Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquila
The error here is that too many "Christians" have fallen into the lie that supposes that the Constitution gives us our rights. The Constitution only protects our rights. Our actual rights are given by God and are human rights. We, being human beings, have a right to justice. Charge them and try them or let them go. You cannot round up human beings and hold them indefinitely. We are America...we used to oppose this kind of thing in the name of human rights. Now we're doing it.
The fascists have taken over our political system and our minds. They have brow beaten us into accepting whatever they do because they call themselves "conservatives". Rubbish.
Charge these prisoners, try them, and sentence them. We can't just go around incarcerating people indefinitely.
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I totally agree with what you wrote above. It has been rather easy for folks to regurgetate the "party line" when it came to holding these people for years w/o a fair trial, but the question remains, what if it was them or their family member who was innocent behind the bars @ Gitmo?
There have been numerous examples of men who were held, tortured and treated less than human that were totally innocent, but just happen to be turned in for money by tribal leaders or at the wrong place when captured.
I have continued to be amazed at folks who have demonstrated no compassion for the innocent that have languished for years waiting for their chance at freedom!
Here's an intersting article I read this afternnon:
Who's at Gitmo?
Jeralyn at TalkLeft points to a fascinating study led by Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall Law School. Denbeaux and his colleagues analyzed the summaries of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) for over 500 detainees at Guantanamo Naval Base.* (Original report available in .pdf)
CSRT documents summarize the evidence that the government said it used to designate the as an enemy combatant. Denbaux's study confirms that the threshold for EC status is incredibly low:
55% did not commit any hostile act against the United States or its coalition allies
Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban
The majority of detainees are not alleged to have committed hostile acts. These prisoners are being held because of alleged associations with terrorist organizations
Some are being detained for being "associated" with groups that don't even appear on the DHS watchlist of terrorist organizations
"Association" covers a wide range of alleged involvements: “fighters for" (8%), “members of" (30%), by far the most common designation was "associated with" which could mean as little as having spoken to a member of Al Qaeda (60%), Two percent of the detainees who were designated EC for a nexus of involvement with a terrorist organization didn't even make the "associated with" standard.**
By and large, the Gitmo detainees aren't even alleged to have been high-level Taliban leaders or al Qaeda operatives. Far from being uniformly the worst of the worst, most of the detainees at Gitmo haven't even been shown to be enemies, let alone combatants.
Majikthise
By Lindsay Beyerstein
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