RE: Is this seriously worth it? Guantanmo inmate never charged with a crime, dies after 11 years in US custody
September 25, 2012 at 8:44 am
(This post was last modified: September 25, 2012 at 8:53 am by Reforged.)
(September 25, 2012 at 2:54 am)Tino Wrote:(September 24, 2012 at 9:29 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote: You obviously started typing your reply before I altered my response. Theres a link attached, read it.
If I gave you a study, paid for by the US Government, that showed there's been no torture at Guantanamo, would you accept it as valid? I doubt it. Likewise, since the study you cited was paid for by the legal representatives of the Guantanamo detainees who allege torture, I don't consider it to be an independent study.
(September 24, 2012 at 9:29 pm)RaphielDrake Wrote: If you don't think that in combination with the video evidence of how they attempt to extract false confessions while ignoring obvious abuse of a Canadian citizen, the suspicious circumstances surrounding the suicide, the signs evident in almost all prisoners of severe physical abuse, the detaining without evidence, charge or trial and how desperately they try to stop anyone inspecting their prisoners or witnessing anything from inside the place then I'm really not sure what to say to you.
In a state where water-boarding is referred to as a "advanced interrogation technique" and therefore fair game I really have no idea how you can be so shocked by this.
Throwing a study paid for by the alleged victims on top of the Aljazeera-disclaimed article and the un-sourced video about another prisoner doesn't make the case any more compelling. But if you're trying to make this a thread about whether there has ever been EITs used at Guantanamo, don't bother because the US Government has already identified detainees who were waterboarded.
However, back on the OP, we (you, me, everyone else posting here) don't know what this guy did or did not do, we don't know what the US Govt knows about his actions, we don't know about his treatment. In the absence of information many people will assume the worst, and claim that the handling doesn't live up to the standards used with a US citizen in a US court of law. I consider this to be a prisoner of war situation, I don't assume the worst, and I don't think giving the detainees the legal rights of a US citizen in a US court of law is called for.
Who else is going to pay for it? You? We have evidence of torture by our own troops where there was a higher risk of them being found out and what, you think they're not doing the same at the bay where pretty much no-one is allowed to go into? You can't even check if the prisoners are ok, you're not allowed to get so much as a glimpse of their condition. Why exactly do you think that is?
If every lawyer were capable of claiming torture they'd all do it, the reason alot of these lawyers with clients at the bay do is because they have evidence. The bay is not a candy land, its a place they send people to break a confession out of.
Fuck the guys actions, we don't have the right to torture people innocent or not. We're not terrorists. Just because they're not citizens doesn't give us the right to do that. Every-time a confession is forced out of someone, everytime we detain without charges, everytime we turn a blind eye to what is right infront of us we are diminishing what it means to be a citizen and to be human.
Even if you ignore the evidence right infront of you we know for a fact they use waterboarding there.
The bay is perfect example of how we have compromised judicial process, our societies ethics and basic morality for a short cut to what appears to be desperate confessions that may or may not be true.
(September 25, 2012 at 2:15 am)CliveStaples Wrote: It seems like there might be a paradigm mismatch here. Aren't the detainees at Guantanamo being held as enemy combatants? Why would they be charged as anything? Aren't they essentially prisoners of war--even if some might not meet the criteria for Geneva protections?You know its funny, the government claimed that we were going to war to protect human rights, the "american way".
Tell, me how does simulated drowning follow either of those? Or the broken bones and injuries discovered on the inmates?
We're not terrorists, we shouldn't be treating our prisoners like we are or we've already lost the only thing worth fighting for.
If you use them not being citizens as an excuse to ignore them being human then who are you to presume any morality? You've already shed it for technicalities.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange aeons even death may die."
- Abdul Alhazred.
- Abdul Alhazred.