where would you put those detainees? Seems like it wasn't an issue of geography, but who was doing the interrogations. And who is Mr. Fidell to say whether or not they were effective militarily? Lots of bad guys went away based on those interrogations, and many who've been released were not rehabilitated. The immediate consequences of what you seem to be advocating are summary execution based on a soldier's battlefield judgement, or summary execution based on a "so-called competent tribunal". Here's how it would go. "Was he shooting at you, private?" "Yes, sir" "But then, he was incapacitated and you were able to detain him?" "Yes, sir" "But he wasn't wearing a uniform, or anything signifying that he wasn't a civilian, but a state-sponsored combatant?" "No, sir" "Well, Mr. X, were you wearing a uniform when detained?" "No." "Firing squad, you may fire when ready"
You don't get it both ways. Either they're combatants who can be detained until the "war" is over, or they're shot as non-uniformed, non-state-sponsored criminals on a battlefield. The US gov't steps all over its crank to "do the right thing", and yet there are still people who have a misguided view of "all that needs to be done is..."
first, By defining them as combatants and holding them until "the war is over" then they are being held indefinitely because there is not end to the war on terror (just as there is not end to the war on drugs) Second, Afghanistan was essentially absent of government (still is in most areas) so the "non-uniformed, non-state-sponsored criminals" label is not appropriate. Some of the detainees have been proven to be members of organized terrorism some have been proven not to be. The U.S. is not trying to "do the right thing". We can't detain someone without trial, torture them and say we are taking the moral high ground. Former US Diplomats, former US government officials, former American POWs, retired US Military Officers and the UN have all condemned the detention center. It was a mistake and it needs to be closed.
I think people can cherry pick from these leaked documents and find what they want to see. One document mentioned in less left leaning sources yesterday talked about one of the detainees who implicated 123 of the other detainees. Some of those detained were wrongfully done so, but I'm pretty sure the number released from Gitmo is in the hundreds. And for sure a lot of those returned to combat against us.
Hmm, you must not be aware that some of the past detainees we have fought again. What pray tell do we do with these "peace full victims" ? The fact is they should have been dealt with a long time ago. The hangman should have paid a visit after we pryed all the in tel we could from their lumped up and drooling carcases. But no, this is what you get when politicians run a war.
Former US diplomats, former US gov't officials, former American POWs, retired US military officers have said that there should be a military justice system for these people and Guantanamo's the best we have right now. Now what? The UN says it's torture, but... So basically, they're making wide accusations without seeing for themselves. Sounds a bit like the UN. We ARE trying to do the right thing and I can't fathom how people don't get that. We don't act like the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Russians, Bosnians, Hutus, Tsutsis, Congolese, Vietnamese, etc all have in the last 70 years of warfare. We don't summarily execute prisoners, or cannabalize them, or rape women, or loot from civilians. We have taken people off the battlefield that our soldiers deemed necessary to do so. Do I disagree with unskilled interrogators doing the questioning? Of course. Do I abhor when guards don't behave correctly or are improperly trained. Yes. Do I think that these people should be thanking their lucky stars each and every day that it was an American that captured them, instead of someone else? Yes. And it's a bit frightening to me when people in our country, for whatever reason (ideological, hatred for the military, ignorance of the facts due to how they're reported, etc) think somehow that we're the bad guys and if our prison were shut down or our troops were better behaved then there wouldn't be all this trouble in the world. The head of the Belgian FBI-equivalent Grignard came as part of a welfare inspection on behalf of EU and claimed . If you listen to Amnesty International and the like, most of the Western world is complicit in our "torture" activities. Most of the rest of the world doesn't want the detainees back, and in some places they will be killed regardless of their innocence or guilt.
Who says that we can't detain someone without trial? I know plenty of guys in WWII who were just taken from their place on the battlefield (usually wounded), and put into a prisoner enclosure. The moral high ground would've been what? To shoot them on the battlefield? Or when they're arrested? You're offering a lot of opinion without better answers. Where to put them, then? 48 of the "harmless" ones who were let go have already been identified as follow-on offenders, including multiple suicide bombers. Are you going to tell the families of the people that got blown up that, you're sorry, but the moral high ground dictates that we're not supposed to keep bad people in solitary confinement or out of the populace. Sorry 'bout that. This combatant-out-of-uniform wasn't read Miranda rights--oh, you don't know what that is?-- and so he must be innocent of all wrongdoing. Hope your boy has a nice funeral. No, it seems as if you're saying that we try to not do the right thing and somehow it's our fault. I just happen to disagree.
Why are our only options shooting them or detaining them indefinitely in legal limbo? They should have been given a trial after they were captured in Afghanistan. Why go through all the effort of setting up a facility outside of any jurisdiction? Nobody in their right mind believed then or now that there aren't people who want to do real harm to the U.S. (if they didn't before they were detained then they definitely want to now) I think the terrorist controversy over Gitmo points out a big weakness in our legal system. Where do you draw the line between individual rights and the need to protect society? The law seems to be at one place while the World is making that line questionable. We should reach an accommodation which allows us to handle these criminals here in our country while not jeopardizing our ability to incarcerate them.
I guess that my point just comes from the side that there isn't (and to my limited knowledge, hasn't ever been) a way that we could ensure that the legal rights of a citizen of another country and the legal rights of that person if they were a US citizen would be sanctified on a battlefield or in a battle situation. Maybe there's precedent for doing so as part of an intel/CIA operation, which I grant some of these detainees were, but I just don't know. My second question is: What rights does a citizen of Afghanistan shooting at me in Afghanistan while not state-sponsored or (even set apart through uniforms, badges, etc.) have? If we had turned that person over to Karzai he'd have been summarily executed, in accordance with whatever whim of a law they have over there. If we turn the Chinese ones over to China the reports are that China, even today, will summarily execute them according to their law. Why should a potentially bad guy get the benefit of getting a US set of rights when he's not entitled to any of them, not even as an "illegal immigrant"--by virtue that he's never stepped foot in the US. OTOH, what right does the Attorney General/judicial system have to try him? He's not a US citizen, and the alleged "crime" wasn't committed on US soil. This isn't even extradition-worthy, is it? You can't constitutionally (again, to my limited knowledge) have uniformed members of the military rounding up people for judicial trials--at least in the US. Why do they have the responsibility to do so in some sandbox somewhere?
Iraq-AQ link in 1998 discovered in Gitmo Leaks. Funny how this one didn't make the NYT? http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/wikileaks-iraq-al-qaeda-connection-confirmed-again_558271.html
Lesson: It sucks to fight against the US. The bottom line is we treat these fuckers better than they have any right to expect. As for the UN, you let me know when the countries throwing brickbats at us treat their citizens as well as we do. Say, is Iran still chairing the UN Human Rights Commission?
we could always just take them to a secret prison and torture them with electrocution, rape, vicious beatings, amputation, etc, before the sweet release of death by beheading
