What's that have to do with torturing innocents?
Obama betrays conservative liars, disappoints progressives?
- Thread starter Tiassa
- Start date
What's that have to do with torturing innocents?
Well, Mr. Hamdan is going free about Christmas time, and Obama's not even president yet. It is my understanding that JAG officers do oversee prisoners. Under US law, it seems we cannot keep them forever.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/washington/26gitmo.html?ref=us
To slightly tweak Roman's comment, what's that have to do with imprisoning/torturing innocents? I'm simply asking for more than the farce we have now.
Not everyone was captured on the battlefield. You have prisoners who were captured by our troops because of a tip from a begrudged relative who wanted their land. Or captured because of rewards for any and all "possible terrorists." Foreign nationals who simply have names similar to wanted terrorists. What would qualify as absolutely clear evidence that these prisoners aren't terrorists? How is some poor illiterate uneducated farmer from a shithole in the ME going to manage to prove the negative that he's not a terrorist?
And that's not even getting into the torture issue.
Isn't that just another way of saying that the government can't actually prove that they did anything wrong?
Buffalo Roam
Registered Senior Member
Torturing innocents? ah, you have access to the case files? interesting, pleases provide citation and documentation of innocence, and torture, from the case files, verbatim citation please.
Having worked in the Texas Prison System, I can tell you from personnel experience that we held nothing but innocent men in the Prison System, not one of them was guilty, they all were all framed by the Cops, falsely accused, wrongly arrested, convicted, and sentenced.
The funny thing is that the Terrorist at Gitmo do consider themselves innocent, according to Islam, Mohammad, and the Quran, they are innocent, they were just following the tenets of their faith, and chastising the Wicked, correcting the infidel, and there is no crime by their beliefs to that, so they will say in all honesty that they are innocent, and being unjustly held.
The Witness of Zimmis
Buffalo Roam
Registered Senior Member
Under the Geneva Convention as POW's they can be held indefinitely, and as terrorist, they can be tried by Compentent Tribunial.
A Compentent Tribunial was established by Congress in July 2006, the 109th Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gave the President legal authority to establish a new system of military tribunals.
Most of them were simply handed over for bounty and have no connection to any terrorism. The whole thing is a bloody farce. Plus we only hear about Gitmo, what about the victims in Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Diego Garcia? What about the ones held on prison ships? How many people have been tortured? How many have died?
As POWs under Geneva they can't be coercively interrogated, held in isolation, or otherwise abused.Buffalo said:
Until that tribunal met and established their status, Geneva says they were to be treated as POWs.buffalo said:
That's why W went to the trouble of obtaining a formal legal opinion from his pet lawyers, claiming exemption for him for liability under Geneva. This horrorshow was planned.
Sam i wouldnt worry to much about Gitmo. Even if obama turned out to be the worst sort of coward the courts wont accept it forever. They are the ones with ultimate juristiction over the consitution, not the legislative and not the president and i just cant see the top judges in the country condoning avoiding themselves forever. It takes time because they can only judge on whats in front of them but human rights lawyers will keep bringing them cases until one of them hits the mark
Only the innocent commit torture
S.A.M., haven't you figured out yet that things like justice, integrity, and decency have nothing to do with political conservatives? This whole thing is about the machismo of being able to torture someone, a latent supremacist complex derived from our Judeo-Christian heritage, and the idea that since we're Americans, our shit doesn't stink.
That's all. There is nothing rational to it. No justification for torture stands. No justification for inventing a new classification of person in order to evade the U.S. Constitution and Geneva Conventions stands. There's nothing credible about it. Certain people continue to hold the line for the simple reason that they are human detritus. They have no legitimate grounds for a moral argument, and they don't care to develop one. They just want to torture brown people because they're subhuman, and it's impolite to tell them this is a bad thing.
It's the new political correctness, you know: the truth is only fair when it says nice things.
Remember, not one of them are guilty. That's the only acceptable outlook. Liars are the new messiahs, come to save us all from the evils of hope.
S.A.M. said:
S.A.M., haven't you figured out yet that things like justice, integrity, and decency have nothing to do with political conservatives? This whole thing is about the machismo of being able to torture someone, a latent supremacist complex derived from our Judeo-Christian heritage, and the idea that since we're Americans, our shit doesn't stink.
That's all. There is nothing rational to it. No justification for torture stands. No justification for inventing a new classification of person in order to evade the U.S. Constitution and Geneva Conventions stands. There's nothing credible about it. Certain people continue to hold the line for the simple reason that they are human detritus. They have no legitimate grounds for a moral argument, and they don't care to develop one. They just want to torture brown people because they're subhuman, and it's impolite to tell them this is a bad thing.
It's the new political correctness, you know: the truth is only fair when it says nice things.
Remember, not one of them are guilty. That's the only acceptable outlook. Liars are the new messiahs, come to save us all from the evils of hope.
Look, someone should review every case. I agree. If it's absolutely clear that someone should never have been detained, they should be released. But, since none of them were arrested, read their rights, etc; a normal court hearing would be inappropriate whether they were guilty or not.
But my broader point is that any president, once he's in power, is going to be loath to release anyone he has the slightest question about for fear of the blowback should the former detainee be connected to any future terrorist attack. Ever hear of Willie Horton? Now imagine what would happen had he been a terrorist that reoffended.
Gitmo exists. The question now is what to do with it. I don't have personal knowledge of the history of every detainee, so I really can't say which ones are guilty and which are innocent. That should be determined by military tribunal. Every person wrongfully imprisoned whether at Gitmo or anywhere else is a trajedy, I agree. But, during a war, bad stuff happens. All you can do is your best. We'll see what Obama does, but I'll be shocked if he sends the majority of the detainee's to civilian courts for the reasons I've stated above.
If Gitmo really is our best, that's not something I would like to see common knowledge.madanth said:
Can't we at least fake it a bit?
Why do you suppose that is? The line about "national security" is getting lamer by the day - this is covering ass.madanth said:
At least three Government appointed prosecutors (military lawyers) of the Gitmo detainees have quit, resigned; the US government persecution of the defense lawyers has been feeding stories for years now - this is a mess.
They will be released. The only question is when and why - and where.
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What do you suggest we do with the detainees? Seriously, no BS. What should be done with them? Even those that are 100% guilty would never be convicted in a normal civilian court. They weren't arrested. They weren't read their rights. What jurisdiction would US courts have, anyway? What do you suggest?
actually your wrong there. War crimes (if thats what you want to charge them with) have international juristiction. As i have said before canda has on its books laws which if used could see bush behind bars for the rest of his life.
They should be charged or relaced symple as that, if the state cant proved there case in a US court of law after this many years then let them go. Hell even if it DID prove its case most of these people would already have been relaced. if you cant follow your own consitution and the laws of war, stay the hell out of politics symple as that
They should be charged or relaced symple as that, if the state cant proved there case in a US court of law after this many years then let them go. Hell even if it DID prove its case most of these people would already have been relaced. if you cant follow your own consitution and the laws of war, stay the hell out of politics symple as that
We have to release all the ones captured in Afghanistan, or on any kind of battlefield. With apologies, and official expressions of regret, and some money, would be best.madanth said:
The question is, when and where.
The ones actually apprehended as terrorists - about a dozen, IIRC - can probably be handed over to the authorities in the relevant country. Pass the buck.
As free as the wind blows
We let them go. Return them to their home countries when possible, figure something else for the rest. One of the great tragedies of the Clinton era was certain anti-terror legislation that locked up a lot of immigrants who had run-ins with the law and completed their sentences. Not all of these could go home when we tried to deport them. As far as I know, we have two or three hundred of these still languishing in King County Jail.
So these guys don't deserve to spend the rest of their lives in jail like that. For the one or two we might catch that way, the burden is too great. And this is where we must have faith in America.
If they're bad guys, they'll come after us again. If we're as good as we pretend, we'll catch them.
And that's part of the risk of being the United States of America.
We have, as you note, blown our opportunity to prosecute them. And for what? I mean, we didn't even go whole hog for the torture thing, either, as far as we can tell. Sure, there's a few corpses but, aside from waterboarding we never went truly medieval.
Or maybe we did.
Was it really worth losing legitimate suspects, though? Because that's where we are. Even the guilty ones need to go free at this point.
Madanthonywayne said:
We let them go. Return them to their home countries when possible, figure something else for the rest. One of the great tragedies of the Clinton era was certain anti-terror legislation that locked up a lot of immigrants who had run-ins with the law and completed their sentences. Not all of these could go home when we tried to deport them. As far as I know, we have two or three hundred of these still languishing in King County Jail.
So these guys don't deserve to spend the rest of their lives in jail like that. For the one or two we might catch that way, the burden is too great. And this is where we must have faith in America.
If they're bad guys, they'll come after us again. If we're as good as we pretend, we'll catch them.
And that's part of the risk of being the United States of America.
We have, as you note, blown our opportunity to prosecute them. And for what? I mean, we didn't even go whole hog for the torture thing, either, as far as we can tell. Sure, there's a few corpses but, aside from waterboarding we never went truly medieval.
Or maybe we did.
Was it really worth losing legitimate suspects, though? Because that's where we are. Even the guilty ones need to go free at this point.