The whole point of representing ACCUSED terrorists is that most people charged with terrorist-related offenses are found not guilty. Thus most of them actually are defending innocent people or at least people not guilty of the terrorist offenses they were charged and not terrorists.

Or do you think our government is so competent it always charges the right people with the right crimes? What dreamy liberal thinking.

Skyler, dear friend, did you miss this part? “I’ve never opposed the decisions of individual lawyers to represent terrorists…”

Since I’ve been posting on this subject for about a year, I’ve never opposed legal counsel for detainees.

Just out of curiosity, See-Dubya, how do you feel about the decision of individual lawyers to represent wrongfully accused victims of US funded foreign bounty hunters? Is that what you are really objecting to? I’m totally baffled here.

The vast majority of these Gitmo detainees aren’t even on trial for terrorism. They are in court pushing to receive a trial for terrorism. Isn’t that a laugh? These guys are actually begging the SCOTUS to try them in a real court of law - rather than a military kangaroo court - because they are so supremely confident of their innocence, they think they can refute every piece of evidence the US Government has against them. How many terrorists do you know that would actively seek out a trial in a hostile enemy country because they were so confident of their impending vindication? This would be like Osama Bin Laden walking into the Washington FBI office and daring someone to put him in front of a judge. And the US Government NOT DOING IT because they didn’t think they could convince 12 guys he was a terrorist.

How sad is our Justice Department? Seriously.

What? No response? Come on, See-Dubya, answer the question. Why do you have a problem with “enemy combatants” receiving a fair trial? It’s abundantly clear that these people are terrorists, or you wouldn’t be referring to them as such ad nauseaum. The US State Department must have files a million miles long on each of these guys, right?

Majid Khan tried to BLOW UP BALTIMORE! You don’t pull that without leaving some seriously heavy footprints. Just put him in front of a real judge, lay down the real evidence, and put him away for a real fifty-odd consecutive life sentences. Case closed.

We gave Timothy McVey the chair, and it was all by the book, why is this so hard - evil pro bono lawyers not withstanding.

I’ll give you three reasons, Zifnab.

1) They are not US citizens nor legal residents and, as such, are not bound by US criminal law. 2) They are not US citizens nor legal residents and, as such, are not entitled to the protections of the US constitution. 3) They were captured while violating the Geneva Conventions and, as such, should be dealt with according to the provisions of that treaty (which allows for military trials and not US civil trials).

Zifnab:

partial answer here: http://junkyardblog.net/archives/2007/12/terrorist-recog.php

Jimmie,

Those sound like good reasons until you start to check things 1) When you read the text of the Constitution, you’ll note that none of the Bill of Rights specify citizen or legal resident. When they address it at all, they specify the people, or persons. 2) Anyone tried by the US is tried by US law, under the rights granted by the Constitution:

Eighth Amendment Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

3) Is it no longer necessary to prove that an accused detainee is part of a terrorist network/cell/organization? And, if so, that we must lower ourselves to their level to deal with them?

Tell you what Jimmie. You can feel free to demand the blood of the evildoers, in as grotesque a manner as you lie, but please refrain from masking your howling outrage/fear/bloodlust with the Constitiution of the United States. It demeans you for failing to understand what that document means.

So if you’re not a US Citizen, the US Government has the right to snatch you off the street and disappear you? Does that work for other governments too? Can I be kidnapped by Mexican Police and renditioned to Paraguay? Grabbed by Russian spooks and tossed in a Chinese Gulag? Picked up by Canadian bounty hunters and stuffed in a prison in Iceland?

Many of these “terrorists” at Gitmo are blatantly innocent of the crimes they are accused of. They have direct evidence to the contrary - evidence that exhonorates them beyond a reasonable doubt - which fails to get them released from prison because of the US Govt’s preventative policies exactly because of the boondoggling incompetence that leads to the release of actual terrorists.

This is the joke, See-Dubya. The reason we have due process and such is to make certain that we capture criminals, and only criminals, rather than indefinitely detaining the innocent and releasing the guilty. Imagine, if you would, that units responsible for the capture of Abdallah Noor did their job the first time. Who would have objected to tossing him in the pen for life? Instead, we release Noor and let Mahar Arar rot. Does that make sense to you?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2007/01/sec-070127-voa01.htm