I see some support for prolonged detention. So I'll just post

[mmonk]

this as a reason to support evidence + charge = trial or you release the person in accordance with our laws and the history of western law:

A Blind Eye to Guantanamo?
Book Says White House Ignored CIA on Detainees' Innocence

-snip-

The classified CIA report described by Mayer was prepared in the summer of 2002 by a senior CIA analyst who was invited to the prison camp in Cuba to help Defense Department officials grapple with a major problem: They were gleaning very little useful information from the roughly 600 detainees in custody at the time. After a study involving dozens of detainees, the analyst came up with an answer: A large fraction of them "had no connection with terrorism whatsoever," Mayer writes, citing officials familiar with the report. Many were essentially bystanders who had been swept up in dragnets or turned over to the U.S. military by bounty hunters. Previous published reports have described the CIA analyst's visit but have not provided details of its findings.

-snip-

According to Mayer, the analyst estimated that a full third of the camp's detainees were there by mistake. When told of those findings, the top military commander at Guantanamo at the time, Major Gen. Michael Dunlavey, not only agreed with the assessment but suggested that an even higher percentage of detentions -- up to half -- were in error. Later, an academic study by Seton Hall University Law School concluded that 55 percent of detainees had never engaged in hostile acts against the United States, and only 8 percent had any association with al-Qaeda.

-snip-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102954.html

-snip-

Detained without Adequate Proof
55% – percent of detainees not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United
States
40% – percent of detainees who have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda
18% – percent of detainees who have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda or Taliban
8% – percent of detainees characterized as Al Qaeda fighters

-snip-

http://www.amnestyusa.org/america/FactSheet.pdf

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[ixion]

2. "prolonged detention", "enhanced interrogation" it all boils down to tyranny

pure and simple.

[mmonk]

3. That's the word.

[bertman]

4. We've gone from "preventive detention" under Bush to "prolonged detention" under Obama.

per Rachel Maddow.

This is SO WRONG. This is not what I voted for. I want my money back.

[mmonk]

5. The natural progression from one to another.

Of course it's all semantics for imprisoning people without charge.

[moodforaday]

20. I'm not sure that's right

It seems to me we may be mixing up two separate issues:

1. "prolonged detention" refers to the prisoners currently held in Gitmo (and Bagram, and God knows where else). Since the Cheney/MSM propaganda has done its work, it seems these people cannot just be released. After all, they are "the worst of the worst", and not even Supermax prison is safe enough to hold them.

2. "preventive detention" seems to be a different thing. As described in the NYT article yesterday and as discussed by Glenn Greenwald today, it first emerged at the WH talk between Obama and ACLU, and it apparently refers to capturing and detaining other people, who as of yet are walking free, and who the president may consider dangerous for whatrever reason.

This is at least how I understand it. The former refers to people already detained (because releasing them would be a huge embarassment, I guess). The latter refers to whoever Obama thinks needs to rot in prison without evidence or charge. Not even Bush usurped that kind of power.

[bertman]

22. And what is the mechanism for distinguishing between future "detainees" who receive

one or the other forms of detention? Who determines who is "too dangerous" to release and who is only moderately dangerous and can be tried and sentenced in a real court?

Since these detainees have mostly been "disappeared", what safeguards are there that anyone the government finds offensive can't be disappeared and held indefinitely without access to a lawyer, without notifying ANYONE, without any right to a speedy trial, in other words without any of the safeguards that our forebears fought and died for.

How is this any different from the King of England's right to designate ANYONE a traitor and imprison that person with no means of redress?

Please explain.

[moodforaday]

23. It's no different.

I think we're on the same side here. Both kinds of detention are a complete usurpation of totalitarian power (okay, I'm spewing Right Wing Talking Points(tm) again!) The only difference is in whether you're keeping your existing prisoners or bringing in new ones.

And there **may** be another difference too, a huge one actually: "preventive" detention may not apply only to "illegal conbatants" or only non-Americans. I still hope the whole concept of preventive detention is just a big misunderstanding, because it's entirely beyond belief even after 8 years of Bush and Cheney. We'll see.

[flyarm]

6. ahhh but but but they are too damn dangerous to bring to the USA for trial!!

The only reason they will not be brought to the USA for trial is because the previous administration would be held on war fucking crimes..and heaven forbid ..we can't have that now can we?????????:sarcasm:

There were also young children taken there ..now they must be close to their 20's..but some were approx 10-12 years old..such mean terrorists don't you know..

and tonight watching Nightline i see a story about children being abused in the Congo and our American journalists have the nerve to ask about the child abuse there..where were these fuckers asking the same of our own government and children being put in Gitmo????????..look the other way..every other country is the bad guy..don'tcha know!:grr:

I am so sick of this crap.

and don't even think it will change now..it won't!

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Devils advocate, mostly because we have seen it world wide

children soldiers can and at times are more dangerous than their adult counterparts. Something about brain development and fearlessness tied to the bio chemistry.

That said, I want to see what evidence and no, this is not the change we were promised

Old people, meet the new warden.

[geek tragedy]

7. Obama isn't proposing that they not be given a chance

to prove that they aren't members of Al Qaeda in court.

So, his prolonged detention would only apply to those he could show are AQ members.

Raise your hand if him depriving AQ members of their liberty is a real problem.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Without abiding by international law or trial, yes, yes it is

sometimes priciples matter

By the way... even within IL there is a way to do it... it is called POW camps... and yes, they are combatants in a war

Only problem is... how do you fight a war against a tactic? And when do you know when you've won?

[geek tragedy]

10. He doesn't claim to have the authority to detain all terrorists.

Just AQ and its allies.

There is no need to keep them in POW camps. They are not technically POW's, but rather 'unprivileged' or 'unlawful' combatants (according to the Red Cross). They're still entitled to humane treatment, i.e. no waterboarding or sleep deprivation, but they don't have full POW rights.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. No, but they have not received any of the protections under

common article III and that is the point

We have had other terrorist groups, truly depends on who you are fighting, without national recognition, receive those protections

See FFMLN, EZLN and other Latin American armies of liberation, and the 1980s

The same happened to certain groups in Africa and Asia

Bush made the mistake and Obama is continuing it. They should be put in an army brig, with full visitation rights by the ICRC, which they get NOW.

Oh and how do you know when you won a war against a tactic? That is one of the mistakes a general can make when going to war, the other two is to go to war without a plan and to go for a LONG war... Tsun Tzu knew his stuff. By the way, we lost the war already.

And complying with IL is technically very easy... but politically, we are a nation of scarrred chickens that allow some Fortuna Burana, Oh Fortuna, with some photos, scare us shitless and trump principles.

By the way the right to indefinite detention was one we revolted against back in 1776... in case you didn't know that.

[geek tragedy]

12. AQ is not an army of liberation.

How is Obama violating the rights of the detainees? Which provisions of international law?

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Common Article III of the Geneva Convention

and I am proof positive that you knew the FFMLN was considered a terrorist group, and that the same arguments you are making were made about them. Fortunately not by the Reagan Administration, ok they did, but not to the American public.

Look AQ are not boy scouts, but if this is a war... WE are signatories to the Geneva Convention. DOES NOT matter if AQ has not signed them.

And as is we lost the moral high ground a few years ago. The actions of the current administration are not going to help us... or for that matter US troops in present and future conflicts.

[geek tragedy]

34. The Geneva Conventions explicitly allow combatants to be detained

for the duration of hostilities.

There is zero ambiguity. To claim that the GC's require combatants to be released is simply false.

[Warren Stupidity]

36. The hostilities in aghanistan ended when we installed the Karzi government

and declared that Afghanistan was sovereign and not an occupied state. Same with the hostilities in Iraq. We can't declare conflicts over to avoid the GC regs on occupied territories and then assert a GC right to retain 'combatants' (few qualify) during an ongoing conflict. The GC is clear re POWs: conflict over, home they must go.

Did you have some other bullshit justification for holding people in torture centers indefinitely without charges?

[geek tragedy]

39. No one declared hostilities over in that area.

You're the one fabricating facts and speaking bullshit. You would have the US release guys in Afghanistan so that they could kill Americans the next day.

There's a reason why your wing of the party will never be trusted with certain issues.

[EFerrari]

40. Congress authorized Bush to use force in a Joint Resolution on 9/18/01.

[EFerrari]

42. So let me get this straight. You are claiming these people are POWs

but down thread, you claim hostilities were never declared. Which is it? It can't be both.

[mmonk]

16. Try the 8% (the amount so far determined to be members) then by showing they are

tied to the organization or something similar. Then we can release the ones who have taken up no arms against the US (around 55% of Gitmo detainees) and hold Taleban army members as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. There's really no need for us to remain a rogue nation for domestic political reasons.

[Senator]

13. So, it is they who have the burden of proof?

This is about us, not them.

--

[pleah]

15. K&R

[frogcycle]

17. just shoot them

I'm serious

We send Predators against houses in Pakistan, killing civilians in the process, because we think there is a bad guy in there. If we "know" these are bad guys with equal or better certainty, then shoot them. This handwringing is absurd.

If you don't want to line them up and shoot them, then turn them loose at gitmo and shoot them when they make threatening moves.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5701750&mesg_id=5701750\

edit to add link

[mike_c]

18. in a nation of laws, there are no "bad guys" until a jury convicts them....

Guantanamo is filled with stone innocents because no one has been proven guilty. Shoot the innocent? It's the American way!

[leftstreet]

25. Hey, that WOULD be cheaper than using drones

And it's all about profit to the Military Industrial Congressional Complex

[Hell Hath No Fury]

19. Yes, and it's disgusting, isn't it?

It's fun (not) watching "Dems" become the new Kool-Aid drinkers. :cry:

[WeDidIt]

21. I don't think Kalid Sheikh Muhammed should have been tortured.

Becasue he was tortured, he could never be convicted in a US Court.

I don't want him free to pull this shit again, though:



So fuck him. He can rot in prison forever and he doesn't need a trial.

[Bluebear]

26. 'he doesn't need a trial.' - that is unAmerican.

[WeDidIt]

27. So you want the fucker set free?

Fuck that bullshit.

He should rot in prison. I don't care if he gets a trial or not.

[Bluebear]

28. Yeah, wanting him on trial means I want him set free. Deep thinker, you.

[WeDidIt]

29. All evidence that could be used against him is tainted

ergo, no evidence can be presented in a court of law.

He cannot be convicted of anything because the evidence was obtained via torture, so as far as a court of law is concerned, there is no evidence he did anything.

So yes, you want the fucker set free.

[Bluebear]

30. LOL

[Forkboy]

31. Damn, simplistic much?

:wow:

[Warren Stupidity]

33. ergo we fucked that pooch.

We don't get to have our cake and eat it. We can't torture the crap out of somebody and then announce that we can't let them go 'cause we tortured the crap out of them so now we can't give them a trial. If all the evidence is tainted, and I agree that it most likely is, then oh well. KSM gets to go home.

[Raineyb]

35. Unfortunate but correct. n/t

[Garbo 2004]

38. Nope. 1996: KSM indicted in US court for Bojinka plot. He's never been tried for that.

"In 1996, he was indicted in New York for his alleged involvement in a Philippines-based plot to blow up 12 U.S.-bound commercial airliners in 48 hours. The indictment has no legal bearing right now, U.S. government officials said; the priority is to interrogate him." http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/03/02/mohammed.biog/

[Raineyb]

43. A 13 year old indictment?

I suspect if they didn't try him when they picked him up from the get gt, they're not going to try him on those charges now. As I see no evidence of a death being involved there's a likely chance the statute of limitations have run out. And even without the statute of limitations it's likely there's some contamination of evidence should KSM have said anything about it while our government was torturing him.

[Garbo 2004]

44. Yes, there was a death. The case & evidence didn't require KSM testimony. Pre-existing evidence.

Point is, KSM is not an example where existing law was/is insufficient for prosecution or where reliance on defendant's forced confession is required. The argument is false that KSM cannot be tried and must be set free unless legalized indefinite detention is allowed. (At last check, KSM was taking credit for and pleading guilty to everything before a military tribunal.)

As I recall, there's been enough documentary evidence collected over the years to try KSM in a court for various activities. So one way or another KSM is subject to legal proceedings, whether in a civilian or military court.

Also, the US wasn't the only country that had an outstanding arrest warrant against KSM. France issued a warrant for his arrest in 2002 in connection with a bombing.

[Garbo 2004]

37. Actually, it's not true that all evidence is tainted. And he was indicted in 1996 for Bojinka plot.

Once captured, the US gov't had no interest in prosecuting him for that case, despite the outstanding arrest warrant and the fact that his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, had already been tried and sentenced to life for his role in that plot. It's no doubt he would have been convicted had he been brought to trial in a case for which he had already been indicted based on evidence.

Point is, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could have been brought to trial for outstanding charges and the gov't chose not to. Setting him free or detaining him indefinitely without trial are not the only options.

[Warren Stupidity]

32. And you know he is guilty how?

[geek tragedy]

45. Good grief. The people who are more interested in protecting

the 'rights' of mass murdering terrorists than protecting their fellow citizens--I thought Karl Rove made you people up.

But you really exist.

Good thing Obama knows enough to ignore you and people who think like you.

[DKRC]

24. If we're going to hold people without trial indefinitely

then I nominate Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Libby, Roberts, & any other asshat who directed, sanctioned, condoned, implemented, or excused the last 8 years & all of their horrendous actions.

:nuke:

[mmonk]

41. Sounds good to me. Nobody seems to want to prosecute them.

I can't name another country that wants them.

[spanone]

46. 'selective justice'