Treatment of terror suspects as enemy combatants...

I am all for terrorists who commit terrorism on American soil being labeled and treated as enemy combatants!

 

Especially as I watched that Countdown episode on Fox(with John Bolton). "There wasn't enough to go on, so we couldn't open an investigation". SERIOUSLY? Isn't that what an investigation is for? It seems like it's backwards in the Justice Department. We're going to wait for a crime to be committed, SO we can open an investigation.

This is completely and utterly nuts, and this is what we're counting on to protect the country.

 

Legally, yes it does mean that. There is a huge legal difference between a “declaration of war” and an “authorization to use military force.”

A declaration of war automatically brings into effect a number of statutes that confer special powers on the President and the Executive Branch, especially about measures that have domestic effect, these include granting the President the direct power take over businesses and transportation systems as part of the war effort; the ability to detain foreign nationals; the power to conduct spying without any warrants domestically; and the power to use natural resources on public lands. These are very important differences.

We may have a state of a metaphorical "war" (ie. "war of drugs" or "War on terrorism") but these are different usages than the formal meaning of the word 'war'.


The fact that others may or may not declare war on us is irrelevant. No war exists, and therefore those executive powers do not exist, until congress makes a formal declaration.

 

Well, reading through the various reports from the FBI every time these incidents occur, they always seem to have one(1) or more warnings. Or an already investigative file into the person. So in most of these cases, they already ARE identified. We just...don't do anything with that information.

Because we cannot preemptively take them off the streets, which is just pitiful.

 

I agree. It sickens me when I hear of a suspected terrorist being investigated then let go just to later commit an act of terrorism upon the American people. I do although understand the limits of our ability to investigate as we cannot throw people in Gitmo just because we suspect that they are terrorists. I think we need to come up with a better plan to combat terrorism as our current system is ineffectual too much of the time. If we are too heavy handed we just give our enemy more cause to attack us, yet if we don't take off the baby gloves we are just emboldening out enemy to attack us even more.

 

War doesn't exist unless Congress says it exists, huh? You don't need a "declaration' that war exists, - all you need is eyes and ears. And if any group says they are at war with you you should take them at their word.

I understand the law, and semantics, but also understand reality.

 

I'm a very empathic person, but only when people deserve your empathy. That's the key right there. If someone is connected to, or trying to connect to a terrorist group do they really deserve our empathy? Let's not act as though they don't know what they're doing when they look up such a site. When someone looks up information on how to make a pressure bomber, they're not looking at it for festivities, but to commit murder. That's the sad reality of our enemies imo.

Thing about so-called being too heavy is that they will look for ANY justification. Like Bolton said: Whether we close Gitmo or not, whether we 'bad mouth' terrorism or not(as if it's wrong to bad mouth terrorism), they're going to recruit them. When Hillary goes on about "They're using Trump's words to recruit"(When they've also used Bill's words)

We're not just emboldening them to attack us even more, we're giving them a SHIELD to attack us with. Think about the immigration thing for a second: If we could separate the good ones from the bad ones, good Muslim-Americans would be able to integrate. Just as we were able to tell the difference from Japanese-Americans and the Imperial Navy, or German-Americans from Nazis.

Today, our government cannot verify these differences nor do they even want to acknowledge the difference exists. So we have to have a healthy and reasonable suspicion of all. Especially when literally because of their religion, ANY one of them could snap at a given moment. It's tough times for this country right now.

 

The enemy is going to attack you whether you are 'heavy handed ' or not. In fact Islamists were less likely to attack when the US was heavy handed.

An interesting article.

http://spectator.org/hillarys-submi...il&utm_term=0_797a38d487-769124bca6-104323081

 

Legally, yes

Legally, yes you do, as I have already explained. There are two senses of the word 'war' that are being conflated here.

There is 'WAR' in the legal sense and 'war' in the metaphorical sense. The former takes an act of congress. The latter can be said by anyone for any reason and is largely meaningless. As I said, we can have the 'war on drugs', or a 'war on crime', or a 'war on illegal immigration', or a 'war on terrorism' ... we can be at metaphorical war with a bad neighbor, we can have a 'war on illiteracy', etc, etc, etc. None of these imply that we are at 'WAR' (legally) and the president has all the powers granted because of it.

Conflating these two meanings seems to be nothing more than a scare tactic and a spur for action along a desired course.

I don't believe it is ever possible to have a 'WAR' against an ideology. Should that ideology be fought? Heck yes! ... But it is not a 'WAR' and therefore those powers mentioned are not granted to the president. Do you think the executive branch should have those powers in this fight? I certainly don't but that is just my opinion.

 

Look at that. We agree.

There but for the grace of God go I.

He who sacrifices liberty for safety deserves neither.


Now if we catch you over there taking up arms against our troops, you are fair game. Btw "My Son the Jihadi" is on netflix. Good watch.

 

What Ben Franklin said metaphorically makes sense. In the excess of government power, it naturally expands. But that doesn't mean you deny government power at all(as we saw with the Continential Crisis.) No, the Founders then created the Federal Republic in response-a government of limited powers.

The same thing here: We can expand on terrorism, as long as it is defined within that narrow scope of terrorism. As an example, the phone recordings. If that data were strictly limited to terrorists, we'd be fine with it. But the knowledge that it got the data of innocent citizens, is way too much.

It's not a neither/or case. We CAN exercise political power to good results, provided we consciously know what we're doing.

 

Semantics. There's a difference between sanctioned combat war with the military and coalitions, and a "war", or "zero tolerance" of a controlled substance(s) that's created gang life. If you believe those two are the exact same, and that's your rationale, then this is a pretty useless discussion.

 

They should be charged with treason. It's an appropriate law in these cases.

 

Why not? That's a perfect place for suspected terrorists. The military then handles it accordingly.We should look to how the military handled these situations in WWII.

If you recall, Iraq in 2011 was 'stable' and there had been no terrorist attacks on the US since 9/11. Then Obama pulled the troops, terrorists groups reorganized, and now we have terrorism once again gaining strength throughout the world. If you start worrying how terrorists will respond then you are on the way to losing. And the idea that Gitmo is a recruiting tool for terrorists is one of the biggest lies from 'our side' since the problems began.

If Trump is elected he will have a big job ahead of him to get things back to where they were in 2011. If Hillary is elected the decline will simply continue and terrorism will spread.

 

Yes we have the courts and the legal right to strip criminals and terrorists of their citizenship, as this has been done for years to mafia members.

Such terrorists pledging loyalty to Islam and doing obvious terror attacks should be quickly stripped of their citizenship, taken to Guantanamo, immediately tried and speedily hanged. It only took our government 3 months to try and hang the Lincoln conspirators. How pathetic that our supposed enlightened and modern courts are so mired in stupidity that the NY and NJ bomber will likely take years to convict and never face execution or charges of treason.

 

And these delays, plus the possibility that they can be exchanged later for kidnapped Americans overseas, certainly doesn't discourage others from taking their place.

 

Yes we don't preemptively arrest people for things they haven't done yet.

 

I'm not advocating a 'thought' crime, but an 'intent' crime. An action crime. If one confesses the wish to join the enemy and if one plans an attack against our people, I'm not going to be stupid enough to sit there and let it happen.

 

Yes, and for the bomber likely to plead an "insanity" defense, like all who try this dodge, they had better prove that "they didn't know what they were doing was wrong" at the time. Any who've done preplanning for their crimes, who try to run or hide from what they've done ARE not "insane."

 

In fact, in a time of war, that's exactly what you do. In fact they tend to be killed on sight.

 

Yeah, that was my point. Semantics. We don't have a sanctioned "war on terror" any more than a sanctioned "war on drugs".

 

And while you argue semantics and whether war needs to be 'sanctioned', there are people out there who are trying to kill you and your families. Perhaps you can argue these finer points on the sidelines while the adults settle the issue.

And, btw, who should Congress declare war against?

 

You're comparing the war on drugs,

to Soldiers forward deployed, tanks, patriot missiles, air craft carriers, special forces, NATO militaries, fighting terrorists?

You're comparing something illegal in the US, like stealing a car, to the war on terrorism.

This is pretty nuts. But if that's how you feel, I'm not going to argue any more.

 

Pray tell, what sentence should we give the NY-NY bomber if he is found guilty of all the bombings that he obviously did?

1) A good scolding and make him promise not to do it again.

2) A few year in the Federal Pen and make him wear an ankle bracelet after he gets out?

3) Release him later for a hostage swap with the terrorists so he can kill others?

 

"It's not a big deal. It's the same thing as doing drugs"