U.S. Military clearly in violation of Geneva Convention at Gitmo

[Azrael256]

I just saw this article on Drudge about the interrogation techniques used on some al queda member at Gitmo.  I'm cool with electric shocks.  No problem with tying him to a chair and having a couple Marines beat the snot out of him.  Water torture is fine with me.

But this latest bit...  This has to be a Geneva Convention violation, unconstitutional, and it is surely a violation of all moral law.

They're using Christina Aguilera music to torture the guy.

[jefnvk]

HAhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah!

That is it!  We gotta close that place down, if things like that are going on, it just ain't fit to live in!

[InfidelSerf]

Now the B sides to Barry Manilow would certainly be crule and unusual punishment.

[Preacherman]

Just make 'em listen to Michael Jackson all day long...

[Bemidjiblade]

Has anyone pointed out to these people that the prisoners are not in uniform, do not represent a national body, and the Geneva Conventions do NOT apply to them?!?!

[Ezekiel]

You mean sort of like how American Indians were excluded from the Constitution?  Because semantics makes EVERYTHING right...

We are way outside the box on Gitmo.  History will look at this akin to rounding up Japanese in San Francisco after Pearl Harbor.

As for musical torture -- since we've gone there -- how about some John Tesh?  

[Bemidjiblade]

Ezekiel,  It's great to hear from you.  You always make me think.

American Indians weren't excluded from the Constitution.  I've read it a coupla times.  It IS fair to say that the way the early Americans greated Natives was hippocritical in many ways.  Then again, I've read my early history, and whites didn't exactly corner the market on killing or forcing tribes to move.  Native nations displaced each other all the time.  Anglos just did it better, so they're the bad guys?  History is full of popoulation migrations.  They're almost always tragic and bloody.  But compare the US to the Seljuk Turks, the Huns, or the Goths, and we come off like rose-water.

I think you're drawing two false analogies here:

The people in Gitmo aren't there because they happened to have the same ethnicity as Bin Laden.  THey're there because they were either captured under arms against the US or with demonstrable intent of the same.  That'd be like saying there was no difference between the AJA camps (which were wrong) and taking armed Japanese regulars POW.

As for American Indians, there are many many tragedies perpetrated upon the Indians by the US.  There were also many tragedies perpetrated upon the American colonists by the Indians.  The colonists didn't just wake up one morning and say, "hey, I know, let's be racist!"  There was ugly border fighting on both sides during the 3rd War for Empire (or French and Indian war if you want to be American-centered) and continuing off and on until Andrew Jackson's time.  The Chippewa peoples of the time were acting in accordance with their culture to take women and children and raise them as their own after killing the older boys and men.  But... it didn't exactly set a great tone with the colonials, either.

Make no mistake!  As the balance of power continued to shift, particularly after the Civil War, I find very little to stomach about how the US dealt with Native Americans.  But prior to... 1812 at the least, whites were given very good, very bloody reasons not to want Indian neighbors.  And the Indians were increasingly (correctly) convinced that expansionism was a threat to them.

As far as Gitmo:  Again you're comparing potentially muderous hostiles with innocent civilians, and the analogy doesn't take w/ me.

[LadySmith]

"As for musical torture -- since we've gone there -- how about some John Tesh?"

I heard that torture is reserved exclusively for those condemned to the lowest regions of hell.

[roo_ster]

Y'all are going pretty easy on those guys at Gitmo.  

Aguilera, Tesh, Manilow...all pikers when it comes to musical torture.

You wanna really put the fear of Dog in them, I have two words: Helen Reddy.

After two verses of "I am woman, hear me roar, In numbers too big to ignore..." those Jihadi scum will be singing like birds (if they haven't clawed their eyes out & stuffed them in their ears, that is).

You can find that particular bit of musical WMD here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000ADLP/ref=pd_sxp_f/102-2768008-7701703?v=glance&s=music

[Ezekiel]

potentially murderous hostiles

Outstanding analysis, as always -- it's always wonderful to spar with you!  

Respectfully, to use your own words, we have rounded up folks with "potential" to be "murderous" and "hostile" and convicted them -- without trial -- as if they definitively were as such.  You know what?  I don't deny that 98% of them probably ARE as such.    But the concept of a Great America precludes us from acting in certain ways both nationally and internationally.  If the folks at Gitmo don't deserve Geneva, they still deserve the honor of the lowest charged criminal: a hearing and a trial.  Merely a point of contention.

Musical torture?  I furture nominate Zamfir, Master of the pan flute!

[Sean Smith]

The reason the bulk of the folks at Gitmo are excluded from the protections of the Geneva Conventions is because... the GENEVA CONVENTIONS say that they aren't protected persons.  Not because the US is naughty or something.  

The section most relevant to terrorists/insurgents/etc.:

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

I would assume so.

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

Nope.

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

Generally, no.

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Not even close.

Hence, the GENEVA CONVENTIONS THEMSELVES say that most of the detainees don't fall under their protection.  Now, our treatment may or may not be proper/nice/etc., but that is not relevant to the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to their treatment.

[Ezekiel]

laws and customs of war.

?

Sorry -- it's not you -- that line is just difficult to digest...

[InfidelSerf]

History will look at this akin to rounding up Japanese in San Francisco after Pearl Harbor.

I disagree.  I completely agree with the rounding up of Japanese after Pearl Harbor.
I find it interesting that many of those Japanese nationals that spent time in those detention camps understood why they were being held there.

Personally I think it would have been appropriate to round up all Saudi nationals after 9/11.  Process them and make sure they had no ties to the perpetrators.
I'm sure many would consider that radical.


While I think things are taking a bit longer at gitmo than many of us would like,  they are in better living conditions than where we picked them up.
So all this talk of it being a gulag is ridiculous.

[Sean Smith]

laws and customs of war.

?

Sorry -- it's not you -- that line is just difficult to digest...

Complain to the Geneva Convention authors about it.  

[Sean Smith]

So all this talk of it being a gulag is ridiculous.

Gitmo is a few MILLION DEAD PEOPLE short of earning the title "gulag."

[InfidelSerf]

Gitmo is a few MILLION DEAD PEOPLE short of earning the title "gulag."

amen.. well said.

[Ezekiel]

Process them and make sure they had no ties to the perpetrators.   I'm sure many would consider that radical.

To say the least!  Don't the words "process them" on a national scale tend to wind up involving railways and ovens?  Nationalistic fervor annoys me...

When we radically change America for "safety", the terrorists have won: "America", as it was, no longer exists.

I'm not saying release everyone at Gitmo, but an actual trial would be nice.  Set to John Tesh...

[roo_ster]

Ezekiel:

When we radically change America for "safety", the terrorists have won: "America", as it was, no longer exists.

Uh, dealing with the detainees at Gitmo in the current manner is not radically changing America.  It is not occurring inside America.  It is not occurring to Americans, with the exception of one chowderhead American caught on the battlefield fighting against us.  Heck, even "Jihad" Johnnie Walker Lindh got himself a trial...more than he deserved or could expect to receive under the "laws and customs of war."

It is putting the heat where it ought to be: on the terrorists and their supporters.  I would rather see America take the fight to the jihadis on the jihadis' home turf, than have our liberties eroded here at home.  Fight them over there, bomb them over there, patrol over there, let their structures be blasted, and let their supporters eat the collateral damage.

...they still deserve the honor of the lowest charged criminal: a hearing and a trial.

Point  One:
Detainees at Gitmo get a hearing to determine if they ought to be kept at Gitmo.  This hearing is run by the military and has one journalist witness.  It is not an Alan Deshowitz/OJ Simpson show trial, but it is more than they deserve.
Point Two:
Your derided "laws and customs of war" allow for folks not fighting according to them (deliberately targeting civilians, not wearing a recognizable uniform, etc.) to be shot on the spot.  No trial, no interrogation, no nothin' except high-vel FMJ to the melon.  The USA generally treats unlawful enemy combatants with much more consideration than this, as our policy, and enforces that policy with the UCMJ...prosecuting those who do not follow the "kid gloves" orders.

[Bemidjiblade]

Ezekiel:
Being held indefinitely without trial IS consistent with "the lowest level of criminals".  It's called Civil Commitment.  It's been upheld by the Supreme Court.  We do it for murderers, rapist, other sex offenders, and anyone else who is deemed to dangerous to the public to be allowed freedom.

So the standards you asked for ARE being applied.  A review board has judged that these people need locked up for the safety of society.  Into the slammer they go.

No different than hundreds of other Bad Men.

Or are you arguing that they're not a danger to society?

[Ezekiel]

are you arguing that they're not a danger to society?

I'm no fan of Islamic fundamentalism or any other plot device that negatively affects freedom.  But we, as a nation, have continually lowered the bar in terms of evidence and judgment when our perceived righteousness has seen fit.  To wit, we are merely another occupation force in the the nations we invaded [Iraq & Afghanistan] and then become perturbed should anyone -- failing to annoint us as saviors -- find our arrival distasteful.  It's hypocrisy to the highest degree.

Detainees at Gitmo get a hearing to determine if they ought to be kept at Gitmo.  This hearing is run by the military and has one journalist witness.

Oh yeah, I'm sure that's legitimate.  Because I would certainly feel valued if I was displaced, taken to a foreign land, given a hearing by an alien army and, then, locked away for further study.  That's like the wolf going into the henhouse, taking a hen, and then asking the hen to stand trial in a court of wolves.  It doesn't matter that the henhouse is a cesspool, our actions are immoral by study.

The folks at Gitmo are either:

1.  Combatants.  If so, they get killed or become POWs.
2.  Noncombatants.  If so, they are refugees.

We have not toed the line in either case and expect limbo to be good enough.  That's an issue, and a fundamental one, when we look at our actions in the world.  The America I love is better then this.  Militarily, we've swatted a fly with a Buick.  Socially, we're on our way to asking for "papers" at our borders.  Morally, our empiricist actions border upon thuggery.

We're all very "slippery slope" folks when it comes to gun control, but nobody seems to want to address the moral decay of our own nation.  It's as if the 'ole USA can go to Hell in a handbasket as long as we have the right to own a .454 Casull to hunt squirrels...

[roo_ster]

Oh yeah, I'm sure that's legitimate.

It is more than their due under the the laws of conduct of war and the treaties, conventions, accords, etc. we have signed on to.  

Our boys captured in excess of 10,000 people in Afganistan.  Of those, only 750 (7.5%) were sent to Guantanimo Bay.  Of those 750, only around 500 remain at GB.  See, that review process (along with interrogation) determined that roughly 250 of the detainees were not a threat.  They were released and sent back to Afganistan.

Because I would certainly feel valued if I was displaced, taken to a foreign land, given a hearing by an alien army and, then, locked away for further study.  That's like the wolf going into the henhouse, taking a hen, and then asking the hen to stand trial in a court of wolves.

You ought to do comedy.  Sorry, unlawful combatants have no right to feel "valued."  They also have no right to feel loved, be tucked into bed by their mommas, or watch Dr. Phil on the teevee.  Cry me a river.

Yeah, all these guys are innocent, defenseless, little waifs just all caught up in the moment out there in the hills.

It doesn't matter that the henhouse is a cesspool, our actions are immoral by study.

Well, at the Gitmo "cesspool" the jihadis were served orange-glazed chicken, steamed peas and mushrooms, and rice pilaf for dinner last Sunday.  Poor babies, they have to eat well-rounded meals on a lush, semitropical island.

The folks at Gitmo are either:

1.  Combatants.  If so, they get killed or become POWs.
2.  Noncombatants.  If so, they are refugees.

Wrong-o, again, on point #1.  If they are combatants, they are unlawful combatants.  We can execute them or keep them indefinitely.  They do not become POWs, as POW status is reserved for lawful combatants.

[grampster]

I would set a bail for each of the detainees at Gitmo.  Their bail is to produce Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi.  Produce them, you go home.

[Ezekiel]

lawful combatants

Ridiculous oxymoron.  Semantics wins again.

We can execute them or keep them indefinitely.

Sig Heil!

Well, at the Gitmo "cesspool" the jihadis were served orange-glazed chicken, steamed peas and mushrooms, and rice pilaf for dinner last Sunday.  Poor babies, they have to eat well-rounded meals on a lush, semitropical island.

You forgot to add, "in cages".  Still, you scored from WAY downtown on that one: I didn't even get a hand in your face...  

[The Rabbi]

In case anyone was interested I believe the word Ezekiel actually means Troll in ancient Phoenician.

Back to topic: I have a better way.  We can not only get information out of them but actually get them to change sides and work for us.  The answer: non-stop 24/7 playing of KC And The Sunshine Band and other disco hits of the 70s.
"Everybody, get on the floor, and let's dance...."

[Dannyboy]

We can execute them or keep them indefinitely.

Sig Heil!

Ah, so typically leftist.  Don't like someone/thing then equate him/it with Nazis.  Not very original, however.  If you would actually take the time to think before posting nonsense you might have figured out that what he said comes from your sacred Geneva Conventions.  Not word for word, obviously, but still.  So, in essence, what you did was equate every country that is party to the Geneva Conventions with Nazis.  You are one classy guy!