As Gitmo Hunger Strike Continues, Lawyers Step Up Fight for Access

[SamCA]

vern humphrey:

I asked the same question, and I eagerly await the answer.

Here’s a clue: The title to the thread is “As Gitmo Hunger Strike Continues, Lawyers Step Up Fight for Access.”

But SamCA says “Any thoughts on the fact that according to the US’ own intelligence, 70% to 90% of our Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake, and are not in fact terrorists – and yet they’re being held without charges, and tortured, anyway?”

You see my point?http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

I’m sorry, I didn’t think I had to repost the link – after all, I had just posted it a few hours beforehand, and still hadn’t recieved a comment. To wit, in post #64 of this very thread, I posted:

No, I think it’s probably aimed more at the non-combatant civilians who make up somewhere between 70% and 90% of our detainees. That’s according to leaked communications between the Red Cross and the Pentagon, which contained interviews with our own intelligence people on the ground in Iraq. According to the assessments of the people running the prisons, somewhere between 7 and 9 out of 10 of these detainees are just civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This leaked report was published in the Wall Street Journal, a traditionally right-leaning paper. I haven’t linked, for the simple reason that the WSJ doesn’t offer its stories online for free. Here’s an article that followed that publication, though:

msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/

"Intelligence officers of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq estimated that 70 percent to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake, the Red Cross said in a report that was disclosed Monday, and Red Cross observers witnessed U.S. officers mistreating Abu Ghraib prisoners by keeping them naked in total darkness in empty cells.

Abuse was, “in some cases, tantamount to torture,” it said."

Further, here’s a scan of the actual secret Red Cross report in question: msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Sections/News/International%20News/Mideast%20and%20N.%20Africa/Iraq%20conflict/Red%20Cross%20report.pdf

A few choice excerpts:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_ICRC_2.jpg

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_ICRC_3.jpg

 

[SamCA]

Oh, and if anybody does have a paid account with the Wall Street Journal, here’s their initial coverage of this report: online.wsj.com/article/0,SB108414473392906282,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

 

[MikeWM]

vern humphrey:

You call Internment “operating behind the scenes?”

No, I call it the kind of policy that only made things worse, just like Gitmo. Fortunately we saw sense and realised that internment was indeed making things worse.

In other words, you didn’t serve and didn’t care anything about the operations in Northern Ireland.

There are many things that don’t affect my daily life that I care about. Yet again you are putting words into my mouth

No kidding?http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

I assume that response is Serbo-Croatian for "I still don’t have a clue."http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

Nope. Have another go. Just because it doesn’t have enough guns and explosions in it for your liking, doesn’t make it invalid.

Mike

 

[MikeWM]

estesbob:

Right after you answer Verns repeated questions to you as what your alternative to what we are doing in iraq is.

Already have. That’ll be one for the ‘dunno’ pile then?

Mike

 

[thestickman]

SamCA:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_ICRC_2.jpg

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_ICRC_3.jpg

Too funny. 99.9999% of the detainees in Gitmo are not from Iraq.

 

[MikeWM]

99.9999% of the detainees in Gitmo are not from Iraq.

Nevertheless, if they couldn’t pick up the right people in Iraq, why should we believe they were doing any better in Afghanistan?

Mike

 

[SamCA]

MikeWM:

Nevertheless, if they couldn’t pick up the right people in Iraq, why should we believe they were doing any better in Afghanistan?

Mike

Heck, even if they did twice as well in Afghanistan as in Iraq, that would still make nearly half of the occupants of Gitmo innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[thestickman]

MikeWM:

Nevertheless, if they couldn’t pick up the right people in Iraq, why should we believe they were doing any better in Afghanistan?

Mike

Fallacious argument: assuming the 2 are related without any evidence to validate your assertion.

 

[MikeWM]

thestickman:

Fallacious argument: assuming the 2 are related without any evidence to validate your assertion.

They are similar things, how’s about you give me some evidence as to why you think the rates would the wildly different?

Mike

 

[thestickman]

MikeWM:

They are similar things, how’s about you give me some evidence as to why you think the rates would the wildly different?

Mike

Easily.

2 vastly different theaters of war with compeletely different enemy forces and terrain for our forces to contend with.

Much more difficult for the foriegn terrorists to hide within anti-Taliban tribal factions vs Iraqi insurgents.

They are similar only in the most general sense of the word. As I stated earlier, you have ZERO evidence to support you claim:

Nevertheless, if they couldn’t pick up the right people in Iraq, why should we believe they were doing any better in Afghanistan?

Also, you have no evidence coalition forces aren’t picking up the right people either. Picking up folks who are later discovered to not be terrorists or insurgents doesn’t mean coalition forces aren’t getting the right people by itself.

Again, I submit your assertions are fallacious.

 

[MikeWM]

thestickman:

2 vastly different theaters of war with compeletely different enemy forces and terrain for our forces to contend with.

Much more difficult for the foriegn terrorists to hide within anti-Taliban tribal factions vs Iraqi insurgents.

I fail to see how the terrain is relevant to determining whether the guy you have picked up is a baddie or not. And why is it ‘much more difficult’?

They are similar only in the most general sense of the word. As I stated earlier, you have ZERO evidence to support you claim:

Except for inconvenient facts like the 9 Brits released from Gitmo, none of whom have been found guilty of anything, and at least some of whom were victims of mistaken identity.

But then I guess that’s just us Brits, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The other nationalities are obviously much more guilty.

Also, you have no evidence coalition forces aren’t picking up the right people either. Picking up folks who are later discovered to not be terrorists or insurgence doesn’t mean coalition forces aren’t getting the right people by itself.

Well, there is the report posted. Are the military intelligence lying?

Mike

 

[thestickman]

MikeWM:

I fail to see how the terrain is relevant to determining whether the guy you have picked up is a baddie or not. And why is it ‘much more difficult’?

Let’s see: A squad of Special Forces finds 20 Taliban in a cave vs searching thru a home of an extended family where 20 people might live and only one is an insurgent.

Except for inconvenient facts like the 9 Brits released from Gitmo, none of whom have been found guilty of anything, and at least some of whom were victims of mistaken identity.

But then I guess that’s just us Brits, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The other nationalities are obviously much more guilty.

Nonsensical and unrelated to the point of your fallacious assertion.

Well, there is the report posted. Are the military intelligence lying?
Mike

I never asserted they were lying at all. Just that you made a fallacious assertion.

 

[vern_humphrey]

SamCA:

I’m sorry, I didn’t think I had to repost the link – after all, I had just posted it a few hours beforehand, and still hadn’t recieved a comment. To wit, in post #64 of this very thread, I posted:

Further, here’s a scan of the actual secret Red Cross report in question: msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Sections/News/International%20News/Mideast%20and%20N.%20Africa/Iraq%20conflict/Red%20Cross%20report.pdf

A few choice excerpts:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_ICRC_2.jpg

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_ICRC_3.jpg

Sam? Gitmo is not in Iraq.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

Without question there are people detained in Iraq and processed on a regular basis. Many of them are released.

Gitmo is the issue in this thread – you can read the thread title at the top of the post window.

 

[SamCA]

vern humphrey:

Gitmo is the issue in this thread – you can read the thread title at the top of the post window.

Ok, how about this? Two of the military’s own prosecutors have each, independantly, complained that the trials at Gitmo are being rigged to find guilty verdicts even against people who they have absolutely no evidence against.

Not the defense, mind you. Not the liberal media. Lawyers working for the government, involved in setting up the tribunals we keep hearing about, who each came to the conclusion that the trials were being rigged.

They were, of course, both summarily removed.

abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1426797.htm

Maj Preston writes that the process is perpetrating a fraud on the American people, and that the cases being pursued are marginal.

“I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people,” Maj Preston wrote.

“Surely they don’t expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time.”

Maj Preston says he cannot continue to work on a process he considers morally, ethically and professionally intolerable.

“I lie awake worrying about this every night,” he wrote.

"I find it almost impossible to focus on my part of mission.

“After all, writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don’t really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you want to call yourself an officer and lawyer.”

Maj Preston was transferred out of the Office of Military Commissions less than a month later.

…]

The second email is written by another prosecutor, Captain John Carr, who also ended up leaving the department.

Capt Carr says the commissions appear to be rigged.

“When I volunteered to assist with this process and was assigned to this office, I expected there would at least be a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused,” he wrote.

“Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganised effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged.”

Capt Carr says that the prosecutors have been told by the chief prosecutor that the panel sitting in judgment on the cases would be handpicked to ensure convictions.

“You have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and that we only needed to worry about building a record for the review panel,” he said.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that a handful of the people we dragged into Guantanamo turned out to be British nationals of Arab descent who had happened to be in Afghanistan during the war. Our screening process was so amazing we didn’t even notice until we got them there; we didn’t release them until years later, after the British government found out and demanded we release their citizens. To absolutely no one’s surprise, they turned out to be quite innocent.

(They also told fairly explicit stories of both torture performed on themselves and other inmates, which the US haughtily denied at the time, but which seem rather more plausible these days.)

 

[thestickman]

You know, as I read this and other threads I can’t help but be grateful all this moral relativism I see bandied about wasn’t in vogue during WW2 like it is now.

Based on my understanding of those being detained “Guantanamo” and “rights” should not be used in the same sentence.

 

[vern_humphrey]

SamCA:

Ok, how about this? Two of the military’s own prosecutors have each, independantly, complained that the trials at Gitmo are being rigged to find guilty verdicts even against people who they have absolutely no evidence against.

Not the defense, mind you. Not the liberal media. Lawyers working for the government, involved in setting up the tribunals we keep hearing about, who each came to the conclusion that the trials were being rigged.

They were, of course, both summarily removed.

abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1426797.htm

“Surely they don’t expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time.”

“Half-arsed?” Odd way for a person who speaks American English to put it.

SamCA:

And then, of course, there’s the fact that a handful of the people we dragged into Guantanamo turned out to be British nationals of Arab descent who had happened to be in Afghanistan during the war. Our screening process was so amazing we didn’t even notice until we got them there; we didn’t release them until years later,

What do you mean “we didn’t even notice them?” We knew they were there, and we held and questionned them.

SamCA:

after the British government found out and demanded we release their citizens. To absolutely no one’s surprise, they turned out to be quite innocent.

Innocent of what? They were properly prisoners – and were released to ease pressure on the British government.

(They also told fairly explicit stories of both torture performed on themselves and other inmates, which the US haughtily denied at the time, but which seem rather more plausible these days.)

“More plausible?” Is that Macro-Penutian for "There’s no evidence, but I believe it?"http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

 

[SamCA]

vern humphrey:

“More plausible?” Is that Macro-Penutian for “There’s no evidence, but I believe it?”

Ok, I’m done. Anyone who still thinks there’s no evidence we’re torturing people clearly wouldn’t change his opinion unless God himself descended from on high and told him so.

I’ll even leave you the last word; enjoy your snipe about how I’m conceding, with the little winking smiley face.

 

[thestickman]

SamCA:

Ok, I’m done. Anyone who still thinks there’s no evidence we’re torturing people clearly wouldn’t change his opinion unless God himself descended from on high and told him so.

I’ll even leave you the last word; enjoy your snipe about how I’m conceding, with the little winking smiley face.

The lack of real, specific evidence is a tough thing to overcome, eh?

Yeah, I know–it’s not a story about Gitmo…but they’re related

 

[vern_humphrey]

SamCA:

Ok, I’m done. Anyone who still thinks there’s no evidence we’re torturing people clearly wouldn’t change his opinion unless God himself descended from on high and told him so.

I’ll even leave you the last word; enjoy your snipe about how I’m conceding, with the little winking smiley face.

You know, when I debate apologetics with 7th Day Adventists, they pull this trick – they keep changing the subject, switching the focus of the debate, and never sticking to one point long enough to settle it.

And they get angry and frustrated when I won’t play their little game.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

 

[SamCA]

thestickman:

The lack of real, specific evidence is a tough thing to overcome, eh?

Yeah, I know–it’s not a story about Gitmo…but they’re related

Oh, come on! More than a thousand pages of our own military’s reports explicitly detail torture! Our own soldiers are coming forward in increasing numbers and testifying about the torture they saw – and were ordered to commit! – in Iraq and Afghanistan!

If you think the people in Gitmo are all eeevil terrorists, that’s one thing. I think it’s an unsupportable assertion, but I suppose there’s a debate to be had.

But we’re torturing people. The Taguba Report showed it. Every prisoner released from Gitmo has testified to it. Our own soldiers are testifying to it. ****, I have a friend in Iraq who’s personally seen it.

“I think our policies required abuse,” says Lagouranis. “There were freaking horrible things people were doing. I saw [detainees] who had feet smashed with hammers. One detainee told me he had been forced by Marines to sit on an exhaust pipe, and he had a softball-sized blister to prove it. The stuff I did was mainly torture lite: sleep deprivation, isolation, stress positions, hypothermia. We used dogs.”

msnbc.msn.com/id/9865301/site/newsweek/

And I’ll finish just by bringing it down screechingly to the ground and tell you that the detainee abuse issue is just such a concrete example of what I’ve just described to you, that 10 years from now or so when it’s really, really put to the acid test, ironed out and people have looked at it from every angle, we are going to be ashamed of what we allowed to happen.

– Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff (retired, 2004), U.S. State Dept.