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White House: Boston suspect will not be treated as combatant

Our court system is designed to handle citizens who commit such acts just fine. We have a history of doing so going all the way back. We deal with serial killers and mass murderers with a "cause", we can deal with this one.

Yes, but would you want to be on the jury that sentenced an al-Quaida operative to death?
 
This is good news, I'm glad that Senator Lindsay Graham's opinion on this didn't prevail.


The White House said Monday it will not treat the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon attack as an enemy combatant. White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill and injure people, would be tried as a terrorist in the federal court system. "This is absolutely the right way to go and the appropriate way to go,” Carney said a Monday’s White House press briefing. Carney said the department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder, as well the entire national security team, support not trying the terror suspect as an enemy combatant. Number of Republicans had called on the Obama administration to declare Tsarnaev an enemy combatant and put him in military detention in order to gather intelligence from him. They argue this would allow the goverment to gather more information from Tsarnaev for a longer period of time. The government has yet to read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights, and Carney on Monday declined to comment on how long the Justice Department might question Tsarnaev under the public safety exemption from Miranda.​
Read more: White House: Boston suspect will not be treated as combatant - The Hill's Video

The bastardization of the term enemy combatant as a cover for a group of men to be held as unlawful combatants but covered by neither the Geneva Convention or any international or state side legal system ends to end. Good to see we are turning our backs on it and I can see why a few die hard Republicans want to see the term continued if for no other reason than to say, 'you did it too', and justify the use during the BushII administration.

It will cost millions to try him and millions if he was kept in a military facility. Seems to me to be a push either way. Any military tribunal held will be in the news as much as any federal court trial, any lighting rod affect still holds.
 
This is good news, I'm glad that Senator Lindsay Graham's opinion on this didn't prevail.


The White House said Monday it will not treat the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon attack as an enemy combatant.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill and injure people, would be tried as a terrorist in the federal court system.

"This is absolutely the right way to go and the appropriate way to go,” Carney said a Monday’s White House press briefing.

Carney said the department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder, as well the entire national security team, support not trying the terror suspect as an enemy combatant.

Number of Republicans had called on the Obama administration to declare Tsarnaev an enemy combatant and put him in military detention in order to gather intelligence from him. They argue this would allow the goverment to gather more information from Tsarnaev for a longer period of time.

The government has yet to read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights, and Carney on Monday declined to comment on how long the Justice Department might question Tsarnaev under the public safety exemption from Miranda.​

Read more: White House: Boston suspect will not be treated as combatant - The Hill's Video

I agree with the decision. Under the Laws of War, under which the American Sheikh was properly designated a combatant (his command-and-control function within Al Qaeda in Yemen) and appropriately targeted, the suspect in the terrorism case does not fit the customary definition of a combatant. That does not mean that he cannot or will not be brought to justice.

I have confidence that the U.S. justice system is sufficiently robust to handle such cases. Moreover, I fully expect that he will ultimately be held fully accountable for his actions.
 
Our court system is designed to handle citizens who commit such acts just fine. We have a history of doing so going all the way back. We deal with serial killers and mass murderers with a "cause", we can deal with this one.

There is a difference between a typical lone criminal and a cartel, mafia, terrorist cell or gang member criminal. That key difference is that they have organizations behind them owing them extreme allegience for imimidation/retribution. These criminal organizations help obtain/maintain their power by witness, judge, prosecutor and jury intimidation/retribution. Whether this junior Jihadist has that level of backup is anyone's guess, but it is a distinct possibility that those involved with our justice system, in his case, will be seen as "key infidels" well deserving of Allah's ultimate revenge.
 
There is a difference between a typical lone criminal and a cartel, mafia, terrorist cell or gang member criminal. That key difference is that they have organizations behind them owing them extreme allegience for imimidation/retribution. These criminal organizations help obtain/maintain their power by witness, judge, prosecutor and jury intimidation/retribution. Whether this junior Jihadist has that level of backup is anyone's guess, but it is a distinct possibility that those involved with our justice system, in his case, will be seen as "key infidels" well deserving of Allah's ultimate revenge.

Revenge killings of the jury?

I think any terrorist orginization would go bankrupt trying to execute every member of a jury as revenge for a guilty verdict againist their members.
 
Revenge killings of the jury?

I think any terrorist orginization would go bankrupt trying to execute every member of a jury as revenge for a guilty verdict againist their members.

It only takes one member to hang a jury, or to refuse to allow a death sentence.

An additional 12 jurors (2 male, 1D, 1L; 10 female, 5 D, 5 L) were afraid that the defendant would seek revenge against them, even though half of these jurors did not seek the ultimate punishment of death, but rather sentenced the defendant to a lesser punishment of life imprisonment.

https://www.ajs.org/ajs/publications/Judicature_PDFs/895/Antonio_895.pdf
 
If for no other reason, to protect the judge and jury that will preside over this case, as they will likely become instant targets of al-Quaida.

The same way we do for mob trials. This is nothing new.
 
Yes, but would you want to be on the jury that sentenced an al-Quaida operative to death?

If I, as a juror decided the state's case warranted the death penalty - hell yes. As for feeling threatened, no more than I would being a juror at any trial. People seek revenge for verdicts for the smallest and the largest of issues and I could just as easily be hit by a bus on my way home.
 
Depends. If this entails training and contact with elements of al-Quaida, much like the cell in Canada caught today, are you in favor of a trial conducted in the same courtroom and manner as a drug dealer or a prostitution ring?

When the crime involves a terrorist attack on the country in general, rather than violence toward specific citizens, it seems to fall into a very different category than what our court system is designed to handle.

I'm not so sure this is a case for Judge Judy.


Prosecution rings and drug dealers are generally not matters for the federal court, and generally not get the "A" team of prosecutors, ye of little faith in the American system. ie, Judy Judy is not a federal judge.
 
No, no, no. I'm just stating that this will be very challenging from a number of standoints, including the financial burden of security detail. In fact, I'm not sure true security will be possible since the target zone for terrorists is the entire United States essentially.

And that is different than what exists now?

If you want to lead, lead by example.
Using the rule of law is an important example.
 
Is the remaining suspect an American citizen or not? If he is, then he gets his Constitutional rights honored. People may hate that, but the ones that would like us to dispense with his rights are just doing exactly with Al Qaeda and other terrorist cells want us to do: begin to tear apart at the seams.

I'm surprised that there even has to be an announcement proclaiming that it will be a civil trivial. Isn't that a given, if the person is an American? It's not up to the government to decide one way or another. It's written in stone in our Bill of Rights.

It amazes me that such a statement flies right by the radar of so many people. Everyone is busy focusing on how the trial will go down, instead of the minutiae leading up to this point. They went on a manhunt and shooting spree in residential areas, killing the first suspect without habeas corpus or a trial. If our country had any honor and integrity left, they would have done everything in their human power to take him down and make him face our laws.

If terrorists supposedly hate our freedoms so much, then we should inflict our freedoms on them as much as we can to show them up.
 
Of course they should. They can't mine a dead body for information.

I don't believe they're going to get anything useful out of this skull full of mush. I will be very surprised if they get any actionable information out of him at all.
 
If terrorists supposedly hate our freedoms so much, then we should inflict our freedoms on them as much as we can to show them up.

There's a problem with that..... How did we end up taking down the Soviet Union?... We used their own system against them. These terrorists would love to see if they can do the same thing to us. Completely and totally overload our legal system with these trials. Make us spend obscene amounts of money we don't have to protect these worthless wastes of flesh and oxygen during that trial. Then spend thousands of dollars a year to house them in our prison system. Hell, that might be a more efficient way to bring this nation down than bombing us into submission.

Right now in George Ptton's this equation it's USA: 1 - Terrorists: 4. What equation is that, you ask? - "You don't win a war by dying for what you believe in. You win by making the other guy die for what he believes in."

I'll be nice enough not to comment on what I believe this means about our willingness to naturalize people from other countries.
 
I think this is a good decision. The federal conviction rate in high-profile terrorist trials is quite high and most of these defendants are spending life terms in super-max prisons.

Most likely a trial change-of-venue request will be granted. Virginia is rumored a likely alternate venue.
 
I personally don't believe anyone should be labeled as an "enemy combatant" and indefinitely detained. It goes against the way we do things. We have given trials to a lot of evil people in our history...we shouldn't allow the actions of one to change the way we handle issues. Nobody should EVER be indefinitely detained under our government.
 
This is good news, I'm glad that Senator Lindsay Graham's opinion on this didn't prevail.


The White House said Monday it will not treat the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon attack as an enemy combatant.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill and injure people, would be tried as a terrorist in the federal court system.

"This is absolutely the right way to go and the appropriate way to go,” Carney said a Monday’s White House press briefing.

Carney said the department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder, as well the entire national security team, support not trying the terror suspect as an enemy combatant.

Number of Republicans had called on the Obama administration to declare Tsarnaev an enemy combatant and put him in military detention in order to gather intelligence from him. They argue this would allow the goverment to gather more information from Tsarnaev for a longer period of time.

The government has yet to read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights, and Carney on Monday declined to comment on how long the Justice Department might question Tsarnaev under the public safety exemption from Miranda.​




Read more: White House: Boston suspect will not be treated as combatant - The Hill's Video

Well, pete, I think you have it wrong....I don't think that Graham was talking about trying him as an EC, but rather designating him as such for interrogation....I don't think that he can be tried as an EC being an American citizen can he?
 
ap today

Sixteen hours after investigators began interrogating him, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings went silent: he'd just been read his constitutional rights.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney's office entered his hospital room and gave him his Miranda warning, according to four officials of both political parties briefed on the interrogation. They insisted on anonymity because the briefing was private.

Officials: Bomb Suspect Silent After Read Rights | RealClearPolitics

it's a strange thing to say to a terrorist, you have the right to remain silent
 
newsday:

The flow of information from a hospitalized terror suspect to FBI interrogators stopped abruptly Monday after a federal magistrate at a bedside proceeding read him his Miranda rights, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

For the prior 16 hours, the interrogators had been grilling the wounded suspect, accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged Sunday with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious property damage. They were questioning him under a narrow public-safety exception to the rights that arresting authorities must read arrestees under the landmark 1966 Supreme Court precedent.

One of the sources lamented that valuable intelligence may have been lost because Tsarnaev, 19, stopped cooperating after the warnings by the magistrate, Marianne B. Bowler.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's questioning by FBI cut short by magistrate judge

fox:

Two officials with knowledge of the FBI briefing on Capitol Hill said the FBI was against stopping the investigators' questioning and was stunned that the judge, Justice Department prosecutors and public defenders showed up, feeling valuable intelligence may have been sacrificed as a result.

The FBI had been questioning Tsarnaev for 16 hours before the judge called a start to the court proceeding, officials familiar with the Capitol Hill briefing told Fox News. Moreover, the FBI informed lawmakers that the suspect had been providing valuable intelligence, but stopped talking once the magistrate judge read him his rights.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev vowed to die for Islam; judge may have prematurely stopped brother's interrogation, sources say | Fox News

cnn:

Answers sought over Tsarnaev questioning, court appearance - CNN.com
 
This will cost Boston $1 billion in security for this trial. Exagerrating to make a point.
That's OK, the liberals in Boston will be glad to tell conservatives to pay for it.
 
oh, yes, i forgot

the ap source above also goes on for a number of paragraphs about how "authorities had previously said dzokhar exchanged gunfire with them for more than an hour"

but it turns out, ap apprises, that when the killer was found in the boat he was unarmed

it just really looks like these people don't know what they're doing, incompetence at almost every level

it's really extremely dangerous

that's not spin, lynn
 
Yes, and yes.
 
What about the cost for the personal and property damage from the damn explosions?

What about the cost of the manhunt?

What about the cost of medical treatment for all of the injured victims?

Let him be a martyr - we will continue to hunt them down and kill them.

Our asses have been hanging in the breeze since 9/11.

The trial is the least of our worries.

Cripe!

Hence the reason we should send a clear message to the terrorists of the world that we will act swiftly and viciously, when we capture them and not treat them with kid gloves, the way we do, now and will do again with this clown.
 
and exactly what the heck is a "knock off jihadi?"

Biden: Boston Bombers "Two Twisted, Perverted, Cowardly, Knock-Off Jihadis" | RealClearPolitics

could the affable, gaffe-able veep be trying to diminish any of this?

and what precisely is signified by "ping?"

Napolitano: System pinged when suspect went to Russia

are these utterances meant to be reassuring?

The Obama Regime can't afford--politically--to be forced to admit that the war on terror is over and that Islamic extremists really are a threat to our security and our liberty.
 
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