Guantanamo Is A Joke, And A Metaphor For America's Foreign Policy
Truthmonger
Posts: 559
Charges against Khadr and another inmate there have been dropped. Now the whole trial process at Gitmo has been called into question, as it should be. 5 years on, only a few inmates (out of several hundred) have been charged, and NONE have been convicted.
It gets worse. (get this !!!) ....people like Khadr can't even appeal a case, even if he was convicted, because there is currently NO REVIEW MECHANISM IN PLACE FOR APPEALS !!
What's going on there is unbelievable. And the U.S. is fast becoming a joke.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070604/guantanamo-trials/
It gets worse. (get this !!!) ....people like Khadr can't even appeal a case, even if he was convicted, because there is currently NO REVIEW MECHANISM IN PLACE FOR APPEALS !!
What's going on there is unbelievable. And the U.S. is fast becoming a joke.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070604/guantanamo-trials/
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one of those reasons why the US citing human rights abuses of other countries has absolutely no credibility ...
check out mozamm beg's account. pretty messed up.
the USA has been acting illegally for the whole episode. terrorism is a thinly veiled excuse for the acts of US and UK leaders the past ten years.
what is the story on teh death penalty over the pond? some states have it and other dont? bit of a rum deal if you are executed in one area for the same crime but released in another...
WHO likes the song "when the levee breaks"?
and who thinks the levee is close to breaking?
(i know its not about that but its a good song and it came to me reading this thread and the other one about Libby
I heard this on the radio...NPR I believe...
They are listed as "enemy Combatants"
Last year congress passed a law stating that to be charged people had to be listed as "aggresive enemy combatants" or something along those lines.
It may just be a matter of semantics...we'll see.
that is true ... omar khadr was fighting a war against an invading army ... so, at the time he was listed - he was an enemy combatant ... not exactly sure how that differs between an unlawful enemy combatant but that is why his case was dropped ...
having said that - he is no closer to being released then i am on getting a date with jessica alba ...
Thanks...I knew it was something but couldn't place the word "unawful".
And by the way, quit trying to date my girlfriend.
she's looking ... that's all i'm saying ...
Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, people need to go back to the beginning, where the U.S. pissed off much the world, and greatly discredited itself in the process, when it opted to categorize the captives as "enemy combatants" instead of "prisoners of war", as is usually the case under international law and previous conventions relating to war. This was a highly manipulative and convenient move that gave the U.S. more latitude with the prisoners. In fact, some went so far as to call it slimy and illegal, but hey, what do Americans care about that ?
But on to the issue of enemy combatants per se.... here again, and even within this category of prisoner, it was the U.S. itself that defined which form of enemy combatant they had in their possession. He was already deemed to be merely an "enemy combatant", not an "unlawful enemy combatant", which is the purview of this tribunal. Its such a fucking joke. It seems highly unlikely that the body who categorized him, the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, didn't know there were two kinds of enemy combatants, or didn't care about the ramifications of classifying someone as one or the other. Just for the record, it does matter if he/she is lawful or not, as legal enemy combatants are entitled to more rights while imprisoned. As this blogger clarifies, the military tribunals there were only set up for unlawful enemy combatants :
"There are two types of enemy combatants. Lawful enemy combatants are entitled to all of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, in particular the protections of the Third Geneva Convention, which lays out the treatment of prisoners of war. Unlawful enemy combatants are entitled only to the protections of Common Article III. If the CSRT hearings only determined that the detainees were enemy combatants but not that they were unlawful enemy combatants, then, as I read Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention, the detainees are entitled to all of the protections of the Third Geneva Convention until such time as they are determined not to be prisoners of war.
Given the treatment the detainees have received at Guantanamo up to this point, the U.S. would be in clear breach of the Geneva Conventions with respect to all of these detainees. (Indeed, even if the detainees were adjudged unlawful enemy combatants, the U.S. is probably in breach of Common Article III. But let's not go there.)."
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-dismissal-of-khadr-trial-is.html
For more on the tribunal and what a joke it is,(beyond the "mere" semantics of it all), go to this site :
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2005/11/justice-at-guantanamo-paradox-of-david.php
It talks about how the rules of evidence are compromised and how the ability to appeal is hindered, as well as other things.
Well that's no fun !! See, the difference is that countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and the like, don't hold themselves out as paragons of virtue. They'll abuse the hell out of people and then turn around and tell meddling rights' people to go fuck themselves. You gotta respect that.
On the other hand, we have the U.S. of fuckin' A., who believe that God himself has delivered unto them a licence to spew their sanctimonious shit to the world. Not that anyone listens to it, but they believe it all the same. And why would they ?? I mean, Tony Blair and the UK notwithstanding, has any country been more hypocritical than the U.S. lately ? So, thats what I really love delving into - ya know, recognizing when people or countries are really full of shit.
Sure it could. I wasn't talking about whether or not they should be there, or anyting else...just the specific reason that I heard as to why the charges were dropped in these cases.
Well, i think it goes beyond that. Here's Colin Powell saying Guantanamo is an embarrassment for the U.S.:
"Guantanamo has become a major, major problem ... in the way the world perceives America and if it were up to me I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow but this afternoon.....Essentially, we have shaken the belief the world had in America's justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission. We don't need it and it is causing us far more damage than any good we get for it"
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/223749
Oh, and here's what a noted legal scholar had to say about it :
"The Military Commissions Act, which denies basic due process protections, including the right to habeas corpus, is a disgrace. But an even bigger disgrace is the concentration camp the United States maintains at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The Act should be repealed and the Guantánamo prison should be shut down immediately."
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn06072007.html
There are many others, of course. But why belabour the point. Still think its semantics, and irrelevent ?
it didnt help but made the problems worse, it bred gunmen out of normal people who got taken away and locked up. they came out and got revenge.
the IRA said that when the british did this they couldnt cope with the number of men wanting to join, they didnt even have enough guns to share out. everyone wanted to kill a british soldier.
now tell meguantanamo is a good idea?
Then USAMA cant get to America, and USA cant drop there bombs.
PEACE
-00, Stockholm
-07, Copenhagen
-09, Berlin
-10, Berlin
-11, East Troy 1+2
-12, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, EV London 2
-13, London, Chicago
-14, Amsterdam 1+2, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo
-16, TOTD San Francisco 1+2
-17, EV Amsterdam 2+3
-18, Amsterdam 1+2, London 1+(2), Barcelona, London 2
-19, EV Brussels
Seems that if someone happens to be fighting Americans then they are acting illegally. What the Bush administration appears to be saying is that it's illegal for anyone to attempt to defend themselves against American aggression.
It's a bit like Americans and British politicians telling the Palestinians that they must renounce violence whilst their homes are being bulldozed, their land is stolen, and their men, women and children are being slaughtered.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Yes, and you realize the arbitrary nature by which they are being labelled as such. If they really are what Bush claims they are, then why not stream these captives through the regular legal channels instead of the flawed military tribunals ?? Oh, here's why:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/WAT007708.htm
WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush lacks the power to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain a Qatari national and suspected al Qaeda operative who is the only person being held in the United States as an "enemy combatant," a U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday.
In a major setback for the Bush's policies in the war on terrorism adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks, the appellate panel ruled the government's evidence afforded no basis to treat Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri as an "enemy combatant" and ordered his release from military custody.
"The U.S. war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the U.S. Nuremberg prosecutors said on Monday.
"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr. told Reuters in a telephone interview."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N6B384799.htm
Hail, Hail!!!
what price freedom?
you are aware of what happened to japanese americans during WWII, right?
i dont want to be just good, i want to be right. i want a clear conscience.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
the world NEEDS you to be the good guys!
That's my point. We're not supposed to repeat the errors of Manzinar. We parade around like we're the Sheriff in the White hat on the White horse, but, places like Manzinar, Abu Ghriab and Guantanamo put us in the same category of the 'evils' we label others such as Hitler, Stalin and Hussein. If we're the GOOD Guys... lets BE Good Guys... not just walk around saying we're are.
Hail, Hail!!!
We don't behead prisoners, nor murder them in cold blood. I'd say we're less the "bad guys" as we are the guys trying to do good, but realize sometimes you've got to get dirty before you can clean up.
www.myspace.com/jensvad
your choice:
one beheading after say 2 weeks of uncertainty or say 4 years in a prison without being charged where 22 of your 24 hrs a day are spent in solitary confinement ...
i know which one i would pick ...
We are SUPPOSED to be Good Guys... we are NOT supposed to have Gulags.
what you are saying is that it was okay for the Viet Cong to torture American pilots in order to extract flight path information and transponder codes from them. I say is was not and we should NOT follow the Soviet Union/Viet Cong model.
Hail, Hail!!!
Let's not kid ourselves that U.S troops didn't torture Vietnamese prisoners, or even murder them. You make it sound like Americans were all white knights in Nam, adhering to the Geneva convention. I suggest you look into the subject a bit harder.
too late lady macbeth, the blood is already on the US's hands.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I never stated that. The Viet Nam War was was a fiasco... just like Iraq.
The point I'm making is that we parade around and spout crap like 'Liberty' and 'Freedom' and 'Democracy'... then, ACT like barbarians and savages. If America claims to be the Good Guys... then, we should quit acting like Bad Guys or shut the fuck up about being Good Guys. Being 'Not as Evil' as the ones who behead people still makes us evil.
...
And please note... I participated in the last Selective Service Draft Lottery in 1972 (well within our withdrawal, but still 2 years prior to our pull out) There was still a lot of uncertainty about Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos and that entire region in 1972 as far as U.S. involvement was concerned. I was paying close attention to what was going on in Viet Nam because it was the guys in the classes in front of me that were getting shipped off to that place. I don't need to 'Research' more.
Hail, Hail!!!
For some reason I had an image in my head of you being in your 20's. And I've always said that presumptuousness is one of the biggest evils.