13 ms·
The Forever Trial at Guantanamo
- tinus_hn 5y agoIt would be a bit embarrassing if some of these suspects can’t be convicted and they get compensated for being detained for a decade.
- pluc 5y agoAs opposed to embarrassing for detaining alleged "terrorists" without accusations for a decade? You do know the entire world knows about it right? It's never been a good look for the greedy warmongers that are the American people.
- UnpossibleJim 5y agoDon't conflate a people with its government. They often have very different motivations.
- alistairSH 5y agoWe elect them. They are us.
- linuxftw 5y agoSpeak for yourself. I've never voted for a single politician that supported the Iraq or Afghan wars.
- yardie 5y agoThe US government is us. The US government is not you. Better?
- pessimizer 5y agoThe US government is an agreement between two small private clubs who erected powerful legislative barriers against any competition.
- pluc 5y agoAnd that's why you have gotten and will get no change, because "it's not your fault". You all literally have guns for this reason. Get you some change.
- UnpossibleJim 5y agoAre we now to charge every citizen of every country with the sins of their country, then? When the paper eating citizenry of North Korea don't rebel, are we to throw charming coloquialisms at them or say they are supporting their government motivations? You're painting with an awfully broad brush against a very divided country on military policy which has been shaped by closed policy taking shape since the Carter administration. A lot of which was covert operations and came out when the freedom of information act came about. Now you expect a full blown violent revolution. What a short sighted, poorly thought out action.... but if violence and burning is the only way to "get you some change", it doesn't leave a lot for the future. Good luck and I wish you the best, but that isn't my way unless there is no other choice. And I mean no other choice, whatsoever.
- trasz 5y agoUS is divided in various different ways, but not in its approach to military. Warmongering support is bipartisan.
- UnpossibleJim 5y agoIt may be bipartisan, but it isn't very popular, according to poling =[
- xboxnolifes 5y ago> Are we now to charge every citizen of every country with the sins of their country, then? > When the paper eating citizenry of North Korea don't rebel, are we to throw charming coloquialisms at them or say they are supporting their government motivations? Not quite, but if we are to claim ourselves to be a country "by the people, for the people", then yes, we bear at least some of the sins of our country. Maybe not past sins, but we certainly bear current sins if we do not at the very least actively go against them.
- h_anna_h 5y agoThey do not care about the injustices that their elected government committed and that they funded via their taxes, as long as they can have their iphone and starbucks coffee in peace.
- kuraudo 5y agoWe'll hem and haw about it, but you're right that we won't do anything. Is it a cosmic injustice worthy of the guillotine for every president and official that has presided over it? Absolutely, but that's the thing with evil empires: the people populating it don't want to risk their good lives in the pursuit of real justice.
- sudosysgen 5y agoAre you claiming that the US is not a democracy?
- howaboutnope 5y ago> See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico;—see if I would go”; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it differed one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" (1849)
- GongOfFour 5y agoAh the old Canadian pastime of sitting back and launch invectives at America while coasting on the economic and national security she provides by just being in proximity to her.
- pluc 5y agoIf you're saying that Guantanamo is remotely useful for Canada's national security and economy please don't operate heavy machinery. Do not put your war crimes on us.
- shkkmo 5y agoCanada has acknowledged it's own complicity in the Guantanamo detention of it's own citizen and paid that citizen millions of dollars in settlement. This isn't to say that Guantanamo was actually useful for the national security of the US or Canada or that their complicity is equal.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoI’m not aware of suspects who aren’t convicted receiving restitution for jail time. Is there federal law for that?
- tyingq 5y agoApparently there is a US federal law that provides $50,000 per year of confinement in the case of a wrongful conviction: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/03/14/what-do-states-owe-people-who-are-wrongfully-convicted https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta... No idea if it applies to non-citizens. Some Guantanamo detainees got compensation from the UK and Canada: https://www.voanews.com/europe/british-government-pays-compensation-former-guantanamo-detainees https://www.voanews.com/europe/british-government-pays-compe... https://www.newsweek.com/guantanamo-bay-detainee-omar-khadr-wins-10m-canada-631792 https://www.newsweek.com/guantanamo-bay-detainee-omar-khadr-...
- baybal2 5y ago> One of the former detainees who received compensation, Binyam Mohamed, claims Britain knew he had been sent by the U.S. security agency to Morocco where his genitals were sliced with a scalpel during interrogation.
- torstenvl 5y agoI won't get into a debate on HN on whether the underlying rule is good or not, but the justification for holding enemy detainees is founded on historical practice during times of war. And, traditionally, the authority to do that ends when the conflict is over. The agreement with the Taliban and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, in my view, brings the authority to continue military detention of many of these individuals into question. The chief argument to the contrary would be that these are not purely military courts and not purely military detention. Congress set up the commissions system as an Article I court, rather than this existing purely under the President's Article II war powers.
- shkkmo 5y agoLegally, there was never any war. This means that "war prisoners" are actually just people that the US illegally kidnapped, illegally detained, and illegally tortured. Ignore the legal window dressing around these "trials", it is all illegal.
- tokai 5y agoIf they actually was war prisoners US wouldn't have been able to treat them like this. The 'enemy combatant' swindle made it possible to treat them with no rights.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- torstenvl 5y agoThat's an awful lot of legal conclusions. Are you licensed to practice law? What's the case law that forms the basis of your analysis?
- pessimizer 5y agoYou also seem to have omitted any qualifications or citations.
- 5y ago
- throwaway210222 5y ago> It would be a bit embarrassing No, it would kidnapping: a crime. Sanctioned at the highest levels of government.
- Nextgrid 5y agoUnless it's committed by the government of course, in which case it's business as usual.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y agoWhich is why it's not going to happen (the compensation part).
- jabedude 5y agoI wish the article explored some of the absurdities that have sprung up during the Gitmo commissions. Hidden microphones[0] discovered in the rooms used by lawyers to meet with suspects. The presiding judge accepting a job[1] from the prosecution while serving as the judge in the case. It's remarkable how clumsily the military commissions have been conducted for nearly a decade with no end in sight [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/us/politics/guantanamo-hidden-microphone.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/us/politics/guantanamo-hi... [1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/guantanamo-commission-can-remain-despite-judges-job-conflict https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/guantanamo-commiss...
- staticautomatic 5y agoMilitary justice is to justice as military music is to music.
- torstenvl 5y agoMinor correction and addition to [1]: - It's not quite as bad as that, in that the job was from the U.S. government, not the prosecution per se. Col. Spath was set to become an ALJ. - It's a bit worse than all that, in that one of Col. Spath's worst biased rulings was to imprison the chief defense counsel when he refused to make his subordinates represent capital clients without learned counsel. https://www.yahoo.com/news/contempt-clash-erupts-guant-namo-083719678.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/contempt-clash-erupts-guant-namo-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/02/in-a-highly-unusual-move-an-american-general-is-sentenced-to-confinement-at-guantanamo-bay/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/02... https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-releases-marine-general-lawyer-ordered-to-confinement-for-disobeying-orders-1509750250 https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-releases-marine-genera...
- Ozzie_osman 5y agoIt's worth noting that Obama pledged to close Guantanamo, and tried his best, and even his opponent McCain at one point wanted to close it. Yet it remains open.
- tyingq 5y agoHave a look at the list of all known detainees here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detaine... A couple of the entries that caught my eye: Al Hajj, Sami Sudan 2001 Cameraman for al Jazeera, only journalist held at Gitmo, hunger-striker Released May 1, 2008 Al Kandari, Abdullah kamel bin Abdullah Kamal Kuwait * Main allegation is wearing a Casio F91W digital watch More info on Sami Al Hajj: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_al-Hajj https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_al-Hajj More on the Casio watch thing: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-files-casio-wristwatch-alqaida https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-fil...
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThe only watch better than the Casio F91W is the Casio F-105. They are nearly identical, except the F-105 has a backlight that is usable. The backlight on the F91W is worthless, and there are quite a few mods out there showing you how to replace it. Source: I’ve been wearing both of these models for decades, although I haven’t touched the F91W in years and never will again.
- tyingq 5y agoPerhaps true, but the interesting bit in the linked article is that some al-Qaida bomb-making training course in Afghanistan gave you a free F91W to be used as a detonator. And apparently the US then decided that meant possession of an F91W on its own was reasonable evidence of terrorism. Despite 90+ million of them being sold over the years.
- freeflight 5y ago> Despite 90+ million of them being sold over the years. It’s a feature not a bug, wouldn’t want to run out of “terrorist suspects” or else the war on terror would be difficult to sell.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThe article never mentions the elephant in the room: if these men are put on a public trial, the government will have to reveal intelligence information that may embarrass or endanger the lives of people in the intelligence community.
- freeflight 5y agoThat’s no “elephant in the room” it’s just the same old and tired non argument to justify holding people prisoner without granting them any rights or even charging them for a crime in a public court. “Trust us, this guy is a criminal but we can’t tell you why or how” is not an convincing argument, particularly when it’s coming from people and institutions who are constantly caught lying.
- DaftDank 5y agoThere are plenty of federal prosecutors and judges who know how to handle classified evidence in court. I can't remember his name off the top of my head anymore, but I recall when I deep-dived into the Gitmo suspects and military tribunals a long time ago, there was a judge's name who constantly kept popping up in the paperwork of related terrorism cases. Seemed like he was one of the designated "terrorism judges" who had the clearance and authority to review classified intel and info and make determinations on what can be used and presented. I believe he is from the Virginia district courts possibly
- koheripbal 5y agoThe issue is that in a court, a Defendant has the right to see the evidence against him.
- DaftDank 5y agoYes, the judge I was referring to was a district court judge in the US (I believe in the state of Virginia but not positive) who hears terrorism cases and makes decisions on whether the classified evidence the prosecution wants to withhold is actually worthy of being withheld -- i.e. if it's actually a threat to national security to disclose, and whether that national security risk outweighs the need for the defendant to be presented with all the evidence used against him to mount a defense. Also, if there is any way to present the evidence with redactions so that the defense can see it, but not reveal sources/methods etc. Prosecuting cases that depend on classified national security material is nothing new really when it comes to the federal courts. There is a system in place to do so. The military tribunals are an entirely different beast, although some might say different sides of the same coin. I'm inclined to go with the latter, although I don't think the federal courts are quite as bad as the military tribunals in terms of fairness to defendants.
- drocer88 5y agoAn alternate view : https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/hundreds-of-released-gitmo-detainees-back-to-killing-americans/ https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/hundreds-of-released-gitmo-det... "Shortly after taking office, Biden reversed President Trump’s executive order to keep Gitmo open and is lining up inmates to transfer out of the prison with the goal of emptying it and shuttering it — even though the remaining prisoners have long been classified by military intelligence as the worst of the worst and too dangerous to release."
- ydlr 5y agoI love that the photo they chose for their fear-mongering article was of inmates praying. Scary.
- quantum_solanum 5y agothe same military intelligence that blew up an aid worker and his family and lied about it a couple weeks ago? oh ok
- kuraudo 5y agoI remember reading as a kid that this is the kind of thing that an evil empire does. Now that I realize that evil empire is us, I don't understand how anyone can justify this horror show.
- refurb 5y agoI’m not sure I’d expect that enemy combatants could expect the same legal protections as someone who committed a crime in the US? I mean look at the Nuremberg trials. If there was ever an illusion of justice it was that trial. German citizens were convicted of “wars of aggression” against Poland while the USSR, who collaborated with the Nazis and committed war crimes against the Polish people, weren’t even on trial but rather judges.
- quantum_solanum 5y ago> enemy combatants this is literally the core fascist tautology that the article is critiquing, gotta love the uncritical regurgitation of it
- refurb 5y agoRead up on international laws of war and get back to me. The US didn’t make that term up.
- quantum_solanum 5y agoyou missed the point, which is that many of the people in Gitmo _were not_ "enemy combatants"
- refurb 5y agoSorry I wasn't able to determine that was your statement from your comment on "core fascist tautology" which sounds like internet warrior speak.
- 5y ago
- Causality1 5y agoThe existence of Guantanamo is the greatest insult to the entire foundation of the US government. How can you pretend that the Constitution only recognizes naturally-existing rights but then construct a prison outside your country explicitly so you can deny those rights to your prisoners? Ten thousand free terrorists would be a tiny price to pay to end this cancer.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoAa terrible as the international secret prison system is, I'd still say the worldwide trial-less assassination program is a larger affront to the Constitution. Particularly as our methods often kill the family and neighbors as well.
- vmception 5y agoLPT: When people say anything about “both sides are the same”, this is what they are referring to, not the areas where they are in fact different
- logifail 5y ago> the worldwide trial-less assassination program (..) Somehow it's even more concerning when the international and US media report a story this way: 29 Aug: "US drone strike targets suicide bombers on their way to Kabul airport" 11 Sep: "US drone strike mistakenly targeted Afghan aid worker, investigation finds"
- meroes 5y agoWhat's worse: Gitmo and extrajudicial killings ordered by the executive are illegal yet we do them, or we've interpreted the law so they are legal?
- Zigurd 5y agoWorse still is that there is a cadre of "legal thinkers" promulgating this line of reasoning. They are still out there, twisting our legal system toward authoritarian outcomes.
- tommymachine 5y agoWe need to let all these guys out as soon as possible so they can take up the reigns in the fledgling new Afghan government.
- dustintrex 5y agoDownvoters FYI: the Taliban government includes four ex-Gitmo detainees. https://news.yahoo.com/taliban-five-guantanamo-bay-afghan-133000675.html https://news.yahoo.com/taliban-five-guantanamo-bay-afghan-13...
- drocer88 5y agoHow many have returned to terrorism? Is there a reliable source documenting this?
- pessimizer 5y agoDon't conflate the Taliban with jihadist groups. The Taliban were the government of the country we invaded, not "terrorists."
- drocer88 5y agohttps://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10604 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10604
- tommymachine 5y agoOne in your shoes may ask oneself: "why would the US military invade a country whose government was actually a cooperative ally, rather than an enemy?"
- yunohn 5y agoThe article clearly explains that they’re weren’t random Gitmo detainees, rather notorious ones that were negotiated in a prisoner swap. If the remaining ones are equally horrible people, surely the USA could bring actual charges against them, instead of indefinite imprisonment?
- bluedino 5y agoHow is KSM still alive?
- TechnoTimeStop 5y agoWow hacker-news this is totally hacker news related. Are you sure your China propaganda algorithm is disabled? What a dog shit thing to see on a technology aggregator.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoThere are a lot of misconceptions here, both in the original article and many of the comments. Most of them derive from assuming that this is some type of "crime" situation that automatically falls into the purview of the civilian courts, with Miranda rights and all that stuff. That is wrong. A completely separate system of jurisprudence is involved. There are two basic statuses for captured combatants. The first is "prisoner of war". There are rules about how POWs may be treated, but they don't include anything like a "fair trial". It is, in fact, illegal to put POWs on trial. Instead, they are supposed to be treated humanely and repatriated after hostilities have ceased. The catch here is that to be entitled to POW status the combatant must abide by the so-called laws of war, including bearing arms openly in the field (i.e, not hiding among civilians) and wearing a uniform or other insignia recognizable at a distance (something like a purple armband would be enough -- it just has to be something that clearly identifies you as "not a civilian" as seen from a distance). The second status is that of the so-called "unlawful combatant". This includes pirates, spies, terrorists, or anyone else who engages in hostilities without wearing a uniform or insignia, or who engages in other actions in violation of the laws of war (for example, deliberately attacking civilians, hiding among the civilian population, falsely wearing a symbol that indicates that the combatant is a medic, and so on). Unlawful combatants have no rights of any kind. They may be detained indefinitely (even after hostilities have ceased), tried by a military tribunal, or even be summarily executed on the spot when captured. This basic framework has been the rule for centuries, and was most recently codified by the Geneva Conventions. It's not some new policy that the United States made up.
- tromp 5y ago> Unlawful combatants have no rights of any kind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant begs to differ: "An individual who is not a lawful combatant, who is not a national of a neutral state, and who is not a national of a co-belligerent state, retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that he must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial".
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
- Threeve303 5y agoComing soon virtually to a life near you!
- baybal2 5y agoThe biggest question about Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and other Gitmo prisoners nobody talks about: Are they lawful combatants? If they are... and the war is over, the warring party is obliged to release the POW as per Geneva convention, which USA is a signatory of. USA is also a signatory of the first protocol, which extends the Geneva convention to irregular combatants, including people fighting in proxy wars, and guerilla forces. By militarily, and materially supporting the Saudi regime against its people, USA has became a legit target in the conflict, and extended jus in bello to the attackers. K.S.M. may well walk out of the courtroom.
- ctdonath 5y agoKeep in mind that several who were released from Gitmo are now leaders of the new terrorist government of Afghanistan. Bureaucrats are not adept at fairly handling judicial issues in war situations where justice by definition doesn’t exist.
- hartator 5y agoDon’t forget that Biden authored the Patriot Act and he is now president.
- LatteLazy 5y agoWikipedia says it was Jim Sensenbrenner (R). It makes no mention of Biden having a hand in it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
- hartator 5y agoNot according to Biden himself: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/andrewkaczynski/surveillance-joe https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/an...
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Don’t forget that Biden authored the Patriot Act No, he and Tom Daschle sponsored, in the Senate, the Clinton Administration’s legislative proposal (the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995), some of which was, in modified form, passed as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, and which is sometimes also seen as a spiritual antecedent of the Patriot Act.
- BeetleB 5y agoIf people want an idea of how problematic Gitmo was/is, they should read about Murat Kurnaz.[1] Some highlights: Within months of his detention, everyone admitted he should not have been detained (no ties to terrorists, not an enemy combatant). Yet he was held for five more years and subjected to torture. After they knew he was innocent, he was repeatedly interrogated about a friend of his who had committed a suicide bombing. Except that friend was well and alive in Germany, and likely had never been to that part of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz
- fcktheusa 5y agoGeorge W Bush and his colleagues and successors and all their families deserve to be drone striked for what they've done. The political class of this country is rotten and needs wiping out entirely. Eventually, there will be a reckoning. And I look forward to the inevitable collapse of the USA and the end of its abuse of humanity.
- Viliam1234 5y ago> And I look forward to the inevitable collapse of the USA and the end of its abuse of humanity. Any prediction on which country will replace USA on the top, and what will be their level of abuse?
- trasz 5y agoNone of the countries in this position is even remotely close wrt warmongering.