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9/11 terrorist to go on trial


Thedelldays
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Anyone remember the old war films where the nasty Germans would barbarically put the gallant Brits in the solitary cooler for 7 days, or 14 if they had been really bad? In the US 80,000 people are serving their prison sentences in solitary, for up to 40 years. 40 years in solitary is inhuman, the death penalty would be less 'cruel and unusual'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17564805

Edited by buctootim
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For the sake of playing devil's advocate, there's no way he'd get a fair trial in a civilian court. At least in a military court he will be judged on actual evidence as opposed to public outrage and emotion.

I guess..it stops the images of a muslim/asian being put-on trial by TV in the US and cause a stir everywhere..

this one will be relatively out of sight and out of mind

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My view is that anyone suspected of crimes like this should be put up before the International Courts.

 

Is there any good reason why this should not be?

a crime in the USA, on US planes to kill (mainly) US citizens.....where do you draw the line..?

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a crime in the USA, on US planes to kill (mainly) US citizens.....where do you draw the line..?

 

Irrespective of the crime's original locum, the fallout from that day has lasted over a decade and has involved many Western states, many of them giving up sons and daughters supposedly in pursuit of justice.

 

9/11 became an international concern the moment that the US pulled everyone else into their respective war efforts. To claim it's an internal matter when the fallout has involved so many is a bit simplistic, imo.

 

Not only that, but it violates principles that we are supposed to hold, such as openness and transparency. People talk about this guy not getting a fair trial in a public US court. They're probably right. But I doubt that a closed military court with no publicity will guarantee justice either.

 

What is especially amusing/disturbing is that the US went to great lengths to avoid calling captured Al-Qaeda operatives prisoners of war, largely so that they could ignore the Geneva convention. Seems weird that they are using a military court to prosecute a non-military defendant.

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I must have got the wrong SWF... I thought I was on Saints Web Forum not the Socialist Workers Forum :)

 

You didn't get the wrong SWF, but I'd suggest you did leave the wrong response!

 

Due process purely a socialist ideal, is it?

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Due process purely a socialist ideal, is it?

 

 

Apparently so. The knee-jerk default to authoritarianism here is just another clue as to the thin veneer of capitalist civilisation. Thank (non-existent) god for socialists and their lone defence of civil liberties.

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My view is that anyone suspected of crimes like this should be put up before the International Courts.

 

Is there any good reason why this should not be?

 

There is the argument that courts can reveal information that puts national security at risk i.e revealing undercover agents.

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There is the argument that courts can reveal information that puts national security at risk i.e revealing undercover agents.

 

Agents are blown with some regularity, dune. We end up pulling them out and using different assets. I've no doubt that there are intelligence assets out there who would not be easily replaced, but should we condone the slow erosion of due process and civil liberties because our intelligence agencies haven't got appropriate cover?

 

Just after the 9/11 attacks, Western leaders were keen to stress that the atrocities would not change the way we live, yet immediately went about changing the way we live, trampling on human rights all the way and stealing tricks from the playbooks of dictatorial regimes. Detention without trial, torture, rendition, pre-emptive invasions and massively increased surveillance. How is that not changing the way we live, exactly? What moral authority do we have left when we've done all of the above and more?

 

If you commit a crime, you have the right to a fair trial and if found guilty based on the evidence, you're punished. I think that's a fair enough system, worth supporting even if it isn't as convenient or expedient as other forms of retributive action.

Edited by pap
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In those circumstances you allow a delay of 15 minutes and redact any evidence that might affect national security

 

That doesn't address the issue. For examle the CIA have unearthed plans for a Bombay style attack in the UK, but have not given MI6 full details because our court system could reveal their undercover agents/operations. It's sad that we are being dictated to by terrorists, you could argue that this is them winning, but we are fighting against Islamists intent on mass murder and every measure must be taken to stop them and to protect British citizens.

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That doesn't address the issue. For examle the CIA have unearthed plans for a Bombay style attack in the UK, but have not given MI6 full details because our court system could reveal their undercover agents/operations. It's sad that we are being dictated to by terrorists, you could argue that this is them winning, but we are fighting against Islamists intent on mass murder and every measure must be taken to stop them and to protect British citizens.

 

That would be fair enough, if we had actually taken all measures. We're cutting corners for convenience and leaving a lot of the actual solutions off the table. We of all people should know that you can't kill a terrorist organisation to death.

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That would be fair enough, if we had actually taken all measures. We're cutting corners for convenience and leaving a lot of the actual solutions off the table. We of all people should know that you can't kill a terrorist organisation to death.

 

Like I say i'm not at all happy about civil liberties being infringed upon due to to terrorists, but i'm a realist and if we have to lose some civil liberties to protect life then sadly it must be done. That said there must be safe guards to ensure such draconian measures do not turn us into more of a police state and are used only occasionally. We are already well down that road to a police state with the curtailment of freedom of speech that we've seen in recent years.

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Like I say i'm not at all happy about civil liberties being infringed upon due to to terrorists, but i'm a realist and if we have to lose some civil liberties to protect life then sadly it must be done. That said there must be safe guards to ensure such draconian measures do not turn us into more of a police state and are used only occasionally. We are already well down that road to a police state with the curtailment of freedom of speech that we've seen in recent years.

 

That's just the thing though, dune.

 

Curtailing civil liberties makes us less free as a society. I plainly don't speak for everyone, but I would rather die tomorrow defending my beliefs than spending the rest of my life hiding from them. Perhaps that's my recent interest in genealogy talking - the realisation that I am just one part in a long running chain of people stretching back to the dawn of time and stretching on who knows where. With that mindset, you could almost ask what you could possibly achieve in the small window we perceive as everything.

 

I honestly think the best we can do is be ourselves, make a case for what we believe in and let history be the judge. Look at how we perceive the denizens of the Weimar Republic, the pre-cursor to one of the most violent and oppressive regimes the planet has ever seen. We look back and wonder "how did this ever come to pass?". Well, it happened bit by bit - imagined enemies, disproportionate responses, hidden agendas and the repeated message that the "State was right".

 

I look at how we've conducted ourselves in the past decade, and am shocked at the apparent similarities. Civil liberties taken down one at a time and people acquiescing through fear.

 

The correct response to 9/11 would have been to conduct a cultural war, to enumerate the best of the West, to trumpet our record on equality and human rights, to condemn states that didn't hold those values up and to continuously act in ways that reflect the general decent morality that makes up the feelings of inhabitants of Western democracies.

 

I fully accept that after 9/11, greater security would have been something to strive for; yet I look at the costs of waging two wars and wonder whether that money would have been better invested in preventative measures, such as bunging more money to the security services or the general defence infrastructure budget.

 

I then wonder how much security we'd actually need if we could just resolve some problems for good. In the early '90s and the end of the Cold War, it genuinely felt like we had done that. How little we knew. A mere decade after, we're doing exactly the same things we used to criticise our enemies for and we have a new, more nebulous enemy.

 

The weird thing is, this new enemy has demonstrably far less destructive capability than our former foes, yet we've shipped civil liberties left, right and centre to try to defeat them.

Edited by pap
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That's just the thing though, dune.

 

Curtailing civil liberties makes us less free as a society. I plainly don't speak for everyone, but I would rather die tomorrow defending my beliefs than spending the rest of my life hiding from them. Perhaps that's my recent interest in genealogy talking - the realisation that I am just one part in a long running chain of people stretching back to the dawn of time and stretching on who knows where. With that mindset, you could almost ask what you could possibly achieve in the small window we perceive as everything.

 

I honestly think the best we can do is be ourselves, make a case for what we believe in and let history be the judge. Look at how we perceive the denizens of the Weimar Republic, the pre-cursor to one of the most violent and oppressive regimes the planet has ever seen. We look back and wonder "how did this ever come to pass?". Well, it happened bit by bit - imagined enemies, disproportionate responses, hidden agendas and the repeated message that the "State was right".

 

I look at how we've conducted ourselves in the past decade, and am shocked at the apparent similarities. Civil liberties taken down one at a time and people acquiescing through fear.

 

The correct response to 9/11 would have been to conduct a cultural war, to enumerate the best of the West, to trumpet our record on equality and human rights, to condemn states that didn't hold those values up and to continuously act in ways that reflect the general decent morality that makes up the feelings of inhabitants of Western democracies.

 

I fully accept that after 9/11, greater security would have been something to strive for; yet I look at the costs of waging two wars and wonder whether that money would have been better invested in preventative measures, such as bunging more money to the security services or the general defence infrastructure budget.

 

I then wonder how much security we'd actually need if we could just resolve some problems for good. In the early '90s and the end of the Cold War, it genuinely felt like we had done that. How little we knew. A mere decade after, we're doing exactly the same things we used to criticise our enemies for and we have a new, more nebulous enemy.

 

The weird thing is, this new enemy has demonstrably far less destructive capability than our former foes, yet we've shipped civil liberties left, right and centre to try to defeat them.

 

Totally agree.Well said.

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