Negative rights, affirmative rights

In old war movies they often used a klaxon to sound an alarm. It's that long "OOOOoooooooooOOOOOGAAAAH!" sound you hear on submarines and such. I literally just heard that sound while reading that Alberto Gonzales says that I do not have the right to habaeus corpus or at least that such a right exists and cannot be suspended but that somehow means that it may not apply to everyone. I'm at a bit of a loss how a right exists for some citizens and not others. Seriously.

I don't believe that people captured on a foreign battlefield have the right to trial in an American court with all the rules and protections that entails. To do so would require us to prosecute lawyers with brigade sized JAG units deployed hither and yon. Shoot the enemy and make them dead. Those that surrender will be held until after the conflict. Irregular forces and non-state actors are not covered by Geneva. They can be summarily executed and most of them should be. Any trials during wartime should be military tribunals and even then, used sparingly.

The idea that citizens should be denied those rights wherever they are found is anathema to American law and American values. If someone like John Walker Lindh takes up arms against American and behaves treasonously, he gets a trial if he survives the battlefield. To do otherwise is very very dangerous. I'm no pinko bleeding heart but if we deny rights to people deemed guilty of treason (or suspected of treason) the definition of treason will be expanded indefinitely so as to include anyone we want.

It is perilous to allow such protections as terrorists will seek American citizenship as cover. The simple remedy to that is to start hanging traitors with all possible speed.

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