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posted by martyb on Thursday August 18 2016, @12:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the gradually-getting-Gitmo-gone dept.

Al Jazeera and Fox News (Tor-friendly archived copy) report that fifteen captives have been released from the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba. The prisoners, who were captured in Afghanistan and Yemen, are being transferred to the United Arab Emirates for settlement.

There remain 61 prisoners at the camp, of whom at least 19 have been cleared for release.


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:39PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:39PM (#389579)

    And it's not just the place itself.

    The reason Obama has always cited for not shutting it down is that the Republicans in Congress wouldn't let him shut it down. The thing is, what the Republicans actually refused to do was have the prisoners transferred to prisons in the United States, which is missing the entire point of the exercise: The US Constitution says it's illegal to imprison anybody without due process, and these prisoners have never received anything remotely resembling due process. Instead, they get kangaroo courts where if they demonstrate that they are completely innocent, they get to go right back to their cell and wait around some more. It doesn't matter one bit to the prisoners whether the prison is in Cuba or Kansas or Egypt, what matters is regaining their freedom and maybe seeing their family again.

    So it's not simply shutting down the building that matters. Prove these guys were really deserving of the treatment they are getting, or let them go with reparations and an apology. There's no excuse for anything else: They've had 15 years to come up with a reason, and 15 years for any of the intel sources to protect themselves. Enough with this "they're guilty but we can't tell anybody why" business.

    --
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 18 2016, @03:23PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 18 2016, @03:23PM (#389614) Journal

    There are problems with that due process thing. Those problems are precisely why the neocon regime created a new class of people, and a very special prison for them. See, there is no "due process" for prisoners of war. If you are an enemy, and you are captured, you are a prisoner for the duration, unless your nation makes some kind of prisoner exchange for you. There is no due process for POW's.

    Except - they aren't POW's either. Prisoners of war are entitled to all the considerations under the Geneva conventions, so this special class of "enemy combatants" was created to deprive them of any rights due to POW's. Including any possibility of being freed under a prisoner exchange agreement.

    There is no due process for any person who has been dehumanized. They aren't civilians, they aren't prisoners of war, they aren't anything really. They have no legal status, because the neocons deprived them of their very humanity. They are a new class of people, with no rights, period. There is no precedent in legal history, unless we compare them to the American Indian, or to the Jews in Hitler's Germany. No rights, no status, not even recognized as human, so human rights don't apply.

    There simply is no due process for them. They will rot in limbo, unless and until the government's embarrassment outweighs it's inertia. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, until acted upon by some external force. Government will sit on these people until pressure is brought to bear, sufficient to pry Uncle's ass off of them.

    • (Score: 2) by Jiro on Thursday August 18 2016, @10:03PM

      by Jiro (3176) on Thursday August 18 2016, @10:03PM (#389761)

      So tell me why Obama can't fix any of those things?

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 18 2016, @11:52PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 18 2016, @11:52PM (#389796) Journal

        A combination of two things, I think. Republicans will be outraged if those prisoners are brought to the US, or if they are freed. That outrage will be translated into lost power for the democrats.

        That, and Obama has no stomach for the fight.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:18AM (#389874)

      Geneva convention rights only protect uniformed (not undercover or otherwise blending in with noncombatants) military of a country that signs and abides by the Geneva convention.

      Here, we had roughly none of that: no uniform, not actual military, not under control of a country, and certainly not abiding by the Geneva convention. Probably some of them were captured in territory that de-jure belongs to a country that signed the Geneva convention, counting a previous government for the signature and pretending that the current government actually controls the territory.

      They get the Geneva convention rights that apply to undercover enemy spies: none at all. By that standard, we're being nice. It's legit to go full medieval on them.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 19 2016, @06:01PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 19 2016, @06:01PM (#390192) Journal

        That is not a bad observation. But, I'll counter that all of the jihadists represent Islam. They are members of a military force of a political movement. Islam isn't just a religion, it is also a political, judicial, and social structure. Think of the Holy Roman Empire, for comparison.

        Uniforms. You've got me on that one. We captured spies? Execute them. That can be justified. Indefinite imprisonment, deprived of all human rights cannot be justified.