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Six Years Of Guantánamo: Enough Is Enough

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posted on Jan, 11 2008 @ 07:00 AM
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Six Years Of Guantánamo: Enough Is Enough


www.huffingtonpost.com

The Bush administration has maintained a low profile over the last month, as waves of indignation over the destruction of CIA videotapes showing the torture of two "high value" detainees have lapped ever closer to the White House. In the last few weeks, as coverage of the presidential primaries has consumed the media, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney must also have been hoping that they would be able to escape scrutiny on today's bleak anniversary. It is, however, imperative that they are not allowed to do so. Despite its claims that it "does not torture," this is an administration drenched in torture, which must one day be made answerable for its crimes.
(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
english.aljazeera.net



posted on Jan, 11 2008 @ 07:00 AM
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A reminder folks, another anniversary, one that never should have been. Because it represents contempt and disdain for human decency and goes against the liberties and values of the very country itself that sat it up.

Today it's six yrs ago a criminal and evil administration took the most American virtue of them all, the respect for the individual, down a dark alley to install her in a shady brothel. The final death of American innocence.

The reputation of America have badly declined because of that. It will take serious and unselfish efforts, more than another administration, possibly a work to last decade(s) if it's good name and credibility ever is to be restored.

Think about it, the next president will inherite a war, a schackled and shaken economy, which he/she can do nothing about in any hurry. But the goodwill of America the next president can improve from day one in office, if inhumane, cruel and stubborn practicies are abandoned, if he/she can exhort an administration of humanist instead of psychopaths. Wel, the last is maybe too much to ask.

But if the willingness is there, a first step and an instant signal to the world, would be to close Guantánamo.

BTW, demonstration are today held in all major cities throughout the world, US included. The Al Jazeera link tells about them.


www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



posted on Jan, 11 2008 @ 07:55 PM
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Washington yesterday81 protesters arrested at Supreme Court


Friday 11 January 2008

Washington - Eighty people were arrested at the Supreme Court Friday in a protest calling for the shutdown of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Demonstrators wearing orange jump suits intended to simulate prison garb were arrested inside and outside the building in the early afternoon. "Shut it down," protesters chanted as others kneeled on the plaza in front of the court.

They were charged with violating an ordinance that prohibits demonstrations of any kind on court grounds. Those arrested inside the building also were charged under a provision that makes it a crime to give "a harangue or oration" in the Supreme Court building.

The maximum penalty is 60 days in jail, a fine or both.

The court is considering whether prisoners still detained at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

Officials briefly closed the court building during the protest. It reopened around 2 p.m. EST.



posted on Jan, 11 2008 @ 08:33 PM
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Originally posted by khunmoon
Today it's six yrs ago a criminal and evil administration took the most American virtue of them all, the respect for the individual, down a dark alley to install her in a shady brothel.

Please......give me a break!

No crimes have been commited and your belief that the administration is evil is well........YOUR opinion and has no basis in fact.

As far as Gitmo goes; what do you want to do with them, let them go? You probably want to bring them into the U.S. so they can have a sleezy lawyer and give them rights afforded to U.S. citizens. They deserve to be in Gitmo and should stay there until the end of the war on terrorism.

Please take your faux outrage somewhere else.



[edit on 11-1-2008 by 4thDoctorWhoFan]



posted on Jan, 11 2008 @ 09:41 PM
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Originally posted by 4thDoctorWhoFan
No crimes have been commited and your belief that the administration is evil is well........YOUR opinion and has no basis in fact.

Did I state otherwise? That's why it's called an OP.. .. ...btw.



posted on Jan, 11 2008 @ 10:07 PM
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I just couldn't help but laugh at the "snippet from NEWS source", and then listing a huffington post link. Oh, the irony. This isn't news, its a pre-planned press release from our pals at the Democratic National Committee. I'm always amazed at how blinded people are by political ideology. If only they would open up their eyes and see that they are being led around by the DNC and RNC...

[edit on 11-1-2008 by LightinDarkness]



posted on Jan, 11 2008 @ 10:15 PM
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Originally posted by khunmoon
Did I state otherwise?

Yes, you are trying to portray it as fact.


That's why it's called an OP.. .. ...btw.

I don't think you realize what 'OP' stands for here on forums because that statement makes no sense. 'OP' stands for either 'original post' or 'original poster' ......BTW.
It has nothing to do with your opinion in case you think it means opinion piece.



posted on Jan, 12 2008 @ 12:40 AM
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Thanks for the correction doc4, appriciate.

I think we should stay on topic, when will they close down this complex of evil.. I'm biased, I know.

Another bit from link.


Plans to scale down the prison population also continued throughout 2007, and 492 detainees have now been released, 122 in the last year alone. The majority of those have been freed on their return home, but the gross injustices of Guantánamo have not come to an end. Two detainees died at the prison last year (to add to the four who died in 2006), and five more detainees were transferred to the facility, even while the president was claiming in public that he wanted to close the prison.

For the 281 detainees who remain, moreover, life is as hard as ever. Although a few are housed in Camp 4, which contains communal dorms, the majority are held in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day in the newest camps, Camps 5 and 6, and are deprived of the meager comforts - including access to TV and some sort of a social life - that are routinely enjoyed by the majority of convicted criminals on the U.S. mainland.

Others continue to be held in complete isolation, an unknown number are suffering from severe psychiatric disorders, and for the few dozen long-term hunger strikers, the prison remains a torture center. Prevented from exercising the only power they still hold - the right to starve themselves to death in protest at their endless detention without charge or trial - twice a day they are held in restraint chairs, using 18 separate straps, and are fed through a thick tube inserted into the stomach through the nose, which is removed after each feeding in a deliberate attempt to "break" their will.




posted on Jan, 12 2008 @ 12:50 AM
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Hmmm....the story doesn't mention the guards that have bodily fluids thrown on them by the prisoners.



posted on Jan, 12 2008 @ 11:02 AM
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Please......give me a break!

No crimes have been commited and your belief that the administration is evil is well........YOUR opinion and has no basis in fact.


Guantanamo its self is illegal, the way the prisoners are treated is also illegal. Firstly in international terms, secondly, if the prisoners were to be US citizens then both the prison and its inmates would be in violation of the bill of rights.

Calling people "enemy combatants" but then not treating them as POWs, is a clear breach of the geneva convention. If they are not POWs, but terrorists, they should be treated under civil law as terrorism is a criminal act.

In terms of the general way the inmates are treated America has probably created more terrorists, as of yet I have yet to be proven that intelligence from inmates has directly helped stop a terrorist act. If they are to be treated guilty until proven innocent, why shouldnt those who are imprisoning them be treated with equal scepticism?

Finally, this is an online forum of course its someone's opinion, 99% of this site is opinion. A lot of it may be 'well reasoned' argument but at the end of the day its still opinion



posted on Jan, 12 2008 @ 12:09 PM
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Originally posted by tarichar
Guantanamo its self is illegal

No, its not.



the way the prisoners are treated is also illegal

No, its not.
Yeah, getting 3 meals a day, plus all the other comforts is just so cruel. Pfft........


if the prisoners were to be US citizens then both the prison and its inmates would be in violation of the bill of rights.

Well, I guess it's a good thing they are NOT U.S. citizens.

IF, if was a skiff, we would go for a boat ride.
I cannot believe you are for giving these terrorists any sort of rights. Sad, just sad.


Calling people "enemy combatants" but then not treating them as POWs, is a clear breach of the geneva convention.

Guess what?? These losers did not sign any treaty so your point is moot.



posted on Jan, 12 2008 @ 08:08 PM
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reply to post by 4thDoctorWhoFan
 


Yes it is, as for the conditions, extreme sensory deprivation and 'intelligence extraction techniques' are illegal. Yes conditions that are so similar to a vacation it has resulted inmates attempting to severe their own wrists with their own teeth.

Its not a moot point, as linked with the next sentence it shows how the inmates are currently in a legal black hole. Even the US federal courts have ruled that the current processes are illegal news.bbc.co.uk...

That is just the problem, not all of them are 'terrorists', several European have been returned to their home countries with no charges brought against them. I return to the same point, I have yet to hear of a direct connection between information gleaned from a Guatanamo inmate and the stopping of a terror attack. By all means, prove me wrong.

PS the Geneva convention covers how a country should treat POWs, it doesnt matter if a detainee hasnt signed it.

[edit on 12-1-2008 by tarichar]



posted on Jan, 12 2008 @ 10:37 PM
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"... military officials were acting within the scope of their jobs when they authorized the tactics, and that such tactics were "foreseeable"

Just ruled this Friday by a federal appeals court on a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The court threw out the suit with argument in above ruling.

It appeared to be the first time that a federal appellate court has ruled on the legality of the harsh interrogation tactics that U.S. have used on suspected terrorists held outside the United States since 9/11.

At least one of the three judges dissented, out of decency it seems to me.


"It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably `seriously criminal' would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants," Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in the court's main opinion.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented with parts of the opinion, saying that "it leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantanamo are not `person(s).'

"This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human," Brown wrote.


Brave man... - no further appointments to him -

Worst part of the ruling is this, based on a morality at its best called wicked.


The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from "substantially burdening a person's religion."


The logic in this argument is called 'Newsspeak' Pure nonsens and clean rascist/fascist biased in its core. Only people in the US are 'persons' ... the rest of the world is aliens, even though they could resemble humanoids.

The personhood they so willingly granted corporate entities some 100+yrs ago, they now take away from any subject outside the United States.



posted on Jan, 14 2008 @ 06:31 AM
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Before anyone freaks about the fact its from Al Jazeera please read it first, english.aljazeera.net... Guantanamo has significantly undermined what moral legitimacy America had in the global community.




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