Guantanomo interrogation video released - Page 5

galoisien · 07-16-2008, 08:39 PM

Okay, as one cools down, one feels kind of silly re-reading posts that were made in the spur of anger.

Of course, perhaps you weren't expecting much of anyone who befriends people still living in the Middle Ages.

ucsd_ucla_dad · 07-16-2008, 09:18 PM

Quote:

For years...and you don't have a problem with that ?

I don't want any of the detainees to be held any longer than necessary. If some of the detainees are found to have no offenses then I think they should be released asap and even compensated. However, just because someone is held for years doesn't mean that they should be released in this context. That's what I meant by different circumstances for different detainees.

garland · 07-16-2008, 09:25 PM

But the fact is, many were released after 4/5 years and no compensation or justification--just released, after all that time, for lack of reason to hold them any longer.

That bothers me.

ellemenope · 07-16-2008, 09:36 PM

That bothers me, too. And there was no way that you were allowed to prove that you weren't an enemy combatant within those 4-5 years.

ucsd_ucla_dad · 07-16-2008, 10:32 PM

garland:

It seems like a long time for someone to be held and then just released. I don't, of course, know the details of why they felt that long of a detention was needed.

alwaysamom · 07-16-2008, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Of course it's a sad case of a boy growing up in an extremist family but what else is there to do once they actually become an extremist and attack us?

ucsd/ucla dad, oh, I know. It's a very difficult situation and I don't pretend to know the answer. I have wondered if this boy is yet able to redeem himself in any way that would eventually lead to a somewhat normal North American life. His parents have done him no favors. I think maybe the powers that be, in both countries, don't know what to do with him, and thus, it's easy to just leave him where he is. The Canadian government has not made any overtures to Washington about allowing him to return to Canada, and this has caused a lot of controversy in the country. There are other sons, one of whom was badly wounded and is permanently (I believe) confined to a wheelchair. The father was killed. When the connection between this family and Al Qaeda was initially reported several years ago, many here felt that they should be deported and their citizenship revoked. There are very strong feelings, and I'm not sure that anyone is confident of a good solution.

I don't recall having read any comment on the situation from anyone associated with the Canadian military so I can't say how they feel. The Canadian mission in Afghanistan is not a popular one here, and I think most Canadians feel that the troops that are there should be brought home. As for Khadr, I would imagine that there would be some way that the military judicial system would take over from the U.S. if he were to be sent home. I certainly was not advocating releasing him so that he could come home to his mother and live in Toronto. With no end in sight, for either Iraq or Afghanistan, I guess I wonder how long Gitmo will be home to those remaining there, and also wonder what would be done if the troops did come home at some point in the near future (we can always hope!), but then what? When this is over, what happens to him and his fellow detainees then?

garland · 07-17-2008, 07:38 AM

UC dad: you tell me.

Quote:

A military tribunal determined last fall that Murat Kurnaz, a German national seized in Pakistan in 2001, was a member of al Qaeda and an enemy combatant whom the government could detain indefinitely at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The three military officers on the panel, whose identities are kept secret, said in papers filed in federal court that they reached their conclusion based largely on classified evidence that was too sensitive to release to the public.

In fact, that evidence, recently declassified and obtained by The Washington Post, shows that U.S. military intelligence and German law enforcement authorities had largely concluded there was no information that linked Kurnaz to al Qaeda, any other terrorist organization or terrorist activities.

In recently declassified portions of a January ruling, a federal judge criticized the military panel for ignoring the exculpatory information that dominates Kurnaz's file and for relying instead on a brief, unsupported memo filed shortly before Kurnaz's hearing by an unidentified government official.

Kurnaz has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since at least January 2002.

"The U.S. government has known for almost two years that he's innocent of these charges," said Baher Azmy, Kurnaz's attorney. "That begs a lot of questions about what the purpose of Guantanamo really is. He can't be useful to them. He has no intelligence for them. Why in the world is he still there?"

Panel Ignored Evidence on Detainee (washingtonpost.com)

He was released in 2006, a year after this article was published.

Hunt · 07-17-2008, 08:39 AM

Well, see, even if we find out that they weren't really America-hating radicals when they were first detained, they are all surely America-hating radicals NOW.