The French Pull Off What We Cannot

Posted by on . 19 comments.

No, this is not a futbol post.

Reuters:

Six Frenchmen who were released from the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay over the past two years will stand trial in France on Monday over “associating with criminals in relation to a terrorist organisation”.

The six men, aged between 24 and 38, were captured during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan late in 2001 and held by American forces on suspicion of fighting for the ousted Taliban regime. Some of them returned to France in July 2004 and some in March 2005.
[…]
The men are judged for their trips to Afghanistan between 2000 and 2001, where prosecutors say five of them participated in al Qaeda training camps. The sixth man, Imad Kanouni, received fundamentalist religious training there.

Prosecutors have highlighted that the father and brother of one of the accused, Mourad Benchellali, were convicted last month of planning attacks in France in 2002.

Benchellali has admitted to attending a training camp in Afghanistan, but said friends dragged him into it.

“(My brother said his friends) were going to look after me. They did — channeling me to what turned out to be a Qaeda training camp. For two months, I was there, trapped in the middle of the desert by fear and my own stupidity,” Benchellali wrote in the International Herald Tribune daily last month.

Referring to his Paris trial, he said: “I have a court date, I’m facing a judge, and I have a lawyer — unimaginable luxuries in Guantanamo.”

If found guilty, the Frenchmen risk 10 years in prison.

How come they can do what is unthinkable for us: put Guantanamo detainees on trial in regular civilian courts?

Since five of the six men are suspected of being al-Qaeda members, presumably we released them into French custody only on the express understanding that they would be put on trial there. So we are willing to negotiate civilian trials in other countries, but we are unwilling to give them civilian trials in the U.S.?

And how much of our ask-no-questions-just-do-it approach to The War On Terror has rubbed off on the French? One of the six is on trial for receiving fundamentalist religious training in Afghanistan?

Or maybe this is just how their legal system works? Can we persuade Dear Leader to visit France, and arrange to have him arrested, and put on trial for serial smirking in the first degree, or for repeatedly insulting the intelligence of the American public, or for criminally stupid stupidity? Or maybe for offending the Dixie Chicks? (This should really be a top ten list, shouldn’t it? Top ten charges that Dear Leader should be tried for in France. But it’s a holiday weekend…)

Comments

  1. JimC says:
    July 3, 2006 at 6:19 am

    Am I mistaken or were these men French citizens? If so, then I assume this should answer your question of how they can be tried in the French courts…

  2. jamie says:
    July 3, 2006 at 6:40 am

    deliberately. missing. the. point. again.
    at least i hope it was deliberate.

  3. JimC says:
    July 3, 2006 at 7:35 am

    jamie said:
    July 3rd, 2006 at 6:40 am
    deliberately. missing. the. point. again.
    at least i hope it was deliberate.

    Accusing me of missing the point is getting quite childish and tired. It is exactly on point. Yes, these men were tried in civilian courts but one thing that is different is that they were French citizens. I don’t know if you remember the American’s who were captured in Afghanistan? Read up…

  4. sarabeth says:
    July 3, 2006 at 7:50 am

    Jamie, he never gets the point. Not with posts, not with comments. So really there’s no point even remarking on it any more.

    In the Crossroads discussion I had said that we’re never going to educate him, he’s never going to change.

    And the reason is that you can’t teach common sense.

    So let’s leave him be in his delusional world. As the most famous pop philosophers of the 20th century said: “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.”

  5. JimC says:
    July 3, 2006 at 8:20 am

    How come they can do what is unthinkable for us: put Guantanamo detainees on trial in regular civilian courts?

    Since five of the six men are suspected of being al-Qaeda members, presumably we released them into French custody only on the express understanding that they would be put on trial there. So we are willing to negotiate civilian trials in other countries, but we are unwilling to give them civilian trials in the U.S.?

    How amy I missing the point? Please explain…

  6. sac says:
    July 3, 2006 at 8:37 am

    People, Jim is exactly on point. Come on. The one American citizen who has been linked to Al Quieda was tried and convicted in a civilian court. Now, you can argue that citizens of other countries who are being held at Guantanamo should be tried in American civilian courts, but you really can’t use this French example as an equivilent. It is not. It IS an equivilant to the John Walker case.

  7. matt says:
    July 3, 2006 at 8:48 am

    you really can’t use this French example as an equivilent. It is not.

    thanks for clearing that up.

    the point, clear to all who care to notice, is that the world isn’t going to come to an end if these people are tried in regular courts. the french situation is only an example, and where lindh was tried isn’t as important as the fact that he had his day in court. years ago.

  8. sac says:
    July 3, 2006 at 10:01 am

    Agreed. But sarabeth is basing her argument in this post around the French case, even titling her post “The French Pull Off What We Cannot,” when we, in fact, did EXACTLY as the French did here: try and convict one of our own citizens.

  9. jamie says:
    July 3, 2006 at 10:28 am

    ONE of our own citizens being part of the point, no?

  10. sac says:
    July 3, 2006 at 10:44 am

    Good point. Forgot about Padilla.

  11. JimC says:
    July 3, 2006 at 2:07 pm

    the point, clear to all who care to notice, is that the world isn’t going to come to an end if these people are tried in regular courts. the french situation is only an example, and where lindh was tried isn’t as important as the fact that he had his day in court. years ago.

    So, we were to infer this point from the article? I’ve been told not to infer anything anymore, so sorry I couldn’t fish this point out of the post….

    If you want to argue non-citizens to gain constitutional rights to our courts, that’s one thing, but using an example of citizens of a country being tried by their country is a poor way of making that point.

    I think there are very serious constitutional matters to be resolved before these non-citizen enemy combatants are brought before our courts….

  12. sarabeth says:
    July 3, 2006 at 3:22 pm

    Don’t these two short paragraphs give up their meaning pretty easily without need for decoding and inference?

    How come they can do what is unthinkable for us: put Guantanamo detainees on trial in regular civilian courts?

    Since five of the six men are suspected of being al-Qaeda members, presumably we released them into French custody only on the express understanding that they would be put on trial there. So we are willing to negotiate civilian trials in other countries, but we are unwilling to give them civilian trials in the U.S.?

    I’m almost afraid to ask, but based on what he just said, does anyone have any idea what JimC thinks Matt meant?

  13. sarabeth says:
    July 3, 2006 at 3:42 pm

    Good point. Forgot about Padilla.

    Padilla or Lindh have absolutely nothing to do with it.

    The post is about our determination not to give civilian trials to the 10+ Guantanamo detainees we now propose to try. The fact that we gave Lindh a civilian trial in the past doesn’t change the fact that we are determined not to give civilian trials to the 10+ Guantanamo detainees we now propose to try.

  14. JimC says:
    July 3, 2006 at 10:47 pm

    The post is about our determination not to give civilian trials to the 10+ Guantanamo detainees we now propose to try.

    Like I have and others have said, what rights do these men have? Letting them assume our same rights doesn’t sit weel with soul. These men are murderers and pledged their lives to killing Americans (and Infidels) and wear no uniform, have no ties to a particular nation’s army…until we figure out what rights they do have to any of our courts, thanks to SCOTUS, they will have to wait…

  15. Ken says:
    July 4, 2006 at 8:52 am

    what rights do these men have?

    So because they (allegedly) swear no allegiance to any country, they are not human? Exactly what is at risk from allowing them to face justice? To hear the charges against them and face their accusers?

    Granted, it was long before the Geneva Convention, but I seem to remember a certain militia that wore no uniforms, and had pledged their lives to killing redcoats. As for “ties to a particular nation’s army,” isn’t this the (ludicrous) argument that the Administration has been trying to feed us for four years (and is now prepared to extend to that other oil-rich country, Iran).

    JimC etal., I sincerely hope that if any of you or yours are ever captured by those who wish us ill that their fates lay in the hands of someone willing to acknowledge their humanity (however flawed) and the importance of justice over raw power.

  16. JimC says:
    July 4, 2006 at 12:42 pm

    JimC etal., I sincerely hope that if any of you or yours are ever captured by those who wish us ill that their fates lay in the hands of someone willing to acknowledge their humanity (however flawed) and the importance of justice over raw power.

    I never said treat them inhumanely but they do not deserve the same rights and freedoms and access to our courts.

    And if you read history correctly, the uniformed soldiers were afforded much greater respect from the British than the un-uniformed militias….

  17. matt says:
    July 4, 2006 at 12:47 pm

    I never said treat them inhumanely but they do not deserve the same rights and freedoms and access to our courts.

    this is like where you say things like “bush is responsible, but it’s not his fault.” self-contradictory and pointless.

  18. JimC says:
    July 4, 2006 at 2:59 pm

    this is like where you say things like “bush is responsible, but it’s not his fault.” self-contradictory and pointless

    Ok, so are you proposing that they are granted full access to our courts with rights and privileges that we enjoy by our citizenship?

  19. sarabeth says:
    July 12, 2006 at 7:21 am

    Here’s Senator Leahy weighing in on the subject:

    “I find it hard to fathom that this administration is so incompetent that it needs kangaroo-court procedures to convince a tribunal of United States military officers that the ‘worst of the worst’ imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay should be held accountable” for crimes, said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the committee’s ranking Democrat. “We need to know why we’re being asked to deviate from rules for courts-martial.” Leahy described Bush’s record on detainees as “five years, no trials, no convictions.”