NEWS: Leaked Emails From Prosecuters Claim Guantanamo Trials Rigged

Originally posted by Valhall
Wait a minute...let's not start lobbing barbs here. Because if we do I'll point out that where subz lives they just jump three at a time on top of you and pump somewhere between 5 and 8 shots in the back of your head - thereby alleviating the need for transport, confinement, charges, trial or conviction.

Agreed Val and my feelings on that matter have been shown. But this is a thread about Guantanamo Bay and I was keeping on topic. I really dont think a human rights measuring contest between America and Britain is appropriate for this thread.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
What do you think of that, subz. It's kind of a paradox, don't you think.

I call it a complete conflict of interest and total farce. The prosecutor appoints and writes the cheque for the defence. Who writes this stuff? How on God's green Earth are you meant to get a fair trial under those circumstances? Yes Mori probably is acting honourably but whats that matter when the prosecutor ARE the judges in the trial?

I think you've lost your perspective Grady. Like the front page says, this is a Kangaroo Court.

I think Grady has brought up something that makes the story make a little less sense. If the implication is that the prosecutors are in some way being given directives and the commission has been hand-picked to make sure convictions occur - why would they allow Mori to defend with the apparent gusto he is portrayed with in this article? If you truly want a Kangaroo court, you don't have Captain America installed as the defendant's attorney.

I don't think I've hidden my disgust at several of the things being done in the name of War on Terrorism, but that disgust is not going to make me throw my brains out the window and swallow this very suspicious story without a lot more concrete evidence. I detest a lie - no matter which way the lie goes. And I think this story is false.

Originally posted by Valhall
I think Grady has brought up something that makes the story make a little less sense. If the implication is that the prosecutors are in some way being given directives and the commission has been hand-picked to make sure convictions occur - why would they allow Mori to defend with the apparent gusto he is portrayed with in this article? If you truly want a Kangaroo court, you don't have Captain America installed as the defendant's attorney.

They could give the defence Ken Starr or Tom Mesereau and it wouldnt make a jot of difference. The judges ARE the prosecution and the trials are held in secret.

The higher ranked, and vocal the defence council is, the more apparent integrity you lend to the Kangaroo Court.

These are either PoW's so they should be treat with respect of the Geneva convention and subject to military tribunals such as this.

Or they are civilian criminals and should be given public criminal trials. Not a mishmash of both.

Originally posted by subz


The higher ranked, and vocal the defence council is, the more apparent integrity you lend to the Kangaroo Court.

Yeah - right up until they start talking about kangaroo courts. Sorry, I don't buy that if the military is so corrupt on this deal that they would let Mori make the statements he is quoted as making. They would have a mouthpiece in that would either not make any public statement, or would make some moderated statement at the revelation.

OK - Let me add another Article to this Debate for All'Yo to look into:

Prison Abuse Decisions Came from the Top

Washington, DC - The prison torture decisions "came from the top," asserts Robert Weiner, a former Clinton White House senior public affairs official. "No matter where these prisons are, so long as our policy is the same, torture will take place - closing Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib will not stop the outbreak of abuses and torture."

In an op-ed in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer, Weiner, now president of a public affairs issues strategies company, contends, "The orders to torture came from the top down. In the pyramid of power, first and foremost was President Bush's Jan. 25, 2002 executive order disavowing the Geneva Conventions for the 'new' kind of war we are fighting. Moreover, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez (now Attorney General) assisted in writing the 2002 memo, which also asserted that the Geneva Conventions - respected worldwide - were 'quaint' and 'obsolete.' Last May, before all our eyes in televised hearings, Department of Defense Under Secretary for Intelligence Dr. Stephen Cambone, who coordinates DOD intelligence policy, visibly waived off and interrupted key parts of Major General Antonio Taguba's testimony before the U.S. Senate on the depths of abuses."

Weiner and Dick assert, "Torturing prisoners, making people pile up naked, electric shock in private areas, using vicious dogs to bite, holding people in secret in perpetuity and denying them access to their families and the legal process are not the human rights values this nation stands for. As prisoners' families, colleagues and countrymen hear of the abuses, support swells rather than diminishes for Jihad against us. We have dramatically reduced our national reputation as a human rights leader."

Source:
TruthOut

[edit on 2/8/05 by Souljah]

Curme, I would enjoy meeting you. You are the kind of person who makes me proud to call Americans my friends and allies. There are millions of people like you in the USA and thousands of people like you in the US Military. It is acknowledging these facts that keeps me grounded when I read this forum each day.

The world has not gone to sh*t when you know without doubt that genuine people still grace the earth. This forum has it's fair share of these people, but I thought I would spotlight curme. I am not prone to praising people openly on this forum, sometimes I am a bit ashamed of that.

Sorry for going off topic.

Govt satisfied with military commission advice: Downer ...... Well we are not Satisified Mr Downer

The Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says the Government is happy with official advice it has received from Washington clearing the US military commission of any claims of fraud.

There has been criticism of the commission - which is trying Australian detainee David Hicks - after leaked emails from two of the commission's former prosecutors showed they believed the commission process was fraudulent and was rigged.
www.abc.net.au...

Valhall, The American military are not denying these emails exist, they just say...umm, its all a misunderstanding between the emailer and the emailee.

I was amazed that Mori came out against the trials unfairness and was amazed that this story broke on a government website.

And our governements still playing Baghdad Bob


Weak really weak... really really weak..but then again Downer, Ruddock and Howard have always been lily livered at the best of times...

Mayet

Thanks for the update! That helps sway me!

These are either PoW's so they should be treat with respect of the Geneva convention and subject to military tribunals such as this.

Or they are civilian criminals and should be given public criminal trials. Not a mishmash of both.

Once again..........they are neither.

They are not POWs, as they are not members of an identifiable, regular military organization sponsored by a sovereign state.

Nor are they subject to US crinial law, as they have not committed crimes on sovereign US territory, where US law is applicable. So therefore they are not "criminals" entitled to any kind of public, civilian proceeding.

Quite frankly, they are lucky to be alive. In bygone times, when a civilian lifted arms in anger against an occupying military force, you were call a "partisan". One has only to take a cursory look at 19th and 20th century history to determine the typical fate of the captured partisan.

An excellent discussion of the subject can be found here.

The lawyer representing David Hicks asserted the same thing, to no avail. This is simply a carry-over defense for those who will go before trails themselves. This is a gimmick that is being used to sway some that things at Gitmo are not peachy-keen. First it was mistreatment and torture, then it was that they were recieving no chance at representation, and now it has progressed to the trails being rigged.

Perhaps if Mr. Hicks had not traveled to Afghanistan and joined up with the Taliban, then being captured among Taliban forces, he would not be in the situation that he currently is in?





seekerof

They are not held because they were part of the Taliban Seeker. They are accused of being terrorists. There is a difference and trying to prosecute any one simply because they were part of the Taliban is even more dubious.

More Updates on Our wonderful Leadership

JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: We went to very great lengths about a year, 18 months ago, to secure changes in the military commission procedure and we were satisfied and we remain satisfied that the changes made in the military commission procedure would produce a fair outcome.

NARDA GILMORE: The Opposition is not convinced.

KEVIN RUDD, OPPOSITION FOREIGN AFFAIRS SPOKESMAN: It's time for the Government to take action on this, to ensure that this individual is provided with a fair trial. All Australians would want that to happen.

www.abc.net.au...

Go the opposition Labour party.. I don't normally like either party and vote (D) None of the above.......... but at least the oppsoition is calling the government to task on these issues.

TRACY BOWDEN: Captain Willee's comments, which he stresses are personal views, follow the release of emails sent by two US military prosecutors. One of them, Captain John Carr wrote to his superiors:

"I expected there would be at least a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused. Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganised effort to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged."

TRACY BOWDEN: The Federal Government today tried to play down the significance of the latest claims.

JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: Our ambassador spoke again to the Pentagon last night, our time, and the head of the Military Commission operation said that those allegations had been extensively investigated over a two-month period.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: 774 ABC MELBOURNE By whom?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, by the people against whom the allegations were made.

www.abc.net.au...

Hahahaha I love that quote..."well by the people the allegations were made against".... indeed....since when ... wheres the outside checks.....wheres the overseers........

KERRY O'BRIEN: Let's go through the critics systemically. First the two military prosecutors. Not one, but two, people charged with building the prosecution case against Hicks and others who have said they wanted out of that process because the process was thoroughly corrupted. The Hicks trial rigged. Presumably, that didn't help their careers. So they must have felt pretty strongly about that. But that hasn't given you any cause for concern?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, it gave us - of course I hadn't and I don't think Philip Ruddock had been aware of these emails which go back - these emails were apparently sent in March 2004.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Last year.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yeah, last year. What we've done is gone back to the Americans and asked them for an explanation. The Americans have told us, and we just got a reply back from them, or at least a cable from our embassy in Washington during the course of today, the Americans have told us that they had a full investigation into the allegations made in those emails, including by the Inspector General of Defence, there was a very thorough, a very thorough investigation into these allegations because amongst the material in these emails are very serious allegations. And um, the Americans have told us that those investigations cleared the Military Commission process. So that -

KERRY O'BRIEN: This was the military investigating itself, Mr Downer, against serious charges of corrupting the process.

www.abc.net.au...

So not everyone is feasting on the party line, some including the ABC are really calling the government to task over this issue and I hope that it doesn't burn out and sweep under the carpet...

I hope more pushing is done to bring out the honesty and justice in these trials....try these people by all means but try them fairly

AUSTRALIAN people should pressure the Government to push the United State to release terror suspect David Hicks, a British lawyer said today.
Louise Christian, who represented three British terror suspects detained and later released from the a US facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, said the proposed US military commissions were blatantly unfair.

Hicks, from Adelaide, has been held in US detention in Guantanamo Bay for more than three years.

He now faces trial before the US military commission, accused of conspiracy to attack civilians, attempted murder of coalition forces and aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Ms Christian said Guantanamo Bay was totally illegal under international law and had been described by one British appeal court judges as a legal black hole.

www.news.com.au...

[edit on 2-8-2005 by Mayet]

Unfortunately, the Howard government has an amazing ability to pull something out of their arse to distract the Australian people from these issues. Right now, they've got the whole issue with Telstra to distract everyone with.

Originally posted by Pyros
Once again..........they are neither.

Yep! They were probably never even being born.

They are a result of a spontanious combustion of somekind.

Originally posted by DruidTek
I'm not surprised by this at all, in fact I'm certain it is going to be the way of the future. Will Bush or his admin. ever be charged with war crimes now that it's proven that no WOMD were in Iraq? No, I don't think so!

No WOMD's that you know about.

www.amnesty.org.uk...

This is a small portion of what you will find discussed using the link:


USA: Potential releases from Guantánamo Bay highlight shameful detention of children
Reacting to media reports that three children aged between 13 and 15 may shortly be released from Guantánamo Bay Amnesty International UK Media Director Lesley Warner said:

"The US should not be trumpeting the possible release of child prisoners, it should be apologising to the world for its shameful detention of them in the first place. If they are now between 13 and 15-years-old, how old were they when they were first detained?

..you can find more information at the American Amnesty Site.

All this talk about words..enemy combatant, terrorist, inmate, POW....as if that transfigures a human being into something else. The administration jsut doesn't want soemond charging them with war crimes under the Geneva Convention. So they changed a word.

Our actions are not judged by what we name those we are acting upon.
Terrorist? I don't know why these men are being held. I know the Canadian guy we grabbed in New York and sent to be tortured claims to have not been involved in anything. And I have never heard anyone claim that these guys were trying ot blow up or kill unarmed people. They were fighting armed men in their own country.

We are using this term way too much. The idea that everyone who disagrees with us istherfore a "terrorrist" is extreme. The idea that we are justified in all actions based on what might possibly happen is extreme. The idea that holding our elected officials responsible for thier actions is "anti-American" and should be reacted to with anger is extreme.

Extremist views are dangerous. Especially , I imagine, when they are held and spread by powerful people in a the most powerful country in the world.

But that decision was overturned last month on appeal, allowing the Bush administration to make plans to restart military commissions.

As expected, the Hamdan team has now escalated the case to the Supreme Court.

In papers filed today, the lawyers write that Americans and the rest of the world should be able to rest assured that this controversial legal process has been reviewed at the highest levels.

The Bush administration will now give the Supreme Court a response and then the justices will decide whether to hear the case.

www.abc.net.au...