Guantanamo Bay inmates 'tortured'

[dotcoma]

BBC News Treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay constitutes torture in some cases and violates international law, a leaked UN draft report says. The document, seen by the Los Angeles Times, suggests that investigators will recommend the prison camp is shut down. It also questions the legal status of the camp and the classification of detainees as enemy combatants. The US State Department has criticised the draft report as "hearsay". 'Force-fed' The Los Angeles Times published the draft report in its paper on Monday and spoke to one of the authors, the UN special raporteur on torture, Manfred Novak. "We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government. There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture," Mr Nowak told the LA Times.

wow :eek:

[PatrickHenry]

Even after all the allegations and torture, I still don't think most of the detainees were terrorists going in. Coming out is another story. If I was held without charges and tortured for three or four years, I would probably be lookin' to get me some revenge...

[Scribbler1]

This can't be right. George Bush plainly said, "we do not torture." Must be lefty spin.

[RickSp]

This is a surprise? Yesterday in the NY Times there was an account of the investigation of the beating to death of two apparently innocent Afghan men by US personnel at the prison at Bagram. The investigation is collapsing. The officers responsible will in all likelihood get away with murder and the generals and politicians who demanded "aggressive interrogations" from Rumsfeld and Bush on down, will never be called to account.

Years After 2 Afghans Died, Abuse Case Falters

The two Afghans were found dead within days of each other, hanging by their shackled wrists in isolation cells at the prison in Bagram, north of Kabul. An Army investigation showed they were treated harshly by interrogators, deprived of sleep for days, and struck so often in the legs by guards that a coroner compared the injuries to being run over by a bus. But more than a year after the Army began a major push to prosecute those responsible for the abuse of the two men and several other prisoners at Bagram, that effort has faltered badly.

The one important fact regarding the new UN report is that it further documents that the Bush administration is breaking international law and lying about it. The American people may be denial but the rest of the world seems to know the truth.

[PatrickHenry]

Many similar cases exist in the domestic prisons of assault and even murder of prisoners who are considered troublesome. It is rare that anyone is held accountable.

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

Guantanamo will undoubtedly haunt the US and the rest of the West unless a sensible strategy is developed very soon.

Unless of course the public accounting systems of the US government is willing to continue funding the camp until all the inmates have perished.

Perhaps the next round of hurricanes will eliminate the problem!

Hopefully a change of guards to a UN group together with an International Court populated with judges of many representative nationalities. Together with some extremely radical counselling of those who’ve been detained prior to either sentencing or release.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Arawn-ap-Hywel Guantanamo will undoubtedly haunt the US and the rest of the West unless a sensible strategy is developed very soon.

No strategy can erase the past and what was done at Gitmo is done. The haunting will surface any time someone claims we have the "moral high ground" in this sort of thing and someone says "but what about Guantanamo?" The saints have become the same as the sinners and can never again claim to be saints, ever.

[Apeman81]

"The document, seen by the Los Angeles Times,"

Yeah, well, when the U.N. stands up and makes the claim openly, I'll pay mild attention. Until then, the word of the L.A. Times means nothing.

[rmnunez]

Bush wouldn't be lying if he said "the US doesn't torture" after they stopped doing this. The dead Afghans turned up at least a year ago, when did Bush give his assurances?

[RickSp]

Quote by: rmnunez Bush wouldn't be lying if he said "the US doesn't torture" after they stopped doing this. The dead Afghans turned up at least a year ago, when did Bush give his assurances?

Guess what? They haven't have stopped. The Afghans beaten to death died two years ago but what the UN is reporting on is going on daily.

And Ape, you would deny wrong doing by the Bush adminstration regardless of the evidence. Equal parts predictable and shameful, but that is your problem.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: rmnunez Bush wouldn't be lying if he said "the US doesn't torture" after they stopped doing this. The dead Afghans turned up at least a year ago, when did Bush give his assurances?

Bush isn't smart enough to pull a linguistic technicality like that. What he said and meant was this is not done by us. Not today or last week, but not at all. He lied, plain and simple.

[Allas]

The west has a huge definition problem at the moment. The concept of "torture" has been twisted and multilated to the point it isnt really torture anymore. The media's frequent use of the word "torture" in association with words such as "loud music", "limited access to toilets" and "uncomfortable seating position" has changed the definition of the word - festival goers, for example, subject themselves to these 3 willingly.
People now associate the traditional horrors of torture with the modern/media's definition of "torture" - a definition that has without a doubt been conjured to produce high ratings and "good" TV.

The crime, if any, is that innocent people are being locked up - not that terrorists, the guilty ones, are being subjected to this "torture".

[rmnunez]

This apparent obsession from the critical left over captive suspects disturbs me.

Critics of intervention in Iraq say intervention is illegal because it was without Security Council endorsement or not authorized under the Charter. Bush opponents also tell us he lied to get Congressional authorization and they demand to see the evidence of WMDs in Iraq. Likewise, those who are most critical of the current engagements voice strong objections to how captives in the conflict have been handled and they refer to a long list of legal issues; international obligations under established rules and conventions for war, absence of formal charges upon alleged suspects of dubious status in lengthy indefinite detentions, absence of assistance by counsel, coerced and interested confessions, evidentiary shortcommings, lack of adequate probable cause and every possible due process transgression –are all on the list of typical critical lefty grievances. Similarily, we find the same people up in arms over this PATRIOT Act. Privacy concerns and their legal safeguarding are an utmost concern particularly to them. Not because their private lives may be shaded with illegality, rather than because its the beginning of some improbable slippery slope leading to fascist corporate totalitarianism.

The left has a poor track record on respect for the law. Democrats, Liberals, Socialists, Marxists and Communists in all their permutations, revolutionaries, insurgents, rebels and assorted misfits -have always, upon assumption of adequate control, moved first to abrogate any laws that stand in the way of their goals. The tools of the left are law-breaking; strikes, demonstrations, molotov cocktails and looting.

Rebus sic stantibus is a fundamental principle in international law excusing obligations under treaty based on a fundamental change in circumstance, the argument is reflected in legal theory everywhere and is more or less of equitable application in remedies. The left typically makes this claim once they have enough control. The fundamental change is their revolutionary arrival. This change excuses, in the mind of most lefties, breach of international obligations. Usually we see this in third world countries when the new ruler engages in expropriations and nationalizations.

The critical left, a huge amorphous group of globalophobic, ecofreaky, alternate-styled, knee-jerking antiyankees -dreams of revolution (on the heels of a mythical great general strike on May first which heralds the world proletarian revolution). They see their idealized revolutionary leader seizing power and literally sweeping away all these obsolete laws to impose a new and more just order. Why are these sort of people concerned over due process?

[Scribbler1]

Christ! Why not call the left child molesters while you're at it? You call them almost everything else.

[rmnunez]

A bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea. The basic element of a leftish perspective is revolution and this is inescapably incompatible with respect for law.

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: rmnunez A bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea. The basic element of a leftish perspective is revolution and this is inescapably incompatible with respect for law.

While the crimes of the right are more in the area of multimillion dollar fraud, influence peddling and assassination of "enemies!"

[RickSp]

And any one who does not agree with the bellicose attorney south of the border is lumped into the "critical left" which apparently includes "globalophobic, ecofreaky, alternate-styled, knee-jerking antiyankees -dreams of revolution". LOL.

This isn't discussion. This is rather childish name calling. I haven't noticed those of us who are opposed to the war, many of whom are emphatically not leftist, calling the cheerleaders for war and torture to be Nazis, child murderers, etc, etc., etc.

[Chris the Chees]

Quote by: rmnunez A bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea. The basic element of a leftish perspective is revolution and this is inescapably incompatible with respect for law.

Ironically the US was born of revolution.

[rmnunez]

We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government. There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture," (said Mr Nowak).

A couple of points; the UN's conclusions were reached, and not easily, after doubly careful consideration. The UN's investigation found that some practices violate pertinent international conventions.

I haven't read the LA Times' version of the leaked UN report, will wait for the inestimable body to deliver its conclusions officially. I don't think it is safe to conclude that based on the cited text above, it has been shown the US violates international law in its treatment of suspected terrorists. In some cases this is the conclusion, but only after "very, very" careful consideration.

[Allas]

Oh boohoo.

There is not a single country on the planet that has not violated international law in war time. If that isnt a clear and present indication that these law simply arent abideable in war time.

Lets face it. These laws are nothing more than a manifestation of our desire to be morally pure and superior - but they arent realistic.