Held without charges, the new american way.

[shadow9d9]

This is exactly why these secret prisons are completely anti-American. We have laws for a reason. The constitution, the geneva conventions, they are all being ignored in this country. How many cases like this must be reported in order for Americans to care?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060917/ap_on_re_mi_ea/photographer_detained

The U.S. military in
Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.
ADVERTISEMENT

Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under
United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.

Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.

"We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. "We've come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any military procedure."

Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide ? 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.

In Hussein's case, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him, Curley and other AP executives said.

The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "He has close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings, smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on coalition forces," according to a May 7 e-mail from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jack Gardner, who oversees all coalition detainees in Iraq.

"The information available establishes that he has relationships with insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the normal scope afforded to journalists conducting legitimate activities," Gardner wrote to AP International Editor John Daniszewski.

Hussein proclaims his innocence, according to his Iraqi lawyer, Badie Arief Izzat, and believes he has been unfairly targeted because his photos from Ramadi and Fallujah were deemed unwelcome by the coalition forces.

That Hussein was captured at the same time as insurgents doesn't make him one of them, said Kathleen Carroll, AP's executive editor.

"Journalists have always had relationships with people that others might find unsavory," she said. "We're not in this to choose sides, we're to report what's going on from all sides."

AP executives in New York and Baghdad have sought to persuade U.S. officials to provide additional information about allegations against Hussein and to have his case transferred to the Iraqi criminal justice system. The AP contacted military leaders in Iraq and the
Pentagon, and later the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

The AP has worked quietly until now, believing that would be the best approach. But with the U.S. military giving no indication it would change its stance, the news cooperative has decided to make public Hussein's imprisonment, hoping the spotlight will bring attention to his case and that of thousands of others now held in Iraq, Curley said.

One of Hussein's photos was part of a package of 20 photographs that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography last year. His contribution was an image of four insurgents in Fallujah firing a mortar and small arms during the U.S.-led offensive in the city in November 2004.

In what several AP editors described as a typical path for locally hired staff in the midst of a conflict, Hussein, a shopkeeper who sold cell phones and computers in Fallujah, was hired in the city as a general helper because of his local knowledge.

 

[fitzov]

Sadly we are becoming more totalitarian by the day.

 

[shadow9d9]

Additionally, our law system works in the way that it is better to let a criminal free rather than punish an innocent.... The secret prisons do the opposite.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: fitzov
Sadly we are becoming more totalitarian by the day.

And a third of the country (including many here) are loving it.

 

[palehorse]

here's a thought: what if he really IS a security threat? what if releasing the data really WOULD effect the security of our allied forces? What then?

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

try playing devil's advocate and addressing my first two questions. After all, the military cught him with two known insurgents, including a leader of the Iraqi Al Qaeda. What's his excuse for that? "oh, im so sorry. I thought they were just trying to buy a cell phone..."

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: palehorse74
here's a thought: what if he really IS a security threat? what if releasing the data really WOULD effect the security of our allied forces? What then?

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

try playing devil's advocate and addressing my first two questions. After all, the military cught him with two known insurgents, including a leader of the Iraqi Al Qaeda. What's his excuse for that? "oh, im so sorry. I thought they were just trying to buy a cell phone..."

If that's the case, he should be charged and tried. Don't you agree?

 

[blackangst1]

Unfortunetely people forget most, if not all, the people we are holding are not entitled to Geneva Convention law for various reasons. Many "anti Gitmo" and similar people conveniently play naive to this fact.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Unfortunetely people forget most, if not all, the people we are holding are not entitled to Geneva Convention law for various reasons. Many "anti Gitmo" and similar people conveniently play naive to this fact.

Even if you're right, that still doesn't mean we shouldn't treat our prisoners in a way consistent with American ideals. Even if there is some way to sneak around the law and legally justify what's going on, that doesn't mean it's right...we have GOT to be more committed to our ideals than that, don't we?

 

[straightalker]

Bush-Cheney Regime Preps Laws for US Police State

What we basicly have is an ongoing Coup de etat' occuring in the USA since the year 2000, when America was overthrown by the current Hunta.

The American way of life is what we are being told the "terrorists" hate and want to destroy. We hear that being drummed into our heads every time one of our "leaders" gives a big speech to us. Like the one we just had on this recent 9-11-2006.

So why is it then, that all the destruction of our way of life here in America is being done from within?

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Unfortunetely people forget most, if not all, the people we are holding are not entitled to Geneva Convention law for various reasons. Many "anti Gitmo" and similar people conveniently play naive to this fact.

Even if you're right, that still doesn't mean we shouldn't treat our prisoners in a way consistent with American ideals. Even if there is some way to sneak around the law and legally justify what's going on, that doesn't mean it's right...we have GOT to be more committed to our ideals than that, don't we?

Well, to an extent I agree; however, Im one of those who believes we should treat every prisoner as though they have Constitutional protection. No way. Also, BTW, we have NOT violated the Convention by holding prisoners so long. This is a quote from the Third Convention:

The Geneva Conventions state that in the framework of an international armed conflict, prisoners of war and civilian internees must be released as soon as possible after the end of hostilities unless criminal charges are pending against them or unless they are serving a prison sentence. The Conventions do not rule out the possibility that a prisoner of war or civilian released following the end of hostilities may be immediately rearrested and subsequently prosecuted for crimes that he or she may have committed.


Notice the word "end"? Therefore all those that say we are violating Conventions by not charging with crimes are talking out their a$$.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: palehorse74
here's a thought: what if he really IS a security threat? what if releasing the data really WOULD effect the security of our allied forces? What then?

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

try playing devil's advocate and addressing my first two questions. After all, the military cught him with two known insurgents, including a leader of the Iraqi Al Qaeda. What's his excuse for that? "oh, im so sorry. I thought they were just trying to buy a cell phone..."

So let me get this straight, he's SO guilty that we can't possibly release him or data about him, yet SO innocent that they can't try him. Makes perfect sense to me :roll:

But in any case, you still don't get it, do you? It's not about proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he's an innocent bystander and THEN treating him ethically, it's about how we treat everyone we capture. Soldiers are NOT a good replacement for a judge and/or jury and competent legal represenation, whether or not his reasons for being with two insurgents are valid or not (the reason was that he was a journalist, btw, nice reading skills) are poorly judged by soldiers (as you proved so well), and as a result we could very possibly be holding an innocent man without giving him any means to defend himself...based on what? The snap judgement of a few soldiers not trained for that kind of thing?

And here's what I really don't get, what's the harm in trying him in a court of law (gasp, maybe even an Iraqi court of law!)? I can't think of one reason that doing so would hurt our efforts there, and I can see how it would be a big help. We're trying to help Iraq become a Democracy, right? What better way to help that process than by showing that the rule of law is how things are going to work there from now on, and trying insurgents in public turns them from being "freedom fighters" into common criminals. Right now we have a legal system where soldiers who suspect you of being an insurgent drag you off to prison and hold you without a trial...I bet some Iraqis are getting the feeling that Democracy looks a lot like what they had before...

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

Luckily that is not how a rational justice system works.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: straightalker
Bush-Cheney Regime Preps Laws for US Police State

What we basicly have is an ongoing Coup de etat' occuring in the USA since the year 2000, when America was overthrown by the current Hunta.

The American way of life is what we are being told the "terrorists" hate and want to destroy. We hear that being drummed into our heads every time one of our "leaders" gives a big speech to us. Like the one we just had on this recent 9-11-2006.

So why is it then, that all the destruction of our way of life here in America is being done from within?

Being a politcal history junkie I can answer this. We are going the way of Rome. If you read their history it is parallel to ours. And they fell from within. History repeats, no?

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Unfortunetely people forget most, if not all, the people we are holding are not entitled to Geneva Convention law for various reasons. Many "anti Gitmo" and similar people conveniently play naive to this fact.

Even if you're right, that still doesn't mean we shouldn't treat our prisoners in a way consistent with American ideals. Even if there is some way to sneak around the law and legally justify what's going on, that doesn't mean it's right...we have GOT to be more committed to our ideals than that, don't we?

Well, to an extent I agree; however, Im one of those who believes we should treat every prisoner as though they have Constitutional protection. No way. Also, BTW, we have NOT violated the Convention by holding prisoners so long. This is a quote from the Third Convention:

The Geneva Conventions state that in the framework of an international armed conflict, prisoners of war and civilian internees must be released as soon as possible after the end of hostilities unless criminal charges are pending against them or unless they are serving a prison sentence. The Conventions do not rule out the possibility that a prisoner of war or civilian released following the end of hostilities may be immediately rearrested and subsequently prosecuted for crimes that he or she may have committed.


Notice the word "end"? Therefore all those that say we are violating Conventions by not charging with crimes are talking out their a$$.

Did you even read what I wrote? I've read the Geneva conventions and I actually agree with your interpretation (for the most part)...and I'm saying it doesn't matter. I'm not sure they should get Constitutional protections either, but simply finding a legal loophole and then doing all sorts of things that don't really fit with the American viewpoint on the world is NOT exactly a good thing, IMHO. Legal hairsplitting is not a good replacement for the idea that we do the right thing, if you ask me.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: palehorse74
here's a thought: what if he really IS a security threat? what if releasing the data really WOULD effect the security of our allied forces? What then?

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

try playing devil's advocate and addressing my first two questions. After all, the military cught him with two known insurgents, including a leader of the Iraqi Al Qaeda. What's his excuse for that? "oh, im so sorry. I thought they were just trying to buy a cell phone..."

So let me get this straight, he's SO guilty that we can't possibly release him or data about him, yet SO innocent that they can't try him. Makes perfect sense to me :roll:

But in any case, you still don't get it, do you? It's not about proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he's an innocent bystander and THEN treating him ethically, it's about how we treat everyone we capture. Soldiers are NOT a good replacement for a judge and/or jury and competent legal represenation, whether or not his reasons for being with two insurgents are valid or not (the reason was that he was a journalist, btw, nice reading skills) are poorly judged by soldiers (as you proved so well), and as a result we could very possibly be holding an innocent man without giving him any means to defend himself...based on what? The snap judgement of a few soldiers not trained for that kind of thing?

And here's what I really don't get, what's the harm in trying him in a court of law (gasp, maybe even an Iraqi court of law!)? I can't think of one reason that doing so would hurt our efforts there, and I can see how it would be a big help. We're trying to help Iraq become a Democracy, right? What better way to help that process than by showing that the rule of law is how things are going to work there from now on, and trying insurgents in public turns them from being "freedom fighters" into common criminals. Right now we have a legal system where soldiers who suspect you of being an insurgent drag you off to prison and hold you without a trial...I bet some Iraqis are getting the feeling that Democracy looks a lot like what they had before...

Why do you assume those who are being held dont have charges pending? Because CNN hasnt announced pending charges? Gimme a break. You dont really think we pick up people arbitrarily do you? I can see it now...soldier walks down the street and sees some guy carrying groceries home and said soldier picks him up for no reason? Do you have THAT little regard for our troops to make intelligent decisions? Quite the insult...

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: palehorse74
here's a thought: what if he really IS a security threat? what if releasing the data really WOULD effect the security of our allied forces? What then?

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

try playing devil's advocate and addressing my first two questions. After all, the military cught him with two known insurgents, including a leader of the Iraqi Al Qaeda. What's his excuse for that? "oh, im so sorry. I thought they were just trying to buy a cell phone..."

So let me get this straight, he's SO guilty that we can't possibly release him or data about him, yet SO innocent that they can't try him. Makes perfect sense to me :roll:

But in any case, you still don't get it, do you? It's not about proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he's an innocent bystander and THEN treating him ethically, it's about how we treat everyone we capture. Soldiers are NOT a good replacement for a judge and/or jury and competent legal represenation, whether or not his reasons for being with two insurgents are valid or not (the reason was that he was a journalist, btw, nice reading skills) are poorly judged by soldiers (as you proved so well), and as a result we could very possibly be holding an innocent man without giving him any means to defend himself...based on what? The snap judgement of a few soldiers not trained for that kind of thing?

And here's what I really don't get, what's the harm in trying him in a court of law (gasp, maybe even an Iraqi court of law!)? I can't think of one reason that doing so would hurt our efforts there, and I can see how it would be a big help. We're trying to help Iraq become a Democracy, right? What better way to help that process than by showing that the rule of law is how things are going to work there from now on, and trying insurgents in public turns them from being "freedom fighters" into common criminals. Right now we have a legal system where soldiers who suspect you of being an insurgent drag you off to prison and hold you without a trial...I bet some Iraqis are getting the feeling that Democracy looks a lot like what they had before...

Why do you assume those who are being held dont have charges pending? Because CNN hasnt announced pending charges? Gimme a break. You dont really think we pick up people arbitrarily do you? I can see it now...soldier walks down the street and sees some guy carrying groceries home and said soldier picks him up for no reason? Do you have THAT little regard for our troops to make intelligent decisions? Quite the insult...

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that...you seem to have a problem understanding what you read, were you sick that day in school or what? What I DID say was that, and this is from the article itself, he was picked up because he was around two insurgents and so the military is assuming he WAS an insurgent. Perhaps a valid assumption given the circumstances, informance and training that the soldiers had, but none of those are a replacement for the trial process. In other words, I'm not faulting our troops at all, I'm saying we can't realistically expect them to do the job of an entire court of law.

Edit: And continuing you fantastic streak of being able to understand what you read, you seem to have missed that THIS guy in particular is being held without charges, pending or otherwise...that's why I said what I said.

 

[dahunan]

Mr Bush as our President is the biggest security threat this country or any other faces

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: palehorse74
here's a thought: what if he really IS a security threat? what if releasing the data really WOULD effect the security of our allied forces? What then?

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

try playing devil's advocate and addressing my first two questions. After all, the military cught him with two known insurgents, including a leader of the Iraqi Al Qaeda. What's his excuse for that? "oh, im so sorry. I thought they were just trying to buy a cell phone..."

So let me get this straight, he's SO guilty that we can't possibly release him or data about him, yet SO innocent that they can't try him. Makes perfect sense to me :roll:

But in any case, you still don't get it, do you? It's not about proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he's an innocent bystander and THEN treating him ethically, it's about how we treat everyone we capture. Soldiers are NOT a good replacement for a judge and/or jury and competent legal represenation, whether or not his reasons for being with two insurgents are valid or not (the reason was that he was a journalist, btw, nice reading skills) are poorly judged by soldiers (as you proved so well), and as a result we could very possibly be holding an innocent man without giving him any means to defend himself...based on what? The snap judgement of a few soldiers not trained for that kind of thing?

And here's what I really don't get, what's the harm in trying him in a court of law (gasp, maybe even an Iraqi court of law!)? I can't think of one reason that doing so would hurt our efforts there, and I can see how it would be a big help. We're trying to help Iraq become a Democracy, right? What better way to help that process than by showing that the rule of law is how things are going to work there from now on, and trying insurgents in public turns them from being "freedom fighters" into common criminals. Right now we have a legal system where soldiers who suspect you of being an insurgent drag you off to prison and hold you without a trial...I bet some Iraqis are getting the feeling that Democracy looks a lot like what they had before...

Why do you assume those who are being held dont have charges pending? Because CNN hasnt announced pending charges? Gimme a break. You dont really think we pick up people arbitrarily do you? I can see it now...soldier walks down the street and sees some guy carrying groceries home and said soldier picks him up for no reason? Do you have THAT little regard for our troops to make intelligent decisions? Quite the insult...

I love how you paint a scenario that would happen in the US but not in Afghanistan. There have been many cases of people who have been held and then a few months if not years later released based on the fact that all they had was the testimony of a Afghani peasent who was feuding with his neighbor/rival village.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: straightalker
Bush-Cheney Regime Preps Laws for US Police State

What we basicly have is an ongoing Coup de etat' occuring in the USA since the year 2000, when America was overthrown by the current Hunta.

The American way of life is what we are being told the "terrorists" hate and want to destroy. We hear that being drummed into our heads every time one of our "leaders" gives a big speech to us. Like the one we just had on this recent 9-11-2006.

So why is it then, that all the destruction of our way of life here in America is being done from within?

Being a politcal history junkie I can answer this. We are going the way of Rome. If you read their history it is parallel to ours. And they fell from within. History repeats, no?

America will fall due to massive lead poisoning from the aquaducts carrying water into washington?

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: straightalker
Bush-Cheney Regime Preps Laws for US Police State

What we basicly have is an ongoing Coup de etat' occuring in the USA since the year 2000, when America was overthrown by the current Hunta.

The American way of life is what we are being told the "terrorists" hate and want to destroy. We hear that being drummed into our heads every time one of our "leaders" gives a big speech to us. Like the one we just had on this recent 9-11-2006.

So why is it then, that all the destruction of our way of life here in America is being done from within?

Being a politcal history junkie I can answer this. We are going the way of Rome. If you read their history it is parallel to ours. And they fell from within. History repeats, no?

America will fall due to massive lead poisoning from the aquaducts carrying water into washington?

There you go giving Al Qaeda ideas again! :roll:

Why do you hate America?!?!?

 

[fitzov]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: straightalker
Bush-Cheney Regime Preps Laws for US Police State

What we basicly have is an ongoing Coup de etat' occuring in the USA since the year 2000, when America was overthrown by the current Hunta.

The American way of life is what we are being told the "terrorists" hate and want to destroy. We hear that being drummed into our heads every time one of our "leaders" gives a big speech to us. Like the one we just had on this recent 9-11-2006.

So why is it then, that all the destruction of our way of life here in America is being done from within?

Being a politcal history junkie I can answer this. We are going the way of Rome. If you read their history it is parallel to ours. And they fell from within. History repeats, no?

America will fall due to massive lead poisoning from the aquaducts carrying water into washington?

so you actually think the Roman Empire fell due to the toxicity of lead?

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Unfortunetely people forget most, if not all, the people we are holding are not entitled to Geneva Convention law for various reasons. Many "anti Gitmo" and similar people conveniently play naive to this fact.

Even if you're right, that still doesn't mean we shouldn't treat our prisoners in a way consistent with American ideals. Even if there is some way to sneak around the law and legally justify what's going on, that doesn't mean it's right...we have GOT to be more committed to our ideals than that, don't we?

My opinion on if this journalist should be locked up depends entirely on specific details about the case which I do not have knowledge of.

Yet I will make a generalization. I do not believe our ideals should apply to foreign fighters on other countries? soil. If a journalist has the location, or is even working along side those fighters and they do not turn them over to us then I consider them to have violated any rights they might have otherwise had.

If such a statement applies to this specific journalist is not something I am able to determine without the military?s entire knowledge of this man.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: palehorse74
here's a thought: what if he really IS a security threat? what if releasing the data really WOULD effect the security of our allied forces? What then?

Have any of you given those possibilities even a remote chance of being true, or do you automatically assume that he is a completely innocent bystander based on one newspaper article or two?

try playing devil's advocate and addressing my first two questions. After all, the military cught him with two known insurgents, including a leader of the Iraqi Al Qaeda. What's his excuse for that? "oh, im so sorry. I thought they were just trying to buy a cell phone..."

If that's the case, he should be charged and tried. Don't you agree?

Notice the Bush Apologist has not answered your question.

 

[tommywishbone]

Relax! It's only 14,000 prisoners. No problem. We are the greatest Freak Show on the planet.

U.S. war prisons legal vacuum for 14,000 [/u][/b]By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer,38 minutes ago.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.

"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release ? without charge ? last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.

Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross.

Defenders of the system, which has only grown since soldiers' photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action.

Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq.

But dozens of ex-detainees, government ministers, lawmakers, human rights activists, lawyers and scholars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States said the detention system often is unjust and hurts the war on terror by inflaming anti-Americanism in Iraq and elsewhere.

Building for the Long Term

Reports of extreme physical and mental abuse, symbolized by the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photos of 2004, have abated as the Pentagon has rejected torture-like treatment of the inmates. Most recently, on Sept. 6, the Pentagon issued a new interrogation manual banning forced nakedness, hooding, stress positions and other abusive techniques.

The same day, President Bush said the CIA's secret outposts in the prison network had been emptied, and 14 terror suspects from them sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial in military tribunals. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the tribunal system, however, and the White House and Congress are now wrestling over the legal structure of such trials.

Living conditions for detainees may be improving as well. The U.S. military cites the toilets of Bagram, Afghanistan: In a cavernous old building at that air base, hundreds of detainees in their communal cages now have indoor plumbing and privacy screens, instead of exposed chamber pots.

Whatever the progress, small or significant, grim realities persist.

Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons ? unknown in number and location ? remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn't cover CIA interrogators. And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law's oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned.

"If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York. "You can't have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there."

The U.S. government has contended it can hold detainees until the "war on terror" ends ? as it determines.

"I don't think we've gotten to the question of how long," said retired admiral John D. Hutson, former top lawyer for the U.S. Navy. "When we get up to 'forever,' I think it will be tested" in court, he said.

The Navy is planning long-term at Guantanamo. This fall it expects to open a new, $30-million maximum-security wing at its prison complex there, a concrete-and-steel structure replacing more temporary camps.

In Iraq, Army jailers are a step ahead. Last month they opened a $60-million, state-of-the-art detention center at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad's airport. The Army oversees about 13,000 prisoners in Iraq at Cropper, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Neither prisoners of war nor criminal defendants, they are just "security detainees" held "for imperative reasons of security," spokesman Curry said, using language from an annex to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the U.S. presence here.

Questions of Law, Sovereignty

President Bush laid out the U.S. position in a speech Sept. 6.

"These are enemy combatants who are waging war on our nation," he said. "We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle."

But others say there's no need to hold these thousands outside of the rules for prisoners of war established by the Geneva Conventions.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared last March that the extent of arbitrary detention here is "not consistent with provisions of international law governing internment on imperative reasons of security."

Meanwhile, officials of Nouri al-Maliki's 4-month-old Iraqi government say the U.S. detention system violates Iraq's national rights.

"As long as sovereignty has transferred to Iraqi hands, the Americans have no right to detain any Iraqi person," said Fadhil al-Sharaa, an aide to the prime minister. "The detention should be conducted only with the permission of the Iraqi judiciary."

At the Justice Ministry, Deputy Minister Busho Ibrahim told AP it has been "a daily request" that the detainees be brought under Iraqi authority.

There's no guarantee the Americans' 13,000 detainees would fare better under control of the Iraqi government, which U.N. officials say holds 15,000 prisoners.

But little has changed because of these requests. When the Americans formally turned over Abu Ghraib prison to Iraqi control on Sept. 2, it was empty but its 3,000 prisoners remained in U.S. custody, shifted to Camp Cropper.

Life in Custody

The cases of U.S.-detained Iraqis are reviewed by a committee of U.S. military and Iraqi government officials. The panel recommends criminal charges against some, release for others. As of Sept. 9, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq had put 1,445 on trial, convicting 1,252. In the last week of August, for example, 38 were sentenced on charges ranging from illegal weapons possession to murder, for the shooting of a U.S. Marine.

Almost 18,700 have been released since June 2004, the U.S. command says, not including many more who were held and then freed by local military units and never shipped to major prisons.

Some who were released, no longer considered a threat, later joined or rejoined the insurgency.

The review process is too slow, say U.N. officials. Until they are released, often families don't know where their men are ? the prisoners are usually men ? or even whether they're in American hands.

Ex-detainee Mouayad Yasin Hassan, 31, seized in April 2004 as a suspected Sunni Muslim insurgent, said he wasn't allowed to obtain a lawyer or contact his family during 13 months at Abu Ghraib and Bucca, where he was interrogated incessantly. When he asked why he was in prison, he said, the answer was, "We keep you for security reasons."

Another released prisoner, Waleed Abdul Karim, 26, recounted how his guards would wield their absolute authority.

"Tell us about the ones who attack Americans in your neighborhood," he quoted an interrogator as saying, "or I will keep you in prison for another 50 years."

As with others, Karim's confinement may simply have strengthened support for the anti-U.S. resistance. "I will hate Americans for the rest of my life," he said.

As bleak and hidden as the Iraq lockups are, the Afghan situation is even less known. Accounts of abuse and deaths emerged in 2002-2004, but if Abu Ghraib-like photos from Bagram exist, none have leaked out. The U.S. military is believed holding about 500 detainees ? most Afghans, but also apparently Arabs, Pakistanis and Central Asians.

The United States plans to cede control of its Afghan detainees by early next year, five years after invading Afghanistan to eliminate al-Qaida's base and bring down the Taliban government. Meanwhile, the prisoners of Bagram exist in a legal vacuum like that elsewhere in the U.S. detention network.

"There's been a silence about Bagram, and much less political discussion about it," said Richard Bennett, chief U.N. human rights officer in Afghanistan.

Freed detainees tell how in cages of 16 inmates they are forbidden to speak to each other. They wear the same orange jumpsuits and shaven heads as the terrorist suspects at Guantanamo, but lack even the scant legal rights granted inmates at that Cuba base. In some cases, they have been held without charge for three to four years, rights workers say.

Guantanamo received its first prisoners from Afghanistan ? chained, wearing blacked-out goggles ? in January 2002. A total of 770 detainees were sent there. Its population today of Afghans, Arabs and others, stands at 455.

Described as the most dangerous of America's "war on terror" prisoners, only 10 of the Guantanamo inmates have been charged with crimes. Charges are expected against 14 other al-Qaida suspects flown in to Guantanamo from secret prisons on Sept. 4.

Plans for their trials are on hold, however, because of a Supreme Court ruling in June against the Bush administration's plan for military tribunals.

The court held the tribunals were not authorized by the U.S. Congress and violated the Geneva Conventions by abrogating prisoners' rights. In a sometimes contentious debate, the White House and Congress are trying to agree on a new, acceptable trial plan.

Since the court decision, and after four years of confusing claims that terrorist suspects were so-called "unlawful combatants" unprotected by international law, the Bush administration has taken steps recognizing that the Geneva Conventions' legal and human rights do extend to imprisoned al-Qaida militants. At the same time, however, the new White House proposal on tribunals retains such controversial features as denying defendants access to some evidence against them.

In his Sept. 6 speech, Bush acknowledged for the first time the existence of the CIA's secret prisons, believed established at military bases or safehouses in such places as Egypt, Indonesia and eastern Europe. That network, uncovered by journalists, had been condemned by U.N. authorities and investigated by the Council of Europe.

The clandestine jails are now empty, Bush announced, but will remain a future option for CIA detentions and interrogation.

Louise Arbour, U.N. human rights chief, is urging Bush to abolish the CIA prisons altogether, as ripe for "abusive conduct." The CIA's techniques for extracting information from prisoners still remain secret, she noted.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government's willingness to resort to "extraordinary rendition," transferring suspects to other nations where they might be tortured, appears unchanged.

Prosecutions and Memories

The exposure of sadistic abuse, torture and death at Abu Ghraib two years ago touched off a flood of courts-martial of mostly lower-ranking U.S. soldiers. Overall, about 800 investigations of alleged detainee mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to action against more than 250 service personnel, including 89 convicted at courts-martial, U.S. diplomats told the United Nations in May.

Critics protest that penalties have been too soft and too little has been done, particularly in tracing inhumane interrogation methods from the far-flung islands of the overseas prison system back to policies set by high-ranking officials.

In only 14 of 34 cases has anyone been punished for the confirmed or suspected killings of detainees, the New York-based Human Rights First reports. The stiffest sentence in a torture-related death has been five months in jail. The group reported last February that in almost half of 98 detainee deaths, the cause was either never announced or reported as undetermined.

Looking back, the United States overreacted in its treatment of detainees after Sept. 11, said Anne-Marie Slaughter, a noted American scholar of international law.

It was understandable, the Princeton University dean said, but now "we have to restore a balance between security and rights that is consistent with who we are and consistent with our security needs."

Otherwise, she said, "history will look back and say that we took a dangerous and deeply wrong turn."

Back here in Baghdad, at the Alawi bus station, a gritty, noisy hub far from the meeting rooms of Washington and Geneva, women gather with fading hopes whenever a new prisoner release is announced.

As she watched one recent day for a bus from distant Camp Bucca, one mother wept and told her story.

"The Americans arrested my son, my brother and his friend," said Zahraa Alyat, 42. "The Americans arrested them October 16, 2005. They left together and I don't know anything about them."

The bus pulled up. A few dozen men stepped off, some blindfolded, some bound, none with any luggage, none with familiar faces.

As the distraught women straggled away once more, one ex-prisoner, 18-year-old Bilal Kadhim Muhssin, spotted U.S. troops nearby.

"Americans," he muttered in fear. "Oh, my God, don't say that name," and he bolted for a city bus, and freedom.

___

 

[newmachineoverlord]

Originally posted by: fitzov

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: straightalker
Bush-Cheney Regime Preps Laws for US Police State

What we basicly have is an ongoing Coup de etat' occuring in the USA since the year 2000, when America was overthrown by the current Hunta.

The American way of life is what we are being told the "terrorists" hate and want to destroy. We hear that being drummed into our heads every time one of our "leaders" gives a big speech to us. Like the one we just had on this recent 9-11-2006.

So why is it then, that all the destruction of our way of life here in America is being done from within?

Being a politcal history junkie I can answer this. We are going the way of Rome. If you read their history it is parallel to ours. And they fell from within. History repeats, no?

America will fall due to massive lead poisoning from the aquaducts carrying water into washington?

so you actually think the Roman Empire fell due to the toxicity of lead?

He was comparing the US to the fall of the roman republic, not the fall of the roman empire. In both cases there was a consolidation of power where the senate was purged and replaced with a senate that supported a single ruler.

As for the US senate being "elected" there isn't really any strong evidence that reported vote tallies have any bearing on how people actually voted anymore. http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/

Maybe democracy in the US isn't dead, but it has no detectable pulse. Sure, some people will say that you can't prove the vote was hacked, but the current situation is that there is no evidence that it wasn't hacked. Wouldn't it be nice to have an election system that actually retained some sort of evidence so that we would be able to tell for certain, retrospectively, whether or not the voting/counting system was legitimate? Wouldn't it be even nicer if elections were resistant to such fraud and not easily hackable? Right now the republican line is that "The evidence was destroyed, therefore it didn't happen." and apparently that stance is acceptable to the party as a whole. Paper ballots with hand counts FTW.