Abuse has worsened in Gitmo since Obama

[De Selby]

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.

Okay, the law as written clearly defines the conduct to which the man in the article was subjected as torture, does it not?  I notice you didn't dispute that, but instead are now trying to re-define the crime to fit your views on what should or should not be legal.

There is no such thing as a "good faith" violation of the torture statute-that's like saying there's a "good faith" violation of a rape statute.  It's not an administrative or regulatory law; it's a law that prohibits some of the most vile criminal conduct that human beings have ever exhibited.

If you think there should be exceptions, that's fine-I'm sure lots of people think there should be exceptions to murder statutes too.  But it is beyond obvious that anyone who breaks such a law, including the law against torture, would do so knowing that the act constituted a very serious crime for which, depending on the damage inflicted, the death penalty is available to prosecutors.

People who break the law against torture should be tried.  And that law was clearly broken in this case.

But to be clear, since I didn't see it in your post:  Are you disputing that the documented instances of torture actually broke the law, or are you saying that the law shouldn't prohibit torture as long as it's done for reasons that you think are good ones?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

or the evidence that all the guys at gitmo got "judicial reviews"  the inmate head counts don't qualify

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

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"?

Common sense, and a reading of the 6th Amendment.  We've been round and round on this before, and I'm reluctant to repeat the details here.  Check the archives.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Supreme Court Rules For Gitmo Prisoners
Sunday June 15, 2008

Getty Images The Bush White House is 0-for-3, as the Supreme Court of the United States has once again rebuffed its actions at Guantanamo Bay.
In a 5-4 ruling, the Court "struck down the law Bush pushed through the Republican-led Congress in 2006 that took away the habeas corpus rights of the terrorism suspects to seek full judicial review of their detention."

Both Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President, and Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, have said they would close Gitmo. However, McCain called the Court's decision "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." Even if you think this one is bad (which I don't), here's a list of some that are arguably worse, including Dred Scott and Korematsu.

President Bush, from Europe, said, "We'll study this opinion, and we'll do so with this in mind to determine whether or not additional legislation might be appropriate so that we can safely say, truly say to the American people, 'we are doing everything we can to protect you.' " To this, I suggest reading Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right, by Frank Furedi.

The SCOTUS Blog notes that the Court ruled that Congress must explicitly follow the Constitution: habeas corpus can be suspended "only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion." The Court also criticized the plan developed by the Pentagon to define “enemy combatants.”

This is the third time that the Supreme Court has ruled against the Bush Administration on the matter of Gitmo "detainees." In June 2004, the Court ruled those held at Guantanamo Bay had the right to challenge their detention in federal court. In June 2006, the Court ruled against the White House on the matter of military tribunals, the Administration response to the 2004 decision. Later in 2006, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a Bush Administration-crafted law that created a military designation of "enemy combatant" that was subject to a limited review by a U.S. appeals court.

The Bush Administration opened the Guantanamo prison in January 2002 as part of its "war on terrorism" in response to September 11.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 2008 opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

More about Gitmo from USP. Elsewhere on the web: Mother Jones March/April 2008 feature on torture; Houston Chronicle, "Many detainees' ties to terrorism doubted."

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Okay, the law as written clearly defines the conduct to which the man in the article was subjected as torture, does it not?  I notice you didn't dispute that, but instead are now trying to re-define the crime to fit your views on what should or should not be legal.

There is no such thing as a "good faith" violation of the torture statute-that's like saying there's a "good faith" violation of a rape statute.  It's not an administrative or regulatory law; it's a law that prohibits some of the most vile criminal conduct that human beings have ever exhibited.

If you think there should be exceptions, that's fine-I'm sure lots of people think there should be exceptions to murder statutes too.  But it is beyond obvious that anyone who breaks such a law, including the law against torture, would do so knowing that the act constituted a very serious crime for which, depending on the damage inflicted, the death penalty is available to prosecutors.

People who break the law against torture should be tried.  And that law was clearly broken in this case.

But to be clear, since I didn't see it in your post:  Are you disputing that the documented instances of torture actually broke the law, or are you saying that the law shouldn't prohibit torture as long as it's done for reasons that you think are good ones?

Ok, for the record, here's my position:  I don't think loud music, nudity, or cranking the A/C up too high qualifies as sever pain or suffering.  Waterboarding comes closer to torture, but I'm still not convinced it really qualifies.  I've heard that we waterboard some of our own people, even. 

Now, here's another wrinkle on the problem:  If I was in charge there, I'd be willing to inflict real pain and suffering on a terrorist detainee if I thought it was necessary to prevent another 3,000 American deaths.  Sparing a terrorist pain at the expense of thousands of innocent lives seems terribly wrong to me, and it certainly doesn't destroy our moral high ground as some have claimed.  I won't chastise someone else for doing less than what I would have done in the same circumstances. 

Now, for the record, are you backing off your insulting claim that the United States is as bad as the USSR and China? 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Gitmo Inmates Return to Terrorism
As Barack Obama prepares to issue an Executive Order to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison the Pentagon reports a rise in the number of detainees who rejoined terrorist missions after being released. 

The Department of Defense says that the number of Guantanamo prisoners—all suspected Middle Eastern terrorists—who have returned to “the fight” since their release from custody has nearly doubled in a short time from 37 to 61.

The information was revealed this week by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, which gathers foreign military intelligence. The agency used data such as fingerprints, pictures and other intelligence reports to confirm the high rate of recidivism among released prisoners.

About 255 suspected terrorists—all men—are still imprisoned at the U.S. naval base in Cuba and Obama has vowed to issue an order to close it during his first week as president. About 500 prisoners have been freed or transferred to other countries since 2002 and defense officials say scores of detainees should never be released because they pose a serious threat to the United States. 

No word from the Obama Administration on what will happen to those prisoners, although the president elect recently said on a national television news show that he’s trying to develop a process that “doesn’t result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up.”

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/jan/gitmo-inmates-return-terrorism

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I've heard that we waterboard some of our own people, even. 


you hear it the same place you heard all the prisoners had judicial review?  you remember where you "heard " it?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.newser.com/story/13350/supreme-court-weighs-third-gitmo-case.html

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

If you want me to respond to you, cassandra and sara, you'll need to use proper English.  I lost interest in trying to decipher your postings a long time ago.

[Jamisjockey]

Ok, for the record, here's my position:  I don't think loud music, nudity, or cranking the A/C up too high qualifies as sever pain or suffering.  Waterboarding comes closer to torture, but I'm still not convinced it really qualifies.  I've heard that we waterboard some of our own people, even. 

Where'd you hear that?  Let me guess, from a 300lb guy wearing a Special Forces T-shirt at a gun show?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

shucks   some might think that was an way of avoiding sourcing what you heard. saying you forget is ok  worked for reagan. i know i can't find anyplace that claims all the gitmo folks got reviews. in fact there were court cases where the gov was fighting that requirement.  ymmv

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Where'd you hear that?  Let me guess, from a 300lb guy wearing a Special Forces T-shirt at a gun show?

I heard it from a personal friend whom I trust.  FWIW, he doesn't weigh 300lbs, wear special forces tshirts, or attends gun shows.

[MicroBalrog]

Waterboarding is mandatory as part of some military training. It does not mean that it is not torture. Remember, it can cause permanent brain damage.

Legal precedent already exists where law enforcement officials in the United States who waterboarded criminal suspects were convicted on torture charges.

[wmenorr67]

Question for everyone.  If a Gitmo prisoner has been authorized to be released from Gitmo but his/her home country will not take them, where do you send them?

Do you want him/her as your neighbor?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Waterboarding is mandatory as part of some military training. It does not mean that it is not torture. Remember, it can cause permanent brain damage.

Legal precedent already exists where law enforcement officials in the United States who waterboarded criminal suspects were convicted on torture charges.

Then we'd better jail the military trainers and those that made waterboarding mandatory for some training.

[roo_ster]

SERE school is one location/occasion, among others, where our servicemen receive training that includes waterboarding.

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.

Susan J Crawford is a nitwit, just another tool being used to define torture down and a sign that affirmative action policies in .mil & .gov hirings have deleterious consequences.  What that git needs is a good smoking to get her head on straight. 

I had all of the treatment she lists (and more), save waterboarding & the nudity, before I got out of basic & AIT.  And that was a cake walk relative to the tender ministrations received in RIP and at Rgt.

All human beings are granted unalienable rights by our Constitution.

Seenterman:

This:

"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."

is not part of the COTUS, the governing document of these United States.

Next you're going to tell us Jefferson authored the COTUS from Paris while including the words, "separation of church and state," the Nazis bombed Pearl Harbor, and Old Yeller was first pitched as "Brokeback Beagle," a sex-positive take on a boy & his dog.

I think I am beginning to understand how the other side comes to its understanding of the COTUS...  =/

...The numbers already show the overwhelming majority of detainees were guilty of nothing and released without any charges...

And yet the diligence and fair-mindedness required to sift through these folk and send them home when nothing is found is somehow not a sign that the same level of diligence and fairness with regard to those still in GB?

The system instituted at GB is only fair & accurate when it exonerates prisoners? 

I can see this sort of position as rational when taken by the enemies of this country.


Any who think the American court system ought to be the tool used vs terrorism ought to read McCarthy's Willful Blindness on the prosecution of the Blind Sheik.  Using that prosecution as an example of our courts' working when it comes to terrorism is not a compelling argument to those who have learned what occurred.  Or so says McCarthy, one of the guys who made it happen.

[sanglant]

Question for everyone.  If a Gitmo prisoner has been authorized to be released from Gitmo but his/her home country will not take them, where do you send them?

Do you want him/her as your neighbor?

air drop them home 

[RevDisk]

Ok, for the record, here's my position:  I don't think loud music, nudity, or cranking the A/C up too high qualifies as sever pain or suffering.  Waterboarding comes closer to torture, but I'm still not convinced it really qualifies.  I've heard that we waterboard some of our own people, even. 

Waterboarding can cause lung damage, dry drowning, brain damage due to asphyxiation, severe psychological damage or death.  Secondary damage of severe bruising and broken bones nearly always occurs due to involuntary struggling or spasms unless medical restraints are used to immobilize the subject.  It meets the criteria of § 2340, see below.

James Parker was the Texas Sheriff for San Jacinto County sentenced in 1983 to ten years in prison for using that method on suspects.  (744 F.2d 1124; 1984 U.S. App. LEXIS 17759)  During the Spanish-American War, Major Littleton Waller, USMC was court martialed for, among other things, using waterboarding to interrogate Filipino guerrillas.   In White vs. State (129 Miss. 182; 91 So. 903 (1922)), Gerrard White's conviction was overturned as it was coerced by means of waterboarding.  Same again for John Fisher (Fisher v. State, 145 Miss. 116; 110 So. 361 (1926)).  A soldier from 1st Cav was court martialed during Vietnam for waterboarding a detainee, convicted Feb. 28, 1968.

Torture is defined under Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, § 2340.  (Link).  For military personnel, they are subject to the UCMJ (Article 93).  There is also the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441), which specifically covers Torture under § 2441 (d)(1)(A)  (Link).   

SERE school is one location/occasion, among others, where our servicemen receive training that includes waterboarding.

Waterboarding counts as torture only if it is involuntarily applied, see § 2340.  You can waterboard yourself if you wished, or have someone waterboard you all day long if they have your uncoerced consent.  You have to specifically volunteer for SERE training.  I don't know if the Army does so, but I had two Navy pilots tell me they signed an extensive waiver prior to their SERE training stating that they understood that they'd be submit to physical duress and that they were signing under no coercion.  Otherwise, any instructor performing such training would be subject to an Article 93 under the UCMJ.

And yet the diligence and fair-mindedness required to sift through these folk and send them home when nothing is found is somehow not a sign that the same level of diligence and fairness with regard to those still in GB?

The system instituted at GB is only fair & accurate when it exonerates prisoners?

I can see this sort of position as rational when taken by the enemies of this country.

Yea, thanks jfruser.  That's right, I am a militant enemy of the country.  See, us pagans are just pretending to relatively nonviolent, nonexclusive types.  We're really plotting to violently overthrow the US government in order to install a polytheistic regime in power to oppress all monotheistic religions and make you all wear pentacles.  Curse you, jfruser, for seeing through our subterfuge!

 

No, I never said we shouldn't diligently look at all detainees to see which are really a danger and which are just goat herders dimed out by local warlords for reward cash.  Of friggin course, we need to do so.  I apologize if I didn't spell that out, but I kinda assumed everyone understood that point.

[De Selby]

Headless,

I think your analysis of whether the conduct amounted to torture is compromised by your unwillingness to consider that a series of events may constitute severe pain where one such event would not.  For example, being kept awake and outside in the cold for two hours is painful...but severe? That's arguable.

Being kept awake, cold, and naked for weeks on end to the point where your heart fails and doctors need to rush in and revive you is obviously torture, and that's what happened to the detainee.

In this context, your throwing out "saving lives" as a justification is not one iota different from the "it's for the children!" crowd.  These conjured up justifications for criminal behavior are always remote from the facts.

In any case, just because you think people should be tortured doesn't make it legal, and it's obviously illegal.  If you don't like the law, you try to change it- you don't go around torturing people and then saying "but the law's unfair!"

As for comparing this to China and Russia-that wasn't me.  But now that you highlighted it, I'll take the opportunity to agree with JamisJockey that torture and indefinite detention without trial are every bit as evil as what the Chinese and Russians do to their prisoners, and it is hypocritical in the extreme to blather on about freedom and justice when your government is engaging in those practices.

I don't think it's offensive to state the obvious-we now have prisons that operate like Chinese and Russian prisons for dealing with suspected terrorists. 

[De Selby]

jfruser,

Besides the fact that Crawford reviewed the file and concluded that the detainee was tortured, what basis do you have for asserting that she is a nitwit/affirmative action case?

[MicroBalrog]

Question for everyone.  If a Gitmo prisoner has been authorized to be released from Gitmo but his/her home country will not take them, where do you send them?

Do you want him/her as your neighbor?

There are some Gitmo prisoners I probably wouldn't mind as neighbors. Like the guys already ruled to be innocent, or the guys who were participating in resistance against Communist China.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

we have a history of being willing to break a few eggs to make an omlet.  we interred  a few chinese at the onset of ww2 cause they all look alike

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Headless,

I think your analysis of whether the conduct amounted to torture is compromised by your unwillingness to consider that a series of events may constitute severe pain where one such event would not.  For example, being kept awake and outside in the cold for two hours is painful...but severe? That's arguable.

Being kept awake, cold, and naked for weeks on end to the point where your heart fails and doctors need to rush in and revive you is obviously torture, and that's what happened to the detainee.

In this context, your throwing out "saving lives" as a justification is not one iota different from the "it's for the children!" crowd.  These conjured up justifications for criminal behavior are always remote from the facts.

In any case, just because you think people should be tortured doesn't make it legal, and it's obviously illegal.  If you don't like the law, you try to change it- you don't go around torturing people and then saying "but the law's unfair!"

As for comparing this to China and Russia-that wasn't me.  But now that you highlighted it, I'll take the opportunity to agree with JamisJockey that torture and indefinite detention without trial are every bit as evil as what the Chinese and Russians do to their prisoners, and it is hypocritical in the extreme to blather on about freedom and justice when your government is engaging in those practices.

I don't think it's offensive to state the obvious-we now have prisons that operate like Chinese and Russian prisons for dealing with suspected terrorists. 

Well then, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about what constitutes severe pain.  I endured worse "torture" back in college, and it wasn't any big thing.  I think it's a joke to claim that this sort of stuff is a grievous outrage the way you do, especially given the context. 

I also don't think this satisfies the definition of torture in the law.  If we accept for the sake of discussion that this stuff does satisfy the legal definition, then the definition is wrong because these sorts of things are NOT torture in the true sense of the word.  There are many, many instances where the law as written is/was wrong.  This may be one of them (assuming this sort of treatment really does meet the legal definition - I remain skeptical on that point).  You aren't wise to deify the law simply because it's the law.

Also, please don't pretend that the USSR/China insult weren't your words.  You said 'em in this thread back in reply #16.  Clearly you haven't backed off from them, either, as you're still claiming that the US is as bad as other murderous regimes around the world.  That's either a deliberate insult, a lie, or an exhibition of sheer ignorance.  Even if we agree that this sort of treatment amounts to torture, and even if we agree that people are held in Gitmo indefinitely without any legal process (we don't agree on either of those points, for the record), you still can't honestly claim that the US is anywhere near as bad as the other murderous regimes you've compared us to. 

Anyway, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.  We're not really debating torture or prisoner treatment anymore.  We're debating a difference in root premises, namely whether the US is a good and just nation.  I don't think we'll satisfy our difference on that score.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

"as you're still claiming that the US is as bad as other murderous regimes around the world.  That's an insult, a lie, and it's just plain ignorant."


you are apparently not a student of us history.  most of those murderous regimes had/have our help and collaboration. and we don't need to spot any points for our own behavior. we've been busy in our relatively short history

[roo_ster]

jfruser,

Besides the fact that Crawford reviewed the file and concluded that the detainee was tortured, what basis do you have for asserting that she is a nitwit/affirmative action case?

1. Time in service (mine) and time in service (hers) at the time of her appointments.

2. Too many, "first woman to hold the position of" accolades.  She's Kara Hultgreen in a robe.