Many at Gitmo are innocent

As discussed on another thread, this is quite simply not true. The US constitution protects all people in the US not just citizens. Anyone committing a crime in the US, regardless of their citizenship, is entitled to a swift and fair trial by the constitution and I challenge you to show otherwise. They are also protected by international laws to which the US is a signiatory.

HAHAHAHA!!! Right, it is the outside world that is meddling in US affairs, of course you never do the same thing! The controversy arises because the US is breaking international law in Guantanamo bay, as well as abusing basic human rights.

That does not mean they can not be tried, maybe you can justify overturning basic human rights to buy a measure of safety but frankly I don't see any 'safety' in allowing a government to imprison without charge anyone it wants.

And people wonder why the US is seen as the bully of the world, attacks others for breaking international law, then does it itself. Of course, you are big and powerful, you can do whatever the hell you want, power doesn't bring responsibility at all now does it?

Christ, and you wonder why people attack you!

 

It is a very simple principal, it is wrong to hold innocent people (for they have yet to be proven guilty) without trial. You can say you are doing it for safety but frankly this doesn't cut it, you are taking away the rights of people who have done nothing wrong (in many cases) and this is not right.

Which makes me wonder how Carl etc would feel if say Iran took a number of US citizens prisoner, accused them of attacking them and imprisoned them without trial. I imagine you would be immediately up in arms and yet it wouldn't be so different. Why is it ok to treat these people in this way? Why is it ok to take away their rights? Is it because they are not Americans? Is it ok to assume someone is a terrorist and treat them as such because they are a part of a particular ethnic group?

I also wonder why, in a time when Americans complain about the government having too much power, they happily allow the government to imprison people without trial. If they can do it to the G'mo inmates, why not you?

 

I understand the need to detain / sequester enemy combatants and non combatants that could provide critical intelligence.
I can even understand the need to "coax" information from them.
I can even understand how through the course of detention and interrogation that the subjects feelings could be polarized and deemed a threat if released, apathy to fanaticism is only a few volts or gallons of water away.

In anycase there is a reason that these people have not been released.
Just as much as there is a reason they are there in the first place.

The "innocent" ones that were "bountied" from Pakistan should be dumped back on Pakistan and let them deal with it.

Those captured by Americans should have the circumstances of their capture reviewed to insure that they were captured in "good faith" and their detention was in accordance to policies at the time of capture. If they were captured under nefarious pretences then the people that captured them should be held accountable.

Those that deserve a trial should get it as quickly as possible and be either released or hung.

Brad

 

I share your viewpoint about the matter. You've said things quite well.
When Gitmo was started, the people who organized it all shared the good intention of protecting their country. However, we all know what roads paved with good intentions can be like.

 

Can I take the bets on how fast this thread is going to be cloesd

I go away for a couple of months but things are always the same around here! When I'll need some hot coals for a barbecue I'll know where to look for

 

Za speaks! Run in Phear or he'll turn you into a donkey too!

But he is right about the threat of closing this thread. Keep things civil, stop the bickering and in-fighting (sometimes I feel like a babysitter), and (like I just said) keep things civil!

Clearly, Gitmo Bay Prison is always going to be a topic that has people divided over it.

For all we know, half of those imprisoned did nothing more then use their cell phone to report positions of American troops. Or they might have set of roadside bombs etc. Until we see a report on it, we can only speculate, but they aren't in prison because of their ethnicity - there are millions of people who share their ethnicity, so why aren't they also imprisoned? Clearly they were doing something, or acting in a way, that made US Forces detain them on Terrorist charges. I am sure some of the guilty will get out scotch free because there is no evidence, but I would rather imprison them then let them blow up US Soldiers and Innocent Civilians. I would rather do that then let them breach the most basic right of man - the right to live.

 

That isn't what I said, I said why is it ok to do it to these people? Why do we not afford them the same basic human rights we would if they were not Muslims? Something about the whole thing stinks to me.

No, they haven't been charged. That is precisely the point, they are being held without charge or trial and in many cases have been for several years.

So you would rather 450 totally innocent people be kept locked up to stop 50 people going free? Frankly it looks a lot to me like people are finding it very easy to write off the 450 because they are Muslims, I honestly do not think people would stand for it if they were 450 white folks! If you want evidence, just look at the way people are talking at the moment, just from things that have been said on here (usually in reference to an article on the Daily Mail web site) people clearly connect the word 'Muslim' with 'terrorist' and are all too willing to turn on an entire faith!

Why does nobody see the danger in allowing a government to lock up whomever it wants without charge or trial? Do you not see Musso that if they can lock up these people without charge or trial, potentially torture them and keep them in inhumane conditions, simply by saying 'they were involved in terrorist activity' they could just as easily do the same thing to you? What is to stop them?

 

I never said I fully agree with it, nor do I agree with our current government. I wish I could find the article i read last week, but it basically compared present day US to Cold War Russia....the whole 'detaining with out charging' etc thing.

Gitmo, if anything, is just a reflection of our present government (in the US) and how bad things are getting here. My coworker is convinced that there will be another Revolution here (its our right to bear arms against the government in order to force change when we, the people, believe it has ceased to protect our rights etc etc) especially with half the things Obama wants to do/implement (the gun laws he wants to implement, for example. Its been 3 months since i've been able to find any ammo for my gun. every where i look its sold out. 4 months ago, i would have had no probelm finding it).

At the same time, you don't know what they were doing either. They're holding them for some reason beyond being Muslim.

Todays opinion that every Muslim is a terrorist is based on the active terrorists in the world - the majority of them are Muslims (the Tamil Tigers, the terrorist group in the Phillipines, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, etc etc). Its to be expected though - the Muslim Faith was founded on violence, was spread through violence, and exists through violence. They really don't seem to care who they kill (in Iraq) as its more often Shiite blowing up Sunni, with the occasional American Soldier thrown in.

 

Interesting comparison, makes a lot of sense too.

Interesting, hadn't heard much about that. Then again, surely in closing G'mo Obama is actually protecting a fairly essential right?

That is not what I said. I said that I think part of the reason people aren't complaining about them being held is because they are Muslim. People seem pretty happy to ignore the basic rights of hundreds of people I think this is because they are Muslim.

Of course Christianity is squeaky clean, has never committed genocide or religious war (or re-invent the concept of Jihad) and the US certainly doesn't have a violent past! Sure the major terrorist threat we are taught to fear is from Muslim extremists, but by bundling all Muslims into the same category and acting as though it is ok to mistreat Muslims simply because of the behavior of a minority of them is going to fuel the fires of religious hatred. Not all Muslims are the enemy, but if you continue to treat them as such they will rapidly become it!

 

When Israel attacked Gaza, what did Muslims in Europe do? They attacked Jews across Europe. What did they do in the US? Protested the war and yelled things like "Get back in the Ovens!" and the like. Its hard to 'sympathize' with Muslims when they do things like that. You don't see non-Muslims taking to the street, attacking Muslims, even after 9/11 and other terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. I think, in comparison to Muslims, the rest of the world (for the most part) is pretty tolerant.

Remember the Danish Cartoons? Oh knows, some one made fun of Mohammed! Lets go kill all the Christians now, lets burn the Missionaries, attack the Christian workers, call for the death of the cartoonists!

Notice a trend here? Reaction = Violence. If the rest of the world reacted in the manner of Muslims to, say, wars and cartoons...well, I wouldn't be sitting here typing this, and none of you would be sitting there reading this.

Agreed, in the past, the majority of wars were started over religion. But the Christian Faith (or any other, for that matter) has ever made it their life long goal to eradicate a specific group of people based on religion. Christians have also never said "Convert or Die", or implemented taxes on non-Christians (this in reference to the Middle Ages) because they were of a different faith, in order to get many people to convert.

Jihad has also been corrupted, by Muslims, for its original meaning. Jihad does not mean 'Wage Holy War' despite what they would have you believe. Its original meaning was 'Spread the Faith'. This has been interpreted by certain Muslims to mean 'Spread the Faith through Violence and War' rather then by more peaceful means (missionaries). Jihad in the modern day is a sick perversion of what it truly meant.

But is that surprising? A lot of these Terrorists have chosen to interpret their religion in twisted ways. Like Christians, Muslims believe it is a Sin to commit Suicide or Kill or another person. Yet, they have convinced people that by committing Suicide AND killing innocent people that they will go to heave and have a host of virgins waiting for them. This couldn't be further from the teachings of Islam. Isn't it ironic that you never see these leaders blowing themselves up?

And i've totally forgotten what I was ranting about....

 

They did not commit a crime in the US. It is my understanding that those men who were caught in the US have already recieved trial. For example the Ft. Dix plot, where six terrorists planned to storm the base shooting as many people as possible. Six were arrested and five were convicted. If a Afghan tribal leader hands over three men to US custody, telling us they are terrorists, wether or not they are, should you not hold them while you check out the facts? Or are you advocating that since we arn't sure yet release them and after we build a case, try and find them again? Like they arn't going to run and hide.

Iran does do this with just about any American who puts foot on Iranian soil. Only those people "fall off the map". No one knows were these people went. You cant say the same about those in Gitmo. I don't here anyone advocating for their human rights.

Again you latch on to this no trial thing. The international uproar over Gitmo is detainee's claiming torture, not they they are not recieving trials. Again, I ask you for one example of a detainee, who is not schedualed for trial, release, or to have there status reviewed by the Combat Status Review Tribunal.

 

But was this happening before we started treating all Muslims as the enemy? Look at the radicalisation of the Islamic peoples of Europe post 9/11, just from talking to Muslims in Sheffield it is clear that quite a few of them have developed increasingly radical opinions because they are already treated by both ordinary people and the authorities as terrorists.

Islam has never said 'convert or die' in fact the Kuran specifically says otherwise, in the middle ages the Muslim world was actually far more tolerant than Christendom which is partly what allowed it to spread so quickly. The Byzantine Empire had forced throusands to convert against their will, when the Islamic armies turned up they said 'practice your own faith, fine, we don't mind' many seemed to decide they would rather be ruled by a tolerant Islamic power than an intolerant Christian one. As for implimenting taxes, this simply made it more convenient to convert and again explains partly the rapid growth of Islam, but what about the treatment of Jews in Europe throughout the middle ages? Christians may not have laid down taxes but wholesale slaughter of non-Christians wasn't unheard of. Look at the massacres throughout Europe during the First Crusade. Which rather neatly links into a pretty good example of Christianity starting a war to attack other religions. Hell, Christians pretty much invented the concept of 'Jihad' as it is understood today!

Are you sure about that? Jihad literally means 'struggle' particularly in the sense of 'striving in the will of Allah.' In many ways it is very similar to Christian concepts of internal religious struggle, the fight to overcome your baser instincts and urges in order to live as a good Christian. The Bible uses many militaristic metaphors about the armor of god, soldiers of Christ (milites Cristie, from the same origin as the word 'militia,' now there is a handy fact for you) and such like which during the First Crusade were used to pervert the entire idea into a fight against the 'enemies of God.' Christianity had been used for warlike purposes before but never on this scale and they shocked the Islamic world. The reaction of Islamic scholars was to note the Christian motivation, the unity it had given them and compare it to the in-fighting and bickering with which the Muslim world was riven (take the Battle of Antioch where the Muslims outnumbered the Christians massively and yet the Christians won, largely because many of the Muslims withdrew to prevent their 'allies' who were actually political rivals from gaining too much power through victory). The idea of Jihad had been used in an aggressive militaristic sense before but it was only when it met the notion of a Crusade that it was used by Zhengi and Saladin to unite all Muslims against an external enemy. As someone put it a couple of years back, we defined 'religious war' but the Muslims turned out to be better at it.

But this comes down to a simple problem, ignorance. Let's face it, the vast majority of people are pretty stupid and will believe whatever is fed to them by people they respect. That is why so many supported the war with Iraq, they were fed lies which they believed. Is the Islamic world so different from the rest of us in this respect? The way to change things is through education, not by breeding more hatred and the place to start is at home. Stop treating Muslims at home as terrorists and you start to prevent them becoming such. Continue to treat all Muslims as terrorists and you may as well say 'sod it, this is a religious war, let's just admit it and declare war on all of Islam!'

 

So by international law they should be tried in the nation they were captured in. No one is saying release them before a case is put together, but you need to establish when the trial is going to be, set a time by which a case will put together and then try them. You cannot justify holding people indefinately on that basis.

When? Come on, let's have some facts rather than vague assertions.

Abbas, Muhammad
Al Atabi, Buad Thif Allah
Al Hakim, A'Del Abdu (tried, found innocent, still detained)
al-Marri, Jarallah
al-Noofayee, Abdelaziz Kareem Salim

Just a few to be getting on with. There are many people in there who are not scheduled for trial, moreover there were many of the 500 who have already been released who were held for up to 5 years without trial or tribunal. This is illegal. As for the CSRT process, frankly these are a bit of a joke anyway what with the tendency for evidence to go missing and the assumption that all evidence submitted by the government is 'genuine and accurate.' What is the point in a trial if it starts with the assumption that whatever the prosecution say is true?

Your view of the international uproar seems rather different to mine, frankly I like to start with the major breech of international law and work my way up the list of crimes rather than starting with the torture of people who may well have been innocent and working your way down.

 

Yes, Muslims have taken this stance for years! Muslims have long segregated themselves from other communities, and ever since the creation of Israel they have been calling for the eradication of the Jews. My memory also does not extend back to the 90's to the point where I would be able to point out other instances, but a lot of these killings (in reaction to the cartoons) took place in places like Africa - not a Western Country.

Muslims often put people to the sword in order to convert them. I took a Middle Ages course in college. It didn't start out that way, and they were supposed to 'Tolerate People of the Book' (aka Jews, Christians) but when they started to spread into North and East Africa, they often put non-believers to the sword.

And that is the other problem with the Muslim world - they have not progressed since the time of the Crusades. Up until the crusades, they were far more advanced then the rest of the world, but they haven't progressed from there. They purposely keep their population uneducated and living in fear (look at Iraq under Saddam) and Iran is not much different ("There are no homosexuals in Iran") if not worse. Look how they treat women.

I am not saying that every Muslim is a terrorist (but if you believe some of those nuts over there, every Muslim will rise up to overthrow the Devil/United States) but I have an issue when people give more for their religion then their country. I also have a problem with a faith like Islam which is supposed to be, at the worst, TOLERANT of other religions being far from it. They have declared their intentions to wipe out all Jews (a People of the Book) and the United States. Also, look at Muslim countries. How many Synagogues or Churches do you see? None! Look at the United States/Europes, how many Mosques do you see? Thousands!

Islam has become extremely perverted and resembles little of what it was originally founded on, even when compared to other faiths. I don't believe that any religion is practiced the way it is supposed to/originally be, but I think that Islam has strayed from the path more then any other religion.

 

I agree in general (though having spent most of my degree studying Medieval history your analysis of the spread of Islam is flawed to say the least) but still it all comes back to the same point. Whatever the problems with Islam as practiced by extremeists or presented by our media, if you treat all Muslims as the enemy they will become the enemy, something we can ill afford.

 

Or of course committed what amounts to religious genocide against 'heritics' and non-believers?

 

I wish folk would see Saddam for what he was...He had more in common with Joe Stalin than the Fanatical Muslims he held back. Just as Joe would have done himself. And did.

 

Excuse me but, who was talking to YOU? My post was meant for Slava-but yet you somehow get yourself involved. Also sticks and stones......