Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] what waterboarding looks like [Politics]

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2006, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:

> Jonathan King wrote:
>
> > There is evidently some question about whether waterboarding is or is 
> > not banned by recent legislation addressing how we can interrogate and 
> > try certain enemy combatants (and what an enemy combatant really is, 
> > and that's very worrisome, because there are no hard standards).
>
> Let me address just this issue of what constitutes an enemy combatant. I 
> am not an expert on the Geneva convention by any means.  Being a US 
> citizen incurs certain rights (due process, etc), and also being a POW 
> incurs certain rights (Geneva convention, etc).

Does being a US citizen mean that you cannot be an enemy combatant?  I 
don't know and am wondering about that issue.  OK, I guess a US citizen 
can be considered an enemy combatant...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaser_Esam_Hamdi

If someone is detained as an enemy combatant and habeas corpus is 
suspended, how do we ever know that they are an enemy combatant?  There is 
no trial.

I often hear people say "look, these people are trying to kill us -- why 
should we do things for them, like give them hearings?"  The obvious 
answer is that we have not established that they are trying to kill us -- 
that is merely a claim, and it is a claim that should be tested in a 
hearing.  Who is Maher Arar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar

What, except for public outrage, would stop the President from claiming 
that some US Senator is an enemy combatant, imprisoning that Senator and 
refusing him a hearing?  Instead of telling me that is ridiculous, tell me 
how the *law* prevents it from happening.

Mike

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