You fooled me there. In what way do you distinguish what you want from a simple criminal issue and what you claim to want?
In no way was I setting out to fool anyone. I'm merely looking for clarification. The problem I keep running up against is that, once I ceased viewing the situation through the blinkers of the current US administration, the Gitmo situation started looking as crooked as a dog's hind leg.
I could accept that it could be a POW camp, provided the inmates WERE genuine POWs (not Hogan's Heroes or Stalag Luft III, of course). But the military prosecutions simply doesn't fit that bill, and we have all seen that the inmates have not been accorded POW status or priviledges. Further, military legal teams are there now preparing to try them on various charges. So that means they are being held as accused criminals, and military criminals at that.
So the obvious question is: What is their accused crime, such that they would be captured by the US military in another country and kept in close confinement by thjem without trial in another? I don't have an answer to that question. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that they are military criminals.
"trumped-up charges against civilians not taken in combat"
How do you know that and what does "taken in combat" mean to you? Association with a criminal enterprise is good enough for conviction in a civil criminal court, but not applicable in a military situation? Sounds to me more like a matter of which side you choose to give the benefit of doubt to. I'll give it to my own first.
Once
again... It's not a matter of "sides" or trumping stuff up. If there is adequate solid evidence that these people committed heinous military crimes then get it out at trial, get them convicted, get them gaoled or hanged or whatever is legislated, and
make an end of it!
It's not their guilt or innocence that concerns me, it's the constant delays and excuses for
not doing what Gitmo was set up for in the first place - processing military criminals. The army seemed to be able to gather sufficient evidence, try and convict the Abu Graibh offenders fast enough. So surely these "clearly heinous criminals" in Gitmo would be a snap?
Read about the two Australians held at Gitmo, including one "captured" in Pakistan, shipped to Egypt, tortured, denied representation, and then handed over to the US authorities in Afghanistan to ship to Gitmo. One of these men has since been released for total lack of evidence. Guess which one...
I know you don't support or condone terrorism, or call it fanatical extremism if you want, but you do seem more inclined to believe in the mistreatment of "trumped-up charges against civilians not taken in combat" by those on your side, as if they are all a bunch of moronic goons with nothing better to do than amuse themselves with poor little people they were lucky enough to get their hands on.
Next thing I would expect to hear from you is a questioning of how the bombing of AZ was carried out without a trial first, after all, at least one civilian under the age of 16 seems to have been killed in that. So far I haven't seen your tears.
Please don't be silly. This is not about sides or name-calling. What happened at Abu Graibh may also be happening at Gitmo now, and many, many reports say it is. But I cannot subscribe to that completely without solid evidence being produced.
If you believe in the right of an accused to a fair and prompt trial, and I hear that so often from the US members of this forum and from other sources, why is that same process not being extended to the Gitmo prisoners? Or do you see it as somehow "right" that they should be convicted and imprisoned without trial on the mere say-so of the US government?
I did say before that I would have preferred to have seen AZ in TV in handcuffs going into Gitmo (and tried and convicted - that one would have been a gimme). That he died the way he did is unfortunate in a strategic sense only - a great propaganda opportunity like capturing Saddam was passed up in favour of a quick result. Then again, I would imagine AZ would not have come quietly anyway, so maybe it was the only way to get him at all. But another mindless Jordanian thug dies by the sword...so what. They kill themselves as readily as anyone else. But that others died with him, and because of him, is regrettable.
An Australian newspaper's view of the AZ situation.
