…we are holding in Guantanamo?
Are there any individual Americans being held in prison camps by any foreign powers? Any groups of Americans?
Comparable, say, to the prisoners held by North Viet Nam.
North Korea is holding an American prisoner because he was preaching Christianity.
That is a much more complex issue than just someone being held captive.
Why is that?
Arguably the Native Americans with land still occupied by invading European powers are confined to reservations or forced to comply to their captors way of life.
However, they are allowed to leave whenever they want and can go to any country that will accept them.
The question seems to be a little confused. The situation at Guantanamo is a lot more ambiguous than a straightforward POW situation like, say, the Americans at the Hanoi Hilton. Some of the people at Guantanamo were captured on the battlefield, but not all of them. At various points over the last decade, the US government has gone back and forth over whether it wants to call them POWs, war criminals or regular criminals or what. Treating them as POWs implies you let them go at the end of the war (whenever that is), but treating them as criminals implies you give them due process.
So are you asking if any other situation like that exists in any other countries? If so, I’d suggest Israel is another example of a country that usually gives criminals due process, but has a lot of prisoners of ambiguous status in their prisons.
If, on the other hand, you’re just asking if there’s any American POW’s anywhere, that’s another matter. (Although if you want to get very pedantic, two of the Guantanamo prisoners are US citizens).
No Native Americans are “confined to reservations.” Nor are they “forced to comply with their captors way of life,” since they are not captive (unless imprisoned for a crime). Unless perhaps you mean they can’t follow the buffalo herds anymore, but that’s hardly equivalent to being a prisoner of war.
Because it’s unclear the exact circumstances of his capture and what he’s actually doing with the Taliban. The military is going to keep a tight lid on it, obviously, but there is a very real possibility if Bergdahl was ever repatriated he would actually be subject to criminal charges himself.
There are different stories floating around, Bergdahl claims he fell behind on a patrol and was captured. Elements of the Taliban claim he got drunk and wandered off base, and was taken captive. Other soldiers who have made statements to the press have reported Bergdahl basically left the base after his shift and wandered off.
There are rumors Bergdahl has been involved in helping the Taliban make explosives and has given military training to them. No one publicly knows what the full story is but it’s definitely a lot more convoluted than “soldier captured in battle, held by the enemy.”
It’s possible he was just a dumb kid, wandered off base (possibly drunk) in a dangerous area and got captured. Maybe he’s suffering from some sort of stockholme syndrome or maybe he’s being extra helpful (and helping train militants) for better treatment and to build trust so he can escape (there are reports he tried to escape in 2011), maybe he’s not training anyone and that’s just Taliban propaganda. It’s impossible to know.
No kidding.
That is precisely what I’m asking.
Nope, don’t want to.
Quite true. The military is keeping tight lipped about it. I have heard from many who were in country at the time and some that were in his area. Those supposedly in the know say he was in a small COP, left his weapon behind and deserted. Those that were there are pretty pissed because they suffered casualties in the operations trying to find him. Since none of this is confirmed officially I’d have to say its just a rumor but its one I believe.
I believe the term relevant to this thread is “administrative detention.”
Well then mentioning Guantanamo is a little confusing because those prisoners really aren’t POWs in the conventional sense. The vast majority of enemy combatants captured during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were treated (more or less) like conventional POWs and were gradually released as hostilities wound down. Some of the people in Guantanamo were originally captured as POWs, but for whatever reason the government thinks they’re especially dangerous and therefore has decided to treat them as something other than normal POWs.
The whole thing is a little muddied when it’s not two countries fighting, but there’s a big difference between a POW captured on the battlefield and being held for the duration and someone being detained essentially indefinitely.
Then, you shouldn’t refer to people detained at Guantanamo because those aren’t prisonner of war.
That’s why I used the word “comparable.”
I didn’t know how else to phrase it to ask my question. I wanted to get the SENSE of what I was asking across. Please excuse my lack of precision. Feeling unnecessarily nit-picked. :rolleyes:
In large areas of the world, the governments do not need to answer to anyone for who they are holding. So there may be governments that have arrested and are detaining people, possibly even Americans. They might even be subject to rigged show trials like the Guantanamo tribunals to provide a legal pretense to indefinite detention. However, unlike the USA, they can do this sort of stuff in relative secrecy.
(Greenpeace activists, for example, a month or two ago boarded a Russian drilling platform to protest arctic drilling. They are, last I heard, being held as terrorists with piracy charges pending. Most likely, they’ll come to an arrangement and let them go, but for now - they sit in jail, an object lesson not to mess with the Soviets and their cronies… oops - I mean, the Russians.)
The US is holding about 60 non-afghan citizens at Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan. Those would be pretty comparable legally speaking.
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That is completely incorrect. Most government, even the most totalitarian ones have always found something to blame the detained/condemned with. At the same thime there are procedures (no matter how unreliable or perfunctory) to review and challenge the action. WHat makes Gitmo so unique is that there is no charge or accusation at all. Just what can be described as a “bad feeling”.:rolleyes: THere are further no means to challenge the situation, the US Judiciary has not exactly covered itself in glory on this issue.
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Errrr… the Greenpeace example is pretty much within the definition of piracy under the UN convention of law of the sea,Art 101. When challenging an authoritarian government its usually not a good idea to do their work for them.
I’d disagree. There is no charge or accusation for detainees at Gitmo because they are not being held for committing a crime. They are being held as “prisoners of war” (technically unprivileged enemy combatants). And the detainees at Gitmo can challenge their detention via a writ of habeas corpus - if a Judge decides they are no longer a threat or never was the Judge can order his release. Further, their status as combatants is reviewed periodically to determine if they are still a threat, if not, they are released. Many hundreds have been released in that manner.
The problem is finding a country to take them and the fact we have no plans to release about 40ish. That’s fine as long as they are still a threat and there is a war ongoing. The last part is becoming extremely tenuous.