Geneva Convention

[cantdog]

I still have no response.

And you won't get one, from me. So sad. Read your fuckin newspaper.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I know you will say charges are one thing and convictions another, etc. etc.

So here is the story of the outcome for Sgt Graner:

<RR mode on>
I'll torture every Muslim on Earth until we find the terrorists, and if torture makes them all terrorists then they all deserve to die!

As long as I don't have to serve, that is......
<RR mode off>

 

[matriarch]

Many politicians in the UK (and also private citizens) are already concerned that the US administration has gone beyond the bounds of what is acceptable at Guantanamo and with Extraordinary Rendition.

Some of those people held at Gitmo and under Extraordinary Rendition were fighting in Afghanistan in a normal war situation, not as terrorists/suicide bombers but as soldiers fighting for the then government of Afghanistan. Why then should they be treated as terrorists?

Even if terrorists are caught, should they be treated other than as criminals or prisoners of war? The US (and UK) supported resistance fighters in Occupied Europe during WWII. Germany treated any caught as terrorists, beyond the scope of the Geneva Convention, because the resistance were fighting in civilian clothes. The French Maquis and Tito's Communists, fighting as uniformed forces, should have been treated differently. They weren't until it was obvious that Germany was losing.

Even so, mistakes can be made. In today's Times is the obituary of the woman convicted of being Toyko Rose. She wasn't. She was convicted on perjured evidence BOUGHT by the US prosecutors. She eventually received a pardon, but not repayment of fines imposed on her family, nor compensation for her years in jail. How many of those held by the US at the moment have committed no crime at all? We don't know because they don't have a chance of defending themselves.

The US administration is breaking international law and is now trying to justify the unjustifiable.

Og

*applause*
Well said, Ogg.

My only other comment would be that this move will do nothing more than reduce 'acceptable' forces to the level of terrorists, with no value for human life.

That is not my understanding of the role and moral behaviour of a soldier of the realm, whichever realm.

It's the start of a long, slippery slope, and one that fills me with absolute and total revulsion.

 

[matriarch]

This kind of statements always flabbergast me.

No, fundamentalist muslims don't honor human rights. I think we all pretty much agree on that.

Why does that mean that we shouldn't?

At last!!

Someone gets it.
I you.

 

[R. Richard]

I know you will say charges are one thing and convictions another, etc. etc.

So here is the story of the outcome for Sgt Graner:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/10/iraq/main665758.shtml?CMP=ILC-SearchStories

Graner Gets Ten Years
[Jan 10, 2005]
Faced Up To 15; Said Superiors Ordered His Abu Ghraib Actions


FORT HOOD, Texas, Jan. 15, 2005

(CBS/AP) Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. was sentenced to 10 years behind bars Saturday for physically and sexually mistreating Iraqis in the first court-martial stemming from at Abu Ghraib prison scandal, an embarrassment to the U.S. military fueled by the release of graphic photographs.

Graner, labeled the leader of a band of rogue guards at the Baghdad prison in late 2003, will be dishonorably discharged when his sentence is completed. He also was demoted to private and ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits.

But I suspect you knew this and are just funnin' the critics. Or maybe, to use a phrase, it's a "State of Denial."

Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. went way outside the bounds of what is right. He was convicted of wrongdoing by a legal court. As a result, he is being severely punished. That is the way our law works. I have no complaint with the situation. However Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. has nothing to do with GITMO.

Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. is part of a chain of command. Now, tell me why his superiors are not being punished. If his superiors did not know what was going on, they are by definition either incompetent or acomplices.

 

[R. Richard]

RR saidk You keep bringing up charges of terrorists being subjected to sexual punishment. I am not aware of terrorists being subjected to sexual punishment.

I'm sure your aware of the army reports, including that of Taguba,
of charges being laid, and persons dishonorably discharged and/or found guilty. I believe one was Chuck Graner.

But just for the record, here's a piece about rape and sexual torture of detainees in Iraq; that torture by soldiers sometimes being under the supervision of CIA officers or independent 'contractors.'
The British Newspaper, the Guardian, Friday April 30, 2004.
[start excerpt]

The killing of four private contractors in Falluja on March 31 led to the current siege of the city.

But this is the first time the privatisation of interrogation and intelligence-gathering has come to light. The investigation names two US contractors, CACI International Inc and the Titan Corporation, for their involvement in the functioning of Abu Ghraib.
Titan, based in San Diego, describes itself as a "a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for national security".

It recently won a big contract for providing translation services to the US army, and its involvement in Abu Ghraib is believed to have been to provide translators.

CACI, which has headquarters in Virginia, claims on its website to "help America's intelligence community collect, analyse and share global information in the war on terrorism".
Neither responded to calls for comment yesterday.
According to the military report on Abu Ghraib, both played an important role at the prison.

At one point, the investigators say: "A CACI instructor was terminated because he al lowed and/or instructed MPs who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by setting conditions which were neither authorised [nor] in accordance with applicable regulations/policy."

Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, speaking for central command, told the Guardian: "One contractor was originally included with six soldiers, accused for his treatment of the prisoners, but we had no jurisdiction over him. It was left up to the contractor on how to deal with him."

She did not specify the accusation facing the contractor, but according to several sources with detailed knowledge of the case, he raped an Iraqi inmate in his mid-teens.

Col Morgenthaler said the charges against the six soldiers included "indecent acts, for ordering detainees to publicly masturbate; maltreatment, for non-physical abuse, piling inmates into nude pyramids and taking pictures of them nude; battery, for shoving and stepping on detainees; dereliction of duty; and conspiracy to maltreat detainees".

One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt Chip Frederick is accused of posing in a photograph sitting on top of a detainee, committing an indecent act and with assault for striking detainees - and ordering detainees to strike each other.

He told CBS: "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations."

We were talking about GITMO. Suddenly you are talking about Abu Ghraib. I made no comments about Abu Ghraib. Apparently, per the Armed Forces, there were violations of law at Abu Ghraib. However, I don't see any reference to the ass fucking you seem to delight in mentioning.

Why is it that you are not outraged at the Armed Forces chain of command who apparently had no control over their troops?

 

[R. Richard]

I have no inclination to waste time on pusillanimous cowards like you, RR, who are so afraid of the people of the world at large that you are willing to consign them to a lifetime of torture with no hearing. The German man who happened to have the same name as someone on their list and who recently spent some months in Afghanistan, courtesy of the US government, being tortured, is a case in point. A simple hearing would have established who he was, but no. Fear, sheer panic, made him have to be tortured first-- for months! Brilliant. And you claim to be a rational being.

Cantdog:
You resort to name calling, shame!

You say, "I have no inclination to waste time on pusillanimous cowards like you, RR, who are so afraid of the people of the world at large that you are willing to consign them to a lifetime of torture with no hearing."

If I read you statement correctly, you seem to have problems with torture with no hearing. Taking your statement at face value, you SEEM to support torture after a hearing. Shame!

"The German man who happened to have the same name as someone on their list and who recently spent some months in Afghanistan, courtesy of the US government, being tortured, is a case in point. A simple hearing would have established who he was, but no. Fear, sheer panic, made him have to be tortured first-- for months!"

I have no idea what "their list" is. "A simple hearing would have established who he was." Really? Then there is some sort of master list that enables authorities to determine exactly who is who? I don't know about Germany, but in many European countries it is rare for a citizen to be fingerprinted. If you read the sports news, you would know that many European athletes at the Olympics were outraged that thy had to be fingerprinted. In many countries in Europe, apparently only criminals are routinely fingerprinted. Of course, they could have just taken the guy's word.

I would like to see a list of the torture(s) that the "German man" underwent. If you consider being held in custody torture, don't bother to reply.

 

[R. Richard]

Let us consider the scenario that many of you sem to operate under.
A) President Bush is the Prince of Darkness.
B) President Bush allows torture at GITMO.

OK, since he is the Prince of Darkness, Bush would have hired a pro to do the torture at GITMO.

A pro would have broken one of the detainees at GITMO until said detainee was below the level of human and would truthfully answer any question put to him. Said breaking would have been done in front of at least a substantial group of other prisoners, to "soften them up." By the time the pro got to the second or third detainee, said detainees would be only too willing to give the pro information. If you doubt any of the foregoing, please cite references.

Once the detainees began to furnish information, the pro would have built a data structure. Said data structure would have allowed cross checking of the information being furnished. [The data structure would then contain such things as money flows, chains of command, training sites, safe houes, etc.] Some of the detainees, would have fibbed. The pro would then break one or two more and no one would fib again. Said data structure would then have resulted in very visible arrests of higher ups in the terrorist chain. There has been no such string of arrests.

There was a Muslim Chaplain at GITMO. He would have known of the broken detainees. He would have told the world of the broken detainees. He did not tell the world of the broken GITMO detainees. Ergo, there were no broken GITMO detainees.

There was at least one detainee who claimed that another GITMO detainee was beaten almost to death. There is no evidence of any such damaged GITMO detainee.

The GITMO detainees, complained of desecration of the Koran. There were five isolated incidents of guards doing things that were minor instances of desecration of the Koran. There were 15 documented instances of detainees desecrating the Koran. The detaineee desecration included ripping pages from the Koran and at least trying to flush them down a toilet. No one seems to care if the detainees desecrate the Koran.

GITMO is a prison. Guards in a prison do not go out of their way to be polite to inmates. However, I would like to see documented evidence of torture at GITMO. I have seen none. [I read a statement by someone who supposedly inspected prisoners at GITMO and found one of the detainees supposedly chained in a foetal position for "12 to 18 hours." Obviously, the inspector did not stand there for 12 to 18 hours. Thus, the inspector took the word of the detainee. If any of you have experience with our Federal prison system, you will know that each and every person confined in a Federal prison is there as a result of a miscarriage of justice. Sure they are!

OK, Bush is the Prince of Darkness. He tortured GITMO detainees. Show me the broken bones. Show me the ruptured internal organs. Show me the results of eyes gouged out. Show me the results of castrations. Show me the results of beheadings; no, wait it is the detainees who do beheadings. sorry.

 

[oggbashan]

Let us consider the scenario that many of you sem to operate under.
A) President Bush is the Prince of Darkness.
B) President Bush allows torture at GITMO.

No to A)
No to B)

What I have been saying is that GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition are not in line with international law and are a deliberate policy to deny detainees the protections they would have in US law if held in the territory of the US.

That is a double standard that damages the US and by association its Allies.

Every attempt to legitimise GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition makes it more difficult to defend the US as a force for moral standards in the world. These actions are counterproductive in the war on terror.

Og

 

[R. Richard]

No to A)
No to B)

What I have been saying is that GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition are not in line with international law and are a deliberate policy to deny detainees the protections they would have in US law if held in the territory of the US.

That is a double standard that damages the US and by association its Allies.

Every attempt to legitimise GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition makes it more difficult to defend the US as a force for moral standards in the world. These actions are counterproductive in the war on terror.

Og

A well thought out and on-target response. However, I would disagree that attempts to legitimise GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition are bad.

The war on terror is unlike anything the world has ever fought before. For the first time we see not only groups of men, but also women and children who are willing to kill themselves that they might harm what they see as their enemy. The idea of inflicting harm upon their enemies is so strong that any amount of collateral damage is acceptable. Moral standards are not going to help here.

I don't like the idea of depriving people of reasonable rights. However, the people who are being deprived are not reasonable people. It is known, at least in general, where the heads of al Qiada are hiding. It is impossible to hide the headquarters of a large operation such as al Qiada. However, the government of the country in whch the heads of al Qiada hide is afraid politically to apprehend the heads of al Qiada. Thus extreme measures are called for IMNTHO.

 

[R. Richard]

No to A)
No to B)

What I have been saying is that GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition are not in line with international law and are a deliberate policy to deny detainees the protections they would have in US law if held in the territory of the US.

That is a double standard that damages the US and by association its Allies.

Every attempt to legitimise GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition makes it more difficult to defend the US as a force for moral standards in the world. These actions are counterproductive in the war on terror.

Og

A well thought out and on-target response. However, I would disagree that attempts to legitimise GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition are bad.

The war on terror is unlike anything the world has ever fought before. For the first time we see not only groups of men, but also women and children who are willing to kill themselves that they might harm what they see as their enemy. The idea of inflicting harm upon their enemies is so strong that any amount of collateral damage is acceptable. Moral standards are not going to help here.

I don't like the idea of depriving people of reasonable rights. However, the people who are being deprived are not reasonable people. It is known, at least in general, where the heads of al Qiada are hiding. It is impossible to hide the headquarters of a large operation such as al Qiada. However, the government of the country in whch the heads of al Qiada hide is afraid politically to apprehend the heads of al Qiada. Thus extreme measures are called for IMNTHO.

 

[oggbashan]

A well thought out and on-target response. However, I would disagree that attempts to legitimise GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition are bad.

The war on terror is unlike anything the world has ever fought before. For the first time we see not only groups of men, but also women and children who are willing to kill themselves that they might harm what they see as their enemy. The idea of inflicting harm upon their enemies is so strong that any amount of collateral damage is acceptable. Moral standards are not going to help here.

I don't like the idea of depriving people of reasonable rights. However, the people who are being deprived are not reasonable people. It is known, at least in general, where the heads of al Qiada are hiding. It is impossible to hide the headquarters of a large operation such as al Qiada. However, the government of the country in whch the heads of al Qiada hide is afraid politically to apprehend the heads of al Qiada. Thus extreme measures are called for IMNTHO.

I disagree that 'The war on terror is unlike anything the world has ever fought before.' The anarchists of the late 19th and early 20th century were just as unscrupulous and fanatical, as were some sections of the Irish republican/loyalist movements (I phrase it like that because the original IRA of the early 20th century had standards about its actions).

The anarchists may have had little impact in the continental US but were a real danger in Europe.

Other parallels have occurred in Malaya, in Kenya and more recently in North West Africa and Spain.

Not all terrorist activity is linked to or inspired by Al Queda. The bombings of commuter trains in Mumbai may have been committed by apparent Muslims yet there have also been terrorist attacks against Muslims in India.

'The war against terror' is not just against so-called Muslim terrorists. Some of the terrorist groups are NOT muslim.

It is my contention that the US is damaging its own interests by continuing to defend GITMO and Extraordinary Rendition.

Og

 

[R. Richard]

Og:
As an Englishman, you have a right to confront your accuser. [I have the same right as an American.] If we give the GITMO terrorists the same right, we automatically condemn any number of "snitches" to death [probably including the snitches' familiy.] In addition, we will get no more help from snitches. In addition, many of the GITMO detainees would need classified military info in order to make a normal defense against their charges. There is no way terrorists should get classified military info.

Yes, there have been problems somewhat similar to the current terroist problems. However, I am not aware of previous groups willing to kill large amounts of innocents in order to get a relatively small numbers of enemies. The last strategy tends to turn public opinion against the killing group.

 

[oggbashan]

Og:
As an Englishman, you have a right to confront your accuser. [I have the same right as an American.] If we give the GITMO terrorists the same right, we automatically condemn any number of "snitches" to death [probably including the snitches' familiy.] In addition, we will get no more help from snitches. In addition, many of the GITMO detainees would need classified military info in order to make a normal defense against their charges. There is no way terrorists should get classified military info.

Yes, there have been problems somewhat similar to the current terroist problems. However, I am not aware of previous groups willing to kill large amounts of innocents in order to get a relatively small numbers of enemies. The last strategy tends to turn public opinion against the killing group.

Sorry, I don't see the first point. We have had IRA trials where government agents have given evidence from behind a screen or by videolink. The need to protect informants/officials/secret agents has been overcome and could be IF THERE WAS A WILL TO IMPLEMENT NORMAL LAWS.

You may not be aware of previous groups. They existed and exist - for example the anarchists, the Mau Mau, the Japanese terrorists who attacked commuters, the Moroccan terrorists, ETA, Algerian terrorists and the IRA splinter groups. The war against terror is not new. The Assassins of the Crusade period were prepared to kill and die doing it (while high on Hashish - hence the name Assassin).

Og

 

[R. Richard]

Sorry, I don't see the first point. We have had IRA trials where government agents have given evidence from behind a screen or by videolink. The need to protect informants/officials/secret agents has been overcome and could be IF THERE WAS A WILL TO IMPLEMENT NORMAL LAWS.

Your last sentence is the key. There has to be a confidence in informants/secret agents that the government will keep their identities secret. Not just the current government, but future governments. The problem is that future governments may be more concerned with political correctness than the safety of informants and/or secret agents. The other problem is that a terrorist defendant may be able to get access to government classified documents. This last is a very real danger with the current crop of political activist judges. There was a recent case in which a rape victim had moved and established a new, secret identity. The boy charged with her rape represented himself and demanded and got her new identity among other information. I was able to solve the problem by having the boy talk to an alligator; very effective. I don't think you have alligators outside of zoos in England.

You may not be aware of previous groups. They existed and exist - for example the anarchists, the Mau Mau, the Japanese terrorists who attacked commuters, the Moroccan terrorists, ETA, Algerian terrorists and the IRA splinter groups. The war against terror is not new. The Assassins of the Crusade period were prepared to kill and die doing it (while high on Hashish - hence the name Assassin).

Anarchists main danger is that they may shoot themselves in the foot. The Mau Mau, the Nipponese Terrorists and the Morroccan and Algerian terroists were very dangerous, but only if you lived/travelled in their area of influence. With the ETA, you do have a point. I have had some interaction with the Basque separatists and they are dangerour, although mainly in Spain and a little bit over the Pyrenees. I have no real data in the IRA splinter groups. The Assassins [they did not call themselves that] were a group of paid, tightly controlled political killers. The head of the group dispatched a killer with a knife. He was not expecteds to come back. However, the number of Assassin killings is really quite small.

However, there has never before been a group with the mobility and the widespread support base of the current crop of jihadis. The solution is, of course, very simple. However, neither your government nor mine is willing to implement said solution.

 

[Pure]

not so fast, rr,

RR: I am not aware of terrorists being subjected to sexual punishment.

You did not limit your statement to Gitmo. Thus Abu Ghraib is included in its claim. Further it's well known that Gitmo techniques were brought by one general from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib


We were talking about GITMO. Suddenly you are talking about Abu Ghraib. I made no comments about Abu Ghraib.

You made a general claim RR, and it was false.

I find it a bit sleazy that you want all the documents on the place your Prez has very tightly sealed, and barred most from accessing.
He tightly sealed it and located it outside the US for a reason. The facts will all come out in the wash.

Reasons for thinking it won't be different from Iraq or Afghanistan:
Same Generals; same directives allowing 'torture lite' and listing the methods; same directives minimizing torture not-so-lite.

Of course you are also aware the your Commander is about to sign into law a bill (Military Commission Bill) that shields all torturers from Sept 11 01' to Dec '05. So no doubt you'll be hollerin about 'no charges or convictions' of the Gitmo folks and others, but that will be why.

It's becoming hard to take you seriously, since you utter statements you know to be false, all in the name of the Administration's policies.
You're functioning not unlike the White House press secretary.
You have to decide if you're to be the hard headed realist or the President's flak.

 

[Pure]

Some Gitmo related material

Despite the secrecy, there is some reliable looking material,

First, Mayer's story in the New Yorker details the disputes in the Pentagon about methods to be used at Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan (esp. Bagram) and else where.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0220-03.htm
Mayer's story in the New Yorker, about Mora and others in disputes over torture policies.

Published on Monday, February 20, 2006 by the New Yorker
Annals of the Pentagon
The Memo: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted.

by Jane Mayer

There there is the CBS story based on Sgt Eric Saar among others:


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/28/60minutes/main691602.shtml

Torture, Cover-Up At Gitmo?
Former Translator Says Prisoner Interrogations Were Staged For VIPs


(Page 1 of 3)
May 1, 2005


(CBS) The story that Sgt. Erik Saar, a soldier who spent three months in the interrogation rooms at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, tells Correspondent Scott Pelley paints a picture of bizarre, even sadistic, treatment of detainees in the American prison camp.

Experts in intelligence tell 60 Minutes that if what Saar says is true, some soldiers at Guantanamo have undermined the war on terror, bungling the interrogation of important prisoners.

60 Minutes also reveals previously secret emails from FBI agents at Guantanamo that warn FBI headquarters that prisoners are being tortured.

"I think the harm we are doing there far outweighs the good, and I believe it's inconsistent with American values," says Saar. "In fact, I think it's fair to say that it’s the moral antithesis of what we want to stand for as a country."

Saar volunteered for Guantanamo Bay in 2002. He was a U.S. Army linguist, an expert in Arabic, with a top-secret security clearance. He was assigned to translate during interrogations. The prisoners, about 600 in all, were mostly from the battlefields of Afghanistan. And Saar couldn’t wait to get at them after what the administration said: the men were "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth."

With that in mind, Saar went to work, but he was surprised by what he found.

How many prisoners did he think were the worst of the worst – real terrorists?

"At best, I would say there were a few dozen," says Saar. "A few dozen [out of 600]."

Who were the rest of the guys? "Some of them were conscripts who actually were forced to fight for the Taliban, so actually had taken up arms against us, but had little or no choice in the matter," says Saar. "Some of them were individuals who were picked up by the Northern Alliance, and we have no idea why they were there, and we didn't know exactly what their connections were to terrorism."

However they got there, Saar and the rest of Guantanamo’s intelligence personnel were told that the captives were not prisoners of war, and therefore, were not protected by the Geneva Convention.

"Your training in intelligence had told you what about the Geneva Conventions?" asks Pelley.

"That they were never to be violated," says Saar. "As a matter of fact, the training for interrogators themselves, their entire coursework falls under the umbrella of you never violate the Geneva Conventions."

"If the rules of the Geneva Convention did not apply, what rules did apply?" asks Pelley.

"I don't think anybody knew that," says Saar.

And so, Saar said, some U.S. military intelligence personnel used cruelty, and even bizarre sexual tactics against the prisoners. Saar has written a book, "Inside the Wire," about his experiences at Guantanamo. Penguin Press will release it on Tuesday.

He told 60 Minutes about one interrogation in particular, in which he translated for a female interrogator who was trying to break a high-priority prisoner — a Saudi who had been in flight school in the United States.

"As she stood in front of him, she slowly started to unbutton her Army blouse. She had on underneath the Army blouse a tight brown Army T-shirt, touched her breasts, and said, 'Don't you like these big American breasts?'" says Saar. "She wanted to create a barrier between this detainee and his faith, and if she could somehow sexually entice him, he would feel unclean in an Islamic way, he would not be able to pray and go before his God and gain that strength, so the next day, maybe he would be able to start cooperating, start talking to her."

But the prisoner wasn’t talking, so Saar said the interrogator increased the pressure.

"She started to unbutton her pants and reached and put her hands in her pants and then started to circle around the detainee. And when she had her hands in her pants, apparently she used something to put what appeared to be menstrual blood on her hand, but in fact was ink," says Saar.

"When she circled around the detainee, she pulled out her hand, which was red, and said, 'I'm actually menstruating right now, and I'm touching you. Does that please your God? Does that please Allah?' And then he kind of got pent up and shied away from her, and she then took the ink and wiped it on his face, and said, 'How do you like that?'"
May 1, 2005


(CBS) Then, the interrogator sent the prisoner back to his cell with a message.

"She said, 'Have fun trying to pray tonight while there's no water in your cell,’ meaning that she was gonna have the water turned off in his cell, so that he then could not go back and become ritually clean. So he then therefore could not pray," says Saar.

"I know that the individual that we were talking that night was a bad individual. Someone who I hope never -- I hope he’s in captivity forever, I hope he never goes anywhere. But I felt awful that night. I felt dirty and disgusting."

"What you have here is a Saudi training at an American flight school, just like the 9/11 hijackers," says Pelley. "You know, there are people at home watching this right now, saying, 'Hey, you've got to do what you've got to do.'"

"I do understand that, and the fact is No. 1, it's ineffective," says Saar. "There are much better methods that were being employed at Guantanamo Bay, that yielded the little bit of intelligence that we did receive, and it wasn't methods like those."

60 Minutes talked to three interrogators who were at Guantanamo at the same time that Saar was there. And they told us the sexual tactics were well known, and even had a name they called it the “sex-up” approach.

Did it work?

"It did not work, and from what I later learned, the detainee remained uncooperative," says Saar. "It's impossible to try to build a connection and establish trust. We were now relying solely on fear to get the detainee to cooperate, and I think that's an enormous mistake. I think many of the FBI agents on the base felt as though that was a mistake also."

The FBI does its own questioning of prisoners at Guantanamo, and those agents have been writing emails, classified secret, to FBI headquarters. They detail abuse by military interrogators. The agents wrote of finding prisoners “chained hand and foot in a fetal position” for up to 24 hours at a time, and of prisoners who had “urinated or defecated on themselves."

Another FBI document says an interrogator grabbed a detainee’s thumbs and “bent them backwards” and “grabbed his genitals.” One FBI agent reported that he saw a detainee had been “gagged with duct tape that covered much of his head.” The interrogator explained that the prisoner had been “chanting the Koran and would not stop.”

60 Minutes ran the emails and Saar’s story past one of the nation’s most experienced military intelligence experts.

"Unimaginable to me, I just can not imagine what people think they were doing," says Army Col. Patrick Lang, who was head of human intelligence gathering at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency.

Lang, who’s now retired, wrote the Arabic and Middle-East studies curricula for West Point. "I mean, what is this?" asks Lang. "A scene from Dante's Inferno? I mean, what level of hell are we on to? Imagine that we could do such things to people? This is just absolutely wrong."

60 Minutes also asked Lang to review some of the written statements of prisoners who claim to have been beaten.

"If people were really beaten and kicked and knocked around, and their heads beaten against the floor, and had, you know, deprived of treatment for broken bones and teeth resulting from this," says Lang. "If these things really happened in fact, to me, that's a lot more serious than this silliness with having these girls go in and rub themselves all over these prisoners."

"There is a lot of discussion about precisely what the word "torture" means," says Pelley. "You've been at the top of defense military intelligence. Based on what you've seen and heard, is all of this torture?"

"I think that a lot of this behavior which has been allowed is so far outside the pale, that I think that it would have to be considered to be something not allowed in international law or U.S. military law," says Lang.

But is it torture? "Yeah," says Lang. "I think it's torture."

Torture, Cover-Up At Gitmo?
Former Translator Says Prisoner Interrogations Were Staged For VIPs


(Page 3 of 3)
May 1, 2005


(CBS) And one of the FBI agents at Guantanamo thought so, too. He warned FBI headquarters the military was using “torture techniques.” The FBI emails were uncovered and declassified in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The head of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, says that the FBI agents were worried that military interrogators were ruining any chance of getting reliable intelligence.

"Here you have the FBI and its own behavioral assessment unit raising serious questions about the effectiveness or the utility of information gotten under torture techniques," says Romero.

"When the FBI agents are writing about these techniques, they're asking their bosses in Washington for what?" asks Pelley. "What’s the point of these memos?"

"They're asking sometimes for guidance," says Romero. "FBI agents were being instructed not to be a part of interrogations where they thought torture and abuse was taking place. So what's curious is here you have the Department of Defense undertaking some of the interrogation techniques. And FBI agents sitting on the sidelines because their own leadership thought it would be inappropriate for them to be involved in these interrogations."

Based on the FBI emails, and Saar’s story, the Pentagon’s southern command is now investigating whether prisoners have been tortured or subjected to sexual tactics at Guantanamo Bay.

If all this was well known on the base, how could it have been kept largely under wraps for three years, especially when congressmen and senators often inspected the camp? Well, Saar said it may be in part because those inspections were rigged to fool the visiting VIPs.

"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation, and in fact the interrogation would be a mock interrogation, basically," says Saar.

"They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative. They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information that they reviewed on whatever date they had previously interrogated the detainee," says Saar. "And they would sit across a table and talk as though you and I are talking, and this was a fictitious world that they would create for these VIP visits, because in fact, it's not what generally took place in Guantanamo Bay."

"They staged the interrogations?" asks Pelley.

"Yes," says Saar. "They staged the interrogations."

60 Minutes asked the Army to comment on Saar’s story, or provide someone to talk about Guantanamo Bay. The Army declined.

But last year, Vice Admiral Albert Church was ordered to inspect U.S. military detention centers worldwide, and he praised Guantanamo Bay’s military police and interrogators, writing that Guantanamo has: “… an effective model that greatly enhances intelligence collection and does not lead to detainee abuse. . .”

He also wrote: “ . . . It is a model that should be considered for use in other interrogation operations in the global war on terror.”

Still, Lang said the picture of Guantanamo Bay’s operation painted by Saar and the FBI memos is unrecognizable to him.

"If we do things like this, if we beat people and we neglect them and we try to use their religion against them, however stupidly, I mean, in fact, we're debasing ourselves to the point in fact in which we're losing something, that we should be trying to protect in this war," says Lang.

"You told us earlier that you were ashamed to hear about these tactics," says Pelley.

"I was," says Lang. "As a professional soldier, and someone who dedicated his life to the service of the United States, in fact, to think that United States would stoop to such tactics as this, I find to be a disgraceful thing."

 

[cantdog]

Cantdog:
You resort to name calling, shame!

You say, "I have no inclination to waste time on pusillanimous cowards like you, RR, who are so afraid of the people of the world at large that you are willing to consign them to a lifetime of torture with no hearing."

If I read you statement correctly, you seem to have problems with torture with no hearing. Taking your statement at face value, you SEEM to support torture after a hearing. Shame!

"The German man who happened to have the same name as someone on their list and who recently spent some months in Afghanistan, courtesy of the US government, being tortured, is a case in point. A simple hearing would have established who he was, but no. Fear, sheer panic, made him have to be tortured first-- for months!"

I have no idea what "their list" is. "A simple hearing would have established who he was." Really? Then there is some sort of master list that enables authorities to determine exactly who is who? I don't know about Germany, but in many European countries it is rare for a citizen to be fingerprinted. If you read the sports news, you would know that many European athletes at the Olympics were outraged that thy had to be fingerprinted. In many countries in Europe, apparently only criminals are routinely fingerprinted. Of course, they could have just taken the guy's word.

I would like to see a list of the torture(s) that the "German man" underwent. If you consider being held in custody torture, don't bother to reply.

Torture is an indulgence of power, motivated by fear and impunity. I've explained at length my nearly two decades working in Amnesty. Advocacy of torture places you beyond the pale. I daresay you'd love to see a list of tortures, it seems to be what you like.

Anti-terror people have a list of names, I said, and you say you can't imagine what such a list might be. This is not even meeting us halfway.

You don't want to meet the arguments, you believe in barbarisms. You justify your belief because, you say, of your extremem fear. I'm not in this any more. Enjoy yourself.

 

[R. Richard]

Published on Monday, February 20, 2006 by the New Yorker
Annals of the Pentagon
The Memo: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted.

by Jane Mayer
The FBI does its own questioning of prisoners at Guantanamo, and those agents have been writing emails, classified secret, to FBI headquarters. They detail abuse by military interrogators. The agents wrote of finding prisoners “chained hand and foot in a fetal position” for up to 24 hours at a time, and of prisoners who had “urinated or defecated on themselves."

According to the statement, an FBI agent watched a prisoner who was chained hand and foot in a fetal position for 24 hours at a time.

Without knowing any more details that the statement, I will tell you it is a lie. 1) Do you expect me to believe that an FBI agent watched a prisoner “chained hand and foot in a fetal position” for 24 hours? It the FBI agent did not watch the prisoner for 24 hours, the statement is a lie. 2) The FBI agent finds a prisoner “chained hand and foot in a fetal position” and just watches the prisoner for 24 hours? If the statement is true, then the FBI agent is as guilty of torture as the people who allegedly tortured the guy.

The statement cites prisoners who had “urinated or defecated on themselves." If a prisoner can't hold his urine or shit, is that the fault of the US?

Another FBI document says an interrogator grabbed a detainee’s thumbs and “bent them backwards” and “grabbed his genitals.” One FBI agent reported that he saw a detainee had been “gagged with duct tape that covered much of his head.” The interrogator explained that the prisoner had been “chanting the Koran and would not stop.”

Grabbed whose genitals? The FBI agent's genitals or the prisoner's genitals? The statement is impossible to understand. I would have the entire department of the FBI agent sent back through at least grades nine through 12 until they learned how to write a clear, concise report.

60 Minutes also asked Lang to review some of the written statements of prisoners who claim to have been beaten.

"If people were really beaten and kicked and knocked around, and their heads beaten against the floor, and had, you know, deprived of treatment for broken bones and teeth resulting from this," says Lang. "If these things really happened in fact, to me, that's a lot more serious than this silliness with having these girls go in and rub themselves all over these prisoners."

It is alleged that "people" [are we talking about prisoners at GITMO?] may have been ". . .beaten and kicked and knocked around, and their heads beaten against the floor, and had, you know, deprived of treatment for broken bones and teeth resulting from this" I would have General Lang [Ret] sent back through at least grades one through 12 until they learned how to write a proper English sentence. I would then have the good General show me the poor, mistreated prisoners who had untreated broken bones and/or teeth that were inflicted upon them by US personnel. Show me the damage.

I don't believe the charges. The people making and reporting the charges don't even know how to write proper reports in proper American. If there are broken bones and/or broken teeth, explain to me why a Muslim Chaplain did not report same.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

According to the statement, an FBI agent watched a prisoner who was chained hand and foot in a fetal position for 24 hours at a time.

Without knowing any more details that the statement, I will tell you it is a lie. 1) Do you expect me to believe that an FBI agent watched a prisoner “chained hand and foot in a fetal position” for 24 hours?

It's your word versus theirs. Tough choice there.

It the FBI agent did not watch the prisoner for 24 hours, the statement is a lie. 2) The FBI agent finds a prisoner “chained hand and foot in a fetal position” and just watches the prisoner for 24 hours? If the statement is true, then the FBI agent is as guilty of torture as the people who allegedly tortured the guy.

Perhaps the FBI agent had no authority to stop it?

The statement cites prisoners who had “urinated or defecated on themselves." If a prisoner can't hold his urine or shit, is that the fault of the US?

If you hold someone chained hand and foot long enough, it is.

I don't believe the charges. The people making and reporting the charges don't even know how to write proper reports in proper American. If there are broken bones and/or broken teeth, explain to me why a Muslim Chaplain did not report same.

I can't make this stuff up.

 

[Pure]

rr.

if you check the bybee memo, whose url is posted in the 'torture lite' thread, you get an idea of Gitmo procedures, such as hooding, loud music and lights 24-7, sleep deprivation and probably 'waterboarding'. no doubt that wouldn't bother a tough guy like you, but the tough guys (captives) in North Korea flipped without physical torture.

if there was no intention to use admittedly 'cruel and inhuman' methods that fell short of torture, why all the memos making the distinction?

the course of gen geoffrey miller is also documented, since he took the Gitmo techniques he'd ordered and supervised to Abu Ghraib.

 

[Pure]

US policies on prisoners at Gitmo and elsewhere--Karpinski's summary

Interview with Col Janis Karpinski, of Abu Ghraib
broadcast 10-27-05
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10786.htm
(from the transcript)

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about General Miller. Who is he?

COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: General Miller was sent to visit Iraq by Secretary Rumsfeld and the Undersecretary Cambone. And they came -- General Miller came to visit from Guantanamo Bay. He was the commander of detention operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he was sent to assist the military intelligence interrogators with enhancing their techniques. And he brought with him the techniques that were tested and in use at Guantanamo Bay. And he brought a team of about 20 people, 22 people with him to discuss all aspects of interrogation operations, and actually, he did an in-brief.

I was invited to participate or to attend to listen to his in-brief, because he was working almost exclusively with the military intelligence people and the military intelligence interrogators while he was there.

But we owned the locations that he was going to visit, and he [Gen Miller] ultimately selected Abu Ghraib to be the focus of his efforts, and he told me that he was going to make it the interrogation center for Iraq. He used the term, he was going to “Gitmo-ize” the operation and use the M.P.s to assist the interrogators to enhance interrogations and to obtain more actionable intelligence.

I explained to him that the M.P.s were not trained in any kind of interrogation operations, and he told me that he wanted me to give him Abu Ghraib, because that's the location he selected.

AMY GOODMAN: You're both generals?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Yes. He was a two-star.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the dogs? Is that when the dogs were introduced?

COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Shortly after his visit, he -- again, he was spending most of his time with the commander of the Military Intelligence Brigade, Colonel Pappas. In his in-brief, his introduction when he first arrived there with his team, he responded to one of the interrogators, the military interrogator's question, and he was listening to the comments, the criticisms that they were doing these interviews and they were not obtaining really valuable information, so he was there to assist them with different -- implementing different techniques to get more actionable intelligence.

And one of the interrogators just asked the question about what he would recommend that they could do immediately, because they thought that they were doing a pretty good job with identifying the people who may have additional value or more military intelligence value, and General Miller said -- his first observation was that they were not -- they were being too nice to them.

They were not being aggressive enough. And he used the example at Guantanamo Bay that the prisoners there, when they're brought in, that they're handled by two military policemen. They're escorted everywhere they go -- belly chains, leg irons, hand irons -- and he said, “You have to treat them like dogs.”

AMY GOODMAN: You were there when he said this?

COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Yes, I was there when he said that. And he said, “They have to know that you are in charge, and if you treat them too nicely, they won't cooperate with you. And at Guantanamo Bay, they earn -- the prisoners earn every single thing they get, to include a change of color of their jumpsuits. When they get there, they're issued a bright orange jumpsuit. They're handled in a very aggressive, forceful manner, and they earn the privilege of transitioning to a white jumpsuit, if they prove themselves to be cooperative.”

And I raised my hand. I was just there as a guest. I was not a participant, but I said, “You know, sir, the M.P.s here don't move prisoners with leg irons and hand irons. We don't even have that equipment. We don't have enough funding to buy one jumpsuit per prisoner, let alone an exchange of colors.” And he said, “It's no problem. My budget is $125 million a year at Gitmo, and I'm going to give Colonel Pappas all of the resources he needs to do this appropriately.”

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Colonel Pappas ran the prison within the prison, is that right? He ran something called the “hard site”?

COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: He ran the interrogation operations within the prison, that's correct. And it was -- Cell Block 1A and 1B were the two maximum security wings of the hard site, and during General Miller's visit, either at his order or at his request, General Miller told -- instructed Colonel Pappas to get control of Cell Block 1A.

AMY GOODMAN: Treat the prisoners like dogs. That explains the leashes and making prisoners bark?

COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: It seems to be consistent with those photographs, yes, with the dog collar, the dog leash and un-muzzled dogs. And, in fact, those techniques have appeared in several memorandums that have been signed by senior people.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Colonel Janis Karpinski, once Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the only one of the high-level officers who has been demoted in the Abu Ghraib scandal. She has written a book about her experience called One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story. We'll be back with Janis Karpinski in a minute.

[…]
AMY: …who do you feel should be punished? What would be your list of names?


JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, we have to start at the very top, and the original memorandum directing interrogation -- harsher interrogation techniques and the departure from the Geneva Conventions starts at -- Alberto Gonzales was one of the people who made the recommendations to the President. I don't know if he talked about each detail of that departure or what that may imply, but I do know that the Secretary of Defense signed a very lengthy memorandum authorizing harsher techniques to be used in Afghanistan and specifically at Guantanamo Bay.

This was the global war on terrorism. This was a prisoner of a different kind. You needed to get down at the same level as they were to be effective.

And those techniques migrated from Guantanamo Bay, with General Miller, to Iraq and were implemented at Abu Ghraib. So clearly, the Secretary of Defense; Secretary Cambone, his assistant who sent General Miller to Iraq with very specific instructions on how to work with the military intelligence people; General Fast, who was directing interrogation operations and giving instructions to Colonel Pappas on how to proceed and how to be more effective;

General Sanchez, because this was his command, and he knew what General Fast was doing, and he knew what Colonel Pappas was doing, to the point that Colonel Pappas made a comment one time that he thought maybe he had a bruise on his chest because Colonel -- General Sanchez had repeatedly poked him in the chest telling him to “Get Saddam! Get Saddam!” and use whatever he needed to use to get the information.

AMY GOODMAN: If all of these people were punished, do you think it's fair that you are punished?

JANIS KARPINSKI: I would say that these soldiers, they were certainly assigned to a subordinate unit, and they are my responsibility, ultimately, yes. I think that they have been fair -- unfairly and unjustly held accountable for all of this, as if they designed these techniques, as if Lynndie England deployed with a dog collar and a dog leash. And that's unfair, and that's a tragedy in all of this. Should they be punished for doing what they did, for agreeing to do what they did? Absolutely, but singled out? No.

 

[Pure]

timeline and memos

Newsweek site summarizing the torture debate, with links to Yoo Delahunty memo and others

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5197853/site/newsweek

=====


Timeline and summary of the 'Torture Memos' regarding war crimes, Geneva Conventions, torture, etc.

http://lawofwar.org/Torture_Memos_analysis.htm

On January 18, 2002, President George Bush (the decision is referenced1 in the Gonzales Memo of 25 January, 2002) made a presidential decision that captured members of Al Quaeda and the Taliban were unprotected by the Geneva POW Convention. That decision was preceded by a Memorandum dated January 9, 2002, submitted to William J Haynes II, General Counsel to the Department of Defense, by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (which provides legal counsel to the White House and other executive branch agencies) and written by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and Special Counsel Robert J. Delahunty.

The Yoo Delahunty Memorandum of January 9, 2002
[ text at Newsweek site http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5197853/site/newsweek]

The Yoo/Delahunty Memorandum provided the analytical basis for all which followed regarding blanket rejection of applicability of the Third Geneva Convention to captured members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Its validity is, accordingly, analyzed in some detail at the end of this discussion.

The Rumsfeld Order January 19, 2002
In a Memorandum dated 19 January, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to inform combat commanders that "Al Quaeda and Taliban individuals...are not entitled to prisoner of war status for purposes of the Geneva Conventions of 1949." He ordered that "commanders should "...treat them humanely, and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, consistent with the Geneva Conventions of 1949." That order thus gives commanders permission to depart, where they deem it appropriate and a military necessity, from the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

The Bybee Memorandum of 22 January, 2002
The Bybee Memo, Memorandum of 22 January, 2002 from Jay Bybee, Office of Legal Counsel for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President and William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Re: Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees , follows the same structural pattern as the Yoo/Delahunty Memo, but with additional analysis of certain international law/ law of war issues. Parts of it are also discussed below in some detail.

The Alberto Gonzales Memo January 25, 2002
On January 25, 2002, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales sent a Memorandum to President Bush regarding a presidential decision on January 18, 2002, (the White House has issued an Order to that effect, dated February 7, 2002, see below) that captured members of the Taliban were not protected under the Geneva POW Convention ("GPW"), to which the legal advisor to the Secretary of State had objected. He advised that "there are reasonable grounds for you to conclude that GPW [the ] does not apply ...to the conflict with the Taliban.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Here's what one of my "gurus" says

Produce the Body

By RICHARD A. EPSTEIN
WSJ, October 7, 2006; Page A7

Last week, the Bush administration persuaded a divided Congress to pass the Military Commissions Act (MCA), giving the president the authorization the Supreme Court ruled that he needed to try enemy combatants in Guantanamo.

The MCA was bitterly contested, and one of the most hard-fought provisions involves the right of detainees to demand that the government justify their detention to an independent judicial officer. On this point, Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham have claimed in this newspaper that the MCA preserves the rights of individuals "to challenge his status in administrative and judicial fora," and that "these challenges are in excess of what our soldiers would be afforded as prisoners of war." In fact, the law offers far less protection than their broad observation suggests. The MCA strips them of their right to habeas corpus -- unwisely removing an indispensable and long-standing check on the abuse of executive power.

The average American naturally responds with a blank stare to that Latin mouthful, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. But the phrase loses all of its obscurity -- and none of its punch -- when expressed in plain English: "Produce the body that it may be subjected to examination."

The writ grew up in England, long before the American Revolution, to counter the power of the Crown to arbitrarily imprison and execute its foes. Historically, habeas corpus directed the officer of the Crown who had custody of a prisoner to bring him into court, where an impartial judge could independently decide whether the confinement was justified. If, however, the original conviction was tainted by a coerced confession or the admission of illegally obtained evidence, the judge could order the prisoner freed, then and there.

Modern American practice no longer requires that the prisoner literally be brought into court at the outset of legal proceedings. Today, a judicial hearing attended by lawyers for both sides decides on the legality of the prisoner's confinement. Nevertheless, the older concerns still animate the modern practice. Lawful imprisonment, second only to lawful infliction of death, is the hallmark of state power. In any system of limited government, such loss of liberty should be hedged by strong procedural protections unless some grave public necessity requires its suspension.

By eliminating habeas review for Guantanamo detainees, the MCA has jettisoned the fundamental right of any prisoner to test the lawfulness of his detention. You may immediately object: Why, if ordinary prisoners of war may be detained for the duration of the conflict without habeas corpus -- as in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War -- should the writ be available to unlawful enemy combatants captured in the war on terror? Because context matters. In conflicts between states, the prisoners are uniformed soldiers. We know they are combatants, we know what counts as the end of the war, and habeas serves no useful role. In a terrorist war, with nonuniformed combatants and chaotic battlefield conditions, wide military sweeps make sense -- but only if we take steps after the heat of battle to allow detainees to challenge their status. Without meaningful judicial review, innocent people could be arbitrarily or erroneously imprisoned, indefinitely.

To be sure, an individual's status as an enemy combatant is determined by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), and the MCA subjects this military tribunal's determination to judicial review. But the process is grossly deficient. It denies a detainee the assistance of counsel. It prohibits him from seeing the evidence against him. It lets the government alone decide what evidence the tribunal sees; it lets the government rely on evidence consisting of double or even triple hearsay; and it lets military superiors override tribunal decisions and fire tribunal members when they disapprove of their decisions.

The MCA also sharply limits judicial review. The court sees only the questionable evidence that the government allowed the tribunal to see, which the detainee has no opportunity to confront. And even this limited judicial review kicks in only if the government (1) triggers a CSRT proceeding for the detainee and (2) carries that review process through to a "final decision." The MCA does not require the government to do either. However, unless the government does both, the law allows the government to hold any prisoner -- even if he is not an unlawful enemy combatant -- in custody for the rest of his life, with no due process and no recourse to the courts.

No one deserves that fate. Truth must count. Innocence must matter. A deeply flawed Combatant Status Review Tribunal process and an optional system of limited judicial review sacrifices both. Only habeas corpus review can fill the gap. Happily, the Supreme Court is likely to invalidate this part of the MCA. The Constitution states that the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended only when rebellion or invasion endangers public safety. That's not the case here: A world of difference separates the risk of future terrorist acts from a present invasion on American soil.

To strip the federal courts of habeas jurisdiction for individuals captured in the war on terror tramples a fundamental guarantee of liberty that the Constitution provides to citizen and alien alike. It makes a mockery of our efforts to advance the cause of freedom throughout the world, and will be seen, both at home and abroad, as a cynical exercise in hypocrisy.

We can effectively respond to terrorist threats as long as our institutions remain open, as they are today. No disorder or unrest blocks the use of ordinary judicial processes; an aggressive foreign policy abroad, coupled with lawful surveillance at home, can go a long way to reduce the terrorist threat without trenching on key personal liberties. Retaining habeas corpus is vital if we are to remain faithful to our noblest constitutional traditions when they matter most, in times of trouble.

The Supreme Court should enforce the constitutional guarantee that Congress has authorized the president to ignore.

Mr. Epstein is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

 

[Pure]

nice posting roxanne,

the idea that alleged terrorists are too dangerous to charge, and their cases so 'sensitive' that no judge could be involved, is without much support. there are hearings, "In camera," for instance.

what's asserted here is that the Pres, the Commander in Chief, does whatever he pleases on the battlefield, in a war. on the surface, seems correct, untill mr bush declares the whole US to be the battlefield, and the 'war' (on terror) to be indefinitely long (though never declared).

there have been spies and saboteurs for some time, and some, for instance worked for a pretty nasty and powerful entity, the Nazi state and War Machine. its powers dwarf Osama's, al qaeda's, etc.
indeed, alqaeda is not even of the clout of the IRA.

I don't see why the rules have to be re written for the 9-11 folks.