Back to Gitmo: When The Heck Will The Prisoners' Fates Be Decided?

Great Debates
81

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We attacked them? Hello? They killed 3,000 Americans two years ago, what are you talking about?

They are enemy combatants. They will either be killed, or captured and held until the war is over. What is wrong with that?

What basic human rights have they been denied? Do you even know what the prisoners’ most requested item is? McDonald’s Happy Meals, because of the freaking toy! We are not dealing with rational people here.

I hope we use them up as far as intelligence goes, and then start hanging them one by one. Or have you forgotten already? :frowning:

82

This is a prejudicial attitude. And I mean this in the most fundamental etymology of the word “pre-judice”.

These people may indeed be terrorists. Or they may noe. But give them a goddamned trial - a proper one, not a kangaroo court - to determine their guilt or otherwise. To cast aspertions on their choice of meal, however bizarre it may seem, is ridiculous, given the non-judicial state in which they’re being held.

83

Is that what GB and their American Allies did with the Nazis in WWII? No? Why should the terrorists be tried at all?

84

Cite that anyone in Guantanamo had anything to do with 9/11?

And FYI, we’ve killed twice as many civilians in Afghanistan as were killed in 9/11…not that you care, I’m sure.

If they are enemy combatants then they need to be accorded the rights given to them under the Geneva Convention…and when was there a formal declaration of war? By what definition could it possibly ever be “over?”

If they are criminal suspects: the right to counsel, right to a public trial, right to have charges brought, right to communication with family. If they are POWs then they are entitled to the rights afforded by the Geneva Convention.

Sounds like bullshit to me. Cite? Also relevance?

How do you know? You don’t know anything about them.

Hanging them for what? Do you care?

Forgotten what?

85

As a matter of fact, YES, the nazis got trials. There was a little thing called Nuremberg. Maybe you’ve heard of it?

86

No the Nazis didn’t. Nuremberg was a series of ad hoc military tribunals that we like to think were trials; we gave ourselves power and then decided what to do with it. No legal framework for that at all, we made it up as we went along.

Having said that, it was the start of modern international law with respect to war crimes. Only the great and the good get to exercise it, though, and only when it suits. All very selective.

No Kissenger or Sharon, for example

87

Of course, the great majority of Germans captured during the war were given POW status. And some of them were tried for crimes, actually, before Nuremberg.

IF you don’t want to try the Gitmo prisoners, then accept they’re POWs. Shit or get off the pot. The nonsensical legal limbo is a travesty of justice.

88

I think the answer the the OP question is that their fate has already been decided. They are in limbo and will stay there indefinitely because nobady with the authority and power to do anything about this atrocious situation gives a rats ass about their plight.

89

Innocent until proven guilty is a precedent we follow in standard US legal proceedings. We are not accusing these combatants of a crime, any more than soldiers in battle shoot each other in response to crimes. The holding of the prisoners is being done simply because those in charge believe it is in the best interest of national security to do so. This is not to say that I, personally, believe this to be in the best interest of national security – but that is why the prisoners continue to be detained.

90

In that case they are POWs and the US must follow the Geneva Convention. (I don’t buy that “National Security” crap for a second, btw)

91

So, we are all agreed? The Camp Delta detainees ARE Prisoners of War.

Anyone who disagrees, please state how in the world these enemy combatants do not fall under Articles 4 and 5 of the Geneva Convention regarding Prisoners of War, which I linked to earlier, or at the very least why a “competent tribunal” has not been granted for two years.

(Incidentally, if you look at the date that this part of the GC came into force, you will see it is 1950. Comparisons with WW2 are as relevant as with the Wars of the Roses.)

There is no such thing as War on Terror. They are Prisoners of a War declared (by a direct military action, in the same way Pearl Harbour was a declaration of War) against the High Contracting Party called the Taliban, at the time the de facto government of Afghanistan.

Question: Is the US still in a state of war with Afghanistan?

92

The administration is indeed accusing them of a crime. The very term they use, unlawful, means exactly that.

As others have pointed out, you just described them as prisoners of war.

93

“Inter arma enim silent leges”

In times of war the law falls silent.

Once I thought this was true only for stalin’s russia, hitler’s gastapo, WW II’s germany and japan, Africa, Sadah Hussein’s regime, etc.

Unfortunately this country proves me wrong, for this type of mentality is all too close to home.

94

Most of my friends and family (yes, from the US) are concerned about Guatanamo.

It came up in a phone conversation with my Mom just last night. (Talking over the candidates, who haven’t really weighed in substatially on the topic that I’ve seen. If anyone has, can you point me to a source?)

It’s yet another reason I’m not voting for GWB.

My guess is that we won’t see anything more than indefinite detention as long as we have our current Pres. And possibly after that depending on the cojones of our next lucky contestant. Politicians don’t like to make calls when you gets into the gray areas, even if they have to be made.

The POW definition only works if we had actually declared war. But we don’t do that anymore, do we? We just let the executive branch do an end-run around nasty question and disagreements that running it by a multi-partisan group might cause.

It’s absolutely a disgrace. We are no longer “at war” with Afghanistan. These are detainees from that conflict, so their situation should be resolved. Publicly, none of that closed-door military tribunal crap.

I do agree, there isn’t really a good precedent for how to treat non-citizen possible combatants in an undeclared undefined “war” (ick, nasty rhetoric taste). I’d take out some of those qualifiers if we knew who the hell was being held there, and how they came to be detained. I suspect they weren’t all actively attacking US forces when they were taken.

And of course, since military intelligence is infallible, no further investigation is needed. Shyeah right.

A pres with some actual leadership balls and vision would be figuring out the best and proper way to handle the detainee situation. Even though it’s rather uncharted legal ground. See, that’s what makes up VISION. Not, “I have a delusion that we are living in the best of all possible worlds, would you like to make it folie a deux?”, but “I have this idea about how to change the current situation so that things will work out as they should.” Required, state your definition of “as they should.” No credit if you can’t show your work.

This is the only possible bright side to my opinion that Bush is going to let them rot there, that I don’t trust this administration to oversee non-civilian trials any better than they’re dealing with “detaining” non-civilians. IF there were convictions by closed military court, it would be that much harder to get cases re-tried if needed. Hell, even within our system it’s hellish to get re-trials, even in cases where the re-trial led to an acquittal. Our system is not geared to admit that it may have screwed up, either.

95

I totally disagree that this is a “new” situation or that it is “uncharted”. There are only two possibilities:

(1) They are accused of breaking some law in effect. Not ex-post-facto but a law in effect at the time of their breaking it. Then they are entitled to a speedy trial to determine their guilt or inocence with all judicial guarantees. Upon a determination of guilt they would be sentenced and they would serve their sentence. Upon a determination of not guilty they would be set free.

(2) They are combatants against the USA who have committed no crimes (fighting for your country is not a crime per se). Then they are entitled to POW status and should be released at the end of the hostilities.

(3) There is NO third option.

The US government inventing this “new situation” is bullshit. Suppose they said the same thing about the “war on drugs”: This is a new thing and we will take people and lock them up indefinitely and we do not call them criminals and we do not call them prisoners, we call them “illegal corrupters of our youth” and, since the laws do not envision that we can do whetever the fuck we want.

That is bullshit. The constitution says people accused of wrongdoing are entitled to a speedy trial to determine their guilt or innocence with all guarantees of due process. the detainees in Guantanamo are clearly being accused of doing wrong and breaking laws. They deserve nothing less than a fair and speedy trial.

96

Personally I’d guess the population in Gitmo is a little from column a and a little from column b.

The main “new” (well, not new, but unresolved) situation I’m seeing is your option 2, they’re straight up POW’s and should be released when the war’s over.
Well, I may be of the opinion the war is over, but that’s the thing about a war that isn’t officially declared and a peace that isn’t officially made.
(one view of the current situation in Afghanistan . ) We still have troops in Afghanistan, we still have detainee in Gitmo, and we have a Pres who’s lumping the next country we’re still fighting in (even though he did speechify about victory in Iraq)in his “war on terror”. That’s one area that’s being deliberately made very gray; when exactly do you have to call an undeclared war over?

And I’m not saying it’s a new situation that poor honest GWB is honestly stumped over. I think it’s a situation his admin caused and is perpetuating. That doesn’t mean it isn’t still an area where it’s very difficult to TAKE it to any sort of court, because with the quasi-POW 2-step they’ve sidestepped the requirement for speedy trial, but there’s no clearly defined end to quasi POW status. And a previous poster stated, there is no standing outside court to take it to (Nuremburg example).

If we can’t go with my first choice, which is to not go attacking places and taking prisoners w/o an act of war through congress, then we need to have a procedure if any future Pres is crack brained enough to try this Prisoners-of -Notwar approach. It’s not a new situation, because we did Notwar in Korea and Vietnam, but we did Notwar by the Geneva convention, mainly. Bush’s big contribution to Notwar is to ignore it, and we need a remedy for that no-man’s land it’s left the detainees in.

97

I think it has been stated that they are basically POWs. That is, they are being given the rights of POWs. The term “unlawful combatants” comes about because the Geneva convention has rules about armies fighting…they must wear uniforms and not try to be civilians, etc. So they weren’t following the rules! And no, I don’t think they should be rewarded for that by saying that because they weren’t in uniform they must be tried in civilian courts, etc.

As for “innocent until proven guilty”, I’m not sure how that would work here. They surrendered in Afghanistan but most were Arab or Taliban fighters committed to destroying the US. So how exactly would a “trial” work? Would we have to accuse them in being part of 9/11? That would be impossible, most probably weren’t anyway. Would the military just say, “yeah, we captured this guy in this town, after he was shooting at us”. Why have a civilian court for that? Isn’t the military good enough to judge the accused? They are most familiar with the people, the battles, etc. Would you want a civilian jury? Would US soldiers be called out of the battle, flown into the US for depositions and such? As witnesses? It sounds ridiculous.

What would we have to state that they did? We could only state the obvious, that they surrendered in Afghanistan and thus have a similar status to "POW"s. POWs are not given civilian criminal trials. Even though they are not technically "POW"s and instead “illegal combatants” they are pretty much treated as POWs, so I don’t really see how any one can complain.

As for the timeline…when will they be released? I don’t know…as soon as the Al Queda leadership surrenders in the war on terror…so don’t hold your breath. We didn’t release German and Japanese prisoners until they surrendered, so why would this be any different?

Presumably, they interview the prisoners. If they determine that they are “innocent” meaning they fought with the Taliban but are not ideologically committed to destroying the US and can be released back to Afghanistan w/o trying to overthrow the gov’t (as those Taliban are wont to do), then they release them. They released some a little while back. I think the European press interviewed one about the torture and horrors of Gitmo. He had nothing but nice things to say though…wasn’t too bad overall…had his teeth fixed, they apparently had been bothering him quite a while. The food was great, I think he said he gained 10 pounds or so. Not quite a Gulag.

That’s not to minimize the idea of holding people captive who don’t need to be held. But you must admit, that if you went up to these prisoners and asked them plainly “are you Al Queda?”, most would be smart enough to feign innocence. So the military is in a tough situation PRECISELY because the Al Queda people didn’t follow the Geneva convention and use uniforms with rank insignias and so forth. So why should our military be hamstrung and forced to release captives it worked so hard to get, if they are truly Al Queda?

I don’t really like the idea of holding these people either, but technically, their side hasn’t surrendered. Far from it. A couple may be “innocent” of being in the Al Queda terrorist group…or they may have tired of the whole thing and just want to go home. But it’s tough to tell exactly which of them are, and I’ll give my military the benefit of the doubt when dealing with people who have sworn to wage Jihad against us.

98

I’d really like to see a cite that shows that the Taliban were committed to destroying the US. Harboring terrorists, sure. Mistreating women, certainly. Religious zealots, no argument from me. Bent on the destruction of the US, it looked more like defending themselves when attacked.

Quite simple, actually. Those who we think we can prove were actual terrorists, we send to court to be tried, and if convicted, locked away. Those who are PoWs, we send home, since the “war” in Afghanistan is long over. In case no one has noticed, our media outlets love, and I do mean love, to cover wars. Are any of you glued to your TVs watching CNN to get the latest on the war in Afghanistan? That’s because there is NO war.

Because they aren’t being treated as PoWs. PoWs are repatriated after the war is over.

Because that’s not the way justice works here. If it did, we’d lock folks up because we think they did something wrong, hoping to eventually get some evidence to back it up. If we couldn’t, we’d just keep them locked up and keep looking indefinitely.

99

No, the US administration’s focus on Article 4.2.b in this respect is absurd, since any resistance movement (or indeed US Special Forces) might operate without proper combat fatigues or the like and yet would very definitely be awarded PoW status upon capture.

If they deliberately endangered civilians by concealing their weapons, disguising themselves and then taking refuge amongst civilians then there is scope for charging there Prisoners of War with war crimes.

The Geneva Convention was specifically designed so that no High Contracting Party could act like the US is acting within international law.

100

Given what Bush has done at Gitmo, it really makes me smile that he has the audacity to now go to the UN for help . . . He’s . . . remarkable.