Policy Breakdown: Hunter Argues for Keeping Guantanamo Open
June 26, 2007 | Permalink
While closing Guantanamo has been a popular topic ever since Colin Powell said it should be closed on Meet the Press, Duncan Hunter (among other Republicans) is arguing to keep it open.
Hunter said regarding Guantanamo:
“Once these detainees are brought onto U.S. soil, the detainees may acquire minimal rights under the Constitution, in particular, the right to habeas corpus. This change in status will inevitably spawn a completely new round of litigation,” Hunter said in a statement.
“While I believe the Combatant Status Review Tribunals that all detainees at Guantanamo receive satisfy those rights, it would take years of further litigation to finally reach that result,” the congressman said. “Thus, the military commission process would be stalled for the foreseeable future, and none of the detainees at Guantanamo would be brought to justice.”
“Some would like this result; they would prefer to see terrorists tried under our federal criminal justice system. This is a false choice,” Hunter said.
“We cannot try terrorists for war crimes if it requires our soldiers to read terrorists Miranda rights or take a battalion of lawyers onto the battlefield,” he said. “Military commissions are crucial because they are crafted for the conduct of war by providing procedures flexible enough to account for the constraints and conditions of the battlefield.”
Thus far, all Democratic candidates and Republican candidates Ron Paul and John McCain have called for Guantanamo to be closed, including Fred Thompson who has yet to officially declare.
[Photo Credit: Flickr user Rob Bluey]
Related at 2008 Central:
The real reason that Hunter and people like him don’t want the terrorists in civil court is because it would soon be obvious that the government doesn’t have a case. Most of these ‘terrorists’ are draftees of the Taliban government, who would no more drive a car bomb over the Arctic icepack down through Canada and onto the White House lawn than would . . . well, than would Bush, at least when he’s sober.