Yesterday, the Department's chief spokesman asserted that even had Umar been designated as an enemy combatant and referred for trial by a military tribunal, he would have lawyered up and stopped all questioning as to his knowledge of other impending terrorist plots against the nation.
That assertion is a blatant lie. As Umar was apprehended in the act of attacking us, no trial of any kind, civilian or military, is required by the Constitution or our international treaties. There are no facts in dispute after all. He is not an alleged bomber, despite what President Obama stated. No trial jury is going to decide that we arrested the wrong man with his pants on fire.
Prisoners of war can be held in a prisoner of war holding facilitate for continual interrogation for as long as deemed useful by the Commander in Chief to procure useful information to help defend the nation. No lawyer or trial is compelled for enemy combatant questioning.
Only after this intelligence gathering process has been completed, and then in deciding that the enemy combatant has committed a war crime, does the CinC. need to enlist a civilian court or military tribunal to legally punish this prisoner. No one should be sentenced to a fixed time of incarceration (e.g. life term in a federal prison) or executed without an impartial judge or jury hearing evidence that the enemy combatant's undisputed acts were so egregious as to warrant the punishment to be imposed. As internment for interrogation is NOT punishment, but an essential obligation of the CinC. to win a war, no lawyers are needed to advise the prisoner of his rights, as his only right is to wait for the war to end to go home. Just saying...
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