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supreme court justice antonin scalia has said it, "war is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts."
while giving a lecture in to swiss law students, mr. scalia reportedly stated that guantanamo detainees should be tried under war law, and not regular law. newsweek has obtained a tape of the lecture, and has published it this week.
"give me a break," he said to students asking if the detainees had any rights. he admittedly feels that the "enemy combatants", as the us government calls them, have no rights under the us constitution or international conventions.
"if he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. i had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and i’m not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. i mean its crazy."
he also said he was astounded by the hypocritical reaction to guantanamo in europe.
the geneva convention covers the treatment of prisoners of war, but the us government has repeatedly refused to call those held at guantanamo prisoners of war, constantly referring to them as "enemy combatants". this effectively enables the us government to not apply the geneva convention, giving detainees no rights whatsoever.
this week marks the start of a us supreme court hearing, concerning the rights of detainees in guantanamo. the former driver of osama bin laden, salim ahmed hamdan has claimed that the bush government had overstepped its boundaries, and should not try him and others in military tribunals.
mr. scalia has previously disagreed with the us supreme court ruling that detainees could challenge their detention in us courts. now he has spoken even before the us supreme court has heard the case of mr. salim ahmed hamdan.
it seems the verdict is in already.
