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posted by on Tuesday January 17 2017, @05:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the they've-been-waterboarded-enough dept.

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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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:22AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:22AM (#455224) Journal

    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!

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:42AM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:42AM (#455331) Homepage Journal

    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

      by ledow (5567) on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:51AM (#455333) Homepage

      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

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:09PM (#455365) Homepage Journal

        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...

        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

          by bob_super (1357) on Thursday January 19 2017, @10:32PM (#456268)

          > 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 butthurt on Tuesday January 24 2017, @05:51AM

          by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @05:51AM (#457962) Journal

          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]