Guantanamo protest

On Jan. 11 thousands of Amnesty International supporters, including our local group, staged protests in more than 30 countries spanning all five major continents calling for an end to the unlawful detention centers at Guantanamo Bay.

I noticed The Star let this important anniversary go unmarked (except for a tiny picture showing demonstrators in D.C.).

Six years ago, the U.S. began detaining people at Guantanamo, without charge, without trial, without end. Since then, conservatives and liberals, military officers, interrogators, senators and representatives have condemned the detention camps there as immoral and ineffective.

I believe the perpetrators of the heinous attacks of 9/11 must be brought to justice. I believe the U.S. has a duty to protect its citizens. Guantanamo Bay helps us do neither.

Justice only comes when governments uphold the rule of law and universally respect human rights. The detainees at Guantanamo must be brought to trial or released.

Kara Erickson
Group coordinator, Amnesty International
Local Group No. 115
Kansas City, Kan.

Comments

[CRD]

They charged O.J., Lloyd.

Seriously, you don't see the difference between these guys and O.J.? The utter injustice and insult to American rule of law of holding these people without any recourse to legal process whatsoever?

If we've got proof that they're dangerous to us, then charge and convict them. If we don't have proof that they're dangerous, then why are we holding them?

[Engineer]

CED
And O. J. was innocent, Johnie said so. If you are really serious I suggest you read the document and see how it distorts some facts. For instance, as I have previously indicated, the government documents on which this defense plea claims to be based state the al Qaeda/Talaban membership of the detaniees as follows:
1. al Qaeda 32% @.al Qaeda and Taliban 28%
3. Taliban 22% 4. Al Qaeda or Taliban 7% 5. Unidentified Affiliation 10% 6. Other 1%
If we were convinced they were not dangerous, that we could get no useful information from them and there was someplace they could go why would we go to the trouble and expense of holding them? What would you do wih the Uighers?

[Arminius]

Jim:

"Libya's Afghanistan/Taliban support is a completely separate issue from this. Libya didn't support it because they diplomatic ties and wanted to give the Taliban the benefit of the doubt. They were wrong, but that has nothing to do with the negotiations they were already in with us."

Wow, the post ignorant post in this thread. Libya wanted to give the Taliban the "benefit of the doubt"? Sure. Five years after we already knew they were nuts.

[CRD]

Wow, Jim. That was some article. I knew the case against the detainees was fuzzy, but it really underscores just how fuzzy. No wonder the Administration doesn't want to have to bring charges against them.

[CRD]

"You do know that the document you link is a Defense Lawyers output? IMO it distorts the situation as defense attorney documents very often do."

What's the basis for your opinion? Can you point us to documentation that contradicts the facts as presented?

[Engineer]

Jim
You do know that the document you link is a Defense Lawyers output? IMO it distorts the situation as defense attorney documents very often do. Actually, according to the Government figures quoted, 89% of the detainees are members of al Qaeda or the Taliban or both. They go through some typical defense attorney reasoning to get the figures on membership you quote. As to the Uighers, the situation is complex. These people are a Chinese Turkic minority and are Muslims. They had fled China and were in Afghanistan and then fled to Pakistan. They were taken, apparently under arms, but it Military Tribunal has determined that they were not armed combatants. The problem is what to do with them. It can be assumed that as they fled China neither do they wish to return there nor does the Government of China want to accept their return. Considering their background there is no reason that we should want them in the US. Very probably neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan wants nor would accept them. So they are a problem but what is to be done with them?

[Jim]

Arminius, you should go back to stalking Lee Judge, because you don't know what you're talking about.

The history with Libya is well-documented, I'm not buying any Clinton "myth making." It was BUSH who actually got the job done with the weapons program by standing his ground. This started in early 2001, right after he took office. He's tried the same approach to N. Korea and it appears to have worked (though we'll see if they follow through on their end.).

Libya's Afghanistan/Taliban support is a completely separate issue from this. Libya didn't support it because they diplomatic ties and wanted to give the Taliban the benefit of the doubt. They were wrong, but that has nothing to do with the negotiations they were already in with us.

Unbelievable. People accuse me of being reflexively anti-Bush, but when I say he got something exactly right, they attack me for it anyway.

[Jim]

Arminius, you should go back to stalking Lee Judge, because you don't know what you're talking about.

The history with Libya is well-documented, I'm not buying any Clinton "myth making." It was BUSH who actually got the job done with the weapons program by standing his ground. This started in early 2001, right after he took office. He's tried the same approach to N. Korea and it appears to have worked (though we'll see if they follow through on their end.).

Libya's Afghanistan/Taliban support is a completely separate issue from this. Libya didn't support it because they diplomatic ties and wanted to give the Taliban the benefit of the doubt. They were wrong, but that has nothing to do with the negotiations they were already in with us.

Unbelievable. People accuse me of being reflexively anti-Bush, but when I say he got something exactly right, they attack me for it anyway.

[Arminius]

Jim:

"You don't know your history, ryder. Libya had been in discussions with the Brits and with us since the Clinton Administration to normalize relations and get back on everyone's good side."

You're rewriting history. If Libya had wanted to get on our good side, they would have supported military action against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. However, they were one of just three nations (Cuba and Iraq were the others) who opposed such action.

In addition, Libya expressed concerns to Italy's ambassador to Libya that the U.S. might do to him what was done to Saddam.

You have bought into some of Clinton Inc.'s myth-making.

[Jim]

Ryder, it's not something I'm saying, it's something Flynt Leverett, who was Bush's Middle East policy expert for the National Security Council in '02 and '03 has said. He was part of the continued negotiations with Libya when Bush took office, and then was intimately involved in getting them into compliance with their obligations under the agreement with respect to weapons programs.

It was a carrot and stick approach. We offered to help lift UN sanctions on Libya in return for the Lockerbie admission, restitution and prosecution of the guilty. Then, in order to come out from under US sanctions, Libya had to declare its weapons and open up for inspections.

This is all well-documented. Just because you don't want to believe it doesn't change the fact that it happened.

[Jim]

"I think the seriousness of our intent too, also made Libya an instant friend that gave up their nukes....hmmmmm."

You don't know your history, ryder. Libya had been in discussions with the Brits and with us since the Clinton Administration to normalize relations and get back on everyone's good side.

It started in the late 90s with the admission of guilt over Pan Am 103 and paying restitution, and ended with the declaration, inspection and divestment of its bio, chemical and nuclear capabilities in '03.

These were all conditions that were demanded by both the Clinton and Bush Administration and followed through over several years.

It was not, as you put it, a sudden "we give up" panic move because of the Iraq war or Guantanamo.

[Stifled Freedom]

Oh, and all the Johnson County charges of prostitution for these and other operators. Most have been dropped by the DA's office. I have not heard of a single conviction or plea bargin in any of these cases. What does that tell you? Tells me insufficient evidence.

[Jim]

The assumption of Guantanamo defenders is that everyone there is guilty, which is provably false.

Five Chinese Muslim detainees are sitting in Guantanamo more than two years after being found inncoent by military tribunals. The US doesn't want to send them back to China and doesn't want to grant them asylum here, so they've been sitting in Guantanamo, living as prisoners, ever since.

Last year, Seton Hall Law School released a report based on the Defense Department's own data on the detainees themselves. They went through legal findings and reports about where and how the detainees were caught in the first place.

Here's the Defense Department's own assessment on the makeup of it's detainee population:

- Only 8 percent of the detainees were characterized (in the Defense Department data) as Al Qaeda fighters.

- Of the remaining detainees, 40 percent have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda at all.

- As for those picked up in Afghanistan, "86 percent were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody."

- "This 86 percent of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time when the U.S. offered large bounties for capture of suspected terrorists."

The captives in these mass roundups were hardly screened carefully for their terrorist connections by the bounty hunters, nor were they carefully screened, according to international law criteria, by our armed forces.

One of the reasons I think the White House wants to keep these people in eternal limbo is so the word won't get out about how wrong they've gotten this.

Here's the link to the report (pdf version):

http://law.shu.edu/aaafinal.pdf

[Stifled Freedom]

CRD, thanks for the recap, but restating the facts doesn't change anything. I already saw this indictment.

Are they flight risks? Probably. But you have to consider the severity of the crime too. We dont hold poeple of high flight risks without bond for speeding tickets either.

Jack, slavery is not (and has not been) allegged or charged in these cases. The definition of trafficking is very broad and does NOT require force or restraint or slavery. I have said this many times and people just continue to throw that slavery thing because they have been brainwashed. They ran a brothel....just like what is legal in Nevada. And that is all the indictment says. And they going to get 10 years for it in KS.

The terrorists are theat to safety, but I dont think a massage parlor is a threat to national security. I think the US attorney's office has made its point. They shut it down. Now go find some corrupt politicians or terrorists. All the rest of the incarcaration without bond and possible 10 year sentences are an overload to an already overloaded prison and criminal justice system.

[CRD]

"You don't know what benefits have resulted."

Exactly right. We don't know of any benefits, and we do know that the rule of law -- as well as our standing in the world -- has been undermined.

[Engineer]

jack
You don't know what benefits have resulted. There have been statements that a number of attacks were prevented. There are provisions for military tribunals. Perhaps we should try some at Gitmo for assaults on guards. And if we were anything like those we oppose we would have executed the prisoners at Gitmo rather than holding them in relative comfort. Maybe cut off a few selected heads on TV. Not that I am recommending this, I'm just pointing out the great gulf there is between our actions and theirs. Shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that nothing we have done even starts to approach what Islamic terrorists do and want to do.

[CRD]

Well-stated.

[jack]

I fail to see what holding some creeps for engaging in slavery has to do with Guantanamo. The massage parlor creeps have had hearings, etc. Those in Guantanamo have not (at least none worth the name).

There are very real risks for living in a free country. One is that some bad people are going to do bad things. Preemptive detention violates everything that our nation claims it stands for.

The detainies are not POWs. Legally they are not even human. This is wrong. If the government can declare certain people not human, it is a very short step to doing all kinds of reprehensible things.

The terrorists can not destroy us. They are only capable of hurting us to a small degree. They can do so in a flamboyant, newsmaking and scary way. But they can't bring down who and what we are. Only we can do that.

If in order to defeat our enemy we become just like them, what have we gained? Guantanamo, waterboarding and the other abhorant things we are engaging in brings us very little benefit while harming the very core of what we are. It just ain't worth the price.

[CRD]

"Ling Xu, also known as Cherry, 45, Zhong Yan Liu, also known as Lucky, 35, and Cheng Tang, also known as Tom, 21, all citizens of China residing in Overland Park, Kan., and Hongmei Madole, also known as Hongmei Zhou, 31, of Olathe, Kan., a native of China who is a conditional resident alien in the United States based upon marriage to a U.S. citizen, were charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City on Thursday, May 31, 2007. The federal indictment replaces a criminal complaint filed on May 11, 2007."

"Xu, Liu and Tang were ordered held in federal detention without bond pending trial. The court established conditions for the release of Madole, who remains in federal custody until she is able to meet bond."

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/news2007/xu.ind.htm

Yeah, it's just crazy how three aliens charged with human trafficking weren't released on bond pending trial. I'm sure they're not flight risks or anything.

[Stifled Freedom]

Ms Erickson, you have absurd misuses of US govt authority right in your own backyard in KCK. I know I have harped on this before, but the facts have not changed. The US attorney's office still holds those massage business operators without a trail or bail in the US Marshalls' detention center in downtown KC. Its approaching one year now. No visitors. No mail. I dont know hwo they get legal council. They could not get ACLU help if they wanted. No one can contact them.

OJ Simpson broke into a hotel room with a gun and attempted to kidnap and steal. That is very violent. He got bail....doubled now....but still bail.

These operators did nothing violent and they have not seen daylight in 8 months. And think what this is costing the taxpayer just to enforce a stupid moral code.

Ms Erickson, I hope your organization can help them.