All the more reason for due process and transparency.
The current admin has lied, as have the Pakistanis et al.
But these guys can say anything and who knows if it’s true? There are no checks and balances in Gitmo or Abu Graib etc.
It has always been in our best interests to take the high road–too bad we have an admin who can’t see beyond their own noses/profits/crony-ism.
Good point, nearly. We already have well defined legal processes to deal with them. It’s just that the US Administration are blatantly flouting them.
These people are, apparently, not criminals because the US has neither treated them as criminals using due legal process, nor charged them with any crimes.
And they’re not prisoners of war either, as they are not being treated as such.
So we can only conclude that they are illegally detained kidnapping victims. There are no other definitions, there is no other need for defining further legal processes.
I have no doubt that there are among the detainees at Gitmo some folks who should not be left free to walk the earth and slaughter at will. My complaint, and a complaint shared by many, is that there is no legal procedure being fairly applied to those detained there. The assumption being made is that those detained are guilty and there is no real legal recourse for the detainees to prove otherwise. The result is that it is quite likely that we have shepherds and farmers mixed in with terrorists.
Given the possibility that we have the innocent mixed in with the guilty, perhaps we don’t need to define further legal procedures as much as we need to apply some existing legal procedures with, as noted above, due process and transparency.
I remember reading early on in the invasion of Iraq that Americans learned it was customary to pay the families a settlement in the case of accidental deaths – very little money by U.S. standards – and that this coudl have defused much anger against the U.S.
I don’t know if this holds true in Afghanistan as well, but if it does, I could see various warlords in Afghanistan telling their men, “Go and pick up a couple of Abdullah’s cousins and give them to the Americans as Al-Qaeda fighters. They will give us a reward of $10,000 US each. Then I will give Abdullah $2,000 due to our misidentifying them as Al-Qaeda, and all will be all right with him, and we will be $8,000 ahead on the deal.”
When have denials ever stopped Reeder from pitting Bush? Thirteen paragraphs in the article are about claims by detainees that Pakistan sold them to the Americans. Reeder says, “Why would they lie?” Well, if they’re not lying, why isn’t he pitting the Pakistanis?
Because if they aren’t lying, then the Bush administration is using horribly flawed methods to gather “terrorists” who are being held without any access to protections granted to them by law. They would be throwing away money in a process almost sure to create more terrorists then they are capturing.
That’s just my guess. There’s kryptonite around somewhere so my “super Reeder minder reeding” powers are useless.
If you’re going to bash Reeder even when he does have a valid OP (like he does here), then the problem isn’t Reeder.
Actually, the article has all sorts of various claims, but mostly it’s about Arabs and/or Muslims being effectively sold to Americans. Some claim it was Pakistani intelligence, some claim it was tribesmen, some claim police, some were sold in Afghanistan, etc. The one consistent claim they are all making is that someone was paid to turn them in. That the payer is the one being pitted instead of the payee shouldn’t be all that surprising. I even explained that in my above response to you.
For the same reason I wouldn’t pit the poor people in my previous response to you. They’re not the root of the problem.
I rationalize in the way that I realize that the world is not a perfect place where justice is not always the way of the world. I feel for the prisioners, detainees, unjustifily imprisioned souls or however you want to desribe the incarcirated at Gitmo; but feel that they will overcome this injustic over time. At least they are not dead. 
They will live too tell thier stories over the next few decades and future administrations are going to have to deal with that. Right now, I think that detainment is the lesser of two options due to the nature of this “new” type of war. That could very easily prove wrong, but I think it is the option that the people in charge of our government is taking. I didn’t vote in favor of this administration, but believe that we have to at least respect there decisions until the next vote.
If you think it should be handeled differently, then vote differently next time.
Don’t you love how the board wingnuts translate “paid bounties” into “sold to?” Same people all the time. Pathetic.
Most of them, anyway.
Yet.
You know, this one bothered me enough that I think you owe Reeder a response to it, so I’ll address it again. Reeder can get overly exuberant in his disdain for Bush, but I’m not seeing it here in this thread. A wise poster once said:
Good words to live by, for all of us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Si Amigo
At least they are not dead.
Most of who, the prisiners at Gitmo? That’s who we are talking about isn’t it? How many of them have died while in captivity there? Who are the most that you are talking about?
We don’t know. There is little or no chance that we ever really will.
So they can’t cover up a desercation to the Quran but they can cover up actually killing people there? 
Come on, this is the US military we are talking about. :smack: They can’t even hide photos of naked prisinors from the press or pictures of Saddam in his underwear. :eek:
Time Magazine has a relevant article this week:
What’s going on at Gitmo?
Oh, I don’t know… Maybe because they are THE ENEMY?
Why in the world would you give the presumption of truth to the enemy over your own soldiers?
Did you know that al-Qaida specifically trains its people to lie about conditions of captivity? They are trying to win a propaganda war, you know.
Anything a detainee says should be viewed with suspicion. Investigated, sure. If the investigation turns up corroborating evidence, take action. But the question “Why would they lie?” is just horribly naive. It’s much, much worse than if I said, “George Bush says the war is going perfectly. Why would he lie?” I’m sure you’d react to a statement like that with guffaws.
Yes, “innocent until proven guilty” is such a quaint concept.
So does the Bush Administration. That’s what makes the whole exercise difficult, that we have lying weasels on both sides of the table. Tell me again about those massive stockpiles of Iraqi WMD, Unca’ George…
[QUOTE=rjung]
Yes, “innocent until proven guilty” is such a quaint concept.
QUOTE]
Yes, in a war it is a quaint concept. A naive concept A concept that can your troops killed.
A. You’re talking about a legal principle applied to defendants in a criminal trial. This does not apply to what they say outside to courthouse. Or am I compelled to believe that OJ was innocent, just because he says so?
B. There’s a war on, and these people are trying to win it, you frickin’ moron. Before you uncritically accept their accusations because they fit in with what you want to believe about the Bush administration or the military, you might consider what your credulous swallowing of everything they say does to the war effort.
Yeah, the Bush administration and al-Qaida are exactly the same. :rolleyes: