[Vision2020] [Bulk] Re: GITMO Detainees Can Challenge Detention

[Chasuk]

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 16:13, Donovan Arnold
<donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Now, you are doing it again. Just going along. Because Bush is a bad
> president, and abused his power, we want to strip the right of the military
> to contain and detain enemy combatants trying to kill them and you.

This power wasn't granted until post-9/11.   Specifically, the
government means alleged members and supporters of al Qaida or the
Taliban when it says "enemy combatants."  Properly, our Gitmo
detainees should be prisoners of war, with all of the attendant rights
under the Hague and Geneva Conventions.  So this isn't so much a
matter of stripping the military of a right that it has historically
had, but of restoring  legal rights to prisoners -- rights which were
taken away with dubious justification, and during a time of public
hysteria.

> When President Obama tries to get troops in Afghanistan and
> Pakistan to take out the Taliban but cannot, because US Troops cannot Shoot,
> Contain, or Detain the unlawful combatants

On the battlefield, our troops will be able shoot as many enemy
soldiers as they please.  Once they have been captured, they are
prisoners of  war, and can and will be contained and detained, but
that containment and detainment will be in accordance with the Hague
and Geneva Conventions.

Remember that the relevant chapters and articles of the Hague and
Geneva Conventions were enacted so that neither we, nor anyone else,
would repeat the WWII atrocities of Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.
If you don't believe that we are capable of such atrocities, I point
to Abu Ghraib as a foretaste.  Also remember that Gitmo and Abu Ghraib
are military prisons with public identities.  What happens to those
prisoners that are in the many CIA secret prisons -- "black sites" --
that exist in countries such as Thailand, Afghanistan, and several
Eastern European democracies?

Chas