That would be illegal!
The proper method is to release them and then kill them with drones.
I would add one more
- to shed light on the released, but detained, Yemen detainees and generate political will to get them home (or out).
Political will is lacking, even inside the Obama administration. There is no group or task force assigned to getting these people released (I think it’s just a couple of lawyers). There was. Congress made it hard, Obama didn’t press it - not hard enough.
I assumed 2 things, that 1) the military command themselves have involvement in writing the rules and its not something Congress can simply declare they want to change at a whim, and 2) the rules are already there regarding something like amnesty, and Congress can’t simply choose to intervene in the case of individuals no matter how much they whine about it. Am I wrong?
Anyways, Martin Hyde answered the question more thoroughly
I don’t think Obama could pardon them simply because they are (mostly) not criminals by either POWs or illegal cobatant POWs. Being a soldier in the “other army” or even being a illegal cobatant, is not a crime.
Yeah ,we really botched the classification of these goons. THey should have all been classified POWs and that would have been the end of our problems. We could have kept them on ice forever and there’d be no legal or moral impediment. But by basically accusing them of being “illegal combatants” we created a situation where trials were needed.
We’re fond of methods of torture that don’t cause physical pain (and more importantly, don’t leave marks). You can drive someone insane with torture without inflicting pain on them. Sleep deprivation for example.
Hardly, POWs have more rights.
Define “torture”. To some, simply being deprived of their freedom is “torture”. I don’t care for some of the enhanced interrogation techniques, but you have to be careful tossing words like torture around casually. Once it’s applied too liberally, it loses it’s true meaning. They are doing the same with “slavery”.
However, after some negotiations with the Red Cross, the detainees are now being given almost the exact same rights. Took too long.
We didn’t really botch the classification - we botched the treatment. You can’t treat detainees the way we did no matter what classification.
You’re standard al qaeda detainee cannot be a Geneva POW. It’s not possible. POW’s can only come from State A vs. State B wars. See Common Article 2 of the Geneva Conventions (bolding mine):
The only Article that does not apply to State vs. State war is Article 3.
It sets the minimum standard of treatment regardless of how a person or war is classified. We went below that standard. Today, they likely get more rights than a POW would get, however.
And we can still “legally” detain these combatants indefinitely. In theory, as long as the war is ongoing. But there’s a feeling that some detention is acceptable and after some undetermined time, it’s no longer acceptable. It feels like we’ve crossed that invisible line. The problem is without some sort of clear standard, a court won’t order release based on a feeling, only Congress/President can do that.
Well, they allege abuse.
- is false, 3) is unsubstantiated, and if the US allowed 4) they would be accused of murder, and if they want 2), why don’t they say so, instead of 1)?
Well, I am reluctant to simply take their word, or that of their lawyers, at face value and without any substantiation. But yes, there is reason to believe they are exaggerating. See what XT said. This prisoner is claiming that force feeding is torture, and that this is the mistreatment (along with the Qur’an allegations) that is causing his hunger strike. It is not ipso facto true that force feeding is torture. People survive it all the time.
Well, no. If they are not being truthful about their human rights, and prison officials are telling the truth, then they are not drawing attention to their human rights, nor are the prison officials drawing attention away.
Crying Wolf is not justified, even on a matter of human rights.
Regards,
Shodan
True, but one right they don’t have is right to be released before hostilities end.
There aren’t many options for offing oneself in a prison environment – “starving to death” may seem viable to some of the detainees. Especially after two more attempted (and failed) suicides by hanging occurred last weekend.
I’m sure you can imagine ways in which regularly forcing a feeding tube into your body (or putting in an IV for fluids) could be physically and psychologically painful. (If not, there are many interviews available with current and former detainees that will spark your imagination.) I’m sure you can also imagine that, given this was the prisoner’s only chance to tell his story to America through the largest newspaper we have, he might have used turns of phrase like “worst pain ever” for bigger effect.
It’s fine that you’re skeptical about his statements (this goes for Shodan too), but given the history of torture and abuse at the prison, given the hunger strikes and suicides, given the interviews with past detainees that sound eerily similar to the experiences of current ones, given the indefinite detention – how can you so easily claim they’re exaggerating?
It’s impossible to substantiate either the prisoners’ claims or the prison officials’ claims, because the media is restricted access, and obviously can’t be around 24/7 to see what happens. But isn’t it better to believe the prisoners (“we’re being tortured and abused”) and be wrong, than to believe the prison officials (“they’re not being tortured and abused”) and be wrong? Why not take this seriously, instead of saying “well, they might be okay”?
Given that Obama didn’t create this mess and that he campaigned against it, what do people think is the reason that Gitmo is still in operation? Obama is taking a hit from his constituents and from a political matter I’d guess he’d like to close it.
My guess is that when Obama became president he was made aware of information that made it problematic to release or try them. For example, let’s say that trying the prisoners would require that Afghani or Pakistani citizens appear in the trial. The concern would be for their safety after the trial and since they are in foreign countries we could not guarantee their well-being. Would that not be a reasonable reason for the status quo?
What “hostilities”? When are they going to “end”? What do they have to do with these vaguely defined “hostilities”?
We could start with our own definition, which we’ve violated. We’ve done things to our victims that we define as torture, except when we are doing it.
As opposed to a disgusting euphemism like “enhanced interrogation”? No, it’s not torture when we beat someone to death or rape their wife in front of him or threaten to murder his children; it’s “enhanced interrogation”! Just because we leave you with insanity or brain damage doesn’t mean you were tortured!
Our behavior was monstrous, regardless of what kinds of pretty words you try to use to make it look nice.
Because he doesn’t care or actively supports torture and false imprisonment. He’s actively working to help shield torturers from investigation or prosecution.
Obama is just another monster. His only real virtue is that he’s slightly less monstrous and somewhat more competent than the competition. But he’s still a monster.
For those captured in Afghanistan, it’s easy. When the war in Afghanistan ends, they can be sent home. IF the war doesn’t end, that’s not our problem. There was no point during past wars where we would just say, “Oh, this war’s never going to end, let’s just release our POWs”. Doesn’t happen that way.
There’s more to it than this, but the principal reason it is still open is that Congress passed laws prohibiting closure and prohibiting the release of prisoners with veto-proof majorities.
The “more to it than this” part has to do with Obama’s role, independent of Congress. He campaigned to close Guantanamo, but NOT to stop the system Guantanamo represents, namely indefinite detention. Instead, he proposed opening a new Guantanamo in Illinois – but congress rejected this.
Obama also created a task force to investigate the status of every Guantanamo detainee. The results: half were approved for transfer, but the other half constituted a mix of “we would like to prosecute them, so they stay,” “too dangerous to release, but we don’t have evidence to prosecute, so they stay”, and “Yemenis who have to stay because Yemen is too unstable right now.” Indefinite detention, which he then authorized.
Since we’re talking about what the President authorized, anyone have an opinion on this administration’s probably unwritten policy of killing instead of capturing?
The pace of drone attacks on the tribal areas has increased sharply during the Obama presidency, with more assaults in September and October of this year than in all of 2008. At the same time, efforts to capture al-Qaeda suspects have virtually stopped. Indeed, if CIA operatives were to snatch a terrorist tomorrow, the agency wouldn’t be sure where it could detain him for interrogation.
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Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA, frames the puzzle this way: “Have we made detention and interrogation so legally difficult and politically risky that our default option is to kill our adversaries rather than capture and interrogate them?”
I think the principal reason is Obama. I assume you mean Congress effectively prohibited. It’s still possible, just more difficult. Obama just gave up, though. The govt employees who used to get detainees released have left, but never replaced. I said up thread, there’s literally like two left. It would be equivalent to a cabinet member leaving and not replacing them.
I’m not saying Congress didn’t mess with Obama’s ability to do his job. They did, big time. But they can’t stop him. Only he can do that.
No. No one cares about how badly we treat prisoners; they only care if it gets into the international media and makes us look as barbaric as we actually are, and undercuts our ego-fantasy of being the shining champions of justice. Left wing people have been pointing out since Obama got elected how he’s still practicing “extraordinary rendition” and having people captured and turned over to Third World puppets and stored in hellholes under horrible conditions. No one has cared, because he’s managed to keep prisoner treatment out of the world spotlight.
Bottom line, almost no America would care in the slightest if he’s having random innocent foreigners regularly raped, strangled to death and sold as dog food, as long as he keeps it out of the media. This is the same country that re-elected Bush the Torturer, a nation of amoral scum.
Here’s a Harvard Law Review paper on the topic: “The statute eliminates the flexibility to try Guantánamo detainees in civilian courts (a practice used to great effect by the Bush administration with other terrorism suspects), makes it impossible to close Guantánamo Bay, and abandons many of the detainees whom the administration no longer views as dangerous but is barred by statute from transferring.” Link.
I’m not sure why you are saying “effectively.”