I'm sure all of you find this

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/12/gitmo.time/index.html

as "shocking" as I do! I'm SURE our MORAL VALUES RICH President Bush would NEVER allow this in his administration.....

The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay drew fresh criticism Sunday following a Time magazine report on a logbook tracing the treatment of a detainee who officials believe was intended to take part in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Time's report on the treatment received by Mohammed al-Qahtani prompted a quick defense from the Pentagon along with outrage from several members of Congress.

Al-Qahtani was denied entry to the United States by an immigration officer in August 2001 and later captured in Afghanistan and sent to the detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Full story)

The 84-page logbook obtained by Time and authenticated by Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita is the "kind of document that was never meant to leave Gitmo," a senior Pentagon official told the magazine.

Rumsfeld IS the Anti-Christ...or is it W? Maybe Condi, VP Dick? The possibilities ARE ENDLESS!

The hyprocrisy of Bush and his supporters is nothing short of an unforivable sin.

"Forgive them Father, they know not what they do...(or do they? If they do, they are no better than Saddam)"

This is becoming more and more like a Holy War...
:mad:

[ June 12, 2005, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: PewterPirate ]

Isn't it utterly amazing how all these screw-ups by the Bush administration always happen to come out in the news over the weekend? Hmmm, makes me wonder about this allegedly "liberal" media. Has the media grown so lazy they no longer read press releases, or is it manipulation by the administration of the media.

Unfortunately this may be far from the worse. We may never know anything about all of those (God only knows how many) who may have been "outsourced" to other countries for 'interrogation', or may have been 'interrogated' by US operatives on foreign soil.

Those who have "disappeared" could have given much more testimony to the events, if they could speak. I think we need an international inquiry.

The majority of the American public does not seem to care about this. Why aren't my fellow anti-war activists upset and protesting in the streets? Are they writing or calling their congressmen and state senators? Where is the anger I am feeling about this? Is no one else upset about these illegal practices?

I hope the neocons and their fellow evil conservatives are proud of what their administration is doing to these people...most of whom have been charged with nothing almost four years later.

I've sent letters to my representatives...not that it's going to do much as the majority of them are Repugs and rubber stamp W's misguided agenda!

Sleep deprivation, long interrogation--so? I find nothing wrong at all with doing that to a terrorist. In fact, such techniques are more preferable than torture by many nations.

So much for "innocent until proven guilty" - right?

The fact is that we have no idea who we do and don't have in Gitmo - we know that there are innocent men in Gitmo, including three that were arrested with a taxi driver who died, while in custody, still in Afghanistan. Yet the United States, which prides itself on its justice system, has refused to recognize the basic human rights of these men.

The "almost-but-not-quite-torture" tactics are concerning on two levels, first of course is the human rights issue. Isolation, sleep depravation, using someone's religion to attack him (shaving his beard, putting naked women's pictures on him), forcing him to listen to Christine Aguilera (sorry, couldn't resist that), that is just cruel.

But the second concern I have is the reliability of the information obtained by those tactics. Why wouldn't the guy just make up information to get the abuse to stop? Or give partially true info? Is this the way we learned of WMDs and the Osama tie to Sadaam? Part of the reason these tactics are barred by the Geneva Convention for prisoners of war is that the information gained is not reliable.

I know if I were forced to listen to Christine A at midnight I would confess to all sorts of things.

bballrob, both your concerns are valid. Yes, it has been shown that information extracted under torture is not reliable.
And another reason that has been raised is retaliation. During World War II, the US officer corp was insistent on treating captured Axis POW's with courtesy and decency, no matter how appalled they were by the behavior of Nazi Germany, because they said that not only would mistreatment reflect on their honor as officers and Americans but it also could invite retaliation against captured Americans. But the "support our troops with ribbons but no veterans' benefits" crowd as a rule did not serve so they don't know or care about the risk to US troops from the torture that the US inflicts on others.

That was during a war. These are terrorists. There is a difference. They are not POW's.

Correct. These are not U.S. citizens and are not deserving of such assumptions.

If we have no idea then how can we know we have innocent men there? You're contradicting yourself.

We do know that 10 men we released, whom we thought were not a threat, went right back and joined the enemy to once again fight the U.S.

This is not a typical war or battle. These are the most dangerous, vile, evil human beings on the planet. Yes they are human, and I don't believe they should be tortured; however, permissible actions like sleep deprivation must be done to extract information from them.

The problem I have, and I believe the majority of Americans with TRUE moral values is this....

I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with the detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In fact I like the fact that it's NOT in the US and is an island. I DO have a MAJOR problem with the ABUSE AND TORTURE of those in the detention camp. We are AMERICANS for God's sake - that USE TO mean something! That USE TO mean honor, integrity, respect. The Bush Administration has severely damaged all that was good about America. How can we demand China, Russia, North Korea improve their human rights records when we continue to have abuse charges at every turn? When the RED CROSS states that abuse is turning up at these "camps" it makes our calls to other world leaders ring hollow as they say - well America is doing this and that - we DO treat ours better (or the same - which at this point is not something to be proud of). In the past America WAS the beacon of hope, the good guys, the country that other countries aspired to be. Now we are simply an "also ran". The truly ironic thing is that this abuse and disregard for human rights comes from the country that claim to be founded on Christian beliefs and moral values!

At this point, with all the abuse and lies the Bush Administration is guilty of we have become the terrorist greatest recruitment tool.

[ June 14, 2005, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: PewterPirate ]

If our justice system applies only to those born or naturalized in the United States, it is a shallow and pathetic one.

So even though we know, with certainty, that at least some of the men in Gitmo are innocent, they still deserve this treatment? You see, MIB, we know that innocent men are at Gitmo because a) we have released several who were determined to be innocent - YEARS after their arrests - and we have also retained some who were innocent when arrested, but are now terrorist threats to the US BECAUSE they have been in prison for years and we know that innocent men were being rounded up and handed over to the Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Afghanistan war - it was all part of the continuing tribal battles in that country.

And all of these men, whether US citizens or not, are covered by the UNIVERSAL Declaration of Human Rights. A smattering of what we once believed in this country (thank God for Eleanor Roosevelt)

And it goes on.

Either we believe in these principles or we don't. One cannot pick and choose when one defends human rights.

Edited to add: Universal Declaration of Human Rights

[ June 14, 2005, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: CPT_Doom ]

CPT, it is a matter of established US law that not all Constitutional guarantees apply to non-citizens who happen to be in the US, legally or not. Thus, citizenship still has value in itself. The law has been "clearly established," pace, qualified immunity practitioners, in this regard for some time. And while the Universal Decl. of HR is all fine and dandy, who is going to enforce it? The UN has shown itself to do so only selectively, and as so many on this board like to note, while selectively decrying abuses elsewhere, "we're not the world's policeman." We have every right to police our own affairs however, and the terrorists who attacked and continue to attack us are within our beat.

gmg, I think you're missing the point. It's not a matter of following strict rules for the fun of it, it is because we are the country on this planet that has historically been the one to set the standards for all sorts of things.

When the U.S. does not follow the rules, that pretty much gives the okay for other countries not to too. Now when we have so many American citizens abroad, we have troops deployed in 2 rather hostile areas and the U.S. typically isn't exactly at a likeability high.......it's probably BEST not go give people the idea that 'rules' regarding prisoners and captors do not matter.


These people at Guantanamo have been there for 3-4 years now. No 'new' information is going to come out of them that they didn't know 3-4 years ago. So something NEEDS to be done with them. Whether it's charging and prosecuting them, shipping them back, whatever.

And I thought it was a little ironic today when a Republican Congressman came out to the defense of Guantanamo saying how great the meals are and such and that the American TAXPAYERS are paying for it all. Well HELLO, if something is DONE with them instead of them sitting on their asses in a cage for years, our tax money might have somewhere more PRODUCTIVE to go towards.

The fact that you call it \"our\" justice system makes the rest of your statement irrelevant. Our justice system applies to our citizens and not the other 5 billion people who inhabit this planet.

Because we are fighting an entire new conflict, such inconveniences against those who don't follow the so-called rules of warfare is minor--and fruitful--and necessary.

The innocent ones are released, a positive result. If it takes time to determine their innocence--I'd bet much less time than if they actually went to court, BTW--so be it.



So were the 3000+ who were murdered by such types on 9/11, and if we can prevent another 9/11 by depriving some of them of sleep--a rather mild but acceptable form of interrogation--I'm all for it.

Exactly. U.S. citizenship has its privileges, and these should not be extended to every person on the planet. You want all our constitutional protections? Become a U.S. citizen then.

So now the U.S. should be the standard against which all other countries should be measured? The evil U.S.? The U.S. that so many are so willing to constantly bash?

That aside, I'm all for being a model nation, but for over 200 years our doing this has gotten us where exactly? Show me one of these Islamofascists who gives a rat's ass about the U.S. being a model country and I'll show you a Bush "A" in speech com.

Its not about what others think about us or how they react, its about our own nation maintaining a level of morality and decency that is beyond reproach, one that sets the standard for humanity because we strive for it out of self motivation. Unfortunately, we do not have any political leadership able to uphold such a goal.

MIB, I hate to bring back your childhood, but 2 wrongs do NOT make a right.

You just can't say, oh well these guys aren't going to listen to us anyway, so who cares.

And I'm not just talking about how radical Islamists treat Americans, I'm talking about anyone in the future. Extreme Islamists aren't the only ones with less than perfect views of Americans.

And the whole point of the matter is that these people are just sitting there. The problem is we are holding them there because they are thought to be fighting for the Taliban or part of Al Qaeda. Well if they are, then yes, they deserved to be punished (and why not send them back to Afghanistan for them to be punished in their own country under a new government and court system!?). But these people have not even been CHARGED. Something needs to be done with them.

Like it has been said before.....this situation is the PERFECT recruiting tool for Al Qaeda to get more 'fighters' for themselves. Is that what you want? The U.S. needs to distance themselves from holding these prisoners and a perfect way to do that is DO SOMETHING with them! It's pretty simple. Just having them sit there and having these abuse allegations and bad reports come out is not helping anything.

If we are not willing to live our values - and apply them to those we have in custody for any reason; if we are willing to simply accept that these men are guilty until proven innocent; if we are willing to allow innocent people to languish in a prison camp for YEARS without any real mechanism for justice, then this country is already lost.

Then how come the US claimed jurisdiction over Manuel Noriega? Googling leads to bunches of partisan websites.

Serious question; not trying to start a flame war.

MIB, what about Jose Pedillo, the chap from our town who is being held in Gitmo without being charged? He IS a U.S. citizen...albiet a possible terrorist, but what about his constitutional rights?

Here's another perspective on the utility of Gitmo, which makes sense on several levels, even if the coddling they "git" there doesn't. Given the terrorists' desire to achieve eternal sexist bliss by suicide or death for their misbegotten cause, isn't just killing them a win-win situation, even if they lose their earthly lives in the process? Bonus: we "honor, celebrate and respect the sanctity of their religious beliefs" in the process. Link

There you go gmg, lets just kill a bunch of people who havent been charged with a crime. That will show the world our "values."

Oh, but wait, shouldnt we err on the side of life?

gmg, how do you even know that every single person down there is guilty of anything? We don't.

Secondly, your idea of a concentration camp sounds GREAT.

Even Chris Matthews had the balls to say that if we keep them there until they die off, it IS a gulag.

Don't know about the "side of life" argument; I'm pro-choice, which in this case amounts to granting the terrorists' ultimate choice.

But seriously, because the above was written with a certain amount of jest, which some find it convenient to ignore - or be "appalled" by - when it suits their interests, life at hard labor is for me their most fitting puinishment. That defeats their dream of immortality and gives them a lifetime of misery to reflect upon the idiocy of their creed.

[ June 16, 2005, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: gmginsfo ]

"MURDER, BABY KILLER!!!!!!"

Why do you hate 'lil babies and stem cells and love abortionists?

Why do you hate baby freedom? Whyyyyyyy?

Punishment implies crime, of which no one at Guantanamo has been convicted. If they aren't citizens and therefore not entitled to the rights of trial by jury and due process, they should be deported. Oh, wait, they were never in this country. We went to other sovreign states, detained citizens of other countries and brought them to an American military instillation that we're claiming isn't American soil. Sounds like prisoners of war to me, and there are rules for prisoners of war. No, they're not that either according to our government. They're something that no one has ever made rules for so our government doesn't have to follow any. If a prisoner dies at Guantananmo, there is no recourse. The Bush administration has said point blank these men have no rights. And that's the problem. We're dressing it up in very fancy language, but in the name of protecting ourselves from extremists, our government is taking extreme action. We are becoming that which we fear. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," Benjamin Franklin.

By the way, millerbeach, Padilla is being held on a Naval base in South Carolina. The Supreme Court just rejected an appeal on his application for a trial on the grounds that it was still being heard at a the Circuit level. It is a standard rejection that is only notable in this case because regardless of the decision of any lower court, this case will eventually end up in the high court's court (sorry), and the delays are an unconsciable prolongment of solitary confinement for a person the government very likely has no authority to hold at all.