[lit-ideas] Re: 3 SUICIDES AT GUANTANAMO
- From: John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:01:20 -0500
Eric Yost wrote:
Judy: That's an argument against hasty execution, not one in favour of
denial of due process (let alone torture).
Eric: No, it's an argument in favor of removing terrorists from the
criminal justice system. Nobody has responded to it yet.
OK, here's a response:
1. Separating "terrorists" from the justice system can't be done UNTIL
one has determined who is and who is not a terrorist, and teh criminal
justice system is designed to find out questions of fact exactly like
that. Without some "due process" a terrorist is someone a neighbor
claims is a terrorist.
2 The consequence of the above is that EVERYBODY suffers, not just
terrorists. Neighbors suffer because, knowing there is no due process,
they fear being "turned in" the same way.
3. The very people who are to be protected against terrorists suffer
because once we have used the techniques and methods on terrorists that
would not be allowed in a court of law, we can no longer subject those
prisoners to legal proceedings--any "right" to due process has already
been so violated that we cannot punish the guilty in a court of law.
Let me re-state this: Even if we had the 20th hijacker in Cuba, after
subjecting them to the kind of treatment we have subjected those
detainees to, we could no longer hope to begin to try that person. The
government can "claim" that it has found the person, and "claim" that we
know who it is, and "claim" that the person is being appropriately
punished, but NONE of this can take place in a court of law, due to all
the previous violations. It's not only the accused that wants "justice"
in a court of law; more typically it's those victimized. They want to
know that the guilty have been punished. They will never get this
satisfaction.
--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
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John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Lisle, IL, USA
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