GUANTANAMO BAY

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: DougR
Date: 06 Feb 02 - 03:19 PM

John Walker chose the time and the place.

DougR

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Desdemona
Date: 06 Feb 02 - 03:28 PM

Yes, I realise that, and that was a pretty dumb-ass choice. What I'm saying is that any of us, at the age of 18 or thereabouts, were capable of doing/saying/choosing really stupid things, and I think that's likely what the situation was there. I'm not arguing that he was coerced, or that he shouldn't have to take responsibility for his choices and his actions, just that the whole aituation is sad for everyone involved. While theoretically an "adult", anyone who has (or remembers being, for that matter) a teenager knows that it's rarely the case!

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: DougR
Date: 06 Feb 02 - 08:05 PM

I get your point, Desdemona, but I fail to understand why you are wasting (my word not yours)sympathy on a young man who made those choices. My sympathy goes to the same young people his age or younger, our service men and women, who are sleeping in tents in Afghanstan, or in the Phillipines fighting terrorists. If given a choice, I would bet, based on the lastest reports I have heard, he would make the same choices, and would rejoin Osma if there was any way he could.

DougR

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: MartinRyan
Date: 06 Feb 02 - 08:10 PM

Guantanamo? Gibraltar? Am I really going crazy or have we all lost the plot?

Regards

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Feb 02 - 08:31 PM

Could you elaborate on that, Martin? I know they are both very strategically placed naval bases, but....?

- LH

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: DougR
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 12:20 AM

I agree, L.H. (Surprise!) what does Gibraltar have to do with this thread? Oh, I know! I'll bet Osama has been spotted on GIBRALTAR! Reported, probably, by the New York Times and the Washington Post!

DougR

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 01:49 PM

Guacamole? Giggleswick?

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Desdemona
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 02:15 PM

Doug R---I guess I don't necessarily see feeling sorry for the Walkers, and the victims of 9/11, and "young people his age or younger, our service men and women, who are sleeping in tents in Afghanstan, or in the Phillipines fighting terrorists", and any number of other unfortunate people as mutually exclusive; God knows there's plenty of things to feel regretful & sad about to go around, alas.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: GUEST,flora
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 03:01 PM

Desddemona has it. I fear many have missed the point; that here is a situation in which some humans are treaating other humans disrespectfully and inhumanely. It doesn't matter whether by that I mean how the US is treating Al-Qaida prisoners, or how American prisoners are being treated abroad. Nationality and 'sides' shouldn't have to come into it - those who are outraged by this behaviour are outraged on behalf of humanity, not for any transient nation-state.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 04:25 PM

I the idea that we have a little jar of sympathy and we have to be careful about wasting it because there might not be enough for the next person who needs it?

I don't think it works like that. Sympathy is l;ike love, if you hoard it up, it goes all stale and useless, but the more you give, the more you have to give.

I note that Bush has now decided that Taliban prisoners are Prisoners of War and covered by the Geneva Convention after all. That's very encouraging actually - being willing to make a U-turn in public like that.

I'm not being ironic there - there are plenty of politicians who are constitutionally incapable of admitting they got something wrong. (In the case of Bush it is obviously extremely welcome if he turns out not to be like that...)

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 04:35 PM

I was thinking of Maggie Thatcher there. And whatever there might be to say against Bush, he's not Maggie Thatcher, and Thank Christ for that.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 May 04 - 07:12 PM

The Australian Government has, unlike its British counterpart, declined to ask for detailed medical evaluations of the two Australian detainees at Guantanamo Bay, despite mounting allegations of abuse and demands from lawyers representing the men.

A former British detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Jamal al-Harith, said he saw Mr Habib bleed from the mouth and ears, and collapse after four days of sleep deprivation. Mr al-Harith also alleged humiliation techniques including the use of prostitutes to torment the devout Muslim detainees. "Prostitutes would take down their pants and play with their genitals, push their breasts in their faces and themselves on them," he told Channel Seven.

On one occasion, he said, menstrual blood was smeared on prisoners.

His account adds to a welter of allegations of abuse of Mr Habib and Mr Hicks, in Afghanistan, Cuba and Egypt. The abuse includes electric-shock treatment, regular and prolonged beatings and shackling. Mr Habib's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, wrote to the Government in February asking for a detailed medical assessment, after reports Mr Habib was mentally disturbed."He's been repeating over and over again that the Americans have killed his wife and children," Mr Hopper said last night. The secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ashton Calvert, yesterday asked for a fresh investigation into allegations of abuse in Afghanistan, in a meeting with officials in Washington.

A spokeswoman said Australian officials "sought and received assurances from medical authorities that Mr Hicks and Mr Habib have access to high-quality medical services, and are in good physical condition". But the Government has not asked for a medical evaluation, unlike Britain, which has sought and received such evaluations, and also lobbied with some success to have its citizens released or detained and tried at home. Mr Hicks and Mr Habib have been held in Cuba for more than two years without charge.

In other developments, a former chief of the Guantanamo Bay military prison, Brigadier General Rick Baccus, told US Congress he was under constant pressure from intelligence officers to bend his "by-the-book" rules on the treatment of detainees.

It was also reported that the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, last year personally approved aggressive interrogation techniques for suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees to extract more information about the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Australia takes US word on alleged abuse;By Marian Wilkinson and Tom Allard; May 22, 2004; Sydney Morning Herald

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 May 04 - 09:52 PM

Music?

Regards

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 22 May 04 - 05:16 AM

How we treat others doesn't depend on how they behave - not if we're decent people.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 22 May 04 - 06:25 AM

JOE CLONES:
This thread ought to be moved to the BS category - it is not music.

---

Agreed.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 22 May 04 - 07:21 PM

thanks Joe, and ..meanwhile, back at Guantanamo Bay..

Guantanamo tactics too harsh, military told

Interrogations changed after army lawyers warned that techniques not permitted

By ROBERT BURNS; Associated Press; Saturday, May 22, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has revealed that in the first year of interrogations at the U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists, senior military lawyers in Washington raised objections to the use of techniques that were harsher than permitted under standard military doctrine.
As their protests became more apparent in late 2002, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ended the use of such tactics pending the outcome of a comprehensive review that stretched from mid-January, 2003, to mid-April, a senior civilian Pentagon lawyer said.
The lawyer, who discussed the matter Thursday on condition of anonymity as details are classified secret, said Mr. Rumsfeld approved new guidelines in April of 2003 that won the military lawyers' blessing. Those guidelines are different (they allow harsher methods) than the approaches used in Iraq, because all prisoners in Iraq are deemed by the Bush administration to be covered by prisoner protections ofthe Geneva Conventions, whereas those at Guantanamo Bay are not, the lawyer said.

In Australia yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard said his government is pressing the Pentagon to respond to allegations that two Australian terror suspects, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, were abused while under detention in Afghanistan and Cuba. The two men have been held without charge for more than two years at Guantanamo Bay. Larry Di Rita, chief spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld, confirmed the basic timeline of the Guantanamo Bay interrogation policy but said he could not reveal specifics about the interrogation techniques used there.

"It's highly sensitive information," he said. "Everybody [was] mindful of the uniqueness -- it was new, it was complicated and it was balancing the need for intelligence versus the need to do it right. "It was a hard darn problem because we did have known al-Qaeda [members] down there, and known al-Qaeda who were believed to have information involving attacks on the United States," he added. Mr. Di Rita described the interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay in early 2002 as "non-doctrinal," meaning they were not in accordance with the military doctrine written to apply to interrogations of prisoners of war, not terrorists.

The military lawyers believed that some of those techniques went too far, other officials said. They also questioned the policy of not applying the Geneva Conventions to Guantanamo. Questions about limits on interrogation techniques and detention methods have focused mainly on U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, amid the prisoner-abuse scandal. Investigators also are checking U.S. interrogation practices in Afghanistan, but the Pentagon has not acknowledged serious shortcomings the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Major-General Geoffrey Miller, a former commander there, told a Senate committee that there "was no systemic abuse at Guantanamo at any time."

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Metchosin
Date: 22 May 04 - 10:19 PM

no systemic abuse at Guantanamo?....just torture, right? After all it's not like these are real human beings....they're......my gawd....terrorists!

Why in God's name would any civilized nation on earth not want to adhere to the Geneva Convention regarding prisoners for which they are responsible?....Disgusting!!!!! The US has openly become as despicable regarding human rights as some south and central American countries.....and don't you just love it!!....they are still scrambling to somehow find a legal loophole for self justification.

No damned inconvenient, bleedingheart little pissant international treaties and laws that we've signed apply to us. We're Americans and we're above the law. Guess when you're drunk, whether it's power or alcohol makes little difference.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 23 May 04 - 07:05 PM

Forgiveness is an admirable quality in anyone but to allow those people back on the streets would invite trouble.. Humane treatment is a must in any "confinement" situation...See what has happened in Iraq!!

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 May 04 - 07:27 PM

"those people" have not been found guilty of any crime, georgiansilver. Some of them are pretty certainly totally innocent of any wrong doing.

The suggestion keeps on being made that not having prisoner of war status somehow reduces the rights of prisoners. In fact it is the other way round - being a POW means that it is legal to keep people in prison in circumstances where they should otherwise be released.

For example, it is legal to keep POWs in prison, even when when they have not been charged with criminal activity, or put on trial and convicted. But that is not the case with people who are not POWs. Calling them "illegal combatants" does not alter that.

To subject prisoners to inhumane treatment, more especially any kind of torture, is always a criminal act, whatever the status of the prisoners. Anyone who authorises such activity is personally liable to criminal prosecution.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 10:15 AM

Terry Hicks, the father of alleged Australian Taliban fighter David Hicks is bewildered at the charges his son now faces.

According to Hicks' lawyers there are a number of historical inaccuracies in the background to the charges.

The US Defence Department claims he conducted surveillance of the US and British embassies in Kabul in 2001.Those embassies had in fact been closed for between 12 to 15 years at the time he's alleged to have carried out the surveillance, so...


It's also alleged David Hicks met Osama Bin Laden, and that he offered to translate an al-Qaeda training manual into English.

Terry Hicks says his son could speak a little bit of Arabic, not much, and would not have the skills to translate any manuals.

David Hicks is the third Guantanamo Bay detainee to face charges.
It's unclear now when his military trial will take place, but David Hicks's lawyers say he will plead not guilty.

Michael Rattner from the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New Yorks ays David Hicks has been denied justice from the start.

MICHAEL RATTNER: These guys have been in Guantanamo for two and a half years. There may be people in that camp who make statements about David Hicks that in my view and in any legitimate trial would be considered coerced and tossed out...

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Jun 04 - 12:42 PM

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba -- For nearly two and a half years, American officials have maintained that locked within the steel-mesh cells of the military prison here are some of the world's most dangerous terrorists.. The New York Times has found that government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they have provided.

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful -- some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen -- were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.

Let's translate this into plain English, and put it in its appropriate context: Hundreds of prisoners, held without rights and without charges on Guantanamo for over two years are ... NOT TERRORISTS AFTER ALL. Perhaps two dozen of these 600 prisoners have yielded any useful info, and a 2002 CIA report questioned the value of keeping these detainees. And meanwhile, construction continues on expanding Guantanamo, to hold 50,000 more prisoners. Prisoners captured in Afghanistan aboard an American plane bound for Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, early in the detention program.

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. ..the commander of the task force that runs the Guantánamo prison, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, acknowledged disappointment among some senior officials in Washington. ''The expectations, I think, may have been too high at the outset,'' he said. ''There are those who expected a flow of intelligence that would help us break the most sophisticated terror organization in a matter of months. But that hasn't happened.''

The Pentagon's determination to hold the detainees as ''enemy combatants'' -- beyond the reach of United States law and unbound by the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war -- has also come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the scandal over abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.. Tim Golden and Don Van Natta Jr.,The New York Times; June 21, 2004

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 04 - 01:10 PM

Aw c'mon,now. You aren't implying that Bush and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz would lie about such stuff, are you?

That they would resort to shallow shams and pretense? Manipulate information regardless of truth?

Please!! You're talking about senior officials of the United States Government here!



A

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Metchosin
Date: 26 Jun 04 - 04:01 PM

I guess that when you have those of that ilk running government Amos, CEO's turned politicians seem to only view laws and regulations conceived for the public good, as inconveniences imposed on them to thwart their aims and ambitions.

As corporate heads they look for the loopholes, lobby for loopholes and when they are in charge of the whole works they figure they've got it made; they can finally make their own damned loopholes.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 08:12 AM

Wednesday,July14,2004; //www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1154121.htm; Swede reignites Guantanamo Bay torture fears

A 25-year-old Swede released last week from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba says he was tortured both physically and psychologically during his detention. In his first interviews to the Swedish media, Mehdi Ghezali said US interrogators subjected him to a string of abuses, including being shackled for hours, sleep deprivation, no contact with the outside world, being forced to endure cold temperatures for up to 14 hours at a time and attempts to humiliate him sexually.

"There was always psychological torture, but the last month they used more physical torture," Mr Ghezali told Swedish Radio. His claims are in line with accounts from other Guantanamo detainees who have been released. Since his return to Sweden on July 8, Ghezali has been hiding out at an undisclosed location after receiving threats from neo-Nazis. Media reports have indicated that he is being guarded by Swedish secret police Saepo, but Saepo has not confirmed those reports.

Swedish Radio's correspondent described Mr Ghezali as withdrawn, solemn and tired. A devout Muslim, Mr Ghezali insisted he was not involved in terrorist activities. "I don't think they would have released me if I were," he told the radio. He said he was arrested in December 2001 in Pakistan and turned over to US authorities who shipped him to Guantanamo in January 2002. He claimed he was visiting a friend in Pakistan when local villagers captured him and sold him to Pakistani police, who then handed him over to the US.
Mr Ghezali denied media reports which at the time of his arrest said he was part of a prison revolt in Pakistan. Guards and prisoners travelling on a bus were reported to have been killed in the uprising. "I've never been involved in anything like that, or any other battle," he told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, adding: "The stuff that supposedly happened on a bus was never even brought up in a single interrogation."

Mr Ghezali said he was interrogated daily by US guards, but stopped answering their questions after the first six months. He said he remained silent for the next two years. One time, the guards brought an American woman into his cell to try to get him to have sex with her. "They tried to make me lose my faith. Maybe they wanted to use it against me so I would cooperate," he said. The only physical traces Mr Ghezali has from his detention are teeth in poor condition and the loss of feeling in part of his left foot after an ankle chain was clamped too tight.
-- AFP

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 07:40 PM

Ex-detainees allege Habib and Hicks abused; By Fergus Shiel; The Age; August 4, 2004

Australian terror suspects Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks have been physically and mentally abused and denied medical treatment by their American captors, according to three former Guantanamo Bay detainees from England. Human rights activists in Britain and the United States will today release a 115-page joint statement by the Britons in which they recount conversations they claim to have had with Habib and Hicks in Guantanamo Bay and make observations about the Australians' mental and physical condition.

They allege Mamdouh Habib was denied medical attention despite being in "catastrophic" mental and physical shape after being tortured in Egypt. "(Habib) used to bleed from his nose, mouth and ears when he was asleep... He got no medical attention for this. We used to hear him ask but his interrogator said that he shouldn't have any," they say.They allege that David Hicks, "a tiny white guy no more than five feet three inches (160 centimetres) with a lot of tattoos", was hooded and beaten by Americans on a ship and later denied medical attention for a hernia unless he co-operated with his interrogators.

They say Hicks was told he would get prostitutes if he worked with his interrogators, but would never go home if he didn't. According to the men, Hicks was treated more aggressively than other detainees, was moved repeatedly and kept in isolation for months. They believed he was forced to make admissions. The allegations follow those of two other Britons released from Guantanamo Bay, Tarek Derghoul and Jamal al-Harith, who have claimed that Habib was tortured by Egyptian agents and later subjected to beatings by US soldiers in Guantanamo Bay.

Separate claims have been made that Hicks has been mistreated in US custody. Hicks, accused of working with terror network al-Qaeda, is due to appear before a military commission on August 23. An Australian Government spokesman said last night that Canberra had asked the US for assurances that Hicks and Habib had been treated properly and was awaiting a response.
In March, the Pentagon dismissed allegations by the Britons of mistreatment and said they would not be investigated because they lacked credibility.

"These allegations are fabrications. These are lies," Major Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesman, was reported as saying. "All the detainees were treated humanely and ...consistent with military necessity in accordance with the third Geneva Convention of 1949." Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed allege they were interrogated at gunpoint, kicked, hit with rifle butts, threatened with snarling dogs and weakened by lack of food, water, sleep and medical care. Their joint statement will be released by noted civil rights lawyer Gareth Pierce in London and by the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York.

The men say they wrote the statement to let the world know the truth about what is happening in Guantanamo Bay. They say their intention is that human rights groups and lawyers may use the information to ensure fairness for prisoners there. US-based Australian human rights lawyer Richard Bourke, who first accused US forces of torture in October, said the men's statement highlighted the accountability of the Australian Government for failing to protect its citizens, despite its call for assurances from the US Government.

"We have seen the photos and read Donald Rumsfeld's directives, but the accounts of these men provide a chilling new insight into the depravity of America's war on terror and the shocking price to be paid when we lower our defence of basic rights and freedoms," he said. Mr Bourke said it had been proven that the three men, from Tipton in England's West Midlands, had falsely confessed to meeting Osama bin Laden as a result of their appalling treatment, and it was no surprise that this was the same charge levelled against David Hicks.

The men, who were detained in northern Afghanistan in November 2001 and freed without charge this year, allege they were held by Northern Alliance troops - under the supervision of US forces - for 18 hours with scores of dead and dying detainees in shipping containers riddled with machine-gun fire to ventilate them. They say they had pistols put to their heads during interrogations by US and British intelligence officers and were told they would be shot if they moved. They say they were left naked, hungry, dehydrated, sick and wounded in freezing conditions after their capture.

These images of interrogation techniques, allegedly used by US soldiers on detainees in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, accompanied the statement by the three former detainees from Britain. The Englishmen also say they were forcibly kept awake, left filthy for weeks, isolated for long periods, kept squatting without water in scorching Cuban heat for hours, denied toilet facilities and not allowed to pray. Guards threw copies of the Koran into toilets, they say.

They say hundreds of their fellow detainees in Guantanamo Bay tried to commit suicide. One detainee was brutally assaulted by up to eight guards and others were held in isolation for more than a year, they say. Detainees were forcibly injected with unknown drugs. The former detainees say they were repeatedly hooded, stripped, cavity-searched, shaved, photographed and videotaped. Mr Iqbal says he was once left shackled in a room at Camp Delta while a dance version of an Eminem song played loudly over and over and lights strobed.

[on ABC (Australia) news this morning, more sections of this report were described including allegations that Guantanamo Bay prisoners were forced to watch videos of inmates sodomising each other]

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 07:55 PM

Britons describe abuse by US troops; August 5, 2004

Britain and the US face fresh allegations of abuses after a British terrorism suspect said an SAS soldier had interrogated him for three hours while an American colleague held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot him. ...Rhuhel Ahmed claims in the 115-page dossier that shortly after his capture in November 2001 he was taken by US guards to be interrogated in Afghanistan by a British interrogator who said he was from the SAS.

"One of the US soldiers had a gun to his head and he was told if he moved they would shoot him," the report says. The SAS officer pressed him to admit he had gone to Afghanistan to fight a holy war. The British Ministry of Defence said it would investigate the allegation. The dossier, based on two months of interviews by the men's lawyers, provides the first full account by the three Britons of their ordeal as terrorism suspects.

Details of the experiences of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, all from the same small Midlands town of Tipton, was to be formally released in the US yesterday. In an echo of the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad that shamed Washington, the three Britons, held as illegal enemy combatants by the US, say they were photographed naked and subjected to anal searches unnecessarily, after being shackled for hours. The three say US guards bragged that they could kill them at any time, saying: "The world does not know you're here ... we would kill you and no one would know."

The treatment of prisoners worsened dramatically after the arrival of the US commander Major-General Geoffrey Miller, the report says. General Miller ran Guantanamo for 18 months until last April, when he went on to manage prisons in Iraq. "We had the impression that at the beginning things were not carefully planned, but a point came at which you could notice things changing. That appeared to be after General Miller [arrived] around the end of 2002," Mr Rasul said.

"That is when short-shackling [when detainees are chained into a squatting position] started, loud music playing in interrogation, shaving beards and hair, putting people in cells naked, taking away people's 'comfort' items [eg towels] ... moving some people every two hours, depriving them of sleep, the use of a/c [air-conditioned, cold] air."

The three say their interrogators, from a phalanx of US intelligence agencies including the CIA, accused them of being in a video shot in 2000 alongside Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, and Mohamed Atta, the leader of the September 11 attack. At the time one of the three was working in an electrical store in the Midlands and the other two were in trouble with the British police. Despite this, all three say the pain they were in and ill treatment led them confess to being in the video in the hope such an admission would help them to be released.

Mr Rasul says he was interrogated by British personnel up to seven times.

The Guardian

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 08:01 PM

Is David Hicks's incarceration in Guantanamo Bay a travesty of justice? A documentary follows his father's quest for the truth, reports Alexa Moses.

THE PRESIDENT VS DAVID HICKS
Directors: Curtis Levy and Bentley Dean

Last year, Terry Hicks was tagging behind a camera crew in Afghanistan. He was retracing the steps of his son David, who was picked up there with Taliban fighters in December 2001 and handed over to the US military. Since then, the 28-year-old Muslim has been detained in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay without the rights of ordinary POWs for being a suspected terrorist. The President Vs David Hicks is about Terry Hicks's journey with filmmakers Curtis Levy and Bentley Dean to Afghanistan to find out what happened to David. Co-director Levy believes that people shouldn't be stripped of democratic rights, but he didn't make the doco to portray David Hicks as a saint.

Levy went ahead with the film, which was shown in March on SBS, on the proviso that if he should discover something damaging about David he could include it in the film. "We made the doco to point out the fact that we've been prepared to throw away democracy by keeping someone in a cage for years without a fair trial," Levy says. Even David's father says that if he has done anything bad he should be tried in court for it.

How does Levy now view the man described as among "the worst of the worst"? "I guess I feel that he was a naive adventurer who was searching for some kind of belonging and found it in Islam," he says.
"His emotions got the better of him in terms of feeling an obsession with a cause. I think that was probably partly because he hadn't had a great deal of education and he was fairly gullible when it came to accepting the things he was taught in the Islamic religious colleges he studied at."

Levy says he got a sense David Hicks was a reasonably moral kind of individual after reading his letters to his family. "He was worried about civilians caught up in skirmishes in Kashmir [and] appeared to be a caring and considerate kind of person," he says. "But I've never quite understood the transition from someone who was a horse trainer in Japan to someone who wanted to fight for a cause."

The President Vs David Hicks was completed by the time charges were finally laid against Hicks in June, 2 and a half years after his initial incarceration. The charges were conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy. Hicks's trial will be heard by a military commission rather than an independent tribunal.
"As far as we know, he doesn't appear to have committed any crime, and in fact the [Australian] Attorney-General said as much," Levy says.

"The US asked for him to be tried here in Australia, but the Government had their mob of lawyers look into it here, and they couldn't find any crime he'd committed under Australian law." If Levy is passionate about the topic, David Hicks's father, Terry, is dead earnest. The Adelaide man travelled the world, passionately protesting against his son's confinement by standing in a cage in New York wearing an orange prison suit. He also made the dangerous trip to Afghanistan.

Yet in talking about his journey, Terry Hicks demonstrates a peculiar Australian stoicism. "It was a bit of an adventure," Terry Hicks says mildly. "I suppose parts of it I didn't enjoy - the heat -but it was nice to see where David had been and catch up with a couple of people there who knew of David. We had a lot of cups of tea, that green stuff with bits in it. I did like it, and their kebabs were very nice."

Terry Hicks says he was a little nervous during the dangerous visit to Taliban country to see a detainee who was in the Guantanamo Bay cell next to David Hicks. In the doco, Terry Hicks is sitting in his striped polo shirt and aviator sunnies, surrounded by bearded Taliban men. He cuts a curious but dignified figure. "I needed to know why David was there," Terry Hicks says when asked why he made the trip. "I don't believe governments any more because they all talk bullshit."

Hicks says he doesn't give a hoot about his son's religious conversion. "Creed and religion, I don't care if they're black, white, purple, Christian, Muslim ... it's the person," he says.

"I've had nothing to do with Muslims. It was quite interesting. I found out they pray a lot and read the Koran. David used to quote pieces out of it to us. I wasn't going to stop him from doing that, from doing anything." Most of all, Terry Hicks is looking forward to seeing his son. He says David was probably in the middle of a pilgrimage when he was picked up by the Northern Alliance troops.

"Unfortunately, September 11 happened.

He was on the way back to the border when he was arrested, and I believe he was trying to get out and go home. We're not going to find that out until I speak to him."

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 05:42 PM

Published on Friday, December 30, 2005 by Reuters
US Reports Surge in Guantanamo Hunger Strike; by Will Dunham


WASHINGTON - The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a hunger strike that began nearly five months ago has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
The prisoner population, which the Pentagon says numbers about 500, is believed to be uniformly Muslim. Only nine have been charged with any crime. Lawyers for some of the detainees call the strike a protest of jail conditions and prisoners' lack of legal rights. The military has denied allegations of torturing detainees.

surge in Guantanamo hunger strike

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: GUEST,AK47
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 07:25 PM

I hope all those assholes starve. thatway they will never be on the battlefield trying to kill Americans again.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: freda underhill
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 07:52 PM

Only nine of them have charges laid, AK47 - the other hundreds who have been detained still have no idea why.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: GUEST,Judge Dred
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 09:37 PM

Is Freda ready to vouch for those detainees and be the responsible party if they are freed and return to the battlefield?

I don't think so.

Does she know anything about the curcumstances about how, why and where they were captured?

I don't think so. The only thing she? knows is that they need to go free.

Yes, they have rights. One is the right to starve themselves to death. I will not deny them that right.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: GUEST,sfldjf;l
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:43 PM

bush sucks!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:18 PM

Yo AK.... What makes you think that all the folks in Guantanamo ever fought against American troops????

No way of knowing, fir sure, why they are there...

They have no rights under Bush's law, which superceed international law. They are cut off from lawyers, their families... They are being held in violation of interntional law...

And like Bush signs recent legislation that John McCian pushed thruogh Congress and then says "Screw it, it don't apply to me. I'm friggin' God and laws don't apply to me..."

And guess what AK... If Bush comes fir you you'll end up in Guantanamo, too, wonmdering why you would have ever made such a stupid statement...

But until then, 47, have a nice day...

Bobert

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:34 PM

>>You're still missing the point of my arguements, McGrath;
By the definitions of the Geneva Convention, neither the Taliban nor al Quieda can be described as participants in the agreement - not by a lng shot. Why should they enjoy the protections of a covenant to which they have no part?<<

I think you're missing the point. I am civilized, I do not torture people. I don't care who they are or what they believe. I may capture them, I may question them, I may jail them for a time, I may try them for war crimes. I might even execute a few if it can be proven they are guilty of such crimes. What I will not do is torture them. There is something wrong with someone who says the Geneva Convention rules are only for an enemy that abides by them. The Geneva Convention rules are to establish some sanity amidst the madness of war. It is to prevent your doing something you will be VERY sorry for years down the line.

Your reasoning reminds me of people who say all rapists should be gang-raped and fucked in the ass with cattle prods. Okay, fine. But who's going to doll at that kind of punishment and call themselves any better than the one they tortured? I may not want that rapist around my daughter but I also sure as hell don't want his tormentors around her either.

We must not torture al Qaeda suspects because we are civilized people--not because of the Geneva Convention but because we simply KNOW better. The Geneva Convention is only for idiots too dense to get it on their own. And, unfortunately, the U.S. appears to fall into that one.

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:50 PM

Judge Dred - I find nothing that indicates that Freda or anyone else thinks the prisoners should be allowed to go free.

What is being argued, I believe, is that they should be allowed to communicate with their families, have access to lawyers and be tried by a fair and impartial court of law.

Is it possible for you to understand the difference between innocent and guilty? Is it possible for you to understand the grief of their families? Is it possible for you to understand that many of these prisoners are possibly innocents who are being tortured and that some die for no reason at all?

Subject: RE: GUANTANAMO BAY
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 04:41 PM

the new gitmo resort http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/gitmo.jpg

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: freda underhill
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 10:19 AM

Two studies into the Guantanamo detainees have emerged this month in the US. They found that a majority of the detainees were not Afghans but were captured in Pakistan. Seventy-five per cent of those who have brought habeas petitions are not accused of conducting hostilities against the US. About 80 per cent of the detainees were never members of al-Qaeda and many were not Taliban foot soldiers. They were caught in a dragnet searching for Arabs in Pakistan after September 11, 2001. Some had loose associations with the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

Many were in the region at the wrong time. Much of the evidence against them is flimsy, having been gathered second-, third- or fourth-hand. Often it is based on admissions of other detainees. Hegland cites examples. One prisoner at Guantanamo made accusations against more than 60 fellow inmates, more than 10 per cent of the prisoner population. A US military officer, designated as a personal representative for the purpose of the tribunals' hearings but not a lawyer, investigated the accusations and found that none of the accused had been in Afghanistan at the time they were said by this man to have been in a training camp. It didn't matter, because the tribunals still went ahead and declared many of them "enemy combatants".

At least 10 are held because when they were rounded up they were wearing Casio watches and the US Defence Department says these watches are similar to a model with a circuit board used by al-Qaeda for making bombs. This model is sold in shops around the world.

Many of those handed over to the Americans came from bounty hunters in Pakistan and Afghanistan paid by the US to round up Arabs. The Denbeaux study is even more exacting. Essentially it found that 55 per cent of the detainees were not accused of committing any hostile act against the US and only 8 per cent were characterised as al-Qaeda fighters. Numerous people are detained because they have "affiliations" with groups not on the Department of Homeland Security's watchlist. Eighty-six per cent of the prisoners were not captured by the US, but turned over by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance, often for money or as reprisals for all sorts of hatreds and feuds.

When Michael Scheuer, a CIA man who headed the agency's Osama bin Laden unit until 1999, was told that the largest group in Guantanamo came from custody in Pakistan, he said: "We absolutely got the wrong people." The US keeps these people locked up, mostly without charge, because it dare not release those it has so embittered. If they were not dangerous before, they are now. They also have to stay there for the political needs of the coalition of the willing. Guantanamo is held out as showing the world that the "worst of the worst" are behind bars and to that extent, we can sleep a little tighter at night. And many believe it.

Innocence ignored at Guantanamo

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 09:51 PM

Thanks Freda, for the link.

"The Denbeaux study is even more exacting. Essentially it found that 55 per cent of the detainees were not accused of committing any hostile act against the US and only 8 per cent were characterised as al-Qaeda fighters."

Makes me wonder about the other 37%. Wonder what their 'crime' might have been.

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 11:38 AM

Non al-Qaeda fighters accused having committed hostile acts against the USA.

Could be Taleban for instance.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Bush to close Guantanamo Bay
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 10:23 AM

The US 'wants to end Guantanamo'

US President George W Bush and Austrian counterpart Heinz Fischer
Mr Bush was welcomed by Austrian counterpart Heinz Fischer
US President George W Bush has outlined his position on the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, which he says he "would like to end".
Mr Bush pledged to send many detainees back to their home countries, but said he wanted to put some on trial because they were "cold-blooded killers".

The comments came after talks with EU leaders at a one-day summit in Vienna. Leaders also discussed trade, global energy security, climate change, Iraq and the Iranian nuclear crisis.
Mr Bush said he understood European concerns over the US detention camp in Cuba. "I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with," he said. But he added that there were some detainees "who need to be tried in US courts".

"They will murder somebody if they are let out on the street."

At present only 10 inmates face trial by military tribunal, our correspondent says. The US Supreme Court is to rule by the end of this month on the legality of the tribunals.

Wednesday, 21 June 2006, BBC Online

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 01:27 PM

It's now a music thread.
Barry

          Guantanamo Bay (words & tune by Barry Finn 2/24/06)


Guantanamo Bay, hey, I'm on my way.
I won't be coming back from there, not in manys a day.
Guantanamo Bay, am I here to stay?

Chorus:
Where the sun shines hard on the dogs in the yard An' I'm here to say there's no place in the world like Guantanamo Bay.

Let's all get naked, in Guantanamo Bay
Lie in the sand; put our tush in a Bush, where the nights are gay
Let's all get cute with the girls in the suits

It's hard to believe it, that I made here
I'm a lazy do nothing, no good to no one, without a care
My luck's so fine, who could be so kind, to land me here in a spa so far from grit & grime

I'm getting island fever, I can't handle the truth
I'm getting buggered all day, can't get from the 'Git', I'm so young I'm a youth
Where the akee & rice, & salt fish is nice

I'm dying here, I live in fear
I don't think I've done wrong, I just wrote me a song of a fair place so queer
This ain't what I thought, this ain't what I bought

I must be mad, I guess I've just been had
I'm told I've got to go, that I don't know what they thought I knowed, it's bad
I've been MIA'd, I've been CIA'd, I've been christen, I've been crossed, I've been kicked I've been tossed

To where the sun shines hard on the dogs in the yard
An I'm here to say there's no place in the world like Guantanamo Bay

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 01:49 PM

Maybe the idea is that George Bush is deliberately saying that stuff about how anyone put on trial from Guantanamo Bay is guilty before they are even tried. The idea being to ensure that no fair trial can take place, which means that they have to continue to be held without being tried or convicted. Sort of variation on Catch 22.

Maybe courts could get round that one by making sure that juries would exclude anyone who thought that George Bush a credible source of information or advice. I would have thought it wouldn't be at all hard to pick juries who would meet that requirement.

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 09:19 AM

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/gitmo.jpg

A US federal judge had the timarity to rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment to be held without charges for the rest of one's life and that it actually amounts to torture.

Oh well, one man's torture is another man's suburbia.

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:00 AM

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:3DVydKFb_X4J:www.restrooms.org/page03ar.html+muslim+toilet&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&lr=lang_en

Muslim's toileting practices could be compounded into six areasâ€" entering, seclusion, the prohibition of facing the Qiblah (which is the Ka'abah in Mecca), squatting, cleaning and stepping out.
The Qur'an states that one should enter the restroom with left foot first while saying a prayer of protection. It is not permissible to enter a restroom while carrying anything that bears the name of Allah, such as the Qur'an, or any book with the name of Allah in it, or jewelry such as bracelets and necklaces engraved with the name of Allah. Muslims should keep silent when in the restroom. Thus, talking, reading, greeting others and answering greetings are not to be done inside the restroom except for risky situations, like guiding a disabled person.
“When the Prophet felt the need of relieving himself, he went far off where no one could see himâ€쳌. It is implied that one should be out of sight, thus doors of toilets should be securely closed. Privacy is therefore a major requirement when providing restroom facilities for Muslim users. Muslim women specifically have problems with Western-style public restrooms because they find stalls with gaps between the floor and wall too immodest. This makes installation of floor-to-wall dividers and louvered doors a necessity.
Islam prohibits facing the Qiblah while defecating. The Prophet said “if you go to defecate, do not face the Qiblah nor turn your back toward it. Instead, you should turn to your left side or your right sideâ€쳌. Some scholars believe that this forbiddance only applies in open areas. According to them, when in an enclosed area, or as long as there is something shielding one's body, there is no harm in facing the Qiblah. Another more accepted opinion says that it is something forbidden in both open and enclosed areas and it is best to refrain from doing so as much as possible out of respect for the Qiblah. Determining the Qiblah in an area designated to be the restroom and working around it could therefore be considered a requirement when designing toilets for Muslim users.
Muslims are encouraged to urinate while sitting or squatting and not while standing since this was the usual practice of the Prophet. Although standing is not forbidden as the Prophet is also reported to have done so. Squatting or sitting is said to be better since it is healthier for the body and there is less chance of urine splashing onto one's body or clothes. Islam strictly prohibits direct contact with urine and feces as these are considered impure. The Prophet once passed by two graves and and said “Both are being punished. They are not being punished for major (sins). One did not shield himself from urine and the other carried gossip.â€쳌 This explains why squat-type toilets are still popular in some areasâ€" they are not being resistant to progress as some would think, but are adhering to their beliefs.
After using the toilet, one should performs the Istinjaa (cleansing with water). In Istinjaa, water is preferred for the purpose of cleaning oneself. However, when water is not available, a material that does not have a smooth surface, such as stone or wood can be used. Tissue paper can be used as long as it does not absorb the feces or urine and cause the hand to come into contact with it.
Qur'an forbids the use of the right hand in order to clean oneself from the impurities of urine and feces. The Prophet said, “None of you should touch his privates with his right hand whilst urinating nor should he wipe off feces with his rightâ€쳌.
Muslims have a practice of leaving the toilet with right foot first as this is the usual practice of the Prophet. They utter a prayer of forgiveness as they leave the toilet.
Prayer uttered before entering the restroom with left foot: “O Allah, I seek Your protection from the male and female devilsâ€쳌
Prayer uttered after leaving the restroom with the right foot: “ I seek your pardon. Praise be to Allah who removed from me discomfortâ€쳌

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 06 - 10:00 AM

Maybe this could be combined with the Slave Trade thread.

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 03:11 AM

The more I think about Guantánamo Bay the more I am wondering how it differs from a Nazi concentration camp: unlimited detention without verdict, abuse, and the downright denial of civil rights. Maybe there is torture, too.

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 23 Jun 06 - 08:04 AM

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. defines concentration camp as:

    a camp where non-combatants of a district are accommodated, such as those instituted by Lord Kitchener during the South African war of 1899-1902; one for the internment of political prisoners, foreign nationals, etc., esp. as organized by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during the war of 1939-45

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: Slag
Date: 27 Jun 06 - 04:27 PM

Mickey Spillane lives. Mike Hammer with a typewriter (OK, keyboard). "I was working the day-watch out of homoicide division..."
Yeah, there's no bias in the mainstream American press. Drama, hard-nosed cynicism. Blather and bilge. The liberal fringe (which seems to be doing all the dog-wagging of late) should get a load of itself.

Civil rights are for civil (look the word up) people. Torture and torment are what millions of Iraqis have gone through with Hussein. Torture is what the surviving families and friends of 9/11 victims have gone through.

And yet, I can imagine very FEW instances where torture might possibly be justified (dire circumstance, lives in the ballance and extreemly limited time, Perhaps). We ought to strive to demonstrate our highest ideals to these lowest of enemies and I believe that for the most part we do. Ask yourself if you'd rather be detained at Gitmo or be in the hands of the Taliban or Al Qaeda?

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 11:09 AM

wot?

Subject: RE: Guantanamo Bay
From: GUEST,Chew
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 11:10 AM

Read it