Just explain your view in your own words, oralloy. (Like the rest of us have here have done) What is it about the Red Cross interpretation on the Geneva Conventions that seems the most reasonable to you?
Th eDanish, and other known International Terrorist Nations condemn Gitmo:
{i]US prison at Guantanamo condemned
Sunday 11 June 2006, 21:37 Makka Time, 18:37 GMT
About 460 prisoners are being held in Guantanamo
Human rights groups and politicians have called for the controversial US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be closed after the suicides of three inmates on Saturday.
Amnesty International urged the US to "end the lawlessness" of its facility, which is holding about 460 people.
"The news that three detainees in Guantanamo have died as a result of apparent suicide is a further tragic reminder that the US must end the lawlessness of the facility," it said in a statement.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, said on Saturday that the detention of the men went against basic rule of law.
"I think it would be to the benefit of our cause and our fight for freedom and against terrorism if the facilities at Guantanamo were closed down," he told CNN television channel.
Harriet Harman, a senior British minister, also questioned the facility's legitimacy.
"If it is perfectly legal and there is nothing going wrong there, why don't they have it in America?" she told the BBC.
'Asymmetric warfare'
The men, two Saudis and one Yemeni national, used nooses made of sheets and clothes to hang themselves.
"They have no regard to life, neither ours nor their own"
Rear Admiral Harry Harris, Guantanamo camp commander
Attempts by prison guards and medical teams to resuscitate the men were unsuccessful, a US spokesman at Guantanamo Bay said.
They were the first reported deaths among detainees held at the isolated base. Of those held at Guantanamo, only 10 have been charged with any crime, and none has gone to trial.
Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the camp's commander, described the suicides as an act of warfare.
"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed," he said of the prisoners.
"They have no regard to life, neither ours nor their own... I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us."
'Going crazy'
However, Shafiq Rasul, a British former Guantanamo prisoner released in March 2004, told Sky News that he had witnessed suicide attempts by prisoners who had "just had enough".
"There were individuals who had just had enough, [who] couldn't take any more and were going crazy, who would attempt to kill themselves"
Shafiq Rasul, former Guantanamo inmate
"There were individuals who had just had enough, [who] couldn't take any more and were going crazy, who would attempt to kill themselves," he said on Sunday.
There have been 41 suicide attempts by 25 detainees since the US began transferring suspects to the camp in January 2002.
Most were captured during the US-led war against the former Taleban government in Afghanistan in late 2001. [/i]
oralloy wrote:dlowan wrote:Criteria for the war being over, please.
Everyone who was connected to 9/11 is dead or in US custody, and the destruction of al-Qa'ida and their allied organizations.
What is your definition of "connected"? No doubt their are many sympathizers. That's a very tall order.
oralloy wrote:
I prefer the Red Cross' interpretation.
msolga wrote:
Yes? That's interesting. Could you please explain it to me?
Obviously oralloy is more concerned than we thaught:
Quote:[...,]there are serious divergences of opinion about the relevant legal framework regarding some of the persons detained in the fight against terrorism. The ICRC is especially concerned about the fate of an unspecified number of detainees who are being held incommunicado at undisclosed locations seemingly outside any legal framework.
Many of those captured in the context of what is often referred to as the "global war on terror" are being held at US detention facilities in Bagram in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Two persons are furthermore detained in Charleston, USA. The ICRC has been regularly visiting these facilities. The ICRC has also repeatedly appealed to the US authorities for access to people detained in undisclosed locations.
ICRC, rleased 9-05-2006
msolga wrote:Just explain your view in your own words, oralloy. (Like the rest of us have here have done) What is it about the Red Cross interpretation on the Geneva Conventions that seems the most reasonable to you?
It isn't that I find their interpretation reasonable or not reasonable. I accept them as the legitimate arbiters of the meaning of the Geneva Conventions, and so treat their commentaries as legally binding.
I'll check back here a little later.
I need to go visit a board on Yahoo about the apparently-pending battle of Ramadi.
Walter Hinteler wrote:oralloy wrote:
I prefer the Red Cross' interpretation.
msolga wrote:
Yes? That's interesting. Could you please explain it to me?
Obviously oralloy is more concerned than we thaught:
Quote:[...,]there are serious divergences of opinion about the relevant legal framework regarding some of the persons detained in the fight against terrorism. The ICRC is especially concerned about the fate of an unspecified number of detainees who are being held incommunicado at undisclosed locations seemingly outside any legal framework.
Many of those captured in the context of what is often referred to as the "global war on terror" are being held at US detention facilities in Bagram in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Two persons are furthermore detained in Charleston, USA. The ICRC has been regularly visiting these facilities. The ICRC has also repeatedly appealed to the US authorities for access to people detained in undisclosed locations.
ICRC, rleased 9-05-2006
It's very reassuring that you share some of our concerns, oralloy.
Apparently our (Oz) prime minister has heard that the one Australian ( the one "westerner"?) at Guantanamo Bay is "doing well" in detention, despite the recent suicides there. Yep, he's doing just fine in solitary confinement, after 4 and a half years there! They don't call our prime minister the US' "deputy sheriff" for nothing. Major Mori (David Hicks' US military lawyer) sees his client's condition quite differently, however ....:
Last Update: Monday, June 12, 2006. 1:37pm (AEST)
Conflicting reports: Mr Howard says he has been told Hicks is doing well. [File photo] (file photo)
PM disputes report on Hicks's condition
Prime Minister John Howard says he has been told the only Australian in detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention centre is doing well.
A US military lawyer acting for David Hicks, Major Michael Mori, has spoken out about his client's condition in the wake of three deaths at Guantanamo Bay.
The three men hanged themselves in their cells on the weekend.
Major Mori says the conditions at Guantanamo drove them to suicide.
He says he is concerned about Hicks, who is in solitary confinement, is depressed and has lost a lot of weight.
"I found him very desperate for human contact, you could just tell when I first got to see him he was just so hungry to interact with another human being, he'd lost a lot of weight," he said.
"I think the weight loss is part of his loss of appetite, just coming on from sort of his depression manifesting itself in that way."
But Mr Howard says he has heard reports to the contrary.
"I've been told he received a consular visit about two weeks ago and the report from that consular visit is positive," he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1660881.htm
The present US Administration declared war on "terror" and "terrorism", both common nouns, in the past war has been declared against proper nouns such as Germany and Japan; does the Bush declaration mean they are at war with Dentists (many people are terrified by them), or war against Snakes and Spiders
just who are they at war with, Bush and his neocons seem to be in a perpetual state of war with everyone ... are they at war with Muslims, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakastanis, Afghans or is it now Somalia?
I can just imagine the screams of protest if US military personnel were abducted, tortured and imprisoned without trial
Quote:A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention".
Colleen Graffy told the BBC the deaths were part of a strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause", but taking their own lives was unnecessary.
The above is taken from a BBC News report at bbcnews.com
If this is the attitude of the US at large we have much to be concerned about, torture at Abu Graib, US Marines murdering unarmed men, women and children and allegations that US troops beat al Zarqawi to death after he was captured can only be seen as symptoms of a society gone mad
it's certainly not a country any civilized society would want to be aligned with?
anton wrote:I can just imagine the screams of protest if US military personnel were abducted, tortured and imprisoned without trial.
There would be
hell to pay! Outrage! Not that I'd wish this situation on anyone in the US military, either. There seems to be a disturbing mindset that the "enemies" of the US are something less than human. No one should have to live through an experience like this!
oralloy wrote:Thomas wrote:No, according to me, people caught by your troops should receive a speedy trial by a competent tribunal. If that tribunal finds a prisoner innocent, it should release them. If it finds him guilty, he stays as a prisoner of war, for the duration of the war, under the rules of the Geneva convention. But imprisoning people indefinitely without some process for petitioning their status is not acceptable.
Enemy soldiers may be detained until the end of the war, but I don't know that "guilt" or "innocence" are the correct way of thinking of it. POWs are not being detained because they committed a crime.
We did have such a tribunal assess the people at Guantanamo.
What we didn't do is have a competent tribunal separate the enemy soldiers into lawful and unlawful combatants. We should make a point of doing that as well, although it is clear that there aren't any lawful combatants among them (no uniforms).
I believe the Geneva Conventions also require a review of their status every half year. We should go through the motions there too, even though it is clear that they will need to be held until the end of the war.
You are assuming your conclusion by not admitting, even as a possibility, that some of the detainees may not be enemy soldiers at all -- regular or irregular.
msolga, quoting admiral Harris wrote:"They are smart. They are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of ... warfare waged against us," he said.
Lucky them -- they hit the trifecta. <shakes head>
dlowan wrote:
LOL. You had the Marines in Haditha tried, convicted and sentenced without so much as blinking an eye.
Hypocrite.
Hilarious.
You really can't open that thing without shoving your whole body in, can you?
Here it is slow and simple...like your brain.
Your marines had an I N V E S T I G A T I O N.
By their peers, as it happened, and...oh my!!!!! Just like the beginnings of Abu Ghraib, Afghani prisons etc...their own side thinks they're ok!
They haven't been imprisoned for years, tortured, etc.
They had D U E P R O C E S S of L A W.
Try harder, ****.
An investigation? Due process of law? When? Where? Your idea of due process is being tried in the court of public opinion?
How many retractions has Time made from their original 'breaking' story? Do you even know? How many times do we have to put up with this bullshit and then read over and over, "We regret the error"?
They don't regret the error. Like you, they're hoping against hope the Marines did commit a 'massacre'. Screw the facts as long as they can convince dimwits like you.
That other poster who described you as a mean-azz freak should have included the word 'disgusting'. You're a disgusting, mean-azz freak, drunk on hatred.
dlowan wrote:Amnesty International urged the US to "end the lawlessness" of its facility, which is holding about 460 people.
"The news that three detainees in Guantanamo have died as a result of apparent suicide is a further tragic reminder that the US must end the lawlessness of the facility," it said in a statement.
Amnesty has been pretty dishonest of late.
It is hardly lawless to hold captured enemy soldiers until the war is over.
dlowan wrote:Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, said on Saturday that the detention of the men went against basic rule of law.
Then he's never read the Geneva Conventions.
dlowan wrote:"I think it would be to the benefit of our cause and our fight for freedom and against terrorism if the facilities at Guantanamo were closed down," he told CNN television channel.
I take it he'd rather we just execute every enemy soldier as soon as we capture them?
SierraSong wrote:
That other poster who described you as a mean-azz freak should have included the word 'disgusting'. You're a disgusting, mean-azz freak, drunk on hatred.
Absolutely, you ass-tute logic prevails.
Sierra,
There is a difference between being held for a crime without trial and having stories printed about you committing a crime.
There is an investigation of Haditha. The military is conducting it. Bush has said he will withold comments on it until it concludes. None of the soldiers involved has been placed in a prison without access to a lawyer. I don't believe any of them have even been arrested.
Compare that to those held at Guantanamo without being charged for over 3 years. No investigations, no access to lawyers. An assumption of guilt by a person holding them.
No news service has ever imprisoned anyone whether they get the story right or wrong.
msolga wrote:oralloy wrote:dlowan wrote:Criteria for the war being over, please.
Everyone who was connected to 9/11 is dead or in US custody, and the destruction of al-Qa'ida and their allied organizations.
What is your definition of "connected"? No doubt their are many sympathizers. That's a very tall order.
Anyone who was part of planning, carrying out, aiding, or abetting, the attacks.
msolga wrote:anton wrote:I can just imagine the screams of protest if US military personnel were abducted, tortured and imprisoned without trial.
There would be
hell to pay! Outrage! Not that I'd wish this situation on anyone in the US military, either. There seems to be a disturbing mindset that the "enemies" of the US are something less than human. No one should have to live through an experience like this!
There would be outrage because the US military follows the rules of the Geneva conventions. They wear uniforms signifying who they are, they carry there weapons in plain view, the follow a strong hierarchial structured leadership and they are the good guys.
If they did not do those things and instead hid behind their women like scared little boys afraid of their enemy and only shooting at them from the safety of their womens skirts, or they convinced children to drive suicide missions into the enemy encampments, or any of the other cowardly acts the Taliban fighters attempted, I doubt you would see the outcry.
Thomas wrote:msolga, quoting admiral Harris wrote:"They are smart. They are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of ... warfare waged against us," he said.
Lucky them -- they hit the trifecta. <shakes>
"The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death," said Maulana Inyadullah of al-Qaeda in the aftermath of September 11.
"War is our best hobby. The sound of guns firing is like music for us. We cannot live without war. We have no other way except jihad," he said.
<shakes>
McGentrix wrote:... the US military follows the rules of the Geneva conventions. They wear uniforms signifying who they are, they carry there weapons in plain view, the follow a strong hierarchial structured leadership and they are the good guys...
Have you been watching tv again McG?
