Muslim Dies in Guantanamo Prison after 11 Yrs in Custody; No Charges

Sacrilege

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Sep 6, 2007
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/op...&utm_term=plustweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount

Death
Two weeks ago, the Pentagon quietly released a statement that another Guantanamo detainee had died in custody, the ninth since the prison was opened in 2001. Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a 32-year-old man from Yemen who had spent eleven years incarcerated, was found dead in his cell on September 8.

His supposed reason for being in Pakistan, if an editorial on Al Jazeera can be believed:
He had been receiving medical care in Amman, Jordan for chronic injuries he had received from a car crash in Yemen that had fractured his skull and caused permanent damage to his hearing. Lured to Pakistan by the promise of cheap healthcare....

His attempt to gain freedom and its prevention by the Obama administration:
Despite this, Latif fought his own long legal battle through the civilian court system, taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to prove his innocence and win his release.... an order for Latif's immediate release was given by US District Judge Henry Kennedy, who called the allegations against him "unconvincing" and in a 32-page order ruled that the government had failed to provide evidence that Latif had been part of al-Qaeda or any other militant group and ordering it to "take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate Latif's release forthwith".

Despite this, the Department of Justice successfully appealed the judges' decision, and in a 2-1 ruling that Latif's release order was rescinded; effectively on the grounds that the allegations against him must be taken as accurate if they are claimed to be so by the government..... The dissenting opinion lambasted the ruling as rigging "the game in the governments favour"

Some will say this is a travesty of American "justice."

I say, American justice only applies to what the American people want to be just, and this case certainly does not fit that bill. Solid majorities of Americans prefer to turn a blind eye to this type of case because:

- The story is from the anti-American, anti-Israel Al Jazeera news source
- This terrorist suspect was an enemy combatant detained on the field of battle. No US laws or international warfare conventions apply to him, and indefinite detainment is OK
- Collateral damage such as individual injustices are acceptable in the Global War of Terror
- Muslims are savages undeserving of human rights

With Obama's signature of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 last December, indefinite detention of American citizen terrorism suspects on US territory is legal. And as bolded above, legal precedent has established that allegations by the US government may be taken as accurate in the absence of corroborating evidence, based on the assumption that the government does not lie.
 
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cybrsage

Lifer
Nov 17, 2011
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This is a lie. Obama closed down Gitmo as his first act after becoming President, just like he promised. Can I hear an amen from the Obamites!?!


On a more serious note, they should all have had military tribunals by now. I realize it took a few years to finally setup a tribunal the courts did not immediately shut down for one reason or another, but we have had the use of tribunals for a few years now. Why the delay?

You are very very very wrong about this part, though:

With Obama's signature of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 last December, indefinite detention of American citizen terrorism suspects on US territory is legal.


SCOTUS has already ruled that US Citizens have the right to their Habeus Corpus request which cannot be denied by a court. Only non-US Citizens can have their Habeus Corpus request denied. Any president which tries to violate that right will quickly find himself under impeachment hearings by the opposing party. Purposefully violating a very recent SCOTUS ruling on Constitutional rights is too risky for any president to risk.

So while the law may say he can, SCOTUS already ruled he cannot.
 
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Smoblikat

Diamond Member
Nov 19, 2011
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Boo-hoo, the only loss here was the energy it took to type the post. One less lunatic on the streets.
 

Sacrilege

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Sep 6, 2007
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On a more serious note, they should all have had military tribunals by now.

There is the argument that there are detainees who have the potential to commit future crimes, and have made threats to that effect, but there is not enough evidence to convict them for prior crimes. That is the alleged case now in the death of the US ambassador to Libya:

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/ar...e-linked-to-libya-attack-against-us-consulate

An ex-Guantanamo detainee once considered a “threat” to America is believed to have been involved in the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya — possibly orchestrating the deadly rampage....

Analysts at Guantanamo branded him in 2005 as “medium to high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests and allies,” the New York Times reported last year.

Bin Qumu was transferred from the detention camp to Libya in 2007, and was freed the next year in an amnesty for militants, according to The Times.

Does the prevention of theoretical potential deaths or injuries to multiple people outweigh the rights of an individual?
 

cybrsage

Lifer
Nov 17, 2011
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Boo-hoo, the only loss here was the energy it took to type the post. One less lunatic on the streets.

How do you know he was a lunatic? What crime did he commit that shows he was a lunatic?
 
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Sacrilege

Senior member
Sep 6, 2007
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Boo-hoo, the only loss here was the energy it took to type the post. One less lunatic on the streets.

Did you read the article? Are you saying my rationale #4 applies:

- Muslims are savages undeserving of human rights

Muslim life is cheap?
 

cybrsage

Lifer
Nov 17, 2011
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Everyone in military custody is deserving of a trial or at the very least a military tribunal to classify their status.
 

blackangst1

Lifer
Feb 23, 2005
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What does Muslim have to do with it? Do we need our tin foil hats to fully understand the post?

edit: the word muslim isnt even in the article...
 

Sacrilege

Senior member
Sep 6, 2007
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What does Muslim have to do with it? Do we need our tin foil hats to fully understand the post?

- Muslims are savages undeserving of human rights

Some of the posts within the thread may corroborate my proposed line of rationalization.
 

Orignal Earl

Diamond Member
Oct 27, 2005
8,059
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Maybe you guys were right
The US Justice system is severely messed up

" No, my dear Dantes. I know perfectly well that you are innocent. Why else would you be here? If you were truly guilty, there are a hundred prisons in France where they would lock you away. But Chateau d'If is where is they put the ones they're ashamed of."
 

cybrsage

Lifer
Nov 17, 2011
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Bull shit.

Your support for your position is so good...who could ever argue against it? :rolleyes:

Do you honestly think the Uyghurs were fighting the US in Afghanistan? Really? You do not think the locals, who wanted them gone, did not simply report them so they would be taken away?
 

thraashman

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
11,063
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Everyone in military custody is deserving of a trial or at the very least a military tribunal to classify their status.

What does it say about where the conservative population on ATP&N is going when cybrsage has to take the role of moderate in multiple threads lately? If a U.S. citizen were held in a foreign country for 11 years without trial until he died, we'd be furious. I'm personally in favor of civilian trials, closing Guantanamo and either convicting or letting the prisoners go. But anything is better than holding them there forever until they die.

I've said before that Obama is not perfect, just far better than Romney (or really any of the GOP). But I vastly disagree with his lack of movement on Guantanamo once Congress bucked his attempt to close it.
 

cybrsage

Lifer
Nov 17, 2011
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The problem is they only forbade him funds to move the prisoners into the US proper. He could easily have moved them to other US bases around the world. Instead, he chose to break one of his major campaign promises.

I am all for justice and what is right. It is wrong that we are treating them like this. Just because they do these things to us does not mean we have to become like them. We are better than that.

Give them a military tribunal to determine their status, then a fair military trial to determine guilt. If we cannot find enough to convict them on in 11 years, we will never find it because it is not there. We then need to recompense them for their troubles and/or find some way to fix the lives we damaged.
 

Matt1970

Lifer
Mar 19, 2007
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What does it say about where the conservative population on ATP&N is going when cybrsage has to take the role of moderate in multiple threads lately? If a U.S. citizen were held in a foreign country for 11 years without trial until he died, we'd be furious. I'm personally in favor of civilian trials, closing Guantanamo and either convicting or letting the prisoners go. But anything is better than holding them there forever until they die.

I've said before that Obama is not perfect, just far better than Romney (or really any of the GOP). But I vastly disagree with his lack of movement on Guantanamo once Congress bucked his attempt to close it.

The problem is we would never get to 11 years because if the roles were reversed, the people in Gitmo would cut the heads off anyone they captured and put the videos on the net.
 

cybrsage

Lifer
Nov 17, 2011
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If it is unjust for another nation to keep our citizens in prison forever without charges then it is unjust for us to do the same. It is one thing to make some poor snap decisions on a battlefield when lives are on the line and another thing to make poor decisions while sitting in an air conditioned room in Washington DC.

Keeping these people without giving them military tribunals and trials is a poor decision.

EDIT: I have absolutely no problem with the existance of the GitMo prison. It serves a very useful function. This function should not include handing out injustice, though.
 

GarfieldtheCat

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2005
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The problem is we would never get to 11 years because if the roles were reversed, the people in Gitmo would cut the heads off anyone they captured and put the videos on the net.

And this matters why?

Last time I checked, rapists still get arrested and are given real trials, and then jailed if convicted. They aren't handed over to vigilantes to be raped themselves or murdered.

Or, to make it short for you, two wrongs don't make a right.

Just because one side does something horrible, doesn't mean we should.