Abuse has worsened in Gitmo since Obama

[PTK]

If the law of our land isn't good enough, then what in the hell are we defending?

SOMEONE ELSE GETS IT! Thank you! 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

No, but even the common mugger gets a trial in this country.  We don't ship him off to some prison and hold him indefinitely.  If the law of our land isn't good enough, then what in the hell are we defending?

Which Gitmo detainees haven't received hearings?

[RevDisk]

Which Gitmo detainees haven't received hearings?

All except 3 who have been convicted, I believe.  60 are "pending trial" (ie, they intend to actually press charges someday).  The rest are intended to be released....  Whenever.

[Jamisjockey]

All except 3 who have been convicted, I believe.  60 are "pending trial" (ie, they intend to actually press charges someday).  The rest are intended to be released....  Whenever.

Whenever....exactly.

Local police station blows up.  Steve is known to be an ass by his neighors, has some anti-government propoganda in his garage.  Bob doesn't like steve and tells the local government he heard steve say he blew the place up.  Steve gets detained.  Indefintely. 
You would be howling like a monkey over the injustice in that situation.  Whats the difference?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

All except 3 who have been convicted, I believe.  60 are "pending trial" (ie, they intend to actually press charges someday).  The rest are intended to be released....  Whenever.

False.  All current Gitmo detainees have received judicial reviews.  I think about half of the detainees have been released.

Whenever....exactly.

Local police station blows up.  Steve is known to be an ass by his neighors, has some anti-government propoganda in his garage.  Bob doesn't like steve and tells the local government he heard steve say he blew the place up.  Steve gets detained.  Indefintely. 
You would be howling like a monkey over the injustice in that situation.  Whats the difference?

The difference is that an American destroying up a police station is crime, whereas Al Qaeda or Taliban people attacking the United States are performing military actions (either legal or illegal, depending).
 
Fighting a war is not crime.  Terrorism is not crime.  Criminal courts are not the place for people who aren't involved in crime.

[Jamisjockey]

False.  All Gitmo detainees have received judicial reviews.
The difference is that an American destroying up a police station is crime, whereas Al Qaeda or Taliban people attacking the United States are performing military actions (either legal or illegal, depending).
 
Fighting a war is not crime.  Terrorism is not crime.  Criminal courts are not the place for people who aren't involved in crime.

Right up until the point they change the standards for "crime". 

[40 caliber]

How very American of you.

"Let's execute all these prisoners, since the government said they're bad."

Have they all had trials, yet?

I have to side with you on this one. When are the trials scheduled? And why don't we have a public list available of who these people are and what they are accused of?

[40 caliber]

Odd, the DoD doesn't seem to agree with you.  Allegedly roughly 775 detainees have been sent to Gitmo.  Roughly 420 have been released with no charge.  Roughly 270 detainees remain.   20% of remaining detainees are cleared for release, but their home countries don't want them back. 

3 detainees have been convicted of crimes.  The US eventually intends to charge a total of around 60 more detainees.


Granted, the next bit is entirely hearsay.  Folks I still talk to from ye olde Army days explained to me that many (maybe most) detainees were handed over by third parties in exchange for reward money.  This has netted us some real high value intelligence.  However, it has also netted us a very large number of people who were not guilty of much if anything, but primarily the captors wanted the reward money and invented stories.  The other supply of detainees handed over by locals are results of personal or clan grudges. 

Thank you for being a sane voice.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Right up until the point they change the standards for "crime". 

Redefining the meaning of crime is precisely what we need to prevent.  Acts which we now call terrorism are not crime and never have been.

I'd love to hear how a constitutional criminal prosecution could be carried out against an Al Qaeda goon from some Crapistan cave plotting to attack the US.  I can't see how such a prosecution can satisfy basic concepts of justice, nor the various requirements laid out in the Bill of Rights.

Terrorism is not crime, and treating it like it is leads to a miscarriage of justice.  We've been round and round on this before.  Unless y'all can come up with some new idea or insight, I have no interest in repeating it all here.

[Jamisjockey]

Redefining the meaning of crime is precisely what we need to prevent.  Acts which we now call terrorism are not crime and never have been.

I'd love to hear how a constitutional criminal prosecution could be carried out against an Al Qaeda goon from some Crapistan cave plotting to attack the US.  I can't see how such a prosecution can satisfy basic concepts of justice, nor the various requirements laid out in the Bill of Rights.

Terrorism is not crime, and treating it like it is leads to a miscarriage of justice.  We've been round and round on this before.  Unless y'all can come up with some new idea or insight, I have no interest in repeating it all here.

Um, yeah.  Just like the war criminals after WWII, they should be tried in a military or international court or released.

[40 caliber]

False.  All current Gitmo detainees have received judicial reviews.  I think about half of the detainees have been released.
The difference is that an American destroying up a police station is crime, whereas Al Qaeda or Taliban people attacking the United States are performing military actions (either legal or illegal, depending).
 
Fighting a war is not crime.  Terrorism is not crime.  Criminal courts are not the place for people who aren't involved in crime.

I'm not following you.

What is the right place for GITMO detainees? Obviously the American people feel GITMO isn't the right place.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Um, yeah.  Just like the war criminals after WWII, they should be tried in a military or international court or released.

They should be treated like the Pastorius spies in WWII.  

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I'm not following you.

What is the right place for GITMO detainees? Obviously the American people feel GITMO isn't the right place.

The right place is some sort of military tribunal system that is set up for terrorism, not a criminal court that's set up to judge violations of American criminal laws.

[De Selby]

Substantiate these claims. 

Sure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011303372.html?hpid=topnews

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

So the military reviewer said it was obviously torture.

Also, it's well accepted that water boarding was used against detainees.

Here's the law of torture in the US:  http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html

As used in this chapter—
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

Water-boarding obviously meets the definition of that statute. 

Hence, anyone who committed water-boarding on a detainee violated the laws of the United States. 

The substantiation is pretty easy and clear on this one: acts of torture were committed, and torture is illegal in the US.  Violators should be punished, just the same as any other criminal.

[De Selby]

The right place is some sort of military tribunal system that is set up for terrorism, not a criminal court that's set up to judge violations of American criminal laws.

Being that there is no international convention or statute on terrorism, under what law exactly would you try these people besides US law?

[Jamisjockey]

The right place is some sort of military tribunal system that is set up for terrorism, not a criminal court that's set up to judge violations of American criminal laws.

I would accept that.  But only if there were formal charges against each person held, and some level of transparancy in the trials.  Obviously we can't compromise secret sources of intelligence, but at least knowing names and charges would be a start.
Its this simple:  I fear my government.  It is more powerful than I am.  Have I done anything wrong?  Nope.  But there are hundreds of regimes in the world that think nothing of kicking in doors and taking people from their homes without charges.  There are people, even elected officials, in this country, who view the BOR and Constitution as an obstacle to progress and forward thinking.
I also believe in Human rights.  We rail against these regimes in the world, like China, where a person is tossed in jail without any due process.  And then, we snatch "terrorists" from their home in the middle of the night, ship them to a facility in Cuba, and hold them indefintely. 
We are hypocrites. 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

False.  All current Gitmo detainees have received judicial reviews.  I think about half of the detainees have been released.


you got a source for that?  mine is unavailable and a short while ago he disagreed. he might have a clue hes a retired jag lawyer brigadier still working for em as a contractor.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Being that there is no international convention or statute on terrorism, under what law exactly would you try these people besides US law?

That's the rub, isn't it?  What authority does US criminal law have over foreigners in caves in Afghanistan or wherever?

There is a reason why military actions have always been understood to be separate from criminal prosecution.  The nature of the activities (fighting a war vs violating a criminal law) are fundamentally different.  Trying to apply the legal framework for crime to a man fighting a war makes no sense whatsoever. 

Foreign terrorists are not bona fide soldiers fighting a legal war, but they are far nearer to that than they are to domestic law-breakers.  We cannot and should not place enemy soldiers in our criminal courts.  Neither should we place terrorists in our criminal courts.  Those courts simply aren't the right place.  If you do it anyway, despite the foolishness of it, then you end up inevitably with an outcome that defies justice.

[Seenterman]

I'd love to hear how a constitutional criminal prosecution could be carried out against an Al Qaeda goon from some Crapistan cave plotting to attack the US.  I can't see how such a prosecution can satisfy basic concepts of justice, nor the various requirements laid out in the Bill of Rights.

All human beings are granted unalienable rights by our Constitution.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I dont see any stipulations that you have to be an American for these unalienable right and by that we must treat all human beings with some level "fairness" for lack of a better word. Just because their not US citizens doesn't mean they can be imprisoned indefinatly forever. Imagine if the EU, started trying some of our soliders under war crimes laws and inprisoning them indefinatly with out trials. We would all be screaming for the EU's blood, but what makes us that much different.

Terrorism is not crime, and treating it like it is leads to a miscarriage of justice.  We've been round and round on this before.  Unless y'all can come up with some new idea or insight, I have no interest in repeating it all here.

I think a government holding anybody without a trial for such a duration (some detainees have been inprisoned for 5 years or more without trial) is a miscarriage of justice.
What would you call genocide? Terrorism, a crime, an act of war? Well after we deafeated the Nazi's we gave them all trials and they were the worst of the worst at the time. I dont see how Nazi's an organized governmental group that was determined to kill every single jew, gypsy, and ethnic minority is an different from or less evil than A.Q. or these insurgent fighters.

False.  All current Gitmo detainees have received judicial reviews.  I think about half of the detainees have been released.

Wrong. Cite if your sources.

The difference is that an American destroying up a police station is crime, whereas Al Qaeda or Taliban people attacking the United States are performing military actions (either legal or illegal, depending).
 

Funny because actually under the PATRIOT Act that American could be labeled as an "enemy combatant" and held at Gitmo indefinatly, no trial, no lawyer, no phone call, no nothing. Hell the gov could just come in the middle of the night black bag him and fly him to Gitmo without ever having to tell anyone if they felt like it. That is why I have such a problem with the "enemy combatant" label. It could apply to almost anyone, gang bangers are being tried under terrorism laws because they "terrorize" neighborhoods, which is a mockery of why the laws were written.

Fighting a war is not crime.  Terrorism is not crime.  Criminal courts are not the place for people who aren't involved in crime.

There are war crimes though, and there are courts for war crimes . . .

You cant just say someone is so super duper evil they need to be locked up forever and ever until they die without a chance at stating their case before a judge it just flies in the face of everything this coutry stands for.

I dont like the fact that the KKK can get a permit to hold a march, but I'd be damed if I didnt support their right to preach all the hate they want.

[Seenterman]

They should be treated like the Pastorius spies in WWII. 

Yea all those guys got a trial . . .
2 of them even ecsaped hanging because Roosevelt commuted two of their sentances and then Truman granted executive clemency to them on the condition they be deported to the American zone in Germany.

Re read your history you might have forgot something or though of the wrong case because this did not support your arguement at all.

Trying to apply the legal framework for crime to a man fighting a war makes no sense whatsoever. 

What about the Uniform Code of Military Justice? Is that not a legal framework that applies to a man fighting a war?

Foreign terrorists are not bona fide soldiers fighting a legal war, but they are far nearer to that than they are to domestic law-breakers.

 

That statement alone weakens your argument that they shouldn't be tried. Why not if their nearer to domestic law breakers than soldiers.

We cannot and should not place enemy soldiers in our criminal courts.

 
I just though you said their not soldiers?

Neither should we place terrorists in our criminal courts.  Those courts simply aren't the right place.  If you do it anyway, despite the foolishness of it, then you end up inevitably with an outcome that defies justice.

What should we do with them? Lock em up and throw away the key, on whos say so? Who has the power to lock someone up indefinatly? The infantry soldier that captures the terrorist? What rank whould you have to be in the military to designate someone as "enemy combatant" and no longer worthy of and legal protections? All I can say is slippery slope. . .

[Balog]

RevDisk: have their been allegations of beatings etc since Obama took office? The article is just about that period, not everything every done at Gitmo, and the worst thing listed in the article is "pre-emptive use of pepperspray."

Anyway, basic human rights should be afforded to everyone, even terrorists. But American citizens should be treated differently than foreign nationals. A military tribunal would seem to be the appropriate way to deal with people captured overseas on the battlefield. And "caught by our troops doing something bad" people are a different category than "someone said they did something bad for a reward" people.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Sure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011303372.html?hpid=topnews

So the military reviewer said it was obviously torture.

Also, it's well accepted that water boarding was used against detainees.

Here's the law of torture in the US:  http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html

Water-boarding obviously meets the definition of that statute. 

Hence, anyone who committed water-boarding on a detainee violated the laws of the United States. 

The substantiation is pretty easy and clear on this one: acts of torture were committed, and torture is illegal in the US.  Violators should be punished, just the same as any other criminal.

So the worst we've done is take a man who was involved in killing 3,000 Americans and subject him to sleep deprivation, nudity, and cold.  And on 3 occasions we inflicted extremely brief emotional distress on terrorists.

We routinely do the same and worse to our own soldiers as part of their training, including waterboarding.

But the fact that we've done it on 4 occasions to terrorists to prevent further mass killings of our own people makes us as bad as murderous regimes like Soviet Russia and Red China?

If you ever wonder why our side thinks your side hates America, consider this a prime example.

If the law as written does not account for extreme circumstances such as these, and makes criminals of people acting in good faith and within just moral boundaries to protect our people, then that's an indictment of the law as much as the actions of the people involved.

[40 caliber]

So the worst we've done is take a man who was involved in killing 3,000 Americans and subject him to sleep deprivation, nudity, and cold. 

It is alleged by many that we have done much worse. Among the allegations is that prisoners were beaten to death (at Abu Ghraib) and that we routinely turn prisoners over to foreign nations that torture them on our behalf. Then there are the secret prisons. Why do we need secret prisons?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

So the worst we've done is take a man who was involved in killing 3,000 Americans and subject him to sleep deprivation, nudity, and cold.  And on 3 occasions we inflicted extremely brief emotional distress on terrorists.

we don't deny waterboarding folks

and where/when do we waterboard our guys?

[De Selby]

That's the rub, isn't it?  What authority does US criminal law have over foreigners in caves in Afghanistan or wherever?

There is a reason why military actions have always been understood to be separate from criminal prosecution.  The nature of the activities (fighting a war vs violating a criminal law) are fundamentally different.  Trying to apply the legal framework for crime to a man fighting a war makes no sense whatsoever. 

Foreign terrorists are not bona fide soldiers fighting a legal war, but they are far nearer to that than they are to domestic law-breakers.  We cannot and should not place enemy soldiers in our criminal courts.  Neither should we place terrorists in our criminal courts.  Those courts simply aren't the right place.  If you do it anyway, despite the foolishness of it, then you end up inevitably with an outcome that defies justice.

Wait a second here-you just toss this claim out there that trying terrorism in criminal courts doesn't work, with no substantiation.   Where did that come from?  What is the "outcome that defies justice"?

It obviously works with terrorists-we threw the blind sheik in jail for life, gave John Walker Lindh 20 years for actions undertaken entirely overseas.  The criminal laws do, obviously, extend to overseas conduct where the end result would be attacks on Americans.

What are the specific reasons why criminal trials are "foolish"?  And what specific "outcome that defies justice" would result?