"US detention draws british criticism"

[robtex]

yahoo news reports:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/ap_on_re_eu/britain_guantanamo

LONDON - The detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay is unacceptable and counterproductive, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Thursday, underlining an increasingly critical British line on the U.S.-run prison from America's closest ally....

rest in the link:

thoughts on the system and Britian's recent statements?

 

[Ciscokid]

yahoo news reports:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/ap_on_re_eu/britain_guantanamo

LONDON - The detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay is unacceptable and counterproductive, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Thursday, underlining an increasingly critical British line on the U.S.-run prison from America's closest ally....

rest in the link:

thoughts on the system and Britian's recent statements?

If what they are stating is true, I agree with them. If you are going to claim someone is a terrorist, put them on trial and prove it. If they're found to be innocent, let them go and pay to have them sent back where they came. If they're guilty, I don't care what happens to them.

 

[c0da]

yahoo news reports:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/...ain_guantanamo

LONDON - The detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay is unacceptable and counterproductive, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Thursday, underlining an increasingly critical British line on the U.S.-run prison from America's closest ally....

rest in the link:

thoughts on the system and Britian's recent statements?

I don't particularly like Margaret Beckett, she is quite a poor foreign secretary, but she does have a good point. The way Guantanamo Bay operates is unacceptable. All those hold there should be put on trial as soon as possible so all those detainees who are innocent can be released.

 

[robtex]

I read a book called inside the wire which is a narrative by a solider stationed in cell block D (where the terrorists are kept) as a translator who spoke arabic. From what he said in the book people who were terror suspects were being shipped into the country from the middle east from checkpoints or locally arrested in the US. They are not being charged but being booked on suspicion. However, unlike a typical suspicion booking in the US where one is released in 24 hours if charges are not brought on, these guys are being held for months or years without being charged. Hence the reason why Bush wants a terrorist act passed by Congress.

From that book the author Erik Saar felt some of the them were mujihad terrorists but most were not.

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Wire-Intelligence-Eyewitness-Guantanamo/dp/1594200661
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101031208-552060,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/05/05/DI2005050500952.html

 

[kai]

is there any statistics on the guys who have been released , like how many where they have gone etc

 

[robtex]

is there any statistics on the guys who have been released , like how many where they have gone etc

No. Sometimes there is news reports but the clandestine nature of the entire operation is what is in question on the issue.

No charges are being filed, no statestics are being published no court system or legal system is being allowed access to cell block d and the people inside are being cut off from contact from the outside world.

Bush and the other neo-conservatives say that the clandestiny of the operation a neccessity to national security for the war on terror others like those in the article posted are saying it is inhumane and a travesity of justice.

The LA times has an article (footnote 4) stating that many do not meet the critera (which is not named) for being held and bounty hunters in Pakistan were being paid money to bring in "terrorist" from afganistan for involuntary deportation to Guantanamo bay.

Anthony Romero, the Executive director of the ACLU said this qoute:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]"Hundreds of people called enemy combatants by the U.S. government languish in legal limbo at Guantánamo Bay," Romero said. "With no access to the courts, or legal counsel, these policies are fundamentally lawless and trespass on our most deeply held values of fairness and basic due process."[/FONT] (footnote 2) .

Global Security.org (footnote 3) has a number of statements by the dept of defense on the matter.

footnotes:
1) http://www.counterpunch.org/mariner1107.html
2) http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/ACLU Defends Guantanamo Terrorists.htm
3) http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_detainees.htm
4) http://www.latimes.com/la-na-gitmo22dec22,0,2294365.story
5) http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/02/lawyers-say-most-guantanamo-detainees.php
6) http://www.aclu.org/safefree/resources/17483res20040309.html
7) http://www.aclu.org/scotus/2003/16933prs20040114.html

 

[kai]

its very hard to find impartial stuff, its either their all guilty or their all innocent, i was looking for statistics of how many held how many released, nationalities etc, its all very secretive and its gone on far too long, charge and try them or let them go, but where do they go, some of the guys the US wanted the UK to have last week were hardly what you call british citizens with very sketchy links to the UK

 

[robtex]

It looks like red cross is visiting Khalid Mohammed at Guantanamo bay
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/guantanamo_detainees

I had no idea Khalid Mohammad was in Guantanamo bay Cuba. Interesting. You guys should google Mohammad and read about him somtime. Here is an interesting set of footnotes to use for further searches:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/themes/gitmo.html

 

[Mathematician]

There should be public outrage over this, but people don't care if it doesn't affect them, especially during times of war when some would try to tell you that you've got to make sacrifices, including personal liberties.

 

[Booko]

I had no idea Khalid Mohammad was in Guantanamo bay Cuba. Interesting.

Oh yeah, there was some news about that in the past month, when the US moved Khalid Mohammad and another dozen *actual* terrorists to Guantanamo from those secret CIA prisons we "don't have" elsewhere in the world. :sarcastic

There should be public outrage over this, but people don't care if it doesn't affect them, especially during times of war when some would try to tell you that you've got to make sacrifices, including personal liberties.

There would be more public outrage over it, if it were treated as more newsworthy and there were any visible decent jounalism done on the subject.

But instead, we are fed a steady diet of "orange alerts" with no follow up to see what that initial story turned out to be. People still think those 5 guys arrested in Buffalo were seriously an al-Qaeda terrorist sleeper cell. (Nonsense)

Governments are always putting propaganda out and spinning things to make themselves look better than they are. That's nothing new.

If anything's new, it's the sheer cojones with which lies are put out as truth, and the uncritical way in which they are repeated by the press, until people actually think there's some truth in the lies.

 

[Mathematician]

Good post, Booko.

What I don't get is how stupid the Democrats are. :cover: The Foley incident is a fart if the Dems actually pursued these happenings and made it clear to Americans that our government is breaking the constitution and other laws numerous times just to "help win this war", even if it means our own civilians are at stake.

If the Democratic Party actually presented themselves as a strong fighting force that is unwilling to sacrafice our liberties, they'd have the next 2 elections in the bag.

Idiots...

 

[Booko]

Good post, Booko.

What I don't get is how stupid the Democrats are. :cover: The Foley incident is a fart if the Dems actually pursued these happenings and made it clear to Americans that our government is breaking the constitution and other laws numerous times just to "help win this war", even if it means our own civilians are at stake.

If the Democratic Party actually presented themselves as a strong fighting force that is unwilling to sacrafice our liberties, they'd have the next 2 elections in the bag.

Many people have made the same sort of comment of late. I've observed that at least since the "Contract on America" the Dems have been unwilling in large part to fight fire with fire. I've no idea why that is. I suspect it's a mix of several things.

 

[Capt. Haddock]

Good post, Booko.

If the Democratic Party actually presented themselves as a strong fighting force that is unwilling to sacrafice our liberties, they'd have the next 2 elections in the bag.

Idiots...

I'd love to believe that was true: that the voters really would react to that...but I wonder. This information has been out there for so long, and the public has been so complacent that I wonder if the average voter really can be bothered.

It's sad, but a sex scandal seems like the only thing people react to.

 

[Booko]

I'd love to believe that was true: that the voters really would react to that...but I wonder. This information has been out there for so long, and the public has been so complacent that I wonder if the average voter really can be bothered.

The information is out there, but you have to work a little to find it. It's much easier to see the propaganda.

And who want's to believe ill of their gov't, esp. if it's controlled by a party someone has some loyalty to? When that's factored in, it takes a bit longer for people to change their minds on some issues.

It's sad, but a sex scandal seems like the only thing people react to.

Ain't that America... :sarcastic