DFINITLYDISTRUBD Posted October 21, 2008 Report Share Posted October 21, 2008 No matter how you put it it's true...sadly.Just one of the many issues that make me ashamed to be an american. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modest Posted October 21, 2008 Report Share Posted October 21, 2008 Thank you, Reason. I should have said also that I didn't mean to disagree with what you said (rereading my post, it might come off that way) - your post was very insightful and just got me thinking about why Gitmo and the denial of rights can both be antithetical to U.S. ideals and such an easy pill for a large part of the country to swallow. Bush's rhetoric about fighting for liberty and freedom are so ridiculous considering Gitmo and domestic spying and everything else. I couldn't agree with you more on this and I suppose I was looking for some historical reason for it. It really bothers me. Both the hypocrisy and the fact that people don't recognize it - they both bother me more than most issues of politics. ~modest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REASON Posted October 21, 2008 Report Share Posted October 21, 2008 More news surrounding Guantanamo's Kangaroo Courts :D US Drops Charges Against 5 Guantanamo Prisoners SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Pentagon said Tuesday it has dropped war-crimes charges against five Guantanamo Bay detainees after the former prosecutor in their cases complained that the military was withholding evidence helpful to the defense. None of the men will be freed, and the military said it could reinstate charges later. America's first war-crimes trials since the close of World War II have come under persistent criticism, including from officers appointed to prosecute them. Some of the harshest words came this month from the very man who was to prosecute the five men against whom charges were dropped. Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld said during a pretrial hearing for a sixth detainee this month that the war-crimes trials are unfair. Vandeveld said the military was withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense in that case, and was doing so in others. He resigned over his concerns. But the chief Guantanamo prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, said Tuesday's announcement was unrelated to Vandeveld's accusations. He said the charges were dismissed because evidence "is being more thoroughly analyzed." He would not elaborate on the nature of the evidence but said the review began before Vandeveld's testimony. "Rather than refine the current charges, it was more efficient and more just to have them dismissed and charge them anew," he told The Associated Press. In addition, dismissing the charges allows to Pentagon to avoid deadlines set by the Military Commissions Act to bring the men to trial. "The way to stop the clock and get a new clock is to dismiss the charges and start again," said Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor who quit in October and later testified about alleged political interference in the military trials..... Wow! Drop the charges so you can avoid your own rules and then charge them again to restart the clock. Now that's what I call justice. :doh: :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REASON Posted October 21, 2008 Report Share Posted October 21, 2008 So of course.......... Bush Decides to Keep Guantánamo Open WASHINGTON — Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials. Mr. Bush’s top advisers held a series of meetings at the White House this summer after a Supreme Court ruling in June cast doubt on the future of the American detention center. But Mr. Bush adopted the view of his most hawkish advisers that closing Guantánamo would involve too many legal and political risks to be acceptable, now or any time soon, the officials said. The administration is proceeding on the assumption that Guantánamo will remain open not only for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency but also well beyond, the officials said, as the site for military tribunals of those facing terrorism-related charges and for the long prison sentences that could follow convictions. The effect of Mr. Bush’s stance is to leave in place a prison that has become a reviled symbol of the administration’s fight against terrorism, and to leave another contentious foreign policy decision for the next president..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted December 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2008 Hicks set to shake off shackles of control orderDecember 20, 2008 - 12:41PM Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks will fully focus on his rehabilitation program after his control order expires at midnight on Saturday, his father says. The convicted terrorism supporter has been living under a strict control order since his release from South Australia's Yatala jail last December. Hicks' father Terry Hicks on Saturday said his son was looking forward to his full freedom without having to report to police or abide by other control conditions, such as curfews or restrictions on his movements. "At the moment, once it's all over, he's going to fully focus on his rehabilitation - it's what he wants to do," Mr Hicks told AAP. "What's been happening is he's been going to rehab, making good progress with the mental and physical things, then having to report to the police station so the rehab's been going out the window and he regresses in his treatment." Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and in January the following year was transferred to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in CubaHicks set to shake off shackles of control order - National - smh.com.au Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted January 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 GOOGLE NEWS HEADLINESPM warned: don't take men from Guantanamo BayThe Australian - 13 hours agoA TOP US general has warned of the risks of taking terror suspects from the notorious Guantanamo Bay military prison as the Rudd Government yesterday admitted it was considering the move after a second request from the Bush administration.Bush asks Australia to take prisoners from Guantanamo Bay Sydney Morning HeraldGuantanamo deal 'unlikely' The AgeSky News Australia - Independent - BBC News - NEWS.com.auall 1,070 news articles » Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted January 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 http://www.amnesty.org.au/centre/action/18823/President-elect Obama must uphold promise to close Guantanamo Bay Home, Amnesty International Australia - Working to Protect Human RightsObama, it’s time to close Guantanamo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racoon Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 Enough with the Charades. Lets charge those MoFo's and be done with it. :eek2: Obama plans on getting rid of GitMo. good. But it may take a few months. Whatever he was secretly informed on may not Matriculate to our pedestrian level however.. So we can just hope. Implant them with Veri-Chips before we let them go.. Lets track their asses :phones: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted January 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 Enough with the Charades. Lets charge those MoFo's and be done with it. :):) Obama plans on getting rid of GitMo. good. But it may take a few months. Whatever he was secretly informed on may not Matriculate to our pedestrian level however.. So we can just hope. Implant them with Veri-Chips before we let them go.. Lets track their asses :)RacoonYou need to go back on your pills again :)m Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REASON Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 Enough with the Charades. Lets charge those MoFo's and be done with it. :):) Did you ever consider that the reason they haven't been charged is that the government is unable to come up with anything legitimate to charge them with? Maintaining the indefinite detention of these people helps to create the illusion that we are able to capture "terrorists" and that the "War On Terror" is succeeding. Plus, the longer we hold them, the more time it will give us to come up with something to charge them with, which then legitimizes their detention all along. It's a shady operation that seeks to circumvent justice under the law, not promote it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modest Posted January 13, 2009 Report Share Posted January 13, 2009 Did you ever consider that the reason they haven't been charged is that the government is unable to come up with anything legitimate to charge them with? A good example (or, at least one that I'm familiar with), is the surviving members of the battle of Qala-i-Jangi... Battle of Qala-i-Jangi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Time - Inside the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi ...who were all put in Guantanamo Bay. Proving that the survivors had any part in the uprising, or ever fired a shot in anger, or did anything criminal would be a legal nightmare. The only evidence would be confessions which no doubt came about without defense council. And, the nature of these trials would showcase interrogation techniques and living conditions at camp X-ray far more than they would showcase success stories in the war on terror. I would agree—it doesn't seem likely that they would be or could be tried openly. ~modest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted November 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2009 Italy Convicts 23 Americans in C.I.A. TrialsBy RACHEL DONADIO 2 minutes ago The landmark case involved the seizure of a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan more than six years ago.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html?hp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted October 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2012 (edited) It would have taken the skills of a first-year law clerk in the Attorney-General's department to advise that the case against David Hicks was a big no-no. It didn't need an appeals court in the United States this week to tell us this was a dodgy political prosecution. Being fitted-up for a war crime for things he allegedly did before the crime was put on the books required some heavy-handed manipulation. Hicks was charged in 2007 with ''material support for terrorism''. This related to ''engaging in combat against US forces'' in Afghanistan in 2001. The Military Commission and the offence itself came into existence in 2006, by an Act of Congress after the 2001 version of the Military Commissions was struck down by the US Supreme Court as unconstitutional. AdvertisementSo on an elementary level the timing in all this was way out, and the stitch-up required high-level intervention. Don't take my word for that. Take the word of the man who prosecuted David Hicks at Guantanamo, Colonel Morris Davis. In a 2008 interview that Davis gave to the independent investigatory media organisation Truthout, he said that when he was appointed a prosecutor he made it clear to his superiors in the Pentagon that ''the one case I did not want to start with was David Hicks''. He explained: ''We told the world these guys are 'the worst of the worst'. David Hicks was a knucklehead. He was just a foot-soldier, not a war criminal.'' Colonel Davis (retired) said that in January 2007 he received an urgent phone call from the top lawyer at the Pentagon, William ''Jim'' Haynes, who asked him: ''How quickly can you charge David Hicks?'' It was the first time that the general counsel at the Pentagon had ever called him about a specific case and he felt it was decidedly ''odd''. At this point, the Manual for Military Commissions had not even been produced by the Defence Department. The manual implements the law and spells out the elements of the crimes charged under the Military Commission Act. It did not exist at the time Haynes (who Bush was trying to shoehorn onto a US appeals court) was pressuring Davis to charge Hicks, who at this stage had already been in Guantanamo for more than five years. Davis said it would probably take two weeks to charge Hicks after the manual saw the light of day. ''Two weeks,'' Haynes replied. ''Two weeks is too long.'' The rush was on for the reason that John Howard had an election that year and his government had nominated David Hicks as Australia's terrorism poster-boy. . . . .Just think about the implications of what the US was trying to do with people like David Hicks. It is saying that anyone in the world, who has suitable radical connections and who is in a war zone fighting against Americans, is guilty of a war crime. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/stench-of-hicks-prosecution-lingers-as-court-exposes-its-flimsy-basis-20121018-27tsb.html#ixzz29iFjBZcWRead more: http://www.smh.com.a...l#ixzz29iF1HjyI Edited October 19, 2012 by Michaelangelica Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted October 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2012 This so-called crime was invented five years after Hicks was alleged to have committed it. Quite a few people argued this at the time, most notably his American lawyer, US Marine Major Dan Mori. It was obvious in 2007 that the Bush administration was rigging show trials on trumped-up charges.This lot and more, propagandists all, could never get it into their fat heads that it wasn't support for Hicks per se. It was support for his right to a fair and speedy trial. It was disgust at the supine Howard government cynically abandoning an Australian citizen to the whims of such unprincipled thugs as Bush's vice-president, Dick Cheney. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/braying-mob-blind-to-the-truth-20121019-27wk2.html#ixzz29nI10jn8Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/braying-mob-blind-to-the-truth-20121019-27wk2.html#ixzz29nI10jn8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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