US releases Guantánamo prisoner after 14 years and no conviction

boing
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So to sum up, using real examples:

If a bomb happens to be found in a field near your home - with no evidence linking you to it - you can be kidnapped and held for decades. You don’t get rights as a POW, and you don’t get rights as a criminal. Because while you weren’t in any form of combat, you’re a combatant.

An estimated 200 people kidnapped in by the CIA in EU countries, don’t get rights as a POWs or criminals, because while they were never in combat, never even on the same continent as the war, they’re somehow “combatants.”

A Canadian telecommunications engineer gets kidnapped in New York, while transferring flights transiting home to Canada. Yes, kidnapped; Once they decided not to charge him, their legal options were to deport him either to Canada or to the flight’s origin country. On just vague suspicions he gets shipped to Syria for 11 months of torture, the torturer asking him the same questions the Americans asked. He’s later cleared through old-fashioned detective work, though for what it’s worth, even the torturer testified that he was clearly innocent.

No rights as a POW. No rights as a criminal. Because you declare him to be a combatant despite nothing linking him to combat and never even being on the same continent as the combat.

Nice strategy you have there. Any reasonable response to you would get a person banned.

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Fuck that place.

It undermines our democracy, you dipsticks.

What is the base level IQ in the MIC?

Fuck that place squared.

Totalitarian installation remove

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I’m just relieved Obama is gunna shut that joint down as soon as he is in office.

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None of those examples really apply to Guantanamo.

In your ex 1, if there’s no evidence linking me to a bomb then there isn’t a preponderance of evidence (the standard of proof already in the law long before the Bush admin) required by the tribunals that they’ve had since 2004.

Had the tribunals failed to clear me, then there were the annual reviews, and finally the federal judges’ habeas reviews.

Your ex 2 and 3 are closer to the real world, albeit imprecise, but they’re not about Guantanamo.

In fact, those CIA detainees and that Canadian engineer would have been better off if they’d been sent to Guantanamo instead. Not exactly the best argument against it.

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It’s better than that.

He had two plans to close Guantanamo. The first plan was to move the detainees to a federal prison in the U.S. The current plan is to build a new military prison in the U.S. and then move them there.

There was never a plan to actually give every remaining detainee a military or civilian trial.

It’s not just President Obama. When Senators Feinstein and Durbin talk about “closing” Guantanamo, this is what they have in mind. They’ve said so.

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Guilty until proven innocent.

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ALL of those examples apply to Guantanamo. In each case someone is kidnapped by the US and held in another country under the claim that they’re outside the reach of the American (and every other) justice system.

Had the tribunals failed to clear me,

So “guilty unless proven innocent” then. With no evidence against him, you hold him for decades because your tribunal obviously can’t definitively clear him either. Nice.

then there were the annual reviews, and finally the federal judges’ habeas reviews.

That explains his first year of captivity, taking us to 2003. With no further evidence produced between 2003 and 2016, why was he still held? Heck, charges were dismissed against him in 2011.

What you have there is a kangaroo court. The “reviews and tribunals” being a mere variation on the lame excuses other criminals use to defend their actions once caught. And the more time goes on, the more the B.S. stinks.

Your ex 2 and 3 are closer to the real world, albeit imprecise, but they’re not about Guantanamo.

All of those are real world examples. Some of them (people kidnapped in Europe) involved Guantanamo. Again, it makes no difference whether it was Guantanamo of any of the US’s other detention and torture centers around the world.

In fact, those CIA detainees and that Canadian engineer would have been better off if they’d been sent to Guantanamo instead.

They’d still be tortured, they’d still be held for years or longer, but they’d earn Air Miles?

Not exactly the best argument against it.

Again, nice strategy you have there. Any proper response to you would get someone banned.

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No, that’s called a preponderance of the evidence.

Like it or not, it was in the U.S. Army manual long before 9/11. It was the standard used in previous wars, probably since they had regulations for tribunals.

You may certainly wish to have it changed, but that’s another argument. I’m just telling you how it is right now.

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No, you’ve already said that examples 2 and 3 are about other locations, neither of which was under U.S. military regulations. CIA custody is a different argument entirely, although generally still legal. (I don’t want to get into the weeds here.)

On the one where a guy is kidnapped, I was just tossing a gimme that someone taken with zero evidence might still get past the tribunal. I hadn’t seen such a case, but I thought I’d let you have it. But getting past more annual reviews? Not with zero evidence.

Keep in mind that hundreds were released over the first couple years. Some after just a few months. The U.S. military was living in the real world.

As for the guy whose charges were dismissed, that’s different than what you’ve said before, but it goes along with what I’d said earlier: Charges are for crimes. Not all detainees were guilty of crimes – just as in WWII, it wasn’t a crime under U.S. law for a German citizen to be a member of the German army. We still locked them up until the end of the war.

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I don’t know enough about international law to argue with you about that, though there are many who do and would be happy to.

But the legality of holding prisoners indefinitely without charges is as irrelevant as the legality of owning slaves or denying the vote to women. Both of those things were legal for the vast majority of the history of humanity, and both are just as out of place in a free society as holding prisoners indefinitely without charges.

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All were US controlled. Whether you apply civilian or military law, it was still the US kidnapping, torturing and holding people without trial, many of them non-combatants, many only on vague suspicions.

neither of which was under U.S. military regulations.

Nonsense. Even the torture at Guantanamo was damned illegal under US military regulations. American military law didn’t apply at Guantanamo any more than it applied at the other torture and detention centers.

And that’s even AFTER 2006, when the War Crimes Act of 1996 was neutered by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, essentially an amnesty law for American war crimes. (One way it did that is to declare virtually anyone, under flimsiest of reasoning, nowhere near any combat, to be declared an unlawful combatant.)

But even after 2006, torture was still illegal under military law. In late 2006, the military issued updated field manuals on intelligence collection (FM 2-22.3. Human Intelligence Collector Operations, September 2006) and counterinsurgency (FM 3-24. Counterinsurgency, December 2006). Both manuals reiterated that “no person in the custody or under the control of DOD, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with and as defined in U.S. law.” Specific techniques prohibited in the intelligence collection manual include:

  • Forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner;

  • Hooding, that is, placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee; using duct tape over the eyes;

  • Applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or other forms of physical pain;

  • Waterboarding;

  • Using military working dogs;

  • Inducing hypothermia or heat injury;

  • Conducting mock executions;

  • Depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care.

In other words, pretty much everything that was going on in US custody, including at military sites like Guantanamo.

On the one where a guy is kidnapped

“The one?” Seriously? “The one?” More than 200 people were kidnapped from the EU alone. But if you mean “the one” who is the subject of this topic…

I was just tossing a gimme that someone taken with zero evidence might still get past the tribunal. I hadn’t seen such a case, but I thought I’d let you have it. But getting past more annual reviews? Not with zero evidence.

He was seized in 2003. He wasn’t even charged until 2008, and the charges were dropped in 2011. He’s finally being released in 2016, and even then, like with others who have been cleared and “released”, that might just mean being detained in Uruguay instead.

SO… Yeah. Imaginary annual review after imaginary annual review after annual review, with no evidence to take to trial.

Keep in mind that hundreds were released over the first couple years.

I’m sure that comes as a great comfort to those now half-way through their second decade in detention without trial.

The U.S. military was living in the real world.

In the same sense as any other lawless tinpot torture state.

just as in WWII, it wasn’t a crime under U.S. law for a German citizen to be a member of the German army. We still locked them up until the end of the war

How many German civilians did America ship from Germany to America or American overseas bases? How many Brits or Canadians or others? How many were tortured? How many were still in detention in the late 1950s? Because that’s the more honest equivalent here.

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Yes, we locked up members of the German army in Prisoner of War camps, and treated them as Prisoners of War under the Geneva Convention relative to the 2nd Treaty “Treatment of Prisoners of War,” concluded on July 27, 1929 and that entered into effect on June 19, 1931.

The way that we got around this treaty in our treatment of the people that we imprisoned in Guantanamo (and in many other places) was repulsive, slimy, and arguably a violation of the geneva convention: We decided not to call them prisoners of war, but instead enemy combatants. We used a synonym for prisoner of war so we could argue the protections given by the geneva convention did not apply to these prisoners our military was holding. I realize this is a gross simplification of the way this actually occurred but this is the main point that you have seemed to have either failed to understand or recognize.

Whether the United States doing this was “legal” or not, it was definitely a violation of substantive and intrinsic human rights.

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He’s been trying to, over and over again. Right since he signed a directive to do so, yes, just as soon as he assumed office. (That time the US senate responded by voting 90–6 to block funds needed for the transfer or release of prisoners held in Guantanamo.)

Ironically, Guantanamo is still operating because Obama isn’t a tin-pot dictator.

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Slightly unrelated, but the incredibly one-sided UK-USA extradition treaty which we have occasionally rears its ugly head, notably in the Gary McKinnon case and others.

As I understand it, one of the original complaints laid against Britain in the US Declaration of Independence was “transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offences”.

The irony of that seems lost as the circle is now complete.

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And we’re telling you it’s a violation of human rights, which is the point you are either failing to understand or are willfully ignoring–and is, not uncoincidentally, the same approach taken by the Department of Justice.

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If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear*

  • offer does not apply to Muslims, foreigners, people of pigment, the poor, youth, progressives, anybody who looks at authority funny
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As I said, I’m just telling you how it is now. If you want the laws changed then you’ll need to see about changing them. Just don’t expect the rest of the world to change theirs. (They’ll say they’re more humane than we are, but they’re not.)

I will point out, however, that we’ve always held prisoners “indefinitely” in wars. It’s never known how long a war is going to take until we get near the end. I don’t think you’ll succeed in getting anyone to set time limits on taking prisoners.

And what should it be? How long would the Vietnam war have lasted if our POWs could all be released after five years?

Yes, this war will take longer. That’s why we have parole-style hearings and annual reviews. And don’t forget, not only do our enemies want the war to continue, the current Guantanamo detainees also want the war to continue. (There are two exceptions, and they need to be isolated from the others.) It would be better to try to get our enemies to seek peace.

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No, the topic is Guantanamo, and the possibility of bringing detainees to the U.S. I don’t have time to explain all the Bush and Obama admin war policies.

Most of what you’re talking about was under CIA control. Some is military, but related to Iraq or Afghanistan, not Guantanamo. There are enough fallacies on the topic of Gitmo. The others will have to wait.

No one is currently being held on vague suspicions. They’ve had tribunals, annual reviews and reviews by federal judges.

Don’t be obtuse. You gave three “real examples,” and I was referring to your example #1. You said, “charges were dismissed against him in 2011,” which led me to assume you were talking about that particular case – and you were.

But that guy is not at all like you’d postulated. Your example said there was no evidence at all. Instead, he is an example of what I was talking about: There was plenty of evidence that he was a member of a terrorist group. He just couldn’t be charged for a particular crime.

They’re still enemies of the U.S. They’re just not chargable as criminals. Can you at least understand that difference? Trials are for crimes. This is a war. We’ve always taken prisoners in wars. Until this one, they’ve always been held until the war ended. We’re letting most go early, but usually not because they’re found innocent.

There were not 200 “kidnapped” from the EU. They may have been from the EU, but they weren’t all captured there.

An honest equivalent? You would then need to adjust for the fact that our current enemies aren’t willing to work on qualifying for POW status. In WWII, Allies and Axis powers had discussions on how to handle the difficult cases. Today’s enemies don’t care about POW status.

And as long as our enemies don’t want to operate like real militaries, you really shouldn’t be trying to argue that Al Qaeda members should be treated like innocents. It’s not our fault that they don’t qualify for POW status.

I didn’t say we transferred enemy civilians anywhere in WWII. But we transferred thousands of POWs. And with some due process (although less than we have at Gitmo, and far fewer complaints), we’ve executed some of the unlawful combatants who didn’t qualify for POW status. No Gitmo for them.

Of course, we also held thousands of Japanese, German and Italian civilians who’d come here to immigrate. The British detained nearly a thousand of their own people. What the British did to the actual spies is probably more comparable, but they were treated far worse. And, of course, the U.S. and Canada restricted thousands of our own citizens of Japanese descent. (That last terrible, but it not actually illegal either.)

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This isn’t just me, or even the Bush administration. It’s also the Obama administration, the Supreme Court, and history.

Think about it this way: The Bush administration lost some major cases on Guantanamo. At each loss, they changed their policies to comply with the decision. But Guantanamo is still open, and the detainees are still not POWs. Whoever told you it’s illegal hasn’t informed the Supreme Court.

It wasn’t an obscure provision of the Geneva Convention that let us not give POW status to Taliban or Al Qaeda detainees. The treaty clearly describes who gets POW status. It has never given it to non-state terrorist groups unless they make separate agreements for it.

Note that the Court gave them rights under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. This is the part that of the treaty that is self-contained. It does not include provisions for POW status unless the parties make separate agreements for it.

There’s a reason the Supreme Court says this is legal.

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Sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not. In regards to any argument about the moral authority of the state to hold individuals indefinitely without charge, it’s irrelevant.

Taking prisoners of war requires that a war, which is declared by the Congress, is taking place. Pretending that our “war on terrorism” means we are actually at “war,” is a simple way to justify anything the state does in its name forever. And pretending that the kinds of prisoners we’ve held in Guantanamo are anything like the Japanese and German POW’s we captured in WW2 is to compare apples and oranges, in that the circumstances of this conflict are so profoundly different from those of WW2.

I really don’t understand this. The North Vietnamese were awful and so… what, now? What does that have to do with the proper way to treat the prisoners we’ve been holding?

What war, exactly? “The War on Terror?” “The War on Militant Islam?” When was this war declared and when will it end? For someone as vested as in legality as you appear to be, it would seem that these are important questions which need answering.

If you think that our enemies are the only ones who want the war to continue, then I suspect we’re absolutely going to have to agree to disagree on this matter. That you think you actually know what the current (how current, btw?) Guantanamo detainees want, confirms my suspicion.*

*Unless, of course, you can provide evidence that you know what the prisoners in Guantanamo are thinking (current prisoners, that is; do you not know what the previous prisoners were thinking? If not, why not?).

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