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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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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift.
-- Shelley
(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.