Gitmo judge: No 'coercive' questioning evidence

Gitmo judge: No 'coercive' questioning evidence

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The judge in the first American war crimes trial since World War II barred evidence on Monday that interrogators obtained from Osama bin Laden's driver following his capture in Afghanistan.

It seems that there is a sense of justice and a belief in fair trial left in some corners of America. Perhaps, there's hope.

However, even if Salim Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, can't be tried because all the evidence from him was gained through either his or other "witnesses" torture, Bush can still keep him in solitary confinement and torture him for the rest of his life by deeming him an "enemy combatant."

And, oh by the way, he can also detain for life and torture every person--including Americans--reading this post. See Dictatorial Powers Upheld.

[Thanatos]

Really? I thought waterboarding produced reliable information, and that furthermore we weren't actually torturing anybody. I shall refuse to accept this as valid because I don't like its implications while at the same time defending it if it was true. Really, George Bush is a trustworthy guy. If hypothetically he did have people tortured then of course it would be for the right reasons and carried out with a lot of wisdom.

Quote by: Thanatos If hypothetically [George Bush] did have people tortured then of course it would be for the right reasons and carried out with a lot of wisdom.

Absolutely.

[kharvel]

Quote by: sdbest And, oh by the way, he can also detain for life and torture every person--including Americans--reading this post. See Dictatorial Powers Upheld.

I thought the Supreme Court made in a recent ruling that the Prez had to either give the enemy combatants a fair trial or label them as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. So the dictatorial powers were taken away by the Supreme Court. Did I miss something?

[xyzer]

We can have it both ways? Either the detainees fall under the Geneva Convention as enemy soldiers and can be detained for the duration of the hostilities, or they can be tried as civil law violators who have conspired to destroy the citizens and or property of a sovereign nation?
But more importantly the GTMO people were held and interrogated for intelligence information as to what else their terrorist cells planned for the world? I haven't seen any evidence yet that they were tortured? Thats a smoke screen for antiwar sentiment.

The Supreme Court seems to prefer the latter reason. Though their recent decision just opened up new barriers to justice. If these enemy are to be tried as citizens under federal law do they receive the right to Habeas Corpus and release under bond? If we reach that level if soldiers on the battlefield capture an enemy combatant he ceases to be an enemy and becomes a civil law breaker subject to our version of 'due process'? He then must be tried for a crime or let go and can even ask for bail while trial is pending? Or is that while his fellow enemy soldiers are still trying to destoy us? What happened to intelligence gathering, an adjunct to terrorist war?

Quote by: xyzer I haven't seen any evidence yet that they were tortured? Thats a smoke screen for antiwar sentiment.

Were you not looking for reports of torture? They are widespread.

See FBI files detail Guantánamo torture tactics and US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo; in Iraq, Afghanistan - UN.

Because you personally haven't seen any evidence doesn't mean evidence does not exist. You just have to use Google from time to time. So much for the "smoke screen for antiwar sentiment."

[xyzer]

What a bunch of crap! Chained, allowed to get cold and shiver,, forbidden from reading his Kuran, kicked or hit when he hit or spat on a guard, not allowed to go potty, get disrupted while they were praying, allowed to observe an interrogator squat over the Kuran? Are you serious? Sounds like you expect our guards and interrogators to be 'Wusses' and plead with the enemy? If such a rat spat on me I'd bust him in the chops too and not gently.

None of this reaches the level of torture. Which is a very general term. If an interrogator inflicts grevious bodily harm on, maims or kills an enemy that might in my book, be considered torture. Show us the scars and wounds on these prisoners sdbest!?
What your reading is the lies of attorneys and inflation of truth by the antiwar wimps!

And don''t give us the psychological scars bit. Ask your fellow Americans(men, women and children) trapped in the aircraft and burning buildings of 9-11, about torture and what it felt like to fry or be buried beneath tons of falling debries or ride an aircraft into a crash? How do you think they felt in their last few moments? Obviously you cant, because they(in all innocence) paid the final price after their periods of torture!!!!
Thats the comparitive evidence I'm interested in . Not reports sdbest, actual evidence?

This is war, and war is defined as attempting to kill or destroy an enemy. Even treating them roughly to get some information out of them that may prevent further killing..
There is also evidence that these GTMO detainees were not cooperative, spat at, hit or otherwise resisted any attempts to answer questions about enemy intentions towards our innocent civilians. Along with evidence of good treatment(most gained weight) comfortable conditions and the like.

This issue is another cruel joke perpetrated by agenda driven wonks for gullible believers and cry babies!















but you

Your woeful lack of knowledge is showing when you say of the treatment of prisoners that "None of this reaches the level of torture" and "Which is a very general term". Both statements are false. Torture is not a general term. It is, in this context, a legal one. Under the legal term of torture, the prisoners at Guantanamo have been and continue to be tortured, as the evidence of independent investigators including the FBI shows.

As well, the evidence shows that at a minimum as many as a third of the detainees at Guantanamo were imprisoned by mistake [Source].

If ever there was "crap" it is your uninformed statements. Perhaps in the future--and this is just a suggestion--you might want to start with fact rather than the uninformed, silly opinions which you confuse with reality.

















but you[/quote]

[xyzer]

Here we go again? sdbest

Your woeful lack of knowledge is showing when you say of the treatment of prisoners that "None of this reaches the level of torture" and "Which is a very general term".

Whose lack of knowledge?

You cite an article in Forbes which references a report from...anonymous sources...? I think that confirms my post that you are an agenda driven pacifist looking frantically to rationalize your rant! I don't think what defense attorneys say if factual? More like agenda driven rot! Do you think they might be the anonymous sources? Nor is the sensation seeking press to be trusted, particularly when they cite anonymous sources?
Besides your feeble attempt at justification doesn't mention what the definition of torture is? And you don't seem to be able to produce any evidence of it besides the pitiful pleadings of the same pacifists and antiwar people you associate with? Show me the scars and wounds!

Your reference to mistaken incarceration also reflects your agenda. This is war(which you Canadians aren't involved in) In a war an attempt to intercept enemy communication and penetrate an enemies intentions is vital! As is an attempt to either kill or silence the enemy?

I cant speak to all the cases of individuals, and I'm sure some are less of a threat than others, but how, oh wise one, do we find out which is which? Send them back to some country and wash our hands of the problem??

Quote by: xyzer I cant speak to all the cases of individuals,

Then you lose the right--and competency--to speak to the general issue. If you're unfamiliar--willfully it would appear--with some of the specifics, at least, you're more driven by propaganda and blindness than reality.

As for the putative "war". There is no war. The "War on Terror" is a propaganda construct and political device to both frighten and enslave American voters. In that regard, it's worked wonderfully. Most American values have been either compromised or jettisoned in the fake conflict.

American citizens are at a greater threat of dying in a bathtub than from a terrorist attack. That you fail to understand this, demonstrates the quality--or lack there of--of your rants.

By the way, what exactly is wrong with being a "pacifist", all truly good soldiers are. Is being a "war monger" preferable. If so, why?

Quote by: xyzer You cite an article in Forbes...

Just a thought--if you feel moved to cite any references at all to support the points in your rantings, don't hold yourself back.

[xyzer]

HMM sdbest? Here is a list of some terrorist organizations that existed in 1999

Foreign Terrorist Organizations as of October 8, 1999 Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) Armed Islamic Group (GIA) Aum Shinriykyo Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement) Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM) Hizballah (Party of God) Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group, IG) Japanese Red Army (JRA) al-Jihad Kach Kahane Chai Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO, NCR, and many others) National Liberation Army (ELN) Palestine Islamic Jihad-Shaqaqi Faction (PIJ) Palestine Liberation Front-Abu Abbas Faction (PLF) Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) al-Qa'ida Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17 November) Revolutionary People's Liberation Army/Front (DHKP/C) Revolutionary People's Struggle (ELA) Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso, SL) Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA)

Since you ask, this is contained in an early study of internationalterrorism
http://http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html
Since then and the 9/11 attacks many changes have b een made to enhance the security of the USA and aggressively go after terrorist organizations and their sponsors and funders! Seeking information is an important one!
The persons who studied the issue early on were convinced that an aggressive approach to addressing the threat was needed! Statements like this,

Eliminate Barriers to Aggressive Collection of Information on Terrorists

appear throughout the treatise!

Don't try to peddle the nonsense that I've lost any right to address the issue because I admit that there are indiviual levels of guilt and or involvement at Gtmo. We have to find that out dont we..or can we just assume it and break out the white feathers?

Then you lose the right--and competency--to speak to the general issue. If you're unfamiliar--willfully it would appear--with some of the specifics, at least, you're more driven by propaganda and blindness than reality.

That dog wont hunt!

We are after information not scalps! Putatative war my ankle! How about the thousands killed in terrorist attacks over the past quarter century? How about the innocent children blown up routinely in Iraq?

Speaking of scalps and pacifists...there was a Quaker majority in Pennsylvania(Around the seat of colonial government and involved in it in Philadelphia?) many years back that were pacifists. They blocked any attempts to call out the guard and go after the maurauding Indians raiding an killing the citizens of western Pennsylvania. Were they right? Should they have excused failing to come to the aid of their fellow americans saying why more people die in their bathtubs than the Indians are killing? Or how about another juvenile comparison...Lets don't worry about drunk driving... more people die of natural causes than drunk drivers kill?

I'm still waiting for the physical evidence of torture at Gtmo..Wounds, scars missing limbs, etc? I've been cold, overheated, scared wounded and shot at in war and outside of a scar it hasn't driven me to madness of quivering fear?
Are you some sort of anonymous court jester? Jesters don't respond with facts, they just act, prance, dance and spout inanities!

Quote by: xyzer I'm still waiting for the physical evidence of torture at Gtmo..Wounds, scars missing limbs, etc? I've been cold, overheated, scared wounded and shot at in war and outside of a scar it hasn't driven me to madness of quivering fear?

I see. You have your own personal definition of torture which trumps that of the international community and, prior to Bush et al, U.S. law. How convenient for you to be the standard by which all morality will be judged.

So torture in your view means such things as being drawn and quartered, the rack, fingernails being pulled out. Anything less--as we saw in Abu Ghraib--doesn't qualify in your morality.

How do you account for the fact that most responsible authorities don't agree with you?

Also, it would seem that if US interrogators keep their most egregious acts secret, or "disappear" people, or destroy the evidence (as has happened), then torture is not taking place. Ignorance must be so blissful in your moral world.

[Matt W]

Let's drop the personal comments, shall we?

DO NOT RESPOND IN THIS THREAD TO THE PRECEDING MESSAGE. Please contact a member of the staff privately if you have any questions.

[xyzer]

Did I say this sdbest?

So torture in your view means such things as being drawn and quartered, the rack, fingernails being pulled out. Anything less--as we saw in Abu Ghraib--doesn't qualify in your morality.what did you see that qualified? I said the trivial nonsense your anonymous sources said was torture..wasn't How do you account for the fact that most responsible authorities don't agree with you? What responsible authorities? Those requesting anonymity? Also, it would seem that if US interrogators keep their most egregious acts secret, or "disappear" people, or destroy the evidence (as has happened), then torture is not taking place. Ignorance must be so blissful in your moral world.how can it be secret info if you and the world know about it?

Cite some evidence that evidence was destroyed? What does disappear people mean? Was all this so secret that anonymous sources couldn't have had access to it?

[Marilyn Monroe]

Quote by: sdbest As well, the evidence shows that at a minimum as many as a third of the detainees at Guantanamo were imprisoned by mistake [Source].

Mistake or alleged mistake? Have they been tried, or reviewed? The President determined they were enemy combatants. This article is about Jane Mayer's book. The book states that a spokeswoman for Cheney had no comment. She probably had no comment because it's against the law to comment. The info she retrieved was supposedly a CIA classified report. How did Jane Mayer get classified information? I didn't read the whole article, but it seemed to be pushing Mayer's book.


















but you[/quote][/quote]

Quote by: xyzer Did I say this sdbest? Cite some evidence that evidence was destroyed? What does disappear people mean? Was all this so secret that anonymous sources couldn't have had access to it?

I'm confident that whatever reference or source I might provide you, you will dismiss as unreliable. Therefore, I suggest you personally Google "ghost detainee", "interrogation videotapes destroyed", and "US murders detainees" and decide for yourself whether or not my allegations are supported.

And, just to get you started, see U.S.Detainees Disappeared into Secret Prisons: Illegal under Domestic and International Law.

[Dadoo]

Oh yes, and how easily dictators can move in and set up. Now, even your right to criticize a certain government falls under subversion and may be demarcated as the act of an "enemy combatant". To write or speak out against this regime's policy, is to support and promote terrorism. The world over, including our very citizens now have a reason to be terrified of Uncle Sam.

May we now redefine "terrorism", so that the whole picture may be revealed?

[xyzer]

Your very first reference sdbest is a human rights organization. A blog with an Internet address? It might and probably is one person telling us how it should be?

It does a marvelous job of pointing out all the laws and conventions about prisoner treatment under various international standards but doesn't ever specifically define torture nor does it offer proof that any such acts occured at Gtmo or anywhere else? The narrative only relates what someone alleges or infers?

Isn't that what I said? There hasn't been one iota of proof except by the invented torture standards and definitions of a few agenda driven organizations(or bloggers) who thrive on conspiracy theories. Unproven assertions are the guide for multitudes of believers who are shown no proof, just whacko assertions? How crazy it sounds for someone to say not letting a detainee go potty when he felt like it, is torture? Allowing a murders to get so cold he starts to shiver?In your dreams...
I asked once and will again, where is your proof? Where are the scars, wounds, missing limbs,that might be evidence of physical mistreatment? And where are the actual witnesses?

To me you let your marxist sentiments out of the bag with this statement?

There is no war. The "War on Terror" is a propaganda construct and political device to both frighten and enslave American voters. In that regard, it's worked wonderfully. Most American values have been either compromised or jettisoned in the fake conflict

Luckily millions of us who are voters in the USA believe in the facts that there is a international war against terrorism(and that the american value,the rule of law was followed) and we are not troubled by the few international communists who thrive on damning the capitalistic, democratic governments that we thrive under and support. Your fellow travelers were driven out of sensible governments years ago and still cant rest?

Quote by: xyzer There hasn't been one iota of proof except by the invented torture standards and definitions of a few agenda driven organizations(or bloggers) who thrive on conspiracy theories. Unproven assertions are the guide for multitudes of believers who are shown no proof, just whacko assertions?

xyzer, I'm going to try this one more time. See FBI files detail Guantánamo torture tactics and Murder of detainees!.

If the FBI and the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell are not reliable enough references for you nothing will be, and no further words between us will be of any value.

By the way you may want to review the use of the question mark as punctuation. And you may want to review the spelling of Marxist; it's capitalized.

Given that you haven't mastered the proper use of the question mark, it's not surprising you wouldn't recognize a valid answer when you read one.