Why Wasn't Ivins Declared an Enemy Combatant?

[elehhhhna]

Why Wasn't Ivins Declared an Enemy Combatant?
By JACOB G. HORNBERGER

So, the FBI was prepared to indict U.S. Army scientist Bruce Ivins for terrorism before he committed suicide. The specific act of terrorism for which Ivins was to be indicted was employing weapons of mass destruction, to wit: anthrax, on American citizens on American soil.

What?

An indictment?

Doesn’t that mean federal courts? Doesn’t that mean the Bill of Rights? Doesn’t that mean the presumption of innocence, right to counsel, right to be free from self-incrimination, protection from cruel and unusual punishments, right to bail, exclusion of evidence acquired by torture, coercion, or illegal searches, right to confront witnesses, right to summon witnesses, a public trial, and trial by jury?

Is that any way to treat an enemy combatant during time of war? Is that the way we treated German prisoners of war in World War II? Did the feds indict them too?

What gives? Haven’t the Bush administration and the Washington Post told us ad infinitum, ad nauseam that the courts are not equipped to handle terrorism cases? Isn’t that what Gitmo is all about? What better example of a terrorism case than the use of weapons of mass destruction against American citizens on American soil? What better example of an “enemy combatant” in the federal government’s “war on terrorism” than Bruce Ivins?

The FBI’s planned indictment of Ivins once again exposes the charade of the “enemy combatant” doctrine, the Pentagon’s kangaroo tribunals, and the so-called war on terrorism. As we have been arguing here at FFF ever since 9/11, terrorism is a federal crime, not an act of war. It is listed on the federal statute books as a federal crime. It was that way before 9/11 and it has remained that way after 9/11. That’s precisely why the FBI and the Justice Department were planning on securing a federal grand-jury indictment against Ivins.

http://www.counterpunch.com/hornberger08072008.html

[wurzel]

1. Why didn't the FBI arrest him? If they had all that "evidence"?

[KharmaTrain]

2. How About A "Person Of Interest"

That's what they did to Hatfill...while they tried to build a non-existant case on the man. The timing of the end of his lawsuit and this development doesn't seem to be co-incidental...and IMHO the FBI thought it could rush this crap out and hope it could then shut down the whole case...especially when Ivins turned up dead.

The bottom line is if they had the goods on this dude, they would have gotten a grand jury to get an indictment, period. There's no middle ground here...either you have a case or you don't.

What we're seeing is how deep the corruption has become in both the FBI and Justice Department. They want this thing closed and burried...and in its wake, they leave more questions than answers.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Very good question. k+r. n/t

[EFerrari]

4. I don't think using Bruce Ivins in this way when he was only buried yesterday

is appropriate. Couldn't these people wait until Monday? (Not directed at you, elena, but at people who are using him as some kind of metaphor already.)

[elehhhhna]

6. You make an interesting point.

And I mean no dis to Mr. Ivins, the truth about whom we'll never know. It's my inclination to give the man the benfit of doubt. My gut says this was a cheap post-mortem frame up -- if not something much, much more sinister.


But it's a valid question: why didn't "they" waterboard a few select lab employees to get this solved?

[EFerrari]

7. Yes, the question IS valid, I agree.

The thing is, in dehumanizing Ivins so quickly, the way he and his family and others -- Hatfill, co-workers and who knows who else -- were treated during this "investigation" sort of gets disappeared. Just like the humanity of the Gitmo detainees gets disappeared because we can't see them or because they're "terrorists" and "the worst of the worst".

Pieces like this accidentally play into the same mechanism of dehumanization. It's tricky -- trying to bring up the question without enacting it, too.

/ack

[zbdent]

5. his targets were "liberals" ... IF he was the guy ...

[RC]

8. I heard on NPR, coming home from work, that his wife was active with an antiabortion group and they

were Catholic and that was why he targeted Liberals who voted pro-choice.
Anyone else hear this?

[EFerrari]

9. That's what FBI is claiming. Mrs. Ivins was on some board.

I've yet to see anything that shows he agreed with her or shared this position and on the contrary, the one thing I have seen seems to show he didn't. :shrug:

eta: It's on Page 18 of the 1st attachment in the doc dump. There's a sentence about how Mrs. Ivins is on a board of one of these orgs and active in others. The, a part of an email from Ivins: "I'm not pro-abortion, I'm pro-life. But, I want my position to be one consistent with a Christian."

He doesn't say that he's anti-abortion BECAUSE he is a Christian. He implies, actually, that he's pro-choice because as a Christian he considers the humanity of others along with his own personal beliefs.

[Supersedeas]

10. his expertise at making that vaccine must have been pretty valuable to someone

[TwilightGardener]

11. Ivins is an American citizen--same as Timothy McVeigh--thus entitled

to the same protections and access to the justice system as any American citizen. Only non-citizens who are not members of a nation's army are considered "enemy combatants", and thus not entitled to the same legal protections as an American citizen, and also aren't entitled, supposedly, to Geneva Convention protections. This was my understanding of the term "enemy combatant", feel free to correct me.

[EFerrari]

12. There have been two American citizens treated as enemy combatants.

Padilla and John Walker Lindh.

[TwilightGardener]

14. Interesting. I don't know why they were "special".

[EFerrari]

15. When has Bush/Cheney ever minded the law?

They could have said they were space aliens and no one would have said "boo" to that. :shrug:

[TwilightGardener]

16. The only reason I can think of in terms of why they weren't treated

as citizens would be if they left American soil to collaborate with the enemy against us. Other than that, I suppose it's the usual make-up-the-rules-as-you-go-along ChimpCo crap.

[EFerrari]

17. No matter where they went or what they did, they were still citizens.

You're right. It's the "make it up as you go along" cr@p.

[DearAbby]

13. They can swipe anyone off the streets

and whisk you away to an undisclosed location where they can torture you and keep you indefinately...Yet they were dotting their i's and crossing their t's going strickly by the book for someone they thought used a weapon of mass destruction within the United States? This doesn't pass the smell test.