Guantanamo inmates win right to see evidence

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Arawn-ap-Hywel GBA so you agree with internment?

I think you do the internment or send them back to where they were caught in Iraq where they would be sentenced and killed soon by Iraqi courts.
Which do you prefer, because this has nothing to do with a USA Federal or State policing issue.

I think the Iraqi government would have executed these folks long ago if they ahd them.

[rmnunez]

The fate of the prisoners in their own countries is uncertain. Released suspects are sometimes briefly detained and summarily released, other times they seem to have disappeared in the hands of local military authorities. It has to do with the relationship between the US and the recipient as well as the evidence of the suspect's terrorism.

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I think you do the internment or send them back to where they were caught in Iraq where they would be sentenced and killed soon by Iraqi courts. Which do you prefer, because this has nothing to do with a USA Federal or State policing issue. I think the Iraqi government would have executed these folks long ago if they ahd them.

Given the majority where captured in Afghanistan I doubt the Iraq's would appreciate them all.

So you consider internment as good solution, even if it failed when the english used it in NI. The IRA ended up with many more recruits and supposedly increased funding from USA sympathisers.

[shawmutt]

Thank goodness the madness is coming to a close.

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I think they were mostly isolated and tied up since they were trying to kill American soldiers with great enthusiasm.

From cjrarchives.org: After two months of sifting the information, Hegland had her answer. “The data was really clear,” she says. “It was mind-boggling.” It showed that most of the detainees hadn’t been caught “on the battlefield” but rather mostly in Pakistan; fewer than half were accused of fighting against the U.S., and there was scant evidence to confirm that they were even combatants.In other words, most of the detainees probably were entirely innocent. Just a few days after Hegland published a three-part series on her findings in early February, a law professor at Seton Hall University, Mark Denbeaux, and his son, Joshua Denbeaux, who together have represented Guantanamo detainees, published a study that also used the Defense Department’s own data, though a somewhat different set. After stripping out the prisoners’ names, along with the supporting memos and transcripts, the Pentagon had publicly released the summary of evidence against every Guantanamo prisoner. Using that larger but less detailed data set, the Denbeaux’s findings echoed Hegland’s: Only 8 percent of detainees at Guantanamo were labeled by the Defense Department as “al Qaeda fighters,” they found, and just 11 percent had been captured “on the battlefield” by coalition forces.

Here is an interview with two of the detainees from This American Life, the show was called "Habeas Schmabeas"--a good listen if you have an hour to spare: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/.../310_bonus.mp3

[rmnunez]

So you consider internment as good solution, even if it failed when the english used it in NI. The IRA ended up with many more recruits and supposedly increased funding from USA sympathisers.

Maybe they figured pictures of women amusing themselves as they sexually humiliated and torturing nude terrorist captives would do the trick?

In other words, most of the detainees probably were entirely innocent.

This is a mathematically unwarranted conclusion based on the premises profered. It is not sensible to conclude that because only 8% were documented Al Qaeders, 92% must not be terrorists at all (its an amorphous entity and documentation must be difficult, people could be concealing their identity and role). If only 11% were actually caught by Coalitioneers on the battlefield, does this mean 89% never saw a battlefield or were in combat? How many were caught on the battlefield by other than Coalitioneers? Would Northen Alliance captures be necessarily discounted regardless of where made? Where is this "battlefield", were any captives seized in its perifery, entering or leaving. Terrorists have intelligence, isn't it likely the more dangeous among them wouldn't be anywhere near a battlefield since they'd flee knowing in advance of the enemy's movements? Pakistan shares a rather sinuous and poorly market border with Afghanistan through very inhospitable and rather inaccesible terrain, would location on one side or the other in the context of the times and taking into account OBL is holed up in Himalayan foothills in the vicinity, make that much of a difference? Is it safe to presume innocence in foreigners from about 50 different countries, many with national identification documents from more than one government, who are found armed near the then largest US military intervention? Given that the US government had previously announced it sought to intervene due to the presence of foreign terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, isn't it reasonable to suspect a foreign non-Coalitioneer found with a weapon anywhere near that deployment would be a terrorist? When were the suspects caught? If it was after the first Coalitioneers deployed there, its likely the terrorist camps had been lifted and its trainees dispersed, fled to safer enclaves (as OBL did) -couldn't some of these have been caught in Pakistan trying to make arangements to get to wherever they've holed up?

Admittedly a substantial number of detainees were apparently not really terrorists, I'd estimate about 300 of them, but most of these guys were released long ago. They can gripe, they were held too long, blame it on probblems with interpreters and military insensitivity. There is enough probable cause to sustain a suspicion of terrorism on at least as many more. Foreign nationality alone is suspicious enough in either Afghanistan or Pakistan and we go from there; military age, multiple nationality, international travel, possession of a firearm... None of these in itself would sustain a claim the suspect was a terrorist, but its enough to set them aside and pass them along for the intelligence folks to figure it out.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Arawn-ap-Hywel Given the majority where captured in Afghanistan I doubt the Iraq's would appreciate them all. So you consider internment as good solution, even if it failed when the english used it in NI. The IRA ended up with many more recruits and supposedly increased funding from USA sympathisers.

Afghanistan would give them a fair trial in the morning and hang or shoot them by noon.
If theses lawyers keep pushing too hard, they'll get sent back to die.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: shawmutt Thank goodness the madness is coming to a close. Here is an interview with two of the detainees from This American Life, the show was called "Habeas Schmabeas"--a good listen if you have an hour to spare: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/.../310_bonus.mp3

Still does not become an American civil court action, it is still a military issue and they will see justice in Afghanistan and Iraq way before they see an American court.

[rmnunez]

they will see justice in Afghanistan and Iraq way before they see an American court.

Dire prospects for a terrorist suspect either way.