Sunny Guantanamo (Re: Speaking of the Geneva convention)

[Jim Dixon]

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 Freematt357 at aol.com wrote:

> In response to such damning reports, the Administration contends that the
> detainees are dangerous terrorists and thus do not deserve any legal
> protections,
> much less liberal sympathies. But after two years of investigations at the
> camp, the Administration has yet to charge any detainee with a crime or bring
> a
> case before a military tribunal. Thus, the public has no way to determine what
> alleged crimes these men are charged with committing, much less whether or
> not they are guilty.

Interesting.

If the prisoners at Guantanamo are POWs, why should they be charged with
crimes?  It is no crime to be an enemy soldier.

However, customary practice is to lock POWs up until the conflict is over.
This certainly is what happened in the two world wars, at least in Europe;
it also happened during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

If these are members of al-Quaeda and prisoners of war, should they not be
released when and only when al-Quaeda declares the conflict over?  Would
not a US government releasing them before the end of the war be derelict
in its duty?

If they are instead unlawful combatants because they have violated the
Geneva conventions (because they have carried arms in battle but discarded
them and hid among civilians, say) or if they are spies (out of uniform,
engaged in espionage), is the US not being somewhat charitable in treating
them as POWs?

If they are neither POWs nor unlawful combatants nor spies, if they are
just terrorists, why is the US obliged to treat them as though they are
in the United States?  Presumably they were captured outside the US and
were not taken into the US after capture.  Why does the US military have
to treat them as though they had US constitutional rights?  They are not
citizens or physically present in the United States.

If any of those at Guantanamo is an American citizen, then of course he
should be returned to the States and tried for carrying arms against his
country.  Treason, isn't it?

Let us say that by agreement between the US and the Afghan government
(which no one seems to deny is the rightful government of the country)
terrorists captured in Afghanistan are being held in Guantanamo.  Why
should US law apply instead of Afghan law?

I know for a fact that conditions in Afghan jails are nowhere near as
comfortable as those in Guantanamo.

An American friend of mine spent six months in a jail in Kabul.  If you
didn't buy food from the guards, you starved. If you bought coal from them
to heat your cell -- tiny windows high in thick stone walls, so no real
ventilation -- you were slowly poisoned by carbon monoxide.  If you
didn't, you froze.  It's cold in Kabul in the winter.

The beatings were free.

--
Jim Dixon  jdd at dixons.org   tel +44 117 982 0786  mobile +44 797 373 7881
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