The real GITMO scandal...

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by Frenchy

We all have our opinions.

And some of us have very wrong ones.

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by yeahYeah

i am not thrilled with the progress there, but our military has has its hands tied since it got there. Politicians should not run wars, esp. spineless ones.

I swear, this sounds like Vietnam redux.

[one-eyed-fatman]

Originally Posted by yeahYeah

we have a congress and senate that are more interested in politics then fighting the enemy.

i think the politicians are more destructive then the terrorists.

Now there's a point well made.

[one-eyed-fatman]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

And some of us have very wrong ones.

Yes you do.

[Etta Place]

Originally Posted by one-eyed-fatman

Yes you do.

I'm not wrong that what the U.S. has done at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib is wrong.

[Etta Place]

Getting Away With Torture
Legal maneuvering has shielded those responsible for conditions at Guantánamo Bay.

Dahlia Lithwick
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:56 PM ET Apr 26, 2008

Our "terror trials" aren't working. The prosecutions of a fistful of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay—just getting underway after more than six years—are barely moving forward. Evidence is flimsy and stale. Prisoners claiming to have been abused and subjected to involuntary use of drugs are refusing to participate in their trials. There may yet be verdicts at Guantánamo. But following years of abuse, neglect and secrecy, there won't be justice. The other place we won't see legal accountability is at the upper levels of the Bush administratiom, where evidence of lawbreaking is largely dismissed or ignored. I want to be clear that there is no moral equivalence between the actions of members of the Bush administration and those of alleged "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo. But both the tribunals at Guantánamo and the wrongdoing in the Bush administration reflect how legal processes can fail under extreme political pressure.

Outside the Bush administration, there is bipartisan agreement that Guantánamo should be shut down and the military commissions scrapped. A compelling case could have been made for Nuremburg-style trials for some of the prisoners there—including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. But the CIA admits Mohammed was waterboarded, rendering his confession unreliable and any conviction a sham. And even if we do convict this handful of terrorists at Guantánamo, there still remain almost 300 detainees at the base, held there for years without charges. Some were turned in by Afghan captors for bounties. Some are held as a result of coerced testimony from others.

Full and fair trials might have happened for enemy combatants, but missteps have led to a legal process that now exists solely to prove the detentions were justified; that the captives are—as former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once called them—"the worst of the worst." That's a political conclusion, not a legal one, and it's why Col. Morris Davis—former chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo—resigned last fall, claiming political interference had created the impression of a "rigged process stacked against the accused." Davis later told The Nation that in a conversation with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes in 2005, Haynes told him flatly, "[w]e can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We've got to have convictions."

Bad evidence, tortured testimony, delay, error, guilty prisoners jumbled up with merely unlucky ones and the necessity of politically motivated convictions. But politics won't keep just the Gitmo prisoners from seeing justice. Politics will also keep those responsible for alleged crimes at Guantánamo from ever having to defend their actions in a court of law.

If prisoners were illegally tortured at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, who was responsible? A memo written by John Yoo, a deputy at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2002 to 2003, was declassified this month. He argued that military interrogators could subject suspected terrorists to harsh treatment as long as it didn't cause "death, organ failure or permanent damage." (It was later rescinded.) While it's possible Yoo was merely producing a theoretical, lawyerly opinion—he calls it "d=S" —it may well have opened the floodgates to prisoner torture and even death. Yet virtually nobody suggests Yoo should be subject to prosecution.

Yoo's possible contributions to torture at Guantánamo almost pale in comparison with ABC News's revelations that administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, George Tenet, Colin Powell and Don Rumsfeld, met several times in the White House to discuss torture techniques for Al Qaeda suspects. The group signed off on slapping, pushing and waterboarding, in a manner "so detailed … some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed." Days later, President George W. Bush confirmed he "approved" of these tactics.

Yet despite the fact that senior members of the Bush administration may have violated the War Crimes Act of 1996, the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, there is scant serious talk of legal accountability. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating whether agency attorneys provided the White House and CIA with faulty legal advice. That's a bit like setting the local meter maid on them.

Few believe the high-level architects of the American torture policy will ever face domestic prosecution. As Yale Law School's Jack Balkin pointed out, the political costs are too high: "One can imagine the screaming of countless pundits arguing that the Democrats were trying to criminalize political disagreements about foreign policy."

High-ranking administration officials and enemy combatants may have broken the law, and their legal situations are weirdly parallel. Both show how the rule of law can fracture under the strain of politics. Those alleged lawbreakers at Guantánamo can never be acquitted for purely political—as opposed to legal—reasons. The alleged lawbreakers in the Bush administration will never be held to account on precisely the same grounds.

URL: Dahlia Lithwick: Getting Away With Torture | Newsweek Dahlia Lithwick on Legal Issues | Newsweek.com

[bountyhunter]

Originally Posted by Judge

Hope all those who want to close down Gitmo and who have criticized the detention of these animals there .

You always manage to never be able to write a complete sentence without proving why there is no rational reason to give anything you write serious consideration.

Like our admin, you assume that any of the poor schmucks rounded up in the "paid bounty sweep" that lead to the raft of people dumped in GITMO must have been infallibly accurate and therefore, none of them should even have the possibility of deserving a chance to defend themselves.

My past experience already has proven what a complete waste of time it would be to debate the relative "merits" of your non-reasoning, but consider this:

What would you say if some other nation had come here and subjected US citizens to this treatment... which is to say, like animals?

GITMO and what was done to people there will go down in history as a disgrace on this nation.

[bountyhunter]

Originally Posted by Etta Place

I'm not wrong that what the U.S. has done at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib is wrong.

YES, but arguing that point with Bush apologists is a pointless excercise. IMHO, we don't need to sink to such levels to fight terrorism.

[KEVWYO]

Originally Posted by yeahYeah

The democrats have undermined the war on terror from day one. Bush did concede alot - much to my dismay.

Thanks to the media, Gitmo is seen as evil and bad. the public has no concept of its true purpose and the Bush Admin has not been vocal enough in its support of it.

When the democrats piled on, the administration never fought back.

Hmmmm ...... Must be missing something here.

Not exactly sure what if anything the Dem's had to do with Gitmo from concept to fruition.

Now I will say Gitmo has and does serve a purpose and that prisoner's there can be documented to lead better lives than some Americans ... homeless. That is absolutely shameful. Let Joe Arpaio (spelling???) run the place. Seriously, why are Gitmo prisoners treated better than Joe's inmates????? This kinder and gentler (who came up with that anyway ... thinking ..... thinking .... ) approach is mind boggling to me sometimes. The cognitive dissonance it creates for me is hard to get around.

But I ask ... how long do we hold these people? If they are the murderous psychopathic cretins they may very well be then I think "we" need to prove it. If proved to be true then let the sunsabitches rot. However, there are some who have made it into Gitmo who were caught up in a huge fishing net so to speak who were never in Afghanistan to begin with (think German Muslim guy). Is it reasonable to hold a person for no reason and for no time limit? The US seems to be the biggest supporter of basic human rights and yet our government will go to great lengths to capture, transport, interrogate, perhaps hide when possible, rendition some, and charge few with anything and feel tht it is perfectly OK.

Is it ironic that the US will go to great lengths to want to support basic human rights but turn around and impose a Gitmo philosophy? Is it no wonder that the rest of the world sometimes looks at us, scratches it's collective head, and wonders which side of our brain we are reacting with today? Hell, I am wondering myself and I am America. Sometimes, we as a country, seem to get caught up with the minutiae, the detals, the tedium, the trees instead of focusing on the forest .... the big picture.

Am I saying that Gitmo shouldn't exist? An unequivocal NO WAY! It has a place to be sure. But it's essence and philosophy runs antithetical to what our country is about with the way it is being run.

We, as a country, are only as good as the stupidest thing we do when it comes to dealing with the world.

[KEVWYO]

Originally Posted by yeahYeah

I think in 30 years, history will judge him well.

My views on the man are not swayed by people or the media. i think at it as a whole....the good, the bad and the ugly.

Don't know what you're drinkin or smokin but you'll need to keep doing it to continue with this frame of mind.