Did anyone catch the special on the HistDiscovSciNosMilA&E Channel last night which was a 2 hour documentary about Guantanamo Bay?
While I’m against holding prisoners indefinitely, I was surprised at how well those guys are treated. To hear the media and posters here talk, you would think that those prisoners are waterboarded two or three times before breakfast just for sport, and have their toenails pulled out after lunch.
The prisoners who can conduct themselves properly are allowed in communal areas, allowed outside and have a pretty decent life under the circumstances. The ones who are inside their cells 23 hours a day are the ones who can’t keep from spitting on the guards and flinging shit at them.
I was still struck by the fact that almost no other civilized country in world history would take a bunch of people who conspired to kill their own innocent civilians and treat them with such respect. We are certainly not perfect, but I had no complaints from what I saw.
If the OP is indeed against “holding prisoners indefinitely”, then what does their relative treatment have to do with anything? Is it the OP’s position that every prisoner that has ever been held at Guantanamo is guilty of a definable terrorist act, simply on the basis of their having been incarcerated to begin with? If the OP believes that this is truly the case, then I would have to say the documentary in question was not very informative.
BTW, I have never claimed on this board that prisoners at Guantanamo were tortured frequently, so whoever the OP is sniping at, don’t bother trying to claim I am among them. OTOH, there is no question whatever that at least some prisoners were tortured there. If no one is being tortured at this moment, glad to hear it, but this does nothing to mitigate past practices and does not materially improve the circumstances of persons who were held there for years and then released without ever being charged with anything, much less those who are still held without charge.
But how do we know which people at Gitmo are bad and which are just people in the wrong place at the wrong time? Too many people have ended up in these prisons just because someone else had an old grudge and decided they could get back at someone by claiming he was a terrorist.
It’s not a civilized country if you hold people indefinitely without charges and without outside inspections.
What crap. PoWs are treated relatively well by all western nations, and have been since the first Geneva accords. You think, for example, the German airmen shot down over England and imprisoned in humane PoW camps during WWII were only bombing military targets? Jeez, even the fucking Nazis treated British airmen with a measure of respect in PoW camps after they had been firebombing Dresden.
Whereas Guantanamo inmates were unproven offenders, lawyered out of even Geneva protections, and have been accorded a status that heretofore did not exist, subject to the determination of kangaroo courts.
Essentially, your hypocritical OP says “we might have acted like scumbags, but at least at that one location we did it in a vaguely non-inhumane manner.”
I don’t doubt that some are guilty, though many have been proven innocent. But the entire setup has been, and will be until disbanded, a fucking disgrace*.
Worse still, Guantanamo has become a rallying point for extremists the world over.
Epic fail.
*Acknowledging that the UK did its own mini-Guantanamo at Belmarsh Prison.
I usually choose to stay out of threads on the subject because everyone knows exactly what happens there but actually they have no idea. The ICRC inspects every inch of Gitmo and has for many years.
In fariness, though, you’re seeing a view of the facilities that the military screeners approved… the producers were denied access to some areas of the camp, had limits on who and where they could film, and weren’t allowed any direct contact with detainees. While compelling, it was far from an unbiased view.
Except when they’re not allowed in. And when they were allowed in, their report called the treatment of detainees “tantamount to torture,” "an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment " and “a flagrant violation of medical ethics.”
Oh, I’m sure they are being treated well NOW that all eyes are upon them. I doubt that it’s the same way with the people we’ve “renditioned” to a third party for torture, or the people being held in CIA prisons in “undisclosed locations”. And the fact is, we did torture and murder people.
There’s that whole “driven insane by torture” problem to deal with.
And what makes you think these people did ? And how these people are being treated now won’t raise the dead from their graves or un-torture our victims.
What part of for many years was unclear? Did you read the first cite? I have no more personal knowledge of what happened prior to 04 than you do. And don’t presume you know more than me because you read some articles. I know what the place was like from 04 on but there is no way I’d be able to convince you.
Whoa, slow down mister. You’re pinning a point of view on me that I wasn’t espousing. I’m just pointing out that neither the Red Cross nor the filmmakers ever had unfettered access to the camp. You said the Red Cross “inspects every inch of Gitmo and has for many years.” Every inch has never been true. And you seemed to imply that they gave their blessing to what they had seen. On the contrary, their reports (not just the one from 2004 that I referenced) have been remarkably scathing.
But let’s not get sidetracked… I think that you and I agree with the main thrust, here, which is that there is a stark contrast between what we saw in the documentary and the conditions we read about in the Red Cross reports. I’m not saying one is truthier than the other… just pointing out the difference.
Doesn’t it strike anyone as odd why a POW camp is a subject for National Geographic?
Emphasis added. Why is there not nearly as much outrage as to how, for example, Palestinians treat Israeli POWs?
And your [characterization omitted because obvious] post essentially says (phrased in my own words), “we might have treated them humanely, but because we didn’t Mirandize POWs captured on the field of battle and give them same rights as US citizens accused of a crime, we’re a fucking disgrace”.
And President Hope’n’changegov didn’t close Gitmo immediately. Hmm.
We didn’t treat them humanely, and we didn’t get most of them “from the field of battle”, nor have we treated them as POWs. We’ve been quite insistent about them not being POWs.
Rolleyes all you like; we DID torture and murder people.
I saw it too. I thought it was pretty good. Besides the fact that they are being kept indefinitely and were even kept beyond the reach of US law, I too though they were treaty fairly well. Super Max prison well but well all the same. I still don’t doubt the reports of psychological torture and physical abuse from other years though.
Because it wasn’t a Palestinian crowing about how “humane” his country is. If it were, I’m sure there would be a lot of things to say, and I would join you in saying them.
No, your former regime is a fucking disgrace because it invented a bullshit new status and finagled generally accepted rules of engagement in order to imprison potentially innocent people indefinitely. And if you can’t see how the rest of the world views this, given the other rhetoric that emanated from the prior government about democracy, then you have your head up your batty.
Actually, although the USA did not legally give them the Geneva protections, they *de facto *had those rights since 2002. The USA currently has given the detainees full rights under Article 3.
The “kangaroo courts” are rather odd for being kangaroo courts:rolleyes: as they have dismissed charges and found detainees not guilty and/or guilty of minor charges. They also did exist before, they are based upon the hearings given the WWII Nazi saboteurs landed in the USA. And, the hearings appear to be legal under the framework of the Geneva conventions. “All persons put on trial must be afforded essential judicial guarantees necessary to a fair trial, including the presumption of innocence, the right to be tried by an impartial and independent tribunal, the right to qualified legal counsel and the exclusion of any evidence obtained through torture or any other form of ill-treatment.” Note it does not include the right to a jury trial, a Tribunal is legit.
The ICRC in Guantanamo
The ICRC has been visiting detainees at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002. As at January 2009, there were 242 individuals from about 30 countries being held there.
Legal issues
The executive orders issued by President Obama reaffirmed that Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions is a minimum standard for the treatment of anyone detained by the United States in connection with an armed conflict.
The detention of persons captured or arrested within the context of the fight against terrorism must take place within a clear and appropriate legal framework. No person deprived of his freedom should be detained and interrogated outside an appropriate legal framework.
The detention of people in connection with an international armed conflict is governed by international humanitarian law. The people detained should be treated accordingly. In particular, the rules set out in the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions should be adhered to. (See The relevance of IHL in the context of terrorism.)
The detention of people in connection with a non-international armed conflict is governed by Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions, the rules of customary international humanitarian law, and applicable provisions of international human rights law and domestic law.
Persons arrested for offences unrelated to an armed conflict have rights enshrined in a number of other bodies of law, including international human rights law and domestic law.
The ICRC has adopted a case-by-case approach to determine whether situations arising from the fight against terrorism amount to armed conflict or not. It believes that the status of each individual detainee should be determined on the basis of the rules applicable to the situation in which the individual was detained.*
There’s quite a bit more on the cite. Including the statement that " The ICRC is concerned that any information it divulged about its findings in places of detention could easily be exploited for political purposes. It deplores the fact that confidential information conveyed to the US authorities has been published by the media on a number of occasions in recent years. The ICRC has never given its consent to the publication of such information.