As opposed to embarrassing for detaining alleged "terrorists" without accusations for a decade? You do know the entire world knows about it right? It's never been a good look for the greedy warmongers that are the American people.
Are we now to charge every citizen of every country with the sins of their country, then?
When the paper eating citizenry of North Korea don't rebel, are we to throw charming coloquialisms at them or say they are supporting their government motivations?
You're painting with an awfully broad brush against a very divided country on military policy which has been shaped by closed policy taking shape since the Carter administration. A lot of which was covert operations and came out when the freedom of information act came about. Now you expect a full blown violent revolution. What a short sighted, poorly thought out action.... but if violence and burning is the only way to "get you some change", it doesn't leave a lot for the future. Good luck and I wish you the best, but that isn't my way unless there is no other choice. And I mean no other choice, whatsoever.
> Are we now to charge every citizen of every country with the sins of their country, then?
> When the paper eating citizenry of North Korea don't rebel, are we to throw charming coloquialisms at them or say they are supporting their government motivations?
Not quite, but if we are to claim ourselves to be a country "by the people, for the people", then yes, we bear at least some of the sins of our country. Maybe not past sins, but we certainly bear current sins if we do not at the very least actively go against them.
I think you would be hard pressed to find a lot of people who truly believe that we still are a country "by the people, for the people" in a serious fashion. We hold up oligarchs as a ruling class, with laws that effect the bottom 95% of the country in a very different way than the top 5%. There are people in this country who deserve responsibility, but to level it at the masses who walk, ride or bike to one or two jobs seems a bit naive and unfair.
They do not care about the injustices that their elected government committed and that they funded via their taxes, as long as they can have their iphone and starbucks coffee in peace.
We'll hem and haw about it, but you're right that we won't do anything. Is it a cosmic injustice worthy of the guillotine for every president and official that has presided over it? Absolutely, but that's the thing with evil empires: the people populating it don't want to risk their good lives in the pursuit of real justice.
> See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico;—see if I would go”; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it differed one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" (1849)
Ah the old Canadian pastime of sitting back and launch invectives at America while coasting on the economic and national security she provides by just being in proximity to her.
If you're saying that Guantanamo is remotely useful for Canada's national security and economy please don't operate heavy machinery. Do not put your war crimes on us.
> One of the former detainees who received compensation, Binyam Mohamed, claims Britain knew he had been sent by the U.S. security agency to Morocco where his genitals were sliced with a scalpel during interrogation.
I won't get into a debate on HN on whether the underlying rule is good or not, but the justification for holding enemy detainees is founded on historical practice during times of war. And, traditionally, the authority to do that ends when the conflict is over.
The agreement with the Taliban and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, in my view, brings the authority to continue military detention of many of these individuals into question.
The chief argument to the contrary would be that these are not purely military courts and not purely military detention. Congress set up the commissions system as an Article I court, rather than this existing purely under the President's Article II war powers.
Legally, there was never any war. This means that "war prisoners" are actually just people that the US illegally kidnapped, illegally detained, and illegally tortured. Ignore the legal window dressing around these "trials", it is all illegal.
If they actually was war prisoners US wouldn't have been able to treat them like this. The 'enemy combatant' swindle made it possible to treat them with no rights.
Check my profile and comment history for my qualifications.
As for citations, a citation is not needed for "in my view" discussion. I very clearly marked out my post as personal opinion, avoided legal conclusions, and acknowledged an argument from the other side.
This is what responsible people do in public discourse.
I wish the article explored some of the absurdities that have sprung up during the Gitmo commissions. Hidden microphones[0] discovered in the rooms used by lawyers to meet with suspects. The presiding judge accepting a job[1] from the prosecution while serving as the judge in the case. It's remarkable how clumsily the military commissions have been conducted for nearly a decade with no end in sight
- It's not quite as bad as that, in that the job was from the U.S. government, not the prosecution per se. Col. Spath was set to become an ALJ.
- It's a bit worse than all that, in that one of Col. Spath's worst biased rulings was to imprison the chief defense counsel when he refused to make his subordinates represent capital clients without learned counsel.
It's worth noting that Obama pledged to close Guantanamo, and tried his best, and even his opponent McCain at one point wanted to close it. Yet it remains open.
Al Hajj, Sami Sudan 2001
Cameraman for al Jazeera, only journalist held at Gitmo, hunger-striker
Released May 1, 2008
Al Kandari, Abdullah kamel bin Abdullah Kamal Kuwait
* Main allegation is wearing a Casio F91W digital watch
The only watch better than the Casio F91W is the Casio F-105. They are nearly identical, except the F-105 has a backlight that is usable. The backlight on the F91W is worthless, and there are quite a few mods out there showing you how to replace it.
Source: I’ve been wearing both of these models for decades, although I haven’t touched the F91W in years and never will again.
Perhaps true, but the interesting bit in the linked article is that some al-Qaida bomb-making training course in Afghanistan gave you a free F91W to be used as a detonator.
And apparently the US then decided that meant possession of an F91W on its own was reasonable evidence of terrorism. Despite 90+ million of them being sold over the years.
No I haven't, I was illustrating the absurdity of being so frightened by 9/11 that 4 years later you make the "stupid decision" of ordering your subordinates to torture prisoners. Note also that the people in charge of Guantanamo didn't have the power or responsibility to torture anyone, but they did it anyway.
Remember that the people making decisions about looking for a certain watch or using torture are not scared soldiers in Afghanistan, they're career officers and politicians who face no personal risk.
Okay, you've successfully illustrated that it is absurd. That only shows it would be out-of-place in a work of fiction.
However, we are talking about reality. Which is more realistic:
1. People twirling their moustaches and intentionally deciding to lie to give themselves a supply of prisoners to torture to the benefit of...
2. People deceiving themselves into justifying a course of action because they are scared and their self-image as a stalwart protector is under threat.
Obviously number 1, do you really need me to lay out the history of documented intentional lies for you? The logic is "torture might not work, but I don't give a shit about these people so there's no downside, and it'll give the guards a way to relieve some stress." Or "yeah the watch isn't good evidence, but all these people are guilty of something, right? I mean they're all Muslim, they all hate us, it doesn't matter which ones we arrest or kill".
You're right that part of it is protecting an image, but that's driven by career ambition and social pressure, not fear. And you're right that they deceive themselves to justify their actions, but again it's not fear driven, it's just the natural "I'm not a bad person" mental protections that we all have all the time. They tell themselves the prisoners deserve it, or that anyone in their position would do the same, or that they're just following orders.
I get frustrated when I hear people discussing national economies like household economies, but here you're talking about a hegemonic nation-state like it's a fearful child.
I'm sure I've had a watch like that in the past, they were pretty common back then. I also know how to build timers without using watches. Does this make me a suspect terrorist? Or maybe by not being muslim (or of any other religion) I don't qualify as a person of interest?
That is crazy.
Moreover, any watch can be converted to be a timer, not just that one. The internal buzzer all watches contain is a piezo transducer driven by square waves generated by the processor, and is much simpler to reach than the backlight led; a simple circuit made by a bunch of parts recycled from any old pocket radio can be used to drive a relay, hence to trigger anything, from a coffee machine to a missile launcher.
The point is that having the tools doesn't make one a terrorist; detaining someone on these premises reveals lack of intelligence and probably the need to fabricate some "results" to justify the enormous spending behind Gitmo and other facilities and keep the money flowing.
The article never mentions the elephant in the room: if these men are put on a public trial, the government will have to reveal intelligence information that may embarrass or endanger the lives of people in the intelligence community.
That’s no “elephant in the room” it’s just the same old and tired non argument to justify holding people prisoner without granting them any rights or even charging them for a crime in a public court.
“Trust us, this guy is a criminal but we can’t tell you why or how” is not an convincing argument, particularly when it’s coming from people and institutions who are constantly caught lying.
There are plenty of federal prosecutors and judges who know how to handle classified evidence in court. I can't remember his name off the top of my head anymore, but I recall when I deep-dived into the Gitmo suspects and military tribunals a long time ago, there was a judge's name who constantly kept popping up in the paperwork of related terrorism cases. Seemed like he was one of the designated "terrorism judges" who had the clearance and authority to review classified intel and info and make determinations on what can be used and presented. I believe he is from the Virginia district courts possibly
Yes, the judge I was referring to was a district court judge in the US (I believe in the state of Virginia but not positive) who hears terrorism cases and makes decisions on whether the classified evidence the prosecution wants to withhold is actually worthy of being withheld -- i.e. if it's actually a threat to national security to disclose, and whether that national security risk outweighs the need for the defendant to be presented with all the evidence used against him to mount a defense. Also, if there is any way to present the evidence with redactions so that the defense can see it, but not reveal sources/methods etc.
Prosecuting cases that depend on classified national security material is nothing new really when it comes to the federal courts. There is a system in place to do so. The military tribunals are an entirely different beast, although some might say different sides of the same coin. I'm inclined to go with the latter, although I don't think the federal courts are quite as bad as the military tribunals in terms of fairness to defendants.
> if these men are put on a public trial, the government will have to reveal intelligence information that may embarrass or endanger the lives of people in the intelligence community.
Handling classified information is something the federal courts are set up for already and do as needed. Its not a novel issue that excuses indefinite detention without trial.
I haven't litigated a classified case in civilian court, but my knee-jerk reaction is to be skeptical that they are adequately "set up for" handling classified material. Where is the FRE analog to MRE 505?
That is a lazy and dangerous thought. First, this is not the governments first rodeo - they know how to do trials involving sensitive data. Second, if what you say is valid, that the state the right to hold anyone they don't like indefinitely without trial, on any basis they choose, then what you've described is in direct conflict with the Constitution of the United States. The opportunities for abuse are without bound. The result is inhumane in the extreme. It is "only" a handful of men held for 20 years without trial, right? That's awful enough, I would say, but consider that your excuse could be used to justify the executive branch holding any number of people for any reason, and without any oversight. Consider what someone without scruples could do with that power.
This is the lie that the intelligence community uses to perpetuate its drug running, assassinations, and general evil that it commits on a daily basis.
"Shortly after taking office, Biden reversed President Trump’s executive order to keep Gitmo open and is lining up inmates to transfer out of the prison with the goal of emptying it and shuttering it — even though the remaining prisoners have long been classified by military intelligence as the worst of the worst and too dangerous to release."
I remember reading as a kid that this is the kind of thing that an evil empire does. Now that I realize that evil empire is us, I don't understand how anyone can justify this horror show.
1) it is a certain, very visible symbol of a certain type of approach to ‘terrorism’ that a large portion of the US population supports very strongly (do you remember all the comments for years about ‘glass parking lot’ re: the Middle East? I do.)
2) it opened a massive can of worms legally, and a huge mess related to what to do with detainees (some of which have now lost their original national citizenships and/or normal lives), as they are now basically wards of the US gov’t, with no existing legal framework to cover what to do. It wouldn’t surprise me if when it does get shutdown many of them end up being Refugees the US ends up supporting. Good luck explaining THAT to the voters.
So it’s a big legal and PR mess that there is little incentive to try to fix for any politician. Lots of downside, little upside.
I was pondering this when listening to stories of the fall of the Aztecs and the Inca empires (Fall of Civilizations podcast - some great hours-long stories there!). Officials from the Spanish empire came by and caused these meso- and south american empires to fall.
The empires that fell were indeed already warmongering, and dominating their part of the continent due to fighting successful wars and/or alliances. In that sense, it was "only" an empire taking down another. That viewpoint is however just the politics of the history. We can't forget how it affected the people.
I mean, considering he was found in Pakistan, close to their security forces ( ostensibly allies of the US) while the US military was pumping literal trillions into trying to control the neighboring tribal country. All the while desperately (and until yesterday) denying the fact that the Saudis had anything to do with a terrorist attack concocted by a Saudi and
executed by Saudis.
I guess it’s a win, but in that case I think the entire concept of the pyrrhic victory needs to be renamed…
The Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden for trial in any country other than the US weeks after the attacks [1][2]. If there reason to invade Afghanistan was solely to kill Bin Laden surely they'd just take the Taliban up on their offer.
For trial, it's unlikely they would have sent him somewhere likely to kill him. In my opinion, they were offering a sort of justice but the US was interested in revenge.
I’m not sure I’d expect that enemy combatants could expect the same legal protections as someone who committed a crime in the US?
I mean look at the Nuremberg trials. If there was ever an illusion of justice it was that trial.
German citizens were convicted of “wars of aggression” against Poland while the USSR, who collaborated with the Nazis and committed war crimes against the Polish people, weren’t even on trial but rather judges.
The existence of Guantanamo is the greatest insult to the entire foundation of the US government. How can you pretend that the Constitution only recognizes naturally-existing rights but then construct a prison outside your country explicitly so you can deny those rights to your prisoners?
Ten thousand free terrorists would be a tiny price to pay to end this cancer.
Aa terrible as the international secret prison system is, I'd still say the worldwide trial-less assassination program is a larger affront to the Constitution. Particularly as our methods often kill the family and neighbors as well.
Worse still is that there is a cadre of "legal thinkers" promulgating this line of reasoning. They are still out there, twisting our legal system toward authoritarian outcomes.
One in your shoes may ask oneself: "why would the US military invade a country whose government was actually a cooperative ally, rather than an enemy?"
I know right? How could they have resisted the temptation to join an anti American terrorist network.
Also please remind me the part of the constitution that guarantees a speedy trial to our military adversaries? I don’t seem to have that part in mine. Must be missing that page.
So you completely understand the reason for them not getting a trial (they aren’t afforded one by law), yet you pretend as though their not having a trial means they are innocent?
What I heard from the mouth of the guy who interrogated and discovered it, who was persecuted by us law enforcement agencies and news rags, must have just been “US propaganda”.
Wow hacker-news this is totally hacker news related. Are you sure your China propaganda algorithm is disabled? What a dog shit thing to see on a technology aggregator.
There are a lot of misconceptions here, both in the original article and many of the comments. Most of them derive from assuming that this is some type of "crime" situation that automatically falls into the purview of the civilian courts, with Miranda rights and all that stuff. That is wrong. A completely separate system of jurisprudence is involved.
There are two basic statuses for captured combatants. The first is "prisoner of war". There are rules about how POWs may be treated, but they don't include anything like a "fair trial". It is, in fact, illegal to put POWs on trial. Instead, they are supposed to be treated humanely and repatriated after hostilities have ceased. The catch here is that to be entitled to POW status the combatant must abide by the so-called laws of war, including bearing arms openly in the field (i.e, not hiding among civilians) and wearing a uniform or other insignia recognizable at a distance (something like a purple armband would be enough -- it just has to be something that clearly identifies you as "not a civilian" as seen from a distance).
The second status is that of the so-called "unlawful combatant". This includes pirates, spies, terrorists, or anyone else who engages in hostilities without wearing a uniform or insignia, or who engages in other actions in violation of the laws of war (for example, deliberately attacking civilians, hiding among the civilian population, falsely wearing a symbol that indicates that the combatant is a medic, and so on).
Unlawful combatants have no rights of any kind. They may be detained indefinitely (even after hostilities have ceased), tried by a military tribunal, or even be summarily executed on the spot when captured.
This basic framework has been the rule for centuries, and was most recently codified by the Geneva Conventions. It's not some new policy that the United States made up.
"An individual who is not a lawful combatant, who is not a national of a neutral state, and who is not a national of a co-belligerent state, retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that he must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial".
Did you actually read this? In the case of trial is not the same thing as entitled to a trial.
> After a "competent tribunal" has determined that an individual is not a lawful combatant, the "detaining power" may choose to accord the individual the rights and privileges of a prisoner of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so. (emphasis mine)
Edit to add this P.S: I'm not going to slam you for citing Wikipedia, but I will take off points for not mentioning (or checking, perhaps) that the original source is an opinion piece written by a lawyer -- not a law, treaty, court decision, or anything else that has actual weight.
Well, often they're dropped when questions about methods, like Stingers, or extreme embarrassment, arise.
(A UK secretary working for the MoD gave US enrichment secrets to Russia, saving them 4 years in developing the bomb. She was never prosecuted because of the embarrassment. She had been indoctrinated into Marxism by her father, so take that as a warning.)
The biggest question about Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and other Gitmo prisoners nobody talks about:
Are they lawful combatants?
If they are... and the war is over, the warring party is obliged to release the POW as per Geneva convention, which USA is a signatory of.
USA is also a signatory of the first protocol, which extends the Geneva convention to irregular combatants, including people fighting in proxy wars, and guerilla forces.
By militarily, and materially supporting the Saudi regime against its people, USA has became a legit target in the conflict, and extended jus in bello to the attackers.
Keep in mind that several who were released from Gitmo are now leaders of the new terrorist government of Afghanistan. Bureaucrats are not adept at fairly handling judicial issues in war situations where justice by definition doesn’t exist.
> Don’t forget that Biden authored the Patriot Act
No, he and Tom Daschle sponsored, in the Senate, the Clinton Administration’s legislative proposal (the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995), some of which was, in modified form, passed as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, and which is sometimes also seen as a spiritual antecedent of the Patriot Act.
If people want an idea of how problematic Gitmo was/is, they should read about Murat Kurnaz.[1]
Some highlights:
Within months of his detention, everyone admitted he should not have been detained (no ties to terrorists, not an enemy combatant). Yet he was held for five more years and subjected to torture.
After they knew he was innocent, he was repeatedly interrogated about a friend of his who had committed a suicide bombing. Except that friend was well and alive in Germany, and likely had never been to that part of the world.
George W Bush and his colleagues and successors and all their families deserve to be drone striked for what they've done. The political class of this country is rotten and needs wiping out entirely.
Eventually, there will be a reckoning. And I look forward to the inevitable collapse of the USA and the end of its abuse of humanity.
134 comments
[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadYou all literally have guns for this reason. Get you some change.
When the paper eating citizenry of North Korea don't rebel, are we to throw charming coloquialisms at them or say they are supporting their government motivations?
You're painting with an awfully broad brush against a very divided country on military policy which has been shaped by closed policy taking shape since the Carter administration. A lot of which was covert operations and came out when the freedom of information act came about. Now you expect a full blown violent revolution. What a short sighted, poorly thought out action.... but if violence and burning is the only way to "get you some change", it doesn't leave a lot for the future. Good luck and I wish you the best, but that isn't my way unless there is no other choice. And I mean no other choice, whatsoever.
Not quite, but if we are to claim ourselves to be a country "by the people, for the people", then yes, we bear at least some of the sins of our country. Maybe not past sins, but we certainly bear current sins if we do not at the very least actively go against them.
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" (1849)
This isn't to say that Guantanamo was actually useful for the national security of the US or Canada or that their complicity is equal.
No idea if it applies to non-citizens.
Some Guantanamo detainees got compensation from the UK and Canada:
https://www.voanews.com/europe/british-government-pays-compe...
https://www.newsweek.com/guantanamo-bay-detainee-omar-khadr-...
The agreement with the Taliban and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, in my view, brings the authority to continue military detention of many of these individuals into question.
The chief argument to the contrary would be that these are not purely military courts and not purely military detention. Congress set up the commissions system as an Article I court, rather than this existing purely under the President's Article II war powers.
As for citations, a citation is not needed for "in my view" discussion. I very clearly marked out my post as personal opinion, avoided legal conclusions, and acknowledged an argument from the other side.
This is what responsible people do in public discourse.
No, it would kidnapping: a crime. Sanctioned at the highest levels of government.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/us/politics/guantanamo-hi...
[1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/guantanamo-commiss...
- It's not quite as bad as that, in that the job was from the U.S. government, not the prosecution per se. Col. Spath was set to become an ALJ.
- It's a bit worse than all that, in that one of Col. Spath's worst biased rulings was to imprison the chief defense counsel when he refused to make his subordinates represent capital clients without learned counsel.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/contempt-clash-erupts-guant-namo-...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/02...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-releases-marine-genera...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detaine...
A couple of the entries that caught my eye:
More info on Sami Al Hajj: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_al-HajjMore on the Casio watch thing: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-fil...
Source: I’ve been wearing both of these models for decades, although I haven’t touched the F91W in years and never will again.
And apparently the US then decided that meant possession of an F91W on its own was reasonable evidence of terrorism. Despite 90+ million of them being sold over the years.
It’s a feature not a bug, wouldn’t want to run out of “terrorist suspects” or else the war on terror would be difficult to sell.
I think it was the TSA manual that classified as "suspicious" both looking at law enforcement personnel and not looking at law enforcement personnel.
Scared people make stupid choices.
Remember that the people making decisions about looking for a certain watch or using torture are not scared soldiers in Afghanistan, they're career officers and politicians who face no personal risk.
However, we are talking about reality. Which is more realistic:
1. People twirling their moustaches and intentionally deciding to lie to give themselves a supply of prisoners to torture to the benefit of...
2. People deceiving themselves into justifying a course of action because they are scared and their self-image as a stalwart protector is under threat.
You're right that part of it is protecting an image, but that's driven by career ambition and social pressure, not fear. And you're right that they deceive themselves to justify their actions, but again it's not fear driven, it's just the natural "I'm not a bad person" mental protections that we all have all the time. They tell themselves the prisoners deserve it, or that anyone in their position would do the same, or that they're just following orders.
https://iknowwatches.com/casio-f-91w-classic-watch-review/
Moreover, any watch can be converted to be a timer, not just that one. The internal buzzer all watches contain is a piezo transducer driven by square waves generated by the processor, and is much simpler to reach than the backlight led; a simple circuit made by a bunch of parts recycled from any old pocket radio can be used to drive a relay, hence to trigger anything, from a coffee machine to a missile launcher. The point is that having the tools doesn't make one a terrorist; detaining someone on these premises reveals lack of intelligence and probably the need to fabricate some "results" to justify the enormous spending behind Gitmo and other facilities and keep the money flowing.
https://agoodmantoknow.com/2015/09/22/ahmeds-clockbomb/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroluminescent_wire
“Trust us, this guy is a criminal but we can’t tell you why or how” is not an convincing argument, particularly when it’s coming from people and institutions who are constantly caught lying.
Prosecuting cases that depend on classified national security material is nothing new really when it comes to the federal courts. There is a system in place to do so. The military tribunals are an entirely different beast, although some might say different sides of the same coin. I'm inclined to go with the latter, although I don't think the federal courts are quite as bad as the military tribunals in terms of fairness to defendants.
Handling classified information is something the federal courts are set up for already and do as needed. Its not a novel issue that excuses indefinite detention without trial.
"Shortly after taking office, Biden reversed President Trump’s executive order to keep Gitmo open and is lining up inmates to transfer out of the prison with the goal of emptying it and shuttering it — even though the remaining prisoners have long been classified by military intelligence as the worst of the worst and too dangerous to release."
2) it opened a massive can of worms legally, and a huge mess related to what to do with detainees (some of which have now lost their original national citizenships and/or normal lives), as they are now basically wards of the US gov’t, with no existing legal framework to cover what to do. It wouldn’t surprise me if when it does get shutdown many of them end up being Refugees the US ends up supporting. Good luck explaining THAT to the voters.
So it’s a big legal and PR mess that there is little incentive to try to fix for any politician. Lots of downside, little upside.
The empires that fell were indeed already warmongering, and dominating their part of the continent due to fighting successful wars and/or alliances. In that sense, it was "only" an empire taking down another. That viewpoint is however just the politics of the history. We can't forget how it affected the people.
I guess it’s a win, but in that case I think the entire concept of the pyrrhic victory needs to be renamed…
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/10/15/b...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/17/afghanistan.te...
I mean look at the Nuremberg trials. If there was ever an illusion of justice it was that trial.
German citizens were convicted of “wars of aggression” against Poland while the USSR, who collaborated with the Nazis and committed war crimes against the Polish people, weren’t even on trial but rather judges.
this is literally the core fascist tautology that the article is critiquing, gotta love the uncritical regurgitation of it
Ten thousand free terrorists would be a tiny price to pay to end this cancer.
Somehow it's even more concerning when the international and US media report a story this way:
29 Aug: "US drone strike targets suicide bombers on their way to Kabul airport"
11 Sep: "US drone strike mistakenly targeted Afghan aid worker, investigation finds"
https://news.yahoo.com/taliban-five-guantanamo-bay-afghan-13...
If the remaining ones are equally horrible people, surely the USA could bring actual charges against them, instead of indefinite imprisonment?
Also please remind me the part of the constitution that guarantees a speedy trial to our military adversaries? I don’t seem to have that part in mine. Must be missing that page.
As for your constitution - it only matters within US and is void elsewhere. Victims of Guantanamo had been kidnapped outside the US.
How long have you been a jihadi sympathizer?
How long have you been a nazi sympathizer?
Do you actually expect anyone to believe that the Jews and the Jihadis are on the same side?
There are two basic statuses for captured combatants. The first is "prisoner of war". There are rules about how POWs may be treated, but they don't include anything like a "fair trial". It is, in fact, illegal to put POWs on trial. Instead, they are supposed to be treated humanely and repatriated after hostilities have ceased. The catch here is that to be entitled to POW status the combatant must abide by the so-called laws of war, including bearing arms openly in the field (i.e, not hiding among civilians) and wearing a uniform or other insignia recognizable at a distance (something like a purple armband would be enough -- it just has to be something that clearly identifies you as "not a civilian" as seen from a distance).
The second status is that of the so-called "unlawful combatant". This includes pirates, spies, terrorists, or anyone else who engages in hostilities without wearing a uniform or insignia, or who engages in other actions in violation of the laws of war (for example, deliberately attacking civilians, hiding among the civilian population, falsely wearing a symbol that indicates that the combatant is a medic, and so on).
Unlawful combatants have no rights of any kind. They may be detained indefinitely (even after hostilities have ceased), tried by a military tribunal, or even be summarily executed on the spot when captured.
This basic framework has been the rule for centuries, and was most recently codified by the Geneva Conventions. It's not some new policy that the United States made up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant begs to differ:
"An individual who is not a lawful combatant, who is not a national of a neutral state, and who is not a national of a co-belligerent state, retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that he must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial".
> After a "competent tribunal" has determined that an individual is not a lawful combatant, the "detaining power" may choose to accord the individual the rights and privileges of a prisoner of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so. (emphasis mine)
Edit to add this P.S: I'm not going to slam you for citing Wikipedia, but I will take off points for not mentioning (or checking, perhaps) that the original source is an opinion piece written by a lawyer -- not a law, treaty, court decision, or anything else that has actual weight.
In peacetime, yes.
Not in a combat situation.
And I'm pretty sure guantanamo isn't a live combat environment...
(A UK secretary working for the MoD gave US enrichment secrets to Russia, saving them 4 years in developing the bomb. She was never prosecuted because of the embarrassment. She had been indoctrinated into Marxism by her father, so take that as a warning.)
Are they lawful combatants?
If they are... and the war is over, the warring party is obliged to release the POW as per Geneva convention, which USA is a signatory of.
USA is also a signatory of the first protocol, which extends the Geneva convention to irregular combatants, including people fighting in proxy wars, and guerilla forces.
By militarily, and materially supporting the Saudi regime against its people, USA has became a legit target in the conflict, and extended jus in bello to the attackers.
K.S.M. may well walk out of the courtroom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
No, he and Tom Daschle sponsored, in the Senate, the Clinton Administration’s legislative proposal (the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995), some of which was, in modified form, passed as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, and which is sometimes also seen as a spiritual antecedent of the Patriot Act.
Some highlights:
Within months of his detention, everyone admitted he should not have been detained (no ties to terrorists, not an enemy combatant). Yet he was held for five more years and subjected to torture.
After they knew he was innocent, he was repeatedly interrogated about a friend of his who had committed a suicide bombing. Except that friend was well and alive in Germany, and likely had never been to that part of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz
Eventually, there will be a reckoning. And I look forward to the inevitable collapse of the USA and the end of its abuse of humanity.
Any prediction on which country will replace USA on the top, and what will be their level of abuse?