<p><a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4203803.stm[/url]”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4203803.stm</a>
The four Britons who were still being held by US forces at Guantanamo Bay
“Over 40,000 pieces of mail have come in and out of here,” Adm. Harris says. "If you chose to write one of them a letter, all you’d need to do is put their name on it, say ‘Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,’ put our ZIP code on it, and they will get that letter.returned to the UK on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar from London and Moazzam Begg from Birmingham were detained as part of the US-led War on Terror and have been held for nearly three years.</p>
<p>At least two of them were apparently held in solitary confinement, in small cells, apparently with no natural light, nothing to do or read, and nobody but the occasional guard to talk to</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.alternet.org/rights/37869/[/url]”>http://www.alternet.org/rights/37869/</a>
After the U.S. Senate voted last year to strip Guantanamo detainees of the right to habeas corpus, you’d think it would have dashed the hopes of the desperate prisoners that the world’s greatest deliberative body would prove their salvation. But Saifullah Paracha is apparently an eternal optimist. In March, after 18 months in Guantanamo, Paracha, 58, decided to write a letter to 98 U.S. senators describing his plight. The senators haven’t responded, though it’s hard to blame them. They don’t know the letters exist. The Department of Defense won’t release them for delivery.</p>
<p><a href=“On Lisa Rein's Radar: Red Cross Confirms Prisoner Abuse In Guantanamo”>http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/002323.php</a>
The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantanamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantanamo.</p>
<p>If the BBC article (and other articles you link) and the OpinionJournal article don’t match, it could be due to reporting errors, the fact that the reports cover different time periods, or that someone is lying. What is your best guess?</p>
<p>I may deal with the rest of this tripe later, or maybe not. I’m celebrating the email I received just 15 minutes ago from my nephew…he’s home from Afghanistan, and will be spending the holidays with his wife, four children, and me! He says the rest of my guys over there were fine, as of a few days ago.:)</p>
<p>Not that it really matters, but a quick correction: In haste and excitement, I said nephew; I meant cousin. Nephew is still there, along with little brother, and a friend. This will be a nice Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>There was an interesting article in this week’s Washington Post about the “high-value” detainees at Guantanamo and the methods used to interrogate them. For the first time Bush has admitted to transferring prisoners secretly to other countries in order to hold them without cause or trial, and to using an “alternative set of procedures” for these detainees.</p>
<p>To the original subject of the thread, though: </p>
<p>There is also an article in this week’s Washington Post discusses the house seats currently at risk of being captured by a democratic candidate. According to the article, the number has jumped from 19 to 36, and the article cites among other things Bush’s declining popularity and economic concerns as reason that the seats are now at risk of becoming democratic. </p>
<p>A brief excerpt from the article:</p>
<p>“Privately, many Republican strategists fear there may be no way to prevent the democrats from winning the House, where Republicans hold 231 of 435 seats. One prominent consultant–who like many of the people interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer candid appraisals–put the odds of a democratic takeover at 75 percent. Another strategist who has worked as part of Bush’s campaign team says he believes there is a 9-in-10 chance the Republicans will lose their 12-year-old House majority.” </p>
<p>I have to say I didn’t read the majority of the thread, so my apologies if this has already been discussed and beaten into the ground.</p>
<p>I’ve actualy stopped responding to posts made by REL because I honestly don’t think he knows anything about this country or the people who live in it… but that’s just my opinion… </p>
<p>However, anyone who thinks that Bush “crushed” Kerry really should have their head examined. And that’s my say on the matter.</p>
It amazes me the default position is that GOP leaders lie. Did it occur to anyone that the British detainees might be lying about their treatment to discredit the US, just as the al Qaeda manual trains them to do?</p>
<p>Why would the government even release them if they were actually “al Qaeda” terrorists, like you believe? That doesn’t even begin to make sense…</p>
<p>The US released several suspected terrorists from Guantanamo to their home nations, including Britain, at the request of those governments. I believe one of the detainees released to Britain was involved in terrorist activity after his release. </p>
<p>In any event, I don’t know the details regarding the case cited by GLA. My point was that it is possible that the persons complaining of poor treatment are lying, not that I know they did lie.</p>
<p>I thought you might be interested in this information regarding 2 of the 4 the British detainees profiled in the BBC article linked in your comment #221:</p>
<p>Thank you for the info, DRJ4 and sjmom2329. It does shed more light on those two detainees, at least.</p>
<p>I still think that, even after subtracting the dozen or so baddies, 300 out of 770 is an incredibly high number of mistaken captures. I wish they would not wait years and years before suddenly deciding someone was not a threat - that kind of apathy is bad for everyone involved.</p>
<p>Nobody said “mistaken captures.” Anyone at Gitmo got there on their own, based on their own actions/associations. Battlefield captures. The fact that we release them because we pay scrupulous attention to the strictures of international “conventions” should be a good thing–instead, it’s turned on its head, and used as further “evidence” that we are an evil and corrupt society. You are a bunch of naifs, and although I wouldn’t truly wish it on you, you deserve a personal tour through the basements of the Middle East, chained to a wall, so you could discuss “degrading or humiliating” treatment with the experts–sorry, I meant the “baddies”.</p>
<p>I don’t know that everyone who is dissatisfied with Gitmo necessarily is a naif. Some have articulated legitimate strategic and political reasons for the entire facility being a bit of a mistake without resorting to catcalls and “Bush is bad”-style rhetoric. </p>
<p>The fact is, the entire facility is a damned if we do, damned if we don’t situation. We can’t really posture out of this one. If we keep the detainees there, we aren’t always following international conventions. If we release them, we bow to international pressure and have copious amounts of finger wagging done in our general direction.</p>
<p>All this while many other countries, including many in the First World, rather brazenly pick and choose which conventions to follow.</p>
<p>But that’s the life of the superpower and being the party in charge.</p>
<p>I do think that people, even suspected terrorists, ought to know of the crimes with which they are charged. </p>
<p>This isn’t the case with the majority of the detainees, who are held without necessarily a shred of evidence against them, with no known “crime”.</p>
<p>Perhaps most of them are out to hurt Americans. But then charge them with the crime, present them with evidence. Otherwise, any Muslim, who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, could be captured and held INDEFINITELY, with no formal charges. That is just plain wrong, in a civilized society.</p>