Guantanamo suicides confirmed

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.

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!

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.

Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation,

cruel treatment and torture;

Taking of hostages;

outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading

treatment;

the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.

The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.

The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.

Article 5

The present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation.

Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.

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

You aren't seriously going to pretend that our soldiers haven't been tortured in every major war we've been in since 1941???

Unlawful combatant

Quote:

oralloy wrote:

You aren't seriously going to pretend that our soldiers haven't been tortured in every major war we've been in since 1941???

Which means that they can do the very same.

EXACTLY!!!! ... what?

Really though, the only torture I support is for the 25 or so that are held in CIA secret prisons.

Thomas wrote:

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.

I know it's possible. That is why they were reviewed by the tribunals.

Meanwhile, the administration is pressing ahead with its plans to try some detainees before special military commissions. So far, only four have been charged, with a further 11 "designated for trial" by Mr Bush (though an Australian and two Britons have since been sent home).

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>

I assuming you have missed the point; oralloy.

The point being that number one, the bush administration once again made up a definition to fit their agenda but that don't make it legal. Number two, prisoners with their status in doubt get to enjoy their status as POW's until such time as a "competent" tribunal decides what their status is. Number three even for those who status may not have been in doubt or who later were determined not to be POW they get to enjoy most of the Geneva Conventions provisions such not being tortured and being treated with dignity. Point number four both of which under the Bush administration the US has violated because once again they redefined a word to fit their agenda and completely ignored the part about not degrading prisoners.

Admittedly, this is nine months old. Maybe things have change and the number of prisoners tried has vastly increased. But (1) To my knowledge this is not the case, and (2) even if it were so, four years are not an acceptable response time for an innocent prisoner seeking redress.

oralloy wrote:

Really though, the only torture I support is for the 25 or so that are held in CIA secret prisons.

Well, if that's the democracy-style the US are exporting .... why did they object secret prisons and torture elsewhere?

And in the United States, two senators also sharply criticized the operation yesterday. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects for years without trial a ``grave problem."

Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said on CNN that the United States should put prisoners at Guantanamo on trial. He also said that the military has brought many detainees to Guantanamo on evidence that may be too weak to produce a conviction.

``Where we have evidence, they ought to be tried. . . . As to a great many others, there is not evidence which could be brought into a court of law," Specter said.

SierraSong wrote:

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>

(1) If you can quote my whole post with one word deleted, you can also quote the whole post without editing it at all. I'd prefer it if you did the latter in the future.

(2) If you're saying that America is better than the Taliban and Al Quaeda folks its troops are fighting, you won't be getting an argument from me. That's not the issue. The issue is that you seem to imply that "better than Al Quaeda" means "acceptable. It doesn't.