Guantanamo: A ‘False Choice Between Our Safety and Our Ideals’?
@48. Robert Hurley:
US civil and criminal law stops at our border. The Military Code does not. Only members of our Armed Forces are bound by the code.
Charging someone who is not a citizen and has never been in the US with a crime under any law of the US or it’s subdivisions carries no legal weight. The only extraterritorial laws are all embodied in trade agreements, which cause the legal systems of the participating nations to come into congruence on the specific point covered by those treatries.
We can no more criminally charge them than write Englishmen traffic tickets for driving on the wrong side of the road, or charge a Omani with polygamy. This is the reason for the Geneva Conventions, they establish an internationally approved code of conduct. The residents of the detention facility at GITMO have taken it upon themselves to violate those standards.
There is no law in the US Code that they have broken, and I have checked the Michigan Criminal Code (where I live) and can find no chargable offense. We have no law that says that it is illegal for a Saudi to shoot at US troops while in Afghanistan and dressed as a civilian.
The constant refrain “put them on trial here” doesn’t recognize this legal problem. The only law that applies is the Geneva Conventions, no US court has standing to hear those cases. The Conventions spell out in detail how to proceed, and that is with military tribunals. Let the rule of law go forward and these person will be found guilty and executed for their crimes.
