defend Barry's Decision

[uchighlander]

oldsport,

This is why you have zero respect on this board and otehrs.No resort to name calling when debate would suffice.

The crime was committed in NYC. Thus it should be held there.No right after 911 I too favored a military tribunal but I changed my position because venue would not provide the transparency required in a case such as this.

B4L.....do me a favor and take Cholly to task for name calling too.

 As far as trying this as a criminal act....it's just this administration's way of showing their distain for this country. GO VIKINGS!!!

He should as soon as you take Oldsport to task as well.  Stop being so hypocritical. 

Hey...I'm not the one complaining bout name calling so how can I be hypocritical? If B4L is going to complain about OS's name calling then he should complain about Cholly's name calling. GO VIKINGS!!!

Your sometimer's disease must be kicking in.  There are  posts where you criticized Cholly and others about name calling.  I have never seen you criticize oldsport, not once.

Here's the difference...I have criticized people for name calling but only after they were complaining about OS. You can't have it both ways.....call someone a name and then complain when you get called a name back. I don't call names.....on the other hand I don't care if other people call names......just don't be two faced about it. GO VIKINGS!!!

[Cholly]

IF using the phrase "hyperpartisan neo-con" is name calling then throw me in jail 'cause I'm guilty!

ADDITIONALLY; I DARE any hyperpartisan neo-con to find an example of ME complaining about old sput calling people names.

For the last 10 years I have generally IGNORED spot and his innane internet persona. Any criticism of him by me is almost always limited to a review of his failed military carreer, and lack of achievement and/or creativity as illustrated by his extensive use of the cut-n-paste.

[oldsport]

NOVEMBER 19, 2009
Attorney General Holder Stumped By Lindsey Graham

Eric Holder isn't sure whether Osama bin Laden should be read the Miranda rights at the moment of capture..

By NOEL SHEPPARD

During Wednesday's Justice Department oversight hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) stumped Attorney General Eric Holder on what should have been a fairly routine question for America's top law enforcement official.

Maybe more surprisingly, NPR reported it at its website.

As NPR's Frank James noted, "The exchange started with Graham stumping Holder with a question one would have thought the attorney general would have been prepared for."

I quite agree.

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R-S.C): Can you give me a case in United States history where a enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't know. I'd have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I've made --

GRAHAM: We're making history here, Mr. Attorney General. I'll answer it for you. The answer is no.

HOLDER: Well, I think --

GRAHAM: The Ghailani case -- he was indicted for the Cole bombing before 9/11. And I didn't object to it going into federal court. But I'm telling you right now. We're making history and we're making bad history. And let me tell you why.

Now, the real focus of this NPR piece was Graham's subsequent question concerning whether or not U.S. officials would have to Mirandize Osama bin Laden if he was captured:

GRAHAM: If bin Laden were caught tomorrow, would it be the position of this administration that he would be brought to justice?

HOLDER: He would certainly be brought to justice, absolutely.

GRAHAM: Where would you try him?

HOLDER: Well, we'd go through our protocol. And we'd make the determination about where he should appropriately be tried. [...]

GRAHAM: If we captured bin Laden tomorrow, would he be entitled to Miranda warnings at the moment of capture?

HOLDER: Again I'm not -- that all depends. I mean, the notion that we --

GRAHAM: Well, it does not depend. If you're going to prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs the defendant, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent.

The big problem I have is that you're criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we'd have mixed theories and we couldn't turn him over -- to the CIA, the FBI or military intelligence -- for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now we're saying that he is subject to criminal court in the United States. And you're confusing the people fighting this war.

Much as what NPR did with its piece, this bin Laden segment will likely get a lot of attention from the media in the next 24 hours, as it certainly should.

How they report Holder being stumped by the earlier question will be very interesting to see.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574545843301320078.html

[uchighlander]

As most people did...I saw that news snippet. Holder looked like a deer caught in the headlights. He didn't have a clue. This is not a well thought out decision by the Obama administration. GO VIKINGS!!!

[Optimusprime]

Ah, Lindsey Graham: 
"I bet you dollars to doughnuts when the Supreme Court gets hold of our work product, they are going to approve it."
--Sen. Lindsey Graham bragging about his Military Commissions Act 2006

He forgot that it was the Bush Administration that once again, mucked it up so bad that now, now the conservative neo-con are using that failure to criticize the current AG:

A military judge on Monday dismissed terrorism-related charges against a prisoner charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, in a stunning reversal for the Bush administration's attempts to try Guantanamo detainees in military court.

The chief of military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay, Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, said the ruling in the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr could spell the end of the war-crimes trial system set up last year by Congress and President Bush after the Supreme Court threw out the previous system. The ruling immediately raised questions about whether the U.S. will have to further revise procedures for prosecuting prisoners, leading to major delays.

The judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, said he had no choice but to throw the Khadr case out because he had been classified as an "enemy combatant" by a military panel years earlier — and not as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant."

The Military Commissions Act, signed by Bush last year, specifies that only those classified as "unlawful" enemy combatants can face war trials here, Brownback noted during the arraignment in a hilltop courtroom on this U.S. military base.

Sullivan said the dismissal of Khadr case has "huge" impact because none of the detainees held at this isolated military base in southeast Cuba has been found to be an "unlawful" enemy combatant.

"It is not just a technicality — it's the latest demonstration that this newest system just does not work," Sullivan told journalists. "It is a system of justice that does not comport with American values."

Sullivan said that in order to reclassify Khadr — and other detainees — as "unlawful" enemy combatants, the whole Combatant Status Review Tribunal system would have to be overhauled, a time-consuming act.

Graham was also incorrect in his assertion about the "never before trials" of the types of enemies he tried to question the AG. John Dean nailed him to the wall back in 2006 on this very same thing - detainees or GITMO prisoners receiving trials in US Courts:

The thrust of Senator Graham's argument was that he wanted to reverse the Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul. "Habeas corpus rights have been given to Guantanamo Bay detainees because the location is under control of the United States," Graham observed. He then incorrectly told his colleagues, time and again, that the United States had never before given aliens, enemy combatants, and prisoners of war the right to file a habeas corpus action. "Never in the history of the law of armed conflict has an enemy combatant, irregular component, or POW been given access to civilian court systems to question military authority and control, except here," Graham protested.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court had considered just such habeas petitions during and relating to World War II in Ex parte Quirin and In re Yamashita.

As stated before, the trials should be held in NYC and the fools face the light of day -- unless the neo-cons have a koniption against discovering that the Cheney / Bush (mis)Administration wrote its own laws, making it impossible for KSM and others to receive a fair trial for the crimes they committed against the US Government (Federal Court) and the US People (trial by jury).