Torture OK in US
Attorneys for the prisoners argued that some were held solely on evidence gained by torture, which they said violated fundamental fairness and U.S. due process standards. But [deputy associate attorney general Brian] Boyle argued in a similar hearing Wednesday that the detainees "have no constitutional rights enforceable in this court."
And THEN that same attorney says
that if the military's combatant status review tribunals "determine that evidence of questionable provenance [torture] were reliable, nothing in the due process clause (of the Constitution) prohibits them from relying on it."
But THEN he says there's nothing like torture going at GTMO, even though Amnesty International and the International Red Cross seem to disagree.
I tell you, I just don't know who to believe: guy working for most secretive, power-hungry US Administration in history, or watchdog groups of longstanding international repute?
PoTAYto, poTAHto.
Now, in another article, the same attorney was speaking with a different judge:
"If a little old lady in Switzerland writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization for Afghanistan orphans, but it's really supporting . .. al Qaeda, is she an enemy combatant?" [U.S. District Court Judge] Green asked.
Boyle said the woman could be, but it would depend on her intentions. "It would be up to the military to decide as to what to believe," he said.
It would be up to the military to decide what to believe.
Now see, I don't want someone thinking I don't respect one of the greatest institutions America has going for it: service. No, no, no. What bothers me is that, unless Switzerland is a new front on "the war", and the BBC just isn't reporting troop movements yet, it is now the job of the American military to determine if every single person on the planet may be detained by the US, sans rights.
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