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Oman says it has accepted 10 inmates from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office.
[...] Oman said it accepted the prisoners at Obama's request. It did not name the prisoners.
"To meet a request by the US government to assist in settling the issue of the detainees at Guantanamo, out of consideration of their humanitarian situation, 10 people released from that prison arrived in the Sultanate of Oman for a temporary residency," a foreign ministry statement said.
19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were cleared for release just days ago.
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Oman Receives Ten Detainees Released From Guantanamo
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There *__is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ledow on Tuesday January 17 2017, @09:44PM
Not true.
Fourth Geneva Convention, 1949.
Article 2 states that signatories are bound by the convention both in war, armed conflicts ****where war has not been declared****, and in ****an occupation of another country's territory****.
Article 3 states that even where there is not a conflict of international character, the parties must as a minimum adhere to minimal protections described as: ****non-combatants****, members of armed forces who have laid down their arms, and combatants who are hors de combat (out of the fight) due to wounds, ****detention****, ****or any other cause shall in all circumstances be treated humanely****, with the following prohibitions:
(a) ****violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture****;
(b) taking of hostages;
(c) ****outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment****
(d) ****the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.****
Any country signed up to the Geneva conventions would NOT be able to take even an innocent civilian, imprison them without proper trial and/or humiliate, degrade, torture or be cruel to them
Nineteen FUCKING Forty Nine, we knew those things were outrageous, uncivilised, unnecessary, and not to be done.
196 countries are party to it, but still the US won't sign up to protect basic human rights like that.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 17 2017, @11:09PM
The US signed up for it, all right, back in 1955. The problem is, of course, that they didn't actually do what they promised to do.
The US refuses to support the enforcement mechanism added much more recently, the International Criminal Court, because if they did they'd have to send a bunch of people over for trial. Some of the people that should be turned over for trial (but won't be) include but are not limited to:
- Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton: targeting of civilians (drone strikes), targeting of hospitals (specifically, the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan)
- George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, George Tenet: Torture of prisoners (mostly but not only Gitmo), aggression (against Iraq), targeting of civilians (drone strikes)
- Bill Clinton, William Cohen: targeting of civilians (missile strikes at pharmaceutical factories)
- George H.W. Bush, Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. if he were still alive, Donald Rumsfeld again, Colin Powell: targeting of civilians (Baghdad and other civilian infrastructure within Iraq), use of radioactive weapons (also Iraq)
- Ronald Reagan if he were still alive, George H.W. Bush, Caspar Weinberger, Robert McFarlane: aggression (Grenada), targeting of civilians (Nicaragua), proliferation of chemical weapons (Iraq)
- Almost everybody still alive who was in charge of the Vietnam War: aggression (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), use of chemical weapons, targeting of civilians.
And that's just the big names: There are numerous other military officers and individual soldiers that could also be swept up. By a lot of definitions, the US is the largest and most dangerous "rogue state" to have ever existed.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:12AM
(specifically, the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan)
I've not made my mind up on that one. That could have just been the "fog of war". I think, more likely, the Afghans set that one up, intentionally. It's possible that our people knew what they were shooting at. But, whether they knew or not, they should have known. GPS, satellite mapping, blah, blah blah - they should have known.
But, I agree, to greater and lesser degrees, with your list.
Let's not forget the actors from the "intelligence" communities. The CIA staged a fake attack to fan the flames, in order to get us into Vietnam. The CIA, among others, permitted the White House to pervert inteligence reports to get us into Iraq. Intel. Make those bastards responsible for their work, too.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:02AM
I have, for two very specific reasons:
1. There is substantial evidence that the soldiers who actually carried out the attack radioed back to say, in essence, "Umm, the target you just gave us looks like a hospital. Are you sure this is legal?" and had their orders confirmed.
2. When the first bomb hit, hospital personnel immediately got on the phone with their contact at the US command and told them exactly what was going on. The attack continued for 30 minutes, much more time than a commander would need to reach the units carrying out the attack and stop it.
3. MSF had told the US military exactly where their hospital was, complete with exact GPS coordinates and marking the rooftop with a giant red cross just like they were supposed to. So anybody picking targets in the comfort of HQ somewhere had every opportunity to know what they were attacking.
OK, so maybe the Afghans lied about what the target was, but the fact is that the US Army had every reason to know they were attacking a civilian hospital, and did so anyways. That is a clear and obvious war crime, under the First and Fourth Geneva Conventions [icrc.org].
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @02:43PM
1. I've not seen that evidence - can't make a call on that.
2. Yeah, good luck getting a telephone call through off-hours, and more so during an active operation.
3. That is the most convincing evidence that I've seen. If our troops didn't know they were shooting at a hospital, then they were derelict in their duties.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 17 2017, @11:12PM
None of the above applies to non-uniformed combatants. Which is what I said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:21AM
But it does apply to un-informed Buzzards, and therein lies the rub! Just because you are ignorant of international law, that does not mean that international law is not interested in you, to paraphrase Trotsky.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:51AM
I apparently know far more about the GC than you do, ar. In boot camp you're specifically told not to ditch your uniform to avoid capture because they can do whatever the hell they want with you if you do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:22AM
GC? There are the Protocols Additional of 1977 [icrc.org]! Do try to keep up, Maginot Buzzington! The point is, oh, hell, this will take much too long. Stay in uniform, because if you are not when captured, you are a spy. Then they can execute you, because you are a lying perfidious coward. If you are recognized as an enemy combatant, you have status as a Prisoner of War. (Just hope it is not a "war on something" where there is no one to surrender, or they never, ever, have to let you go!) But back to it. Being a combatant "out of uniform" is one thing, being a non-uniformed combatant is quite another. And "uniforms" are not required after the Additional protocols, just a signifying mark or openly bearing weapons. What the Bush administration tried to do was introduce a totally new category, "illegal enemy combatants" Silly, if they are enemy, they are combatant. If they are illegal, they are not combatant, but something else like looters, pirates, Republican party operatives like Abrahamoff. But it is never illegal to be a combatant. Unless you are a Mercenary. Then the uniform is not enough? But the point is: POW? Benevolent quarantine until cessation of hostilities. Not a POW? Then you had better have a crime to charge them with. If not, they are refugees, persons, humans with rights and must be let go. Just because Republicans are peeing their pants (and paying others to do so, it seems) in fear over "the Worst of the Worst", that does not mean that any state has the right to hold someone indefinitely without charges. It could be you!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:42AM
That "illegal enemy combatants" thing you actually have someone else to thank for. We've been using this interpretation at least since I was in boot camp and that was back early in Clinton's first term.
P.S. Paragraphs are your friend, you eye-straining bastard.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:51AM
Just because your CO has broken the law, and his CO, and everyone up to the President himself, it does not mean you are excused under international conventions and CERTAINLY not morally.
No such definition as you state exists in the law. You are a civilian, or a combatant. Both are protected under the conventions and YOU NEED TO TAKE PEOPLE TO TRIAL if you've captured them and are unsure of which they are. You are NOT allowed to torture any of them.
And whether or not what you were told is correct, man the fuck up and admit that you shouldn't be in a position where people who could well be the local waiter (but you have no idea because you've imprisoned them without proper trial, tortured them for evidence - thus corrupting any trial - etc), and never formally charged many of them in all the years they've been in there.
"I was just following orders, because my CO said it was legal" is EXACTLY why the Geneva conventions exist and were brought in at the times they were. You do know what category of people that bred, what it did to "ordinary" people told to do just that, in a culture where that was accepted by their peers and CO, and who were still being charged by courts and imprisoned because "Well, you should have known better" into their 90's?
Whether or not the line of law does or does not describe and include your (fabricated) omitted category (Hint: Don't talk crap), what kind of person are you to even try to argue that?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:09PM
Why would I do that? I don't agree with you. Uniformed soldiers deserve protection because it's something we've more or less all agreed upon. Civilians deserve protection because they're not fighting. Non-uniformed guerrillas and spies and such? Shoot them dead on the spot for all I care. I mean you'd better be able to back up your assertion but they don't deserve a damned bit of consideration. They're intentionally endangering non-combatants' lives to save their own skins. They are scum and the world is better off without them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday January 19 2017, @10:32PM
> Non-uniformed guerrillas and spies and such? Shoot them dead on the spot for all I care. I mean you'd better be able to back
> up your assertion but they don't deserve a damned bit of consideration. They're intentionally endangering non-combatants' lives
> to save their own skins. They are scum and the world is better off without them.
That's pretty much what the SS were doing to the Resistance, and anyone else helping fight the Occupation (a good reason why waterboarding is a very touchy subject in Europe). It has been decided that this was not something that should be repeated by "civilized" nations.
Despite the victors getting to write the History books, you're placing yourself on the wrong side on this one...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 20 2017, @12:43AM
I'm utterly unconcerned about which side of history I'm on. By my moral code I am spot on the money and that's all that matters.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday January 24 2017, @05:51AM
Non-uniformed guerrillas and spies and such? Shoot them dead on the spot for all I care.
This sounds very much like Mr. Obama's Disposition Matrix, the difference being that many of the killings he ordered were done from afar rather than face-to-face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:29AM
In which case they are civilians and have even more rights than POWs.
The attempt to make them neither POWs nor civilians is obvious bullshit.
The only people willing to give validity to this wholly made up third status are those don't care for the rule of law.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:49AM
Spies and guerrilla fighters were intentionally excluded from the GC. Nobody thought they should have the protections of uniformed combatants or non-combatant civilians. Mostly they thought they should just be shot. You are simply wrong. Move along.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:15AM
> Spies and guerrilla fighters were intentionally excluded from the GC.
Maybe so, but you've offered no proof that it was intentional.
> Nobody thought they should have the protections of uniformed combatants or non-combatant civilians.
And that's a full-load of bullshit. Nowhere does the GC or anything else mention "combatant civilians" or any name for this literally undefined third category.
You got two choices - soldiers or civilians. Full stop.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:33AM
"None of the above applies to non-uniformed combatants. Which is what I said."
"Non-unformed combatants" are a made up thing; they are simply ordinary civilians. Some were just engaged in self defense at the time of their capture -- in the USA they might call it 'stand your ground' -- still civilians though. Others would be civilian criminals. And in the case of some of the people who were hauled off to Gitmo they weren't even combatants in any meaningful sense of the word, no matter how loosely applied... at worst their crime was being "present".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:47AM
No, it's a category that was intentionally excluded from protections in the GC. It covers spies and guerrilla fighters and nobody thought they deserved protections.
I don't have issue with you saying there were probably people hauled off that shouldn't have been. I have issue with anyone who says combatants not part of a uniformed military are entitled to GC protections. They're not. You are simply wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:20AM
No, it's a category that was intentionally excluded from protections in the GC.
I have issue with anyone who says combatants not part of a uniformed military are entitled to GC protections. They're not. You are simply wrong.
It is important, however, to note that this finding is predicated on the view that there is no gap between the Third and the Fourth Geneva Conventions. If an individual is not entitled to the protections of the Third Convention as a prisoner of war (or of the First or Second Conventions) he or she necessarily falls within the ambit of Convention IV, provided that its article 4 requirements are satisfied. The Commentary to the Fourth Geneva Convention asserts that;
every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, or again, a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant#cite_note-4 [wikipedia.org]
*Nobody* was "intentionally excluded" from the GC.
And separately...
I don't have issue with you saying there were probably people hauled off that shouldn't have been.
Probably all of them. Even the ones that deserve to be strung up for the rest of their lives. Nothing they did warrants the lunacy the United States engaged in to 'get them'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:18AM
Persons protected by the Convention are those who at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.
source [icrc.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:01AM
Yes siree bob.
And GWB and the little Dick and war criminals guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As well as violation of the rules of the Geneva Convention.
Pretty much says that americans are assholes and assholes against humanity.
Now que the orange haired freak.