US 'erodes' global human rights

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2005-01-14 05:36am

The beauty of the "war on terror" is that in a war you can throw normal rules out the window. Most of the Gitmo scum would be back to buissness as usual if they had been paraded in front of a civilian court. But since they are combatants taken prisoner in war they can be held as long as there is a war on, in effect until OBL & Omar come down from the mountains and surrender. At that point the US would have to either charge them with a crime or release them. Further more the Gitmo gang are illegal combatants so they are noe even covered by the protection of the GenCon, the US could basicaly shoot the lot without breaking international law. We might hear stories of how they "didn't do anything" or "never fired a shot" in Afghanistan but that is irrelevant, AQ organized the foreign legions of the Taliban regime and AQ do not meet the very generous requirement in the GenCon for being regarded as a legitemate legal organisation who's members are entitled to the protection of the convention.

Prisoners from Iraq is more questionable, most of them would be considered legitemate combatants and entitled to the protection of the convention. They have to be charged on an individual basis for any crimes comitted unless they are clearly identified as belonging to resistance groups ignoring the GenCon.

Gunhead · Post by **Gunhead** » 2005-01-14 06:23am

One little note here fellas. If someone is judged to be an illegal combatant, all it means is he can be tried for crimes committed, and then punished according to law. Last time I checked U.S law doesn't allow torture. If this has somehow changed please let me know.

-Gunhead

Post by **Gandalf** » 2005-01-14 06:47am

Gunhead wrote:One little note here fellas. If someone is judged to be an illegal combatant, all it means is he can be tried for crimes committed, and then punished according to law. Last time I checked U.S law doesn't allow torture. If this has somehow changed please let me know.

IIRC, Gitmo is not American soil, it's leased from Cuba. So their laws don't really apply because it's not their land.

Gunhead · Post by **Gunhead** » 2005-01-14 07:00am

IIRC, Gitmo is not American soil, it's leased from Cuba. So their laws don't really apply because it's not their land.[/quote]

Doesn't matter, it's a military base under military law. If U.S military law allows for torture it's ok. But I again last I checked U.S military law doesn't allow torture.

-Gunhead

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-01-14 07:02am

Gandalf wrote:
Gunhead wrote:One little note here fellas. If someone is judged to be an illegal combatant, all it means is he can be tried for crimes committed, and then punished according to law. Last time I checked U.S law doesn't allow torture. If this has somehow changed please let me know.
IIRC, Gitmo is not American soil, it's leased from Cuba. So their laws don't really apply because it's not their land.

Bullshit. Its a Unietd States Military base run by the United States under US law. No-one on that base answers to Castro in any way shape or form in terms of law, only to the laws of The United States of America. I think the SCOTUS has or is rulling on this and is expected to come down hard on Bush and his cronies.

I SPIT on the US 'justice' system they set up to process "Terrorist Suspects". It is a slap in the face to the whole IDEA of justice. They are indefinetly holding people without charge, trail or legal recourse BECAUSE they know their evidence of them being terrorists is so fucking thin it will be thrown out of any REAL courtroom.

Of course they can't just let them go and admit they were WRONG after all this time, everyone will be screaming for bloody. And there is a rather good risk that these people may well be more then a LITTLE pissed off and now WANT to shoot at American Soliders, even if they didn't before.

Oh for the Land of the Free. With Liberty and Justice for all....except when its inconvenient to stand upto those ideals, so lets just sweep them under the rug.

*This rant was not directed at you Gandalf, just at Bush and his Administration*

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-14 07:42am

We should all try harder to live up to the standards, principles, and ideals of the nations that worked so hard to see to it that we were kicked off the UN Human Rights panel... Syria, Libya, and Somalia...[/sarcasm]

...but seriously, the problem is the status of the prisoners more so than the law. If these were captured soldiers in uniform, we'd have no problem understanding where they stood in the scheme of things. They would not be "criminals" but guys doing their job, no hard feelings.

But they are not soldiers per se, but they are not civilians... they may be the guys who never fired a shot but gave someone the C-4 used to blow up a bus. Or inflamed rhetoric that encouraged others to kill. As far as I recall, Hitler himself never fired a shot in WW2 or physically killed anyone-- but he was the mastermind behind it all and would have been held responsible if caught alive.

THe guys in the Third Reich hierarchy got trials even though everyone "knew" what they did...

I don't think torture works, and I don't think we should use it even if it does simply because of the bad PR is generates-- we need to be "better than that".

But to say that the US is the prime reason that human rights in the world are being eroded is fucking stupid. It is just more of the "everything evil in all of human history that has ever happened is all the United States' fault, they are t3h 3\/1|_" bullshit.

There's a lot more torture and viciousness going on out there that has nothing to do with the USA. That does not condone America's use of torture but put it in perspective-- some torture happens, the people speak out against it, the torture is investigated and the perpatrators investigated and heads will roll.

As opposed to many more places in the world with far, far, far more abysmal human rights abuse records that go unchallenged. Let's not forget the cruel torture deaths of Somalian prisoners at the hands of Canadian troops-- did Canada suddenly become the source of all darkness in the world? No, Canada investigated and disbanded and entire military corps over it.

France made torture an integral part of its foreign policy in Algeria for decades on end without a peep from the world. A couple years ago I saw a news report on the conditions of some French prisons that almost makes the death penalty look like an appealing alternative. Is France 't3h 3\/1|_'? ...no.

Torture is wrong and we should not use it; I want it to end becase it does make us look bad and it's wrong. But to say that America is some sort of engine of destruction for global human rights is to make a sick parody of the rash of human rights violators out there.

Gunhead · Post by **Gunhead** » 2005-01-14 08:01am

I hear you Coyote, it just seems people forget/don't know what the term legal combatant means. Even if someone is not granted protection by the Geneva convention, doesn't mean he's not protected by laws of the country he is in or laws that are in force in the country he's in. This is all part of the due process. Sure they can find him guilty of espionage or whatever, but for it to be legal, process has to be followed.

-Gunhead

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2005-01-14 09:40am

Gunhead wrote:If someone is judged to be an illegal combatant, all it means is he can be tried for crimes committed, and then punished according to law.

You can prosecute legal combatants as well, but with certain restrictions. They can only be tried for crimes that you would also charge your own troops for, being a legitemate combatant is not a crime. However being an illegal combatant is. Not following the rules of war is a serious matter that you can legaly get executed for on the spot.

Legal combatants can be convicted for actual crimes they comitt, Illegal combatants can be shot simply for existing. This is no big deal IMPO since you have to be a rather vile creature not to qualify for GenCon protection.

Putting the Nazis on trial was a good idea but then it was a safe thing to do, give them a trial before we hang them. Like General Melchet said as Blackadder's trial "bring in the deceased"... The last time the US tried top islamic terrorists they lost vital intelligence assets by being forced to reveal their sources to the defence. Bringing most of the Gitmo prisoners to civilian court would force the US to fight a covert war without secrecy - how often do you win in poker if you play with open cards and your opponent does not?

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2005-01-14 10:30am

CJvR wrote: Putting the Nazis on trial was a good idea but then it was a safe thing to do, give them a trial before we hang them. Like General Melchet said as Blackadder's trial "bring in the deceased"... The last time the US tried top islamic terrorists they lost vital intelligence assets by being forced to reveal their sources to the defence. Bringing most of the Gitmo prisoners to civilian court would force the US to fight a covert war without secrecy - how often do you win in poker if you play with open cards and your opponent does not?

That's a bullshit excuse, you think special provisions for sealed courtrooms and gag orders can't be arranged?

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2005-01-14 10:38am

The Kernel wrote:you think special provisions for sealed courtrooms and gag orders can't be arranged?

No, but I think that once you have arranged all that stuff you will end up with something similar to the proposed military courts anyway.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2005-01-14 10:51am

CJvR wrote:
The Kernel wrote:you think special provisions for sealed courtrooms and gag orders can't be arranged?
No, but I think that once you have arranged all that stuff you will end up with something similar to the proposed military courts anyway.

Although military courts are better than nothing, the idea of the military justice system being impartial is laughable. You are not giving a trial by a jury of their peers, they are getting a trial by jury of their enemies. Besides, the military justice system doesn't have nearly the same level of checks and balances as the US criminal justice system, which is necessary to retain some level of credibility.

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2005-01-14 10:58am

Stark wrote:Think about that. You said 'you don't need enough evidence to convict someone at a fair trial to know what they've done'.

Think about that.

How do you know what they've done, if you can't prove it? Spider-sense? The towel on their head? A history of listening to punk music?

How much evidence is deemed "inadmissable" in court because of one technicality or another? How many Johnie Cochran type lawyers are out there working their ass off to create reasonable doubt where none should exist?

As I said, we're not randomly grabbing people off the street. These are people for the most part seized on the battlefield fighting with terrorist groups. It doesn't take a genius or a court of law to determine whose side they were one. Giving them a full American style trial would unneccisarily burden tax payers as well as hinder anti terrorist activities

Due process prevents misuse of power.

News Flash: Are you aware that Habeas Corpus can and has been suspended before?

The U.S. Constitution states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in causes of rebellion or invasion of the public safety may require it."

I believe terrorism would fall under the "rebellion, or invasion of the public safety" clause.

Above and beyond that, Non Americans aren't protected by the constitution in the first place!

You even contradict yourself; you admit that innocent people are imprisoned, then wave it off. Then you claim that 'most' of them are terrorists. Then you claim noone is tortured 'at random'. From this I understand that you support detaining and torturing people, without trial, as long as it isn't 'random'.

Read the statement again. I said that innocent people are imprisoned everyday - even in after they've been given "due process". I made no distinction as to them being terrorists or not. My gut feeling is that as a percentage, you've got a higher percentage of "guilty" people being held as terrorists in Guantanamo than you do of innocent people wrongly convicted and held in American prisons.

And yes I'm in favor of not "radomly torchuring" people we detain to find out "whatever they might know". But if you have someone whom you reasonably feel has information about terrorist attacks, or terrorist groups, then you should be able to use whatever means neccessary.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2005-01-14 11:06am

Admiral_K wrote: How much evidence is deemed "inadmissable" in court because of one technicality or another? How many Johnie Cochran type lawyers are out there working their ass off to create reasonable doubt where none should exist?

You got a problem with this? Work to reform the rule of evidence in a court of law. The US legal system works the way it does for a reason, you do not just arbitrarily throw it out due to inconvenience.

As I said, we're not randomly grabbing people off the street. These are people for the most part seized on the battlefield fighting with terrorist groups. It doesn't take a genius or a court of law to determine whose side they were one. Giving them a full American style trial would unneccisarily burden tax payers as well as hinder anti terrorist activities

So guilty until proven innocent eh? Why? Because they aren't American?

News Flash: Are you aware that Habeas Corpus can and has been suspended before?

The U.S. Constitution states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in causes of rebellion or invasion of the public safety may require it."

I believe terrorism would fall under the "rebellion, or invasion of the public safety" clause.

Then take it to the US Supreme Court and see if they agree with you. Oh wait, the Bush Administration already did didn't they? And the SCOTUS rejected it didn't they?

Above and beyond that, Non Americans aren't protected by the constitution in the first place!

Actually, yes they are you fucking moron.

Read the statement again. I said that innocent people are imprisoned everyday - even in after they've been given "due process". I made no distinction as to them being terrorists or not. My gut feeling is that as a percentage, you've got a higher percentage of "guilty" people being held as terrorists in Guantanamo than you do of innocent people wrongly convicted and held in American prisons.

Really? And what does your gut feeling tell you about what my chances are of winning the lotto today? And what about the chances of my stock portfolio increasing in value? Please tell me, these are things I need to know.

And yes I'm in favor of not "radomly torchuring" people we detain to find out "whatever they might know". But if you have someone whom you reasonably feel has information about terrorist attacks, or terrorist groups, then you should be able to use whatever means neccessary.

And how do you suggest making the distinction between who is guilty and innocent without due process?

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2005-01-14 11:11am

Stuart Mackey wrote:
Admiral_K wrote:
SancheztheWhaler wrote:
Should we therefore torture people who protest abortion clinics for "terrorizing" the patients and employees? Let's round them up, torture them until we know all their plans, and then round the rest of them up and torture them some more. It's a pretty arbitrary definition.
Well I guess I should've been more specific in my definition. If you knowingly and willingly work with terrorist groups who particpate in the intentional murder of civilians in order to "terrorize" their government towards some behavior, you give up your "human rights".
The problem with this line of reasoning is that you would make yourself into that which you despise.

Slippery Slope Fallacy. Just because we would be willing to torchure terrorist scum in order to get information that would save innocent lives doesn't mean that we would be on "the same moral ground" as those who indiscriminantly kill people in order to terrorize the public into a certain course of action.

Imagine if your family were held by a group somewhere and you had 24 hours to find out where they are and save them before they would be killed. Now imagine you have in your possession a man whom you believe knows where they are, but his only statements to you are "Fuck you American Pig! I want my fucking Lawyer!" Are you going to:

A) Give him a "fair trial" which clearly would take longer than the 24 hours, allowing your family to be killed.

Or

B) Torchure him until he can't take it anymore and will tell you anything, thus finding where your family is held and saving them.

Personally, I'd choose option B, but if you could live with yourself by choosing A then thats your prerogative.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2005-01-14 11:25am

Admiral_K wrote: Slippery Slope Fallacy. Just because we would be willing to torchure terrorist scum in order to get information that would save innocent lives doesn't mean that we would be on "the same moral ground" as those who indiscriminantly kill people in order to terrorize the public into a certain course of action.

No, but it's a lovely start.

Imagine if your family were held by a group somewhere and you had 24 hours to find out where they are and save them before they would be killed. Now imagine you have in your possession a man whom you believe knows where they are, but his only statements to you are "Fuck you American Pig! I want my fucking Lawyer!" Are you going to:

A) Give him a "fair trial" which clearly would take longer than the 24 hours, allowing your family to be killed.

Or

B) Torchure him until he can't take it anymore and will tell you anything, thus finding where your family is held and saving them.

Personally, I'd choose option B, but if you could live with yourself by choosing A then thats your prerogative.

First, I'm not going to be the one making that decision as no person who has a personal stake in something SHOULD make such a decision.

But even so, the biggest problem with your stupid example is that you DON'T KNOW if this man knows jack shit, let alone had anything to do with kidnapping anyone. I notice in your example, you assume that option B will invariably lead to getting the information you need. What if OTOH, you torture the man to death, and it turns out he knew nothing and was just coping a bad attitude because he doesn't like authority and was excercizing his Constitutional right to free speech. Now are you still in the right?

It may surprise you but situations like this DO come up from time to time in police investigations. Suspected kidnappers are brought in, but without the victims and the police must try to obtain the location from the suspected kidnappers. Do you think they do this by torture? Of course not, if they did then not only would the kidnapper go free but the police department would be sued and the detectives involved would be personally liable for criminal charges put against them.

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2005-01-14 11:31am

Gunhead wrote:One little note here fellas. If someone is judged to be an illegal combatant, all it means is he can be tried for crimes committed, and then punished according to law. Last time I checked U.S law doesn't allow torture. If this has somehow changed please let me know.

-Gunhead

What the hell is an illegal combatant?

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2005-01-14 11:34am

Admiral_K wrote:
Imagine if your family were held by a group somewhere and you had 24 hours to find out where they are and save them before they would be killed. Now imagine you have in your possession a man whom you believe knows where they are, but his only statements to you are "Fuck you American Pig! I want my fucking Lawyer!" Are you going to:

A) Give him a "fair trial" which clearly would take longer than the 24 hours, allowing your family to be killed.

Or

B) Torchure him until he can't take it anymore and will tell you anything, thus finding where your family is held and saving them.

Personally, I'd choose option B, but if you could live with yourself by choosing A then thats your prerogative.

That's the most absurd analogy trotted out yet for torture. Cite me where there's a time frame crunch to torture the people in Abu Graib or anywhere else. Cite me how something as personal as my family being held prisoner relates to anything going on in Gitmo or anywhere else for that matter. In fact cite me anywhere where the tortures in Abu Graib and Gitmo were designed to even elicit information.

"Ok guys, if you're not going to tell me what I need to know where going to put this leash on you and a hood. And if you don't talk after that...well we're going to have to get real rough and stick you in a naked pyramid with other prisoners then you'll wish you were never born."

There was no fucking attempt to ellicit any information from these prisoners, they were tortured because it was 'fun' to do it. Don't ascribe so called noble or valiant rationales for mindless brutality asshole. These people were abused for no other reason than these fuckers thought it would be cool.

And the prisoners in Gitmo are getting more of the same.

It stuns me that an American would support any sort of torture for torture's sake. This isn't '24' jackass. No one's family is being held prisoner and the only source of info is some schlub in Gitmo whose been out of contact with his cell for 2 years. What possible fresh info can he or anyone else in jail know at this point?

But hey, if you can live with being a heartless asshole be my guest.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-01-14 11:40am

Oi ..... yes, many of us would exercise poor judgment in the heat of the moment and do terrible things to the person we believed had the information to save our loved ones.

And then, regardless of the outcome, we would be prosecuted for kidnapping and assault, at a minimum.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2005-01-14 11:40am

The Kernel wrote:Although military courts are better than nothing, the idea of the military justice system being impartial is laughable. You are not giving a trial by a jury of their peers, they are getting a trial by jury of their enemies. Besides, the military justice system doesn't have nearly the same level of checks and balances as the US criminal justice system, which is necessary to retain some level of credibility.

Well Kernel the prisoners aren't exactly civilians and they aren't really military either that is the problem.
There seems to be two thoughts on the Gitmo gang and they are:
1. they are illegal combatants not entitled to any protection under the GenCon other than what US generosity and decency provide.
2. they are illegal combatants and thus civilian criminals entitled to the far greater protection of the civilian justice system.
I don't think you should simply promote illegal combatants to civilian status and a military court is impartial enough IMPO. I doubt the US military courts will freakout and have the lot machinegunned since it's critics will watch them like hawks.

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2005-01-14 11:43am

BoredShirtless wrote:
Admiral_K wrote:You want to give terrorists a fair trial?
Unless caught in the act of terrorising, and I can assure you most kept in Cuba were not, you NEED a fucking trial to find out whether they ARE terrorists!

YOU can ASSURE me that MOST of the people being kept in Cuba were not caught terrorizing, or supporting terrorists. Well I guess that settles it then.

And No, you don't need a fucking trial to find out whether they are terrorists.

Its not possible to combat terrorism as you would normal crime.
And why the fuck not?

Because terrorists operate in a vast array of countries. You aren't going to be able to "subpeona" witnesses for one thing. Further, if you are forced to treat them as criminal suspects, then you also have to give them "reasonable bail", and while some judges would deny that, there are many who would not.

Factor in the lost time be giving these enemy combatants "due process" instead of interrogating them, grately inhibits the fight against their pals still out in the world seeking to attack us.

You don't need to have enough evidence to convict someone in a "fair trial" to know what they've done.
BWAHAHAHA!!!!

Whats so funny? Do you think that OJ was innocent? Or maybe you still think Jayson Williams didn't shoot his limo driver.

The one that should be laughing her is me at your Naivety

These are people who were for the most part captured out on the battlefield fighting with terrorist groups.
Prove it.

Prove what? Most of them were found in afghanistan fighting with terrorist groups. Thats how we got them in the first place. Given the number of terrorist training camps that existed in that country, that was to be expected.

Its not like we are radomly kicking in doors and grabbing people because they are "jews" or "muslims".
And who said you were?

The point is these people aren't being held by racial motivation. They are being held because they are seen as a danger to the safety of the American people at home and abroad.

I'm not saying that the Bush administration hasn't fucked up and gotten some innocents, but innocent people go to jail everyday for other reasons. I believe by and large most of the people we've gotten are terrorists and or terrorist supporters. I don't believe we are randomly torchuring anyone.
Then you live in a fantasy, where American Commandos can take out 50 Arabs and the US government stands for truth and justice!

Actually that kill to loss ratio probably isn't far off. And the US government stands to defend the people of the United States. If you feel that they are randomly torchuring innocent people for "kicks" then you are the one who should be felt sorry for.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2005-01-14 11:45am

CJvR wrote: Well Kernel the prisoners aren't exactly civilians and they aren't really military either that is the problem.
There seems to be two thoughts on the Gitmo gang and they are:
1. they are illegal combatants not entitled to any protection under the GenCon other than what US generosity and decency provide.

Which is blatant horseshit.

2. they are illegal combatants and thus civilian criminals entitled to the far greater protection of the civilian justice system.

Which I agree with. I don't trust military courts to be impartial for obvious reasons and if their evidence against these guys is so good, they can just as easily present it in a US criminal court.

I don't think you should simply promote illegal combatants to civilian status and a military court is impartial enough IMPO. I doubt the US military courts will freakout and have the lot machinegunned since it's critics will watch them like hawks.

The problem is, they are getting a trial by a biased group of jurors and a military officer as a judge. There is really no reason not to admit them into the civilian criminal justice system either--whatever evidence they have against these guys would have to be based on witness testimony from US soldiers in the field anyways, so discovery would not be overly complicated.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2005-01-14 11:49am

SancheztheWhaler wrote:What the hell is an illegal combatant?

A combatant that does not meet the behavior & organisation requirement in the Geneva convention.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2005-01-14 11:52am

Admiral_K wrote: YOU can ASSURE me that MOST of the people being kept in Cuba were not caught terrorizing, or supporting terrorists. Well I guess that settles it then.

And No, you don't need a fucking trial to find out whether they are terrorists.

Too bad the SCOTUS and the Constitution disagree with you eh?

Because terrorists operate in a vast array of countries. You aren't going to be able to "subpeona" witnesses for one thing.

If you are relying on witnesses that are foreign in the first place then you have a problem. Most likely the testimony of US military personal that catch them in the act would be sufficient and the only acceptable evidence anyways aside from physical evidence.

Further, if you are forced to treat them as criminal suspects, then you also have to give them "reasonable bail", and while some judges would deny that, there are many who would not.

Horseshit, on severe offenses it can quite easily be mandated that a large bail or remand is the necessary course of action.

Factor in the lost time be giving these enemy combatants "due process" instead of interrogating them, grately inhibits the fight against their pals still out in the world seeking to attack us.

Too bad then. You don't change the rules of law because it is inconvenient not to.

Whats so funny? Do you think that OJ was innocent? Or maybe you still think Jayson Williams didn't shoot his limo driver.

The one that should be laughing her is me at your Naivety

What you think is irrelevent. What matters is that guilt needs to be PROVEN in a court of law. Don't like it? Why don't you go live in Zimbabwe and then you'll be plenty happy.

Prove what? Most of them were found in afghanistan fighting with terrorist groups. Thats how we got them in the first place. Given the number of terrorist training camps that existed in that country, that was to be expected.

How do you know this? You have physical proof? I haven't seen any outside of the press releases from the Bush Administration.

The point is these people aren't being held by racial motivation. They are being held because they are seen as a danger to the safety of the American people at home and abroad.

Really? So Timothy McVeigh was sent to Gitmo too? How about those fucks that shoot abortion doctors? Or perhaps the militia men out in the boondocks? Are they all being sent to Gitmo and deprived of their civil rights as well? Oh wait, how silly of me, those people are all white Christians.

Actually that kill to loss ratio probably isn't far off. And the US government stands to defend the people of the United States. If you feel that they are randomly torchuring innocent people for "kicks" then you are the one who should be felt sorry for.

There is PROOF they are randomly torturing people for kicks. See Abu Gharib if you don't believe me. I think that incident might have been in Newsweek or something, maybe you could check it out.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2005-01-14 12:03pm

The Kernel wrote:There is really no reason not to admit them into the civilian criminal justice system

Yes there is!
They are NOT civilians.

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2005-01-14 12:26pm

CJvR wrote:
SancheztheWhaler wrote:What the hell is an illegal combatant?
A combatant that does not meet the behavior & organisation requirement in the Geneva convention.

Which is what? What behavior and organization requirements are stated in the Geneva Convention?