Permanent detention for Guantanamo prisoners against whom there is no evidence
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Permanent detention for Guantanamo prisoners against whom there is no evidence
and imprison others in CIA run prisons in other countries.
Here is the link to an article by Dana Priest in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41475-2005Jan1.html
Here are some quotes:
Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.
...
One proposal under review is the transfer of large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center into new U.S.-built prisons in their home countries. The prisons would be operated by those countries, but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognized human rights standards and would monitor compliance, the senior administration official said.
As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, according to defense officials.
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The administration considers its toughest detention problem to involve the prisoners held by the CIA. The CIA has been scurrying since Sept. 11, 2001, to find secure locations abroad where it could detain and interrogate captives without risk of discovery, and without having to give them access to legal proceedings.
Little is known about the CIA's captives, the conditions under which they are kept -- or the procedures used to decide how long they are held or when they may be freed. That has prompted criticism from human rights groups, and from some in Congress and the administration, who say the lack of scrutiny or oversight creates an unacceptable risk of abuse.
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One approach used by the CIA has been to transfer captives it picks up abroad to third countries willing to hold them indefinitely and without public proceedings. The transfers, called "renditions," depend on arrangements between the United States and other countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan, that agree to have local security services hold certain terror suspects in their facilities for interrogation by CIA and foreign liaison officers.
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"The whole idea has become a corruption of renditions," said one CIA officer who has been involved in the practice. "It's not rendering to justice, it's kidnapping."
But top intelligence officials and other experts, including former CIA director George J. Tenet in his testimony before Congress, say renditions are an effective method of disrupting terrorist cells and persuading detainees to reveal information.
"Renditions are the most effective way to hold people," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror." "The threat of sending someone to one of these countries is very important. In Europe, the custodial interrogations have yielded almost nothing" because they do not use the threat of sending detainees to a country where they are likely to be tortured.
Ms. Priest quotes several sources by name in her article.
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Ginny:
I have been livid since I first read this article. Since when are we a country that holds people indefinitely when there is not sufficient evidence to bring them to even the military tribunal hearings at Guantanamo (which bear absolutely no resemblence to anything remotely approaching a trial as we know it). Why are we allowing the fear of terrorists to cause us to copy the worst features of a government we went to war to overthrow, in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
One of the reasons for the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the constitution was the English government's unhappy habit of detaining politically unpopular persons indefinitely, without trial and without charges, and holding secret hearings where the accused was not present and not able to present any defense. Our founding fathers knew what they were doing.
I understand - these people are, by and large, not citizens of the U.S. (though a few are), so they are not entitled to certain constitutional protections. But the Fifth Amendment says "no person", and the Sixth Amendment says "the accused", without reference to citizenship. What on earth are we doing?
Ginny, I have often wondered myself. It seems we can't hold them forever!
According to talk radio one of the argument is for this is
Terrorism isn't like other crimes or war. They killed 3,000 innocent people in 9/11. So the rules of war don't apply.
It would really be easy to poisen all New Yorkers. They just have to go up to the water supply and put some poisen in it.
Also what happens if we let one go and they bomb another country? How mad is that other country going to be?
The govt will let them out when the terrorism stops. Isn't that the rule of war let them out at the end of the war? When the war stops?
The one thing I am sure of is I don't want the terrorist freed to blow up another world trade center building or railroad station or railroad or poisen the food supply or water supply (pretty easy to do). I am really scared of these people. Really mad too. How dare them make is so I have to worry when I am on a train with my son or my husband is on a train (every day)that it is going to blow up.
I think we should study what Israel's do with terrorists. I wonder what they do?
Also another arguement that the radio stations are making is what people want minimally out of government is to be protected. They want to feel safe.
Another thing it is very easy in New York to do damage and kill thousands of people. Easy Easy Easy. Also New York is know to be like the big apple so it is a perfect target. You know it is famous for it theater, financial district - sort of like I don't know what you would call it... Some people are proud of the city.
There are soldiers in Grand Centrel Station. You walk by 20 soldiers with guns at grand central station. Things are werid.
You cross a bridge and you see a police man outside all the bridges and tunnels looking bored and doing nothing... There is nothing they could do unless a van had bomb written on it.
There are signs on the subways that we are to report every piece of garbage as a bomb.
Can you imagine every piece of unattended garbage in New York is to be treated like a bomb?
You would get this is you saw all the garbage on the street in New York.
I forgot to add I would be dead if I hadn't been fired from my job at the world trade center. Lucky I am a lousey employee.
>Terrorism isn't like other crimes or war. They >killed 3,000 innocent people in 9/11. So the >rules of war don't apply.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well they do if those people are captured in a war which is where a lot of them were captured - Afganistan. And many were Taliban fighters, not Al Quaeda. The Taliban sheltered Al Quaeda but was not involved in international terrorism.
>It would really be easy to poisen all New >Yorkers. They just have to go up to the water >supply and put some poisen in it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That can happen regardless of what is done with the prisoners. I don't understand how this would relate to the issue at all, esp. since the prisoners would in all liklyhood not be released in the US and never be able to enter it.
>Also what happens if we let one go and they bomb >another country? How mad is that other country >going to be?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hopw mad are countries now that their citizens are being held against international law, without any kind of conviction or assurance of guilt? How angry are they now that the US appears to be flouting international law and setting precedents for other, much less savoury nations, about how prisoners can be treated? About how foreign nationals can be treated? About how American interests trump international agreements?
>The govt will let them out when the terrorism >stops. Isn't that the rule of war let them out >at the end of the war? When the war stops?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But an earlier reason stated this wasn't a war. I don't think the Geneva convention was meant to be aproached like a buffet where you can pick and choose what you like.
I'm with you Ginny. I know to some people this all seems okay because it's just happening to terrorists but the fact is, it's not. There are hearings here in Canada right now, trying to find out why a Canadian citizen (of Syrian descent) was detained while flying in the US and then sent on to Syria where he was held and tortured for a year. The erosion of right in Guantanamo carried over to an innocent Canadian. How long before American citizens are facing the same thing and why isn't that a frightening idea?
There are lots of stories of people being picked up, at home, on the street, in airports, and being held for long periods of time with no contact with family or lawyer. One that comes to mind is a doctor who studied here, became a citizen and has been a citizen for many years, and was returning from a visit to his family in one of the Asian countries, not a Middle East country. As I recall, he was held for something like 60 days before being released.
For me, this kind of situation always reminds me of the words of Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor who was killed by the Hitler regime:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
If we do not carefully guard the rights of "unpopular" people, how long will it be before we are among the unpopular?
I know that several members of my church, including all of the present and former clergy, have FBI investigative files because of their involvement in various anti-segregation, anti-war and pro-peace activities, the Sanctuary movement (come to think of it, I was/am very active in that committee - maybe I should use the Freedom of Information Act to see if I have an FBI file).
Ginny, I am a bit confused as to why you are parallelling (sp?) the quote by Martin Niemoller to what is happening to the prisoners.
I guess before I pitch in I should understand what you are trying to say with that.
Thanks!
What Niemoller was saying, as I understand it, is that if we silently stand by and watch and allow (and even approve of) unconstitutional, illegal things happening to people whom we don't approve of, or people who are in groups that we are not part of, we risk eventually having the same thing happen to us because there is no one left to speak out.
My point is that if we allow our government to permanently detain, without trial, people against whom they have no evidence (and people, by and large, who were captured in other countries and brought by us to a prison controlled by us) we are saying that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution don't apply to those people - even though those amendments make no reference whatsoever to citizenship, but simply refer to "person" and "accused". And that can be the first step on a slippery slope of deciding who is or isn't covered by Constitutional protections.
We are, justifiably, frightened by terrorists and terrorism. But we are allowing our fear, or rather our government's perception of and use of our fear, to allow our government to commit what are, imo, unAmerican acts.
This nation is remarkable in that through the wisdom of the founding fathers in developing and setting into law our Constitituion, we have said that the rights of the individual are more important than the rights of the group or of government, and that the rule if law is paramount.
One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, "It is better to let ten guilty men go free than to hang one innocent man". This proposal for permanent detention of untried individuals says that it is better for any number of potentially innocent people to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives than to risk setting free one who *might* be guilty.
Wow, Ginny, you said that so well, but that is what I think about the situation, too. That we are potentially holding some innocent people there, for no reason.
Ginny, my only thought to this is doesn't the Patriot Act essentially allow the government to do this to citizens as well? Isn't that essentially Niemoller's point? These are human beings, regardless of what they are suspected of doing. They deserve due process. To justify holding them indefinitely essentially says "We can do whatever we want to you if you are a suspected threat." If that is the thinking there shouldn't be trials going on at Ft. Hood for soldiers suspected of prisoner abuse. After all, they were a suspected threat! And for that matter, we can just throw out the Geneva Conventions, since our soldiers should be able to use the guerilla tactics enemy soldiers use on them. Who cares if they are cruel, we're responding to a threat! It's all out of control, we cannot have standards in some cases, but not in others.
Yes, Crystal. It is the Patriot Act that has allowed the detention (without contact with lawyer or family) of countless people - some picked up from airplanes/airports, some taken from their homes or businesses. Most are held incommunicado, sometimes as long as well over a year. In most instances, the suspect/victim was arrested because s/he has an Arabic or Asian name or at some point had some contact with someone who *might* have had contact with someone who gave money that is *believed* to have supported a group which *may* support terrorists.
One that I recall offhand was a college student whose roommate used his (the detainee's) cell phone to make a call to a person who is *believed* to have contacts with a group that sends money to a group that has some relationship to a terrorist group. He was held for months.
Here's a link to a CNN report: http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/07/21/justice.civil.liberties/
One from Earthlink: http://home.earthlink.net/~thepatriotactgame/justice.html
The following quote is from The National Law Journal:
In its third detention case, CCR has filed a human rights suit against U.S. officials who arrested Canadian citizen Maher Arar in 2002 because they believed he knew an al-Queda member. They then summarily sent him to Syria, fully aware, charges CCR, that he would be interrogated under torture. Arar was released by Syria after nearly a year. Canada recently announced a public inquiry into Arar's case. Arar v. Ashcroft, No. CV-00249-DGT (E.D.N.Y.)
Here is the link to the article: http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1076428323925
But doesn't that also give them the right to hold you or me?? American citizens can be held in the same manner (incommunicado, indefinitely) if suspected of terrorist crimes or conspiracy. So for all the people who say it is "protecting America" would they feel so protected if their husband disappeared, and was being held unjustly, unbeknownst to them? It's not about the other guy being held anymore, we are essentially giving up our right to due process. I may not have been the best history student, but I thought that was a right they couldn't take from us. How do they get around that?
Oh yes, indeed. It does mean they can detain and hold anyone they want, under the Patriot Act. Remember, one of the people detained at Guantanamo is a U.S. citizen. An idiot, of course, and heaven only knows what his parents were thinking of when they raised him, but nonetheless a citizen. Ashcroft said, essentially, that his being a citizen didn't mean squat.
How do they get around it? We let them. A few legal organizations and a few lawyers are fighting the good fight on this, and eventually the Supremes are going to have to rule. Several federal appeals courts (Circuit Courts) have held that all or part of the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, which is how it got to the Supremes last time, and they ordered hearings at Guantanamo. Now the battle on that issue is going to be about whether the hearings being held are consistent with what the Supreme Court ordered.
Not that I necessarily agree with it but...
The way they can hold the people picked up is by classifying them as "enemy combatants":
www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/08/enemy.combatants/
or in other words...
If you are captured particpating in a war against the United States (which began on 9/11) you become a prisoner of war who are normally held until the War is over.
Military prisoners are governed by military law not civilian law (even our own soldiers are under military law not civilian law):
http://www.constitution.org/mil/ucmj19970615.htm
Again, I don't agree with all of how this has been used. I'm just trying to explain it.
Yeah, John. But military prisoners come under the Geneva Convention, to which we are a signatory. And they are not held incommunicado. They have regular contact with families (censored, of course) and with the Red Cross, minimally.
And, we are not at war. The only time the United States is at war is if the Congress of the United States passes a Declaration of War. Yes, we are in combat in Iraq and have been and are in combat in Afghanistan. But it is not "war", by Constitutional definitions.
Nor are we really "at war" with the perpetrators of 9-11. If we were serious about going after the people who perpetrated that horror, we would have had a lot more troops in Afghanistan (where Bin Laden was based) and would have thought seriously about attacking Saudi Arabia. A significant part of the financial support for Bin Laden and other terrorists comes from Saudi Arabia, including some members of the royal family. There are large numbers of mullahs in Saudi Arabia who run schools which recruit young men for terrorist organizations.
But, back to the Patriot Act and the detentions. Other than Guantanamo (and the prisons in other countries where we are shipping people in the "mystery jet" in today's headlines), the people detained under the Patriot Act in this country are, by and large, civilians - not people who were picked up participating in a war of any kind. And Patriot Act or no, they come under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (that blessed document). Classifying someone as an "enemy combatant" who is not actually under arms or in a group which is under arms shooting at U.S. troops doesn't make them enemy combatants, no matter how Ashcroft chose to define the situation.
I also think this infringes on our First Amendment right of free speech, because saying or demonstrating in the "wrong" way can have you detained. It's getting worse, and will continue to get worse until the Supreme Court upholds the Bill of Rights. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a new "Patriot Act" type bill being pushed? Essentially expanding the reach of the current one? I guess I ought to do some more research and find information on it. It's just frustrating to me, other than voting for my presidential candidate, I feel like there is nothing I can do.
Ginny,
You are of course technically correct that "officially" War was not "declared" (the last time that Congress did that was June 5, 1942).
However, both the "War on Terrorism" and the Iraq invasion was "authorized" by Congress on September 18, 2001 (by nearly unaminous vote 98-0, 421-1) and on October 16, 2002 respectively.
In accordance with the War Powers Act of 1973 (93rd Congress, H. J. Res. 542 November 7, 1973)
on September 18, 2001 ((H.J. Res. 64) , the U.S. Congress authorized the president to
"use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
http://www.house.gov/ryan/press_releases/2001pressreleases/useofforce91401.html
You can call it what you want but that sure sounds like a war to me...
Regarding the Geneva Convention...
It's interesting to note that spies and saboteurs are SPECIFICALLY excluded from having the rights of prisoners of war that you mention (Protocol I, Art. 46)
Spies (Art 46):
"...any member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict who falls into the power of an adverse Party while engaging in espionage shall not have the right to the status of prisoner of war and may be treated as a spy..."
And Sabotage (Art 68):
"...(the)Occupying Power ... may impose the death penalty against a protected person only in cases ...which have caused the death of one or more persons, provided that such offences were punishable by death under the law ..."
An argument could be made that those who aided (trained, fought with, etc.) the Sept 11 highjackers could be classified in this way.
http://www.genevaconventions.org/
What Congress did, John, was vote on resolutions. The same kind of thing they do when they authorize Pickle Day or some other thing. A resolution is not leglislation, nor is it a declaration of war. You will recall that there was something called the Tonkin Bay Resolution, having to do with the sense of Congress that the then President was allowed to send more troops to and conduct military activities in Viet Nam (and the results of that). Turns out, eventually and well after the fact, that the alleged attacks which were the purported reason for asking Congress for the Tonkin Bay Resolution didn't happen, or at least didn't happen in the way the then administration said they did (Much like it was later discovered that the Spanish didn't blow up the battleship Maine in a Cuban harbor - that led to our invasion of Cuba for the Spanish-American war).
None or very, very few of the people detained in Guantanamo and whatever other non-U.S. prisons we sent them to (and countless federal and state detention centers all around this country)are there because of suspected complicity in 9-11, other than the tenuous connection of perhaps having aided some terrorist group somewhere. 9-11 was a tragedy, a shock to all of us, and a horror. It is also a flag that politicians wave in the wind (along with "terrorism") whenever someone questions whether what a politician or administrtion official proposes is legal or Constitutional. You will, I am sure, recall that Ashcroft and many others equated criticism of the President's plan to go to war in Iraq with treason. When a government official says that questioning the policies or actions of our government is treason, I know something is wrong - and it isn't the questioner.
This nation, sadly, has a habit of acting on fear and misinformation as a basis for arresting and detaining people without legal protections in times of crisis - Germans and persons of German parentage in WWI, Japanese and Germans and Italians in WWII - and later having the Supreme Court decide it was unconstitutional, issuing apologies and, in the case of the Japanese, paying financial reparations. One would like to hope that we would learn from our own history. I am not so optimistic as to have that hope, however.
I haven't been around much because I have been helping the teachers in my community, who have been without a contract for more than a year and a half, by showing my support at school board meetings and contributing to their message board. But, I needed a break from that- it's very upsetting.
I Googled Martin Niemöller and found a page that contained his biography from the Encyclopedia Britannica.
http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml
I was curious about why Ginny used that poem, and I wanted to see what had originally inspired it. Niemoller was at very first a supporter of Hitler and Nazi Germany but around 1933 changed his tune and emerged as an activist against Hilter and an advocate for repentance for the damage Hiltler's Germany had done.
In addition, he said he “would rather burn his church to the ground, than to preach the Nazi trinity of ‘race, blood, and soil.’”
So, the way I see it, he was against oppression.
I see oppression working in present day in two ways.
1) We see the oppression of the terrorist prisoners of war currently in US custody.
2) We saw the oppression of more than 3,000 innocent Americans on September 11, 2001. Their oppression came in the form of a death wish, wished upon them by men whose hearts pumped blood of pure hate and evil desire to murder as many totally innocent human beings as possible in cold blood and declare war on our nation.
It is what it is. It is a time of war, and in a time of war, it is my opinion that the US has every right to hold those individuals while it weeds out the ones who would pose a threat to our security in the event of their release as well as the ones who were instrumental in the attacks on 9/11.
Now, if I were being forced to choose who should be oppressed, the prisoners of war or the citizens of this nation, I choose the prisoners.
Dr. Neimoller didn't "approve of" the Nazis, yet I seriously doubt that he would have had trouble sleeping if every Nazi had been wiped off the face of the earth.
Furthermore, in keeping with his poem, if Christians and Nazis were the only two groups left on earth, I also doubt that he could count on any Nazi to speak out on his behalf, nor would he want to.
Simply because they are in a prison controlled by the US does not grant them the rights of every other legal US citizen. If that were the case, then each and every immigrant who arrives on our soil, regardless of how they got here, legally or illegally, should also be granted the same rights that every legal US citizen has. This would include, but not be limited to, each of the first 10 amendments, the right to vote, to have a driver's license, to collect welfare, to receive medical attention regardless of insurance or ability to pay, to be reperesented in a court of law,... anything I have missed?
The fifth amendment states:
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual time of war or public danger;"
So even if we were to extend the bill of rights to the terrorist prisoners, the actions of the imprisoned terrorists who carried out 9/11, as well as the actions of those who planned and financed 9/11, were a declaration of war against the US. Therefore, those terrorists committed crimes in a time of war, and they cannot hold the US to the 5th amendment guaranteeing them an indictment by grand jury. Unless, of course, you do not consider the offenses committed on 9/11 to be capital offenses, in which case, the 6th amendment may apply in a criminal court.
The fear you refer to is not simple fear. Fear is a reaction to danger. We are not allowing fear to dictate our actions. We are taking pre-emptive measures against danger. If we do not act in the face of danger, we are not going to be able to protect ourselves from another 9/11. In fact, we (and especially our troops) are very courageous. Courage=action in spite of fear.
It is odd to me that the Patriot Act is being criticized so vehemently. After all it was passed with its own checks and balances. Those checks and balances (the inspector general's report) seem to be doing their job, which is to ensure that civil rights/liberties are not violated. Yet the entire Act comes under fire simply because the periodical check has actually come up with some alleged violations. They will be investigated. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
How does the government declare a constitutional war against an un-specified country/nation? We are not at war WITH Iraq or Afghanistan or any other specific nation. We are at war with several groups of militant Islamists who provoked us.
If citizens are being detained only under suspicion, as we did with the Japanese in WWII, I do believe that is wrong. However, I do believe that in a time of "war" all citizens should be able to understand that search and seizures will happen in the interest of protecting the country.
Just imagine if we had done these things with the terrorists BEFORE 9/11?
Many loved ones would still be here, and the New York skyline would still be complete.
Let's not let it happen again.
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