Execution Chamber Being Considered for Guantanamo

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sweet justice! :up:

theyre all CONVICTED terrorists. they dont need rights because theyre not human. we know for a fact they were ALL involved with al quada at one point or another. we can wipe them out anytime.
 
theyre all CONVICTED terrorists. they dont need rights because theyre not human. we know for a fact they were ALL involved with al quada at one point or another. we can wipe them out anytime.

I really hope you're kidding.


Some 680 detainees from 42 countries are in Guantanamo, categorized as unlawful combatants by the U.S. government. It has refused demands from human rights organizations to recognize them as prisoners of war. They have no constitutional rights as non-U.S. citizens being held outside U.S. territory, and none have been formally charged or allowed access to attorneys.

You can't be CONVICTED without a trial. Why is it that here we have "innocent until proven guilty" until terrorism is brought into the equation?
 
You are either ?with us or against us?.
We need this for homeland security.
You don?t want another 9-11, do you?
Each day I wake up I am amazed we have survived another 24 hours without a weapons of mass destruction attack.

If you oppose this and we are attacked again,
you have aided and abetted the enemy.

Think carefully, are you changing sides.
If you are against us you should be stripped of your citizenship and sent to GITMO.
We now have the means to deal with the likes of you.

9-11, Never again, never again.

God bless America
 
Here's what it is for me, I guess: I have a feeling that many, if not most, of the captives at Guantanamo Bay were low-level, foot-soldier kind of guys who may not have known what they were involved with. At least, they may not have *fully* known. Should they be punished for their crimes? Given trials, maybe imprisoned, maybe deported? Sure. But I have a big problem with the idea that some of these captives might be young men, from desperately poor families, who had no idea what they were getting themselves into. It seems a shame to "shoot them all and let God sort them out."

One might argue that the 9/11 terrorists didn't give their victims that chance. And that's true, of course. But aren't we better than that? Isn't there an American ideal of justice and equality and fairness--heck, of morality--that our administration claims to be trying to defend? Then what good does it do to throw those ideals out the window the moment they become inconvenient?

Our Christian brothers and sisters in the administration might do well to remember that "whatsoever you do unto the least of my people, that you do unto me."
 
WHAT IS AN "UNLAWFUL COMBATANT," AND WHY IT MATTERS:
The Status Of Detained Al Qaeda And Taliban Fighters
By MICHAEL C. DORF
----
Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002

According to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters currently being held captive at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not prisoners of war, but "unlawful combatants." What's the difference?

The short answer is that a prisoner of war is entitled to the protections set forth in the 1949 Geneva Convention. In contrast, an unlawful combatant is a fighter who does not play by the accepted rules of war, and therefore does not qualify for the Convention's protections.

Buried within that short answer, however, are a host of complexities and troubling implications.

Are al Qaeda Fighters Prisoners of War?

First, what does it take to qualify as a prisoner of war? Article IV of the Geneva Convention states that members of irregular militias like al Qaeda qualify for prisoner-of-war status if their military organization satisfies four criteria.



The criteria are: "(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; [and] (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

Al Qaeda does not satisfy these conditions. Perhaps Osama bin Laden could be considered "a person responsible for his subordinates," although the cell structure of al Qaeda belies the notion of a chain of command. But in any event, al Qaeda members openly flout the remaining three conditions.

Al Qaeda members deliberately attempt to blend into the civilian population - violating the requirement of having a "fixed distinctive sign" and "carrying arms openly." Moreover, they target civilians, which violates the "laws and customs of war."

Thus, al Qaeda members need not be treated as prisoners of war.

Are Taliban Fighters Prisoners of War?

The question whether detained Taliban members qualify as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention's test is more difficult - as one might instinctively think, given that the Taliban fighters resemble a traditional army to a greater extent than do the al Qaeda fighters, who come from a variety of different nations and principally attack civilians.

The Taliban was never recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by the United Nations or the United States, and only a handful of countries ever established formal diplomatic relations with the Taliban. Nevertheless, despite its lack of formal recognition, the Taliban would still be entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention if it satisfied the four criteria listed above.

Did it? To begin, the Taliban has, or at least formerly had, a tighter command structure than al Qaeda, suggesting it might satisfy the first criterion of "being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates." However, Taliban members did not appear to satisfy the second and third criteria, for they did not wear uniforms that bore a "fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance," nor did they invariably "carry arms openly."

Should these facts disqualify them from prisoner-of-war status?

Until recently the Taliban was the actual (though not recognized) government of Afghanistan, and it was attacked as such by the United States, albeit in justifiable self-defense. If Taliban members did not wear distinctive uniforms before we attacked, one might think that they should not be faulted for failing to don such uniforms immediately once the shooting started.

But in the end, this argument is unpersuasive. The requirement of a distinctive sign is no mere technicality. Its object, like many of the laws of war, is to enable the enemy to distinguish combatants from civilians, and thus to minimize civilian casualties. Yet the Taliban made clear that it was not interested in complying with the letter or spirit of the law of war.

For example, when it still controlled Kabul, the Taliban hid military equipment among the civilian population. Furthermore, as the war unfolded, it became increasingly difficult to distinguish the Taliban from al Qaeda - which, as we have seen, clearly does not qualify to have its members treated as prisoners of war.

A Consequence of POW Status: No Tribunal Trials

Even if not technically prisoners of war, al Qaeda and Taliban captives still qualify for "humane treatment" under the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1988.

Moreover, one might wonder, what is the harm in affording the captives somewhat better treatment than they are entitled to under international law? After all, the Geneva Convention hardly requires that prisoners of war be housed in four-star hotels.

The Administration's objection to affording al Qaeda and Taliban captives prisoner-of-war status probably has less to do with the conditions in which the captives are held than with what the Administration plans to do with them in the long term.

Under President Bush's military order of November 13, al Qaeda members and those who harbored them can be tried by military tribunals. The Supreme Court approved the use of such tribunals for unlawful combatants in the 1942 case of Ex Parte Quirin.

Most of the public discussion of the President's order and the Quirin case has centered on the question of when a defendant can be subject to the jurisdiction of a military tribunal rather than a civilian court. But whatever the answer to that question, Quirin takes for granted that only unlawful combatants can be tried by the sort of irregular tribunals at issue in that case and contemplated by the President's order.

Lawful combatants - that is, prisoners of war - are entitled to substantive and procedural protections not contemplated by Bush's order. Accordingly, the question of whether al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are prisoners of war or unlawful combatants turns out to matter a great deal, at least potentially.

Does the Guantanamo Detention Moot the Issue?

To be sure, American courts might not have occasion to decide the question whether al Qaeda and Taliban captives are in fact unlawful combatants. That is because another Supreme Court decision - the 1950 ruling in Johnson v. Eisentrager - holds that enemy aliens who have not entered the United States are not entitled to access to our courts.

Accordingly, so long as the al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are held at Guantanamo Bay and thus not deemed to have entered the U.S., their only route of appeal would appear to be within the Executive Branch. Put more bluntly, they will have only the procedural recourse the Administration allows them.

However, the applicability of Eisentrager to the present circumstances is itself open to question, for two reasons. First, in that case, the Court relied on the existence of a formal declaration of war and the fact that the German petitioners were citizens of a hostile sovereign power.

In contrast, in the present conflict, whether Congress's joint resolution authorizing the use of force counts as a declaration of war, and whether al Qaeda is sufficiently state-like to count as a foreign sovereign, are open questions.

Second, while Eisentrager holds that the Constitution permits the government to deny enemy aliens outside the U.S. access to our courts, federal statutes can be construed to afford such enemy aliens greater court access than the Constitution alone requires. Under that construction, the President's military order would be invalid. (Note that the President's order also purports to eliminate judicial review even for aliens within the United States, a position clearly at odds with statutory and constitutional law, but one that is not directly relevant to the fate of the Guantanamo Bay captives.)

For these two reasons, Eisentrager's application to the present circumstances is uncertain. Accordingly, it is understandable that the Administration would be eager to classify those captives it plans to try by military commission as unlawful combatants.

If the captives are unlawful combatants, they fall within the rule of Quirin. And if so, it does not matter whether they also fall within the rule of Eisentrager: If they do not, they are entitled to habeas corpus review, but a court entertaining their habeas corpus petitions would be obliged to uphold their convictions under Quirin.

Another Consequence of POW Status: Repatriation

There is a further reason why the Administration is eager to deny prisoner-of-war status to the al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Article 118 of the Geneva Convention requires that prisoners of war be "repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities." Thus, if the captives are prisoners of war, they must eventually be returned to their home countries.

That prospect is troubling. At the end of a war between conventional foes, it is expected that repatriated fighters will resume their civilian lives. Individual veterans might continue to harbor ill will towards their former enemies, but for the most part, peace between nations tamps down such feelings.

But there is good reason to worry that Taliban and especially al Qaeda fighters will not so readily have a change of heart. Members of al Qaeda do not act out of patriotic duty to obey the commands of a military leader, but out of an ideology that instructs them to attack and kill American civilians as a means of entering the kingdom of heaven. It is doubtful that any formal cessation of hostilities would lead them to abandon what they regard as a jihad.

Moreover, unlike traditional soldiers, al Qaeda members do not need an army in order to act. As we have learned, they can act in small groups or even individually. For this reason, too, repatriation seems far more dangerous for an al Qaeda member than for a traditional soldier.

War Without End: Indefinite Detentions?

The truth is that whether we try them in civilian courts, courts martial, ad hoc military tribunals, or not at all, the al Qaeda and at least some of the Taliban captives may be too dangerous ever to be released. Assuming that many or most of them will not be subject to the death penalty, that commits the United States to detaining them indefinitely.

The Administration's response to this problem is to deem the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters unlawful combatants who are not entitled to anything better than indefinite detention.

As we have seen, the contention that these fighters are unlawful combatants is based upon a plausible reading of the Geneva Convention. Indeed, it would be difficult to come to any other conclusion when applying the Geneva Convention's four-part test to al Qaeda fighters.

Nevertheless, treating the al Qaeda and Taliban captives as prisoners of war, whether or not they are legally entitled to the status, would be less risky than it may at first appear. So long as al Qaeda and its deadly ideology exists, we cannot say that there has been, in the words of the Geneva Convention, a "cessation of active hostilities," entitling the captives to be released. In that respect, as in others, this is a different type of war indeed.

___________________________________________________

I posteds this in another thread, but it fits here too. Sorry for the repost.
 
Ok this is my question. How are these indiviuals brought into custody? I mean are these people caught in the act of a terrorist move or is it because they were carrying Al Queda membership card in their wallet. I mean face it our system is flawed, every system is this is why we have the checks and balances we have. If we send these people into a court that is ran outside the US and is judged by the military and they have no representation these people are just as good as dead, this doesn't seem to be the most impartial means of judgement. I guess what I'm trying to say is what kind of device do we have to make sure we're not executing a person who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, or a case of mistaken identity? Some one enlighten me.
 
deep said:
You are either ?with us or against us?.
We need this for homeland security.
You don?t want another 9-11, do you?
Each day I wake up I am amazed we have survived another 24 hours without a weapons of mass destruction attack.

If you oppose this and we are attacked again,
you have aided and abetted the enemy.

Think carefully, are you changing sides.
If you are against us you should be stripped of your citizenship and sent to GITMO.
We now have the means to deal with the likes of you.

9-11, Never again, never again.

God bless America

did you write this yourself? i like it anyway.

yes ofcourse i was kidding before.

does anyone else sense the united states is turning into big brother of 1984?

frightening. this just makes me so mad i dont know why i bother to read this right before i go to sleep.
 
BonoVoxSupastar: because you still question the wise decisions of the Leader of the Free world (btw. Leader means F?hrer in German) we see that you are not with us and therefore you must be a against us -> you're a Terrorist.
Prepare for a visit in the Guantanamo Bay vacation camp:lol:

Klaus

p.s. sorry i couldn't resist
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:
So no one know the answer to my question?

I don't know it for sure, but I have the fear that a (large) part of those unlawful combattants were taken into custody in the way you describe in your last question. I mean, how do you know you have to catch 13-16 year-olds?

Marty
 
Red Ships of Scalla-Festa said:


did you write this yourself? i like it anyway.

yes ofcourse i was kidding before.

does anyone else sense the united states is turning into big brother of 1984?

frightening. this just makes me so mad i dont know why i bother to read this right before i go to sleep.

yes
i live among like mindsets





what's all the hoopla, anyway

they are only godless turd-worlders
 
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Execution chamber. I didn?t think the Bush administration would intentionally kill, maybe even children. But I guess the American President thinks this is sexy. The polls will prove it. Remember, he practised that one in Texas. Why not hang them?
 
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Oh no we're much too sophisticated to do that, it would be cruel.

We use lethal injections. It's much neater.


edited to add:

Somebody please wake me up!

This country is becoming a F*****g nightmare.
 
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I sure am glad we got the Taliban and Saddam out.
they were torturers and murderers!

Now we have "Our rule of law"

Iraqi POW Death Under Scrutiny
WASHINGTON, June 11, 2003


The U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into the death of an Iraqi prisoner, officials said Wednesday.

The 52-year-old man was found dead Friday at a coalition prisoner of war camp near Nasiriyah, military officials said. He had been held since his May 3 capture, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The man was not one of the 29 members held by American forces of the 55 most wanted Iraqis, officials said.

Central Command officials declined comment on the cause of the prisoner's death. The death is being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, suggesting there were indications the prisoner was killed.

The 1st Marine Division runs the POW camp where the death occurred, military officials said. The United States is holding more than 2,000 Iraqi prisoners of the thousands captured during and after the war. Hundreds of other Iraqis have been released.

The investigation is the first announced U.S. probe involving the death of an Iraqi prisoner of war. Findings of criminal wrongdoing could result in court-martial proceedings against those involved.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday they could not speculate on what criminal violations could be involved. Mistreating prisoners of war could also violate the Geneva Convention and other international law.

U.S. military investigators have launched a war crimes probe of Iraqi actions during the war, including evidence suggesting that some U.S. troops were killed after being taken prisoner by Iraqi forces.

The British defense ministry is investigating the deaths of two other Iraqi POWs and two other cases of alleged beatings or torture of prisoners under British control.

The Pentagon also is investigating the December deaths of two prisoners at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. Military coroners ruled the two deaths were homicides, finding that both men had been beaten and one had a blood clot in his lungs.
 
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