Wikileaks has released information on Guantanamo detainees. And as a lot of us have been saying, many of the people held there were completely innocent.
An assessment of 780 people detained at Gitmo at one time or another shows that 220 really were/are dangerous terrorists. Another 380 were “foot soldiers,” low-level people with ties to various extremist or insurgent groups but who had no access to intelligence.
And at least 150 were completely innocent Aghanis and Pakistanis, some of whom were sold to security forces for a bounty. Juan Cole says, “Wearing a Casio watch could be a cause for arrest, apparently, because al-Qaeda types used them as timers.” And in many cases their documents contain no accusations against them. Yet they were held for months and years and “interrogated” just the same.
In May 2003, for example, Afghan forces captured Prisoner 1051, an Afghan named Sharbat, near the scene of a roadside bomb explosion, the documents show. He denied any involvement, saying he was a shepherd. Guantánamo debriefers and analysts agreed, citing his consistent story, his knowledge of herding animals and his ignorance of “simple military and political concepts,†according to his assessment. Yet a military tribunal declared him an “enemy combatant†anyway, and he was not sent home until 2006.
See, righties, this is why some of us have issues with military tribunals. Several other similar stories have come out of the leaks.
The 172 men remaining at Gitmo have been rated ‘high risk,” but then so were a lot of other detainees who were eventually transferred and even released.
At least some of the remaining crew really are hard-core terrorists with ties to the 9/11 perps. But the issue is that, since evidence against them was obtained through torture, they can’t be properly tried. But they really are dangerous, so neither can they be released. No one has any idea what to do with them, except keep them at Gitmo.
Kafka would be sooooooooooooo proud. *
*And yes, I know the opposite would be true.
Eventual it will all fade into obscurity..and the saga of Guantanamo will be relegated to dusty old pages hoping to be uncovered by some history geek to counter argument that Americans and their principles are the greatest gift the world has ever seen. The whole Guantanamo episode has been a shit stain on American history, not that we were lily white to begin with, but nothing as blatantly barbaric and primitive as George Bush and his henchmen so cleverly devised. In the beginning it sure was a hell of a show..The worst the worse.
At least some of the remaining crew really are hard-core terrorists with ties to the 9/11 perps.
Based on… what? That the Bush/Obama Administration has told us so? And has told us so A LOT? And this proposition has duly tested the evidence of the proposition in a well-established regular legal process, such as a federal court or regularly convened military court-martial? Yes, I know we’ve been told all about KSM and Ramzi al-Shibh, etc., and their extroardinary badness, etc…. but other than the five or six men convicted before the highly controversial military tribunals, some of whom have been released, and at least one of whom stood mute during a trial (whose legitimacy the military itself is reexamining on its own motion)… all we have to this day are accusations, and the continuation of “trust us” that we loved so much when Bush uttered it.
While I’m willing to consider the possibility that after almost a decade of my country’s outrageous [and now, bipartisan] lawlessness some of the uncharged/untried/unconvicted men it is holding (a tiny fraction) might be bad people, perhaps even responsible for terrorism, or the 9-11 attacks itself… I’m no longer willing to accept it solely on the say-so of a government official– ANY government official… Now, it’s SHOW ME. Present the evidence. Try ’em, convict ’em, and if it holds up on a proper and lawful appeal comporting with our Constitution, then go ahead and hang ’em for all I care… But until then, I think we all err egregiously by buying into the narrative that there is so much as a single terrorist at GTMO or anywhere else in American custody until our government is forced to SHOW US and PROVE IT. The alternative allows for the bullsh** we have now… GUILT BY CONTINUOUS ACCUSATION. Nope: we can’t go there.
What we have left are men who are TOO DANGEROUS TO TRY, period, because our (allegedly) big D Democratic government simply doesn’t want to have to reconsider its Orwellian “look forward not backward” abrogation of law, honor and decency, as it would should how we’ve actually treated these men have to be revealed at a public trial (of any kind).
Try ’em. If they’re acquitted– they walk. Period. We either believe in our system, or we don’t. Clearly, the people in power… don’t. And I submit to you, that is infinitely more dangerous than the potential for a terror suspect to beat the rap.
dog,
Some great points.
Especially about ‘looking forward, not back.’
If the innocent amongst the Gitmo prisoners could have seen and heard trials for the members of the Bush & Cheney Cabal, it might have mitigated some of their anger. It might have mitigated my anger if I was in their shoe’s.
But as it stands now, if I’m still in Gitmo after all these years, even if I was the calmest and most innococent shepard in all Afghanistan, and I wasn’t a terrorist before, I may be now. And that’s why the assholes in the Obama administration can’t and won’t release them – because of the lawless mistakes and disregard for International Conventions on Torture of the Bush Crime Family. It’s a horrible form of Catch 22 for the people in Gitmo, and we need to figure out something. NOW! Like trials held in the country, and not tribunals. But we can’t. Becuase the same fucking gutless cowards in both houses of Congress who ok’d Bush going into needless wars, and turned their back to torture, are also the one ones who didn’t want public trials, and were also the ones who didn’t have the decency and spine to impeach him for heinous crimes too numerous to mention, and complete disregard for the Constitution and the laws of this country.
I weep for what happened to America since the 2000 SCOTUS decision (pay-back). And I’m still pissed, and always will be. And they only thing I hope for every day, is that Bush & Cheney get THEIR day in court – at The Hague.