McCain: No Habeas for Bin Laden, Right to the Gallows

John McCain is trying to paint Barack Obama into a corner regarding the question of whether Osama bin Laden deserves due process if or when U.S forces capture him. Leaving aside the fact that McCain's good buddies Bush and Cheney haven't been able to capture him for seven years despite their "best" efforts, perhaps the question of whether Osama deserves due process should be preceded by capturing him.

In attempting to turn Obama into the typical bleeding heart Democrat on national security issues, McCain has painted himself into a very deep, dark corner. In a message entitled I Will Deliver Justice (yeah, just like Bush has done), he writes:

...After enthusiastically embracing the Supreme Court decision granting habeas in U.S. civilian courts to dangerous terrorist detainees, he is now running away from the consequences of that decision and what it would mean if Osama bin Laden were captured. Senator Obama refuses to clarify whether he believes habeas should be granted to Osama bin Laden, and instead cites the precedent of the Nuremburg [sic] war trials...There was no habeas at Nuremburg [sic] and there should be no habeas for Osama bin Laden.

.
..Let me be clear, under my administration Osama bin Laden will either be killed on the battlefield or executed.

How can a president of the United States guarantee that someone will be executed before he has been tried or even apprehended? I've never heard to such a thing before. Hasn't McCain heard of a mere formality called judicial due process? Or have we gotten to he point where we can dispense with that too as we have with so many of our other civil liberties?

This statement sounds like an open invitation to those who might capture Bin Laden to execute him summarily. That would be handy because then there would be none of those messy legal proceedings in which he could string out the execution McCain so desperately seeks.

In McCain's message we have a perfect crystallization of the different outlooks of the two candidates. Obama believes in justice. McCain believes in vengeance. In my Jewish religion, vengeance is reserved for the Lord. I'd prefer to keep it that way. Osama Bin Laden deserves justice when and if he is caught; not vengeance.

Vengeance is what Bin Laden has wrought on the world on behalf of imagined Muslim grievances against the west. Why should we embrace his twisted code in meting out punishment to him? What message will that send to the rest of the world and, in particular, his followers and potential supporters? Don't we want them to think that we live by a code that is fair, consistent, and civilized? Or do we want them to think that we are as bloodthirsty as the jihadists?

Hat tip to Sol Salbe and the Lowy Institute blog, The Interpreter.

Comments

[sytgrl]

This man is incompetent. If Bin Laden is alive (which is doubtful), then wouldn't it be smarter to question him, as opposed to killing him?

McCan't is a warmonger who fails to see the larger picture and has completely lost his moral compass (if he ever had one).

[Cathexis]

Shameful.

"Principles" are easy when they are convenient. It is when principles are applied all of the time, whether convenient or not, that the peopel and nation can be said to have integrity.

It's also laughable -- they seem to think that giving someone their righst means they will 'escape Justice." Actually, all it means is that it is much less likely that innocent people will be punished. Every person deserves their rights -- from the most upright man in the world to the worst serial killer. If a man is guilty, the system will deal with that.

For too many people, what they claim is a thirst for Justice is merely a thirst for Vengeance.

"Treat your neighbor as you would be treated," a certain sage once said. I guess they forget that.

[TomInCalifornia]

Due process isn't entirely for the benefit of the accused. It's for the benefit of all of us. People rightly hated the Nazi war criminals. But the Allies made a conscious decision to accord them due process. We were right to do so.

McCain should know better. When his plane was shot down over Vietnam, I don't think he was a popular man to the peasants who captured him. A demogogue among them would have gotten a lot of support for the proposition that McCain should just be hanged on the spot. Luckily for McCain, the Vietnamese accorded him the rule of law.

Sad to see McCain reduced to this level of pandering.

[wm1066]

Well, if you use him as a boggeyman you never want to capture him. So making unamerican statements like this will just excite your base. He has no plans to capture him, he has no plans to kill him. Charlie Black wants him to attack America again so people will vote Republican.

[MajorKong]

From A Man for All Seasons:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

[Tommygun264]

In order to claim moral superiority we must live by superior moral standards. Do you really believe that Osama Bin Laden would go free simply because we afforded him due process? Get real.

[tinarm]

The problem with all this is that we invade a foreign country then put its leaders on trial in front of the world and hang them, but now that we have people we havn't charged locked up in some prison somewhere they can't have the same rights as Saddam Hussein? Um, didn't Saddam murders 1000 and 1000 of people, then where was the though shoot to kill with him? Remember oh, no we are going to make an example of him, but when it comes to everyone else nope no rights, nope just gonna hold you forever or shoot you on the spot. This administration and McCain are mentally messed up.

[psf]

"This statement sounds like an open invitation to those who might capture Bin Laden to execute him summarily."

what did you think "wanted: dead or alive" meant?

[mrqapla]

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm
Nothing about 9/11.

[sd4peace]

WOW... WTF????

[SpoxLogic]

That's probably because he DIDN'T have anything to do with 9-11. So, if caught, that's not one of the charges he would have to defend against, and therefore, nothing about his complicity or lack thereof would comeout.

That is, if Osama bin Laden isn't a skeleton already!

[XME]

This was a very well thought out article. Unforunately, it seems many on the right don't really care what the rest of the world thinks of us (hence our predicament of being rather disliked by terrorists, etc.)

Perhaps the best way to convince some of them would be to ask how they would want and expect a loved one to be treated if they were captured while visiting another country and were accused of being a terrorist. Would they think that their loved one should have the chance to prove otherwise before being killed for the judgement? I think so...but unfortunately, they are often quite incapable of seeing a situation from that different point of view, only as wanting "vengence", which is a very scary and dangerous mindset.

That mindset is what scares me about the possibility of a President McCain. I have to wonder about a man who was a POW for 5 years, and angry he must be at all of our "enemies", and maybe even his desire for vengence.

[zanzig]

"... judicial due process. Or have we gotten to the point where we can dispense with that too as we have with so many of our other civil liberties?"
You are kidding aren't you? Have you been under a rock for the past 6 years? Ask the prisoners at Guantanamo and Baghram about judicial due process. You dispensed with that in March 2003.

[gvc]

Here's a controversial thought: it would be better not to execute Bin Laden. That would indeed make him a martyr. Why not let him rot? Vengeance plays only to the local audience.