Freed Gitmo Detainee Rejoins Al-Qaeda, Attacks US

Meadmaker said:
If it were the ACLU that were complaining about prisoner treatment and/or legal status, I wouldn't take more than passing notice. It's not. It's the Red Cross. They're the good guys, and I want our country to be on their side.
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Funny, that.

the ICRC said:
Geneva (ICRC) – On 18 January 2002, four delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including a medical delegate, started visiting the prisoners transferred from Afghanistan and detained by US forces at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. The delegates will register the prisoners and document the conditions of their arrest, transfer and detention.

Under an agreement with the US authorities, the visits are being conducted in accordance with the ICRC's standard working procedures, which involve talking to the prisoners in private and giving them the opportunity to exchange news with their families by means of Red Cross messages.

These procedures include submitting strictly confidential written reports on the delegates' findings to the detaining authorities. In no circumstances does the ICRC comment publicly on the treatment of detainees or on conditions of detention. The ICRC delegates will discuss their findings directly with the detaining authorities, submit their recommendations to them, and encourage them to take the measures needed to solve any problems of humanitarian concern.
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Emphasis is mine. There is a very good reason why the ICRC does did not comment publicly - but it probably will come off as lawyer-ly, so I'll spare you guys. :)

At any rate, we can at least agree that the ICRC - by their own definition - has failed their mission, right?

I can see why the ICRC objects to certain particulars of detainee treatment - it's their job as an advocate to the detainee to operate without the burden of responsibility of the national security and military necessity of a party to the conflict.

OK - I spared you guys the long version at least. Count your blessings. :)
 
Cylinder said:
Funny, that.



Emphasis is mine. There is a very good reason why the ICRC does did not comment publicly - but it probably will come off as lawyer-ly, so I'll spare you guys. :)
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I won't. This is just speculation of course, but basically, they know that the "bad guys" won't care anyway. Meanwhile, the "good guys" will take it to heart and do something to fix any problems. There's no point in trying to get all political about this.

Except, that's not what happened in this case. They told the government that things weren't so good, and the government told them to buzz off. So, somebody leaked the memo.


At any rate, we can at least agree that the ICRC - by their own definition - has failed their mission, right?
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Because someone in the organization violated procedure? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm not sure that that was a failure. Or do you mean that there mission was to assure appropriate treatment of the detainees, and they failed to assure that?
 
I just thought I'd correct a few errors here about Guantanamo Bay. The ICRC have never leaked anything about the prison - someone in the US Administration allegedly leaked details of an ICRC report to the New York Times. In response to the news article the ICRC refused to confirm or deny if the alleged contents of the report were genuine or not.

All of this happened in November 2004, and referred to an ICRC visit from July 2004. That's over 4 years ago. Notably, in late 2006 Khalid Shekh Mohamed was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, and he claims he was only ever treated humanely at the base.

The last ICRC press release that references prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay is from late 2007 and has only a single line commenting that the ICRC welcomed the combatant status review tribunals but expressed concern that many detainees did not have an established status yet.
 
Meanwhile, how's this for change?
Obama lets CIA keep controversial renditions tool

By Greg Miller | Washington Bureau January 31, 2009 WASHINGTON — The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President [URL="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/"]Barack Obama[/URL] left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact.

Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism—aside from Predator missile strikes—for taking suspected terrorists off the street.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-renditions_31jan31,0,2998929.story
 
Yeah.. pretty sick, in my opinion. I voted for Obama, but I don't support this extraordinary rendition stuff, at all.

I have no doubt that the ACLU will get on this.. and who knows, maybe Obama will change his tune on this one, as well.
 
Hopefully, "countries that cooperate with the US" will mean something different in the future. Hopefully, it won't mean, "countries that don't have any of those inconvenient human rights protections that we have to deal with in the US."

The basic concept of going in to foreign countries, capturing enemies, and bringing them to the US or to another nation, is not something I think people ought to get upset about. The concept of going into foreign countries, capturing enemies, and turning them over to some other foreign country so they can be tortured is, in my mind, a problem.
 
This is not good -- he plans to continue allowing extraordinary rendition. From what one of the quotes said it is actually to have an expanded role under this Administration.


INRM
 
Meadmaker said:
Hopefully, "countries that cooperate with the US" will mean something different in the future. Hopefully, it won't mean, "countries that don't have any of those inconvenient human rights protections that we have to deal with in the US."
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So why would the US send a detainee to a third country for interrogation other than to remain unhindered by US law?
 
Cylinder said:
So why would the US send a detainee to a third country for interrogation other than to remain unhindered by US law?
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Maybe the detainee is charged with a crime in that country? Or that country is an ally in the fight in which that detainee is engaged?


The reason the rendition policy was controversial under Bush was that it was widely perceived that the Bush administration was, indeed, using foreign countries to avoid US law. I have a problem with that. Rendition itself doesn't mean that. It means using our people to capture a person in country A, and turn him over to country B. There's nothing inherently immoral about such an action. As for legalities, it gets tricky. I'm sure that it breaks the laws of at least the country in which the person was captured but, in some cases, I don't have a problem with that.

If we find out where Osama is hiding, and the best way to get him out is to send in a team to get him, I'm sure that somewhere along the way they will be violating Pakistani law, somewhere. I don't have a problem with that. In his particular case, I would want him brought to the US, but in principle, if he is charged with a crime in Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia, I wouldn't have a problem with sending him there. On the other hand, if they took Osama, and told the government of Saudi Arabia, "Could you rough this guy up and wring whatever info you can out of him, but leave him alive and give him to us when you are done," I would have a problem with that.
 
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Saudis Issue List of 85 Terrorism Suspects

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Eleven Saudis who were released from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and then passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists are now believed to have fled the country and joined terrorist groups abroad, Saudi officials said Tuesday.

The 11 former detainees include two who were already identified last month as members of a Yemeni terrorist group. Their names were on a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects made public Tuesday by the Saudi Interior Ministry.

The announcement further underscored the difficulties faced by the Obama administration as it prepares to close the Guantánamo detention center. All told, 14 Saudis now appear to have rejoined terrorist groups after their return from Guantánamo, including the 11 living abroad and 3 who were rearrested in Saudi Arabia after their return.
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Meadmaker said:
The reason the rendition policy was controversial under Bush was that it was widely perceived that the Bush administration was, indeed, using foreign countries to avoid US law. I have a problem with that. Rendition itself doesn't mean that. It means using our people to capture a person in country A, and turn him over to country B. There's nothing inherently immoral about such an action. As for legalities, it gets tricky. I'm sure that it breaks the laws of at least the country in which the person was captured but, in some cases, I don't have a problem with that.
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Whatever you personally might believe, it's a simple fact that there was very strong opposition to the Bush administration's practise of extradition independent of how said prisoners were treated and if they were guilty or not. The very act of rendition itself was roundly condemned.

Heck, even the legal act of detaining people in a war zone was condemned, let alone the quite clearly illegal act of rendition.

(Rendition is clearly illegal under international law and domestic law).
 
Puppycow said:
Saudis Issue List of 85 Terrorism Suspects
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There is a real misunderstanding amongst critics of GITMO that just because we released some detainees that they were innocent bystanders that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the case of Saudi Arabia they told the United States that they had a "rehabilitation program" in place that would put their minds right. That appears to have been a bit optimistic just as the ones we released to sent to Yemen.
 
Texas said:
In the case of Saudi Arabia they told the United States that they had a "rehabilitation program" in place that would put their minds right.
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Presumably one of the many hundreds of mosques around the world that Saudi Arabia has built, and that teach extremist Wahhabism.

Oh wait.
 
WildCat said:
Why would it have to be in Afghanistan?
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That's a curious question. Did you actually read the thread, or did you just jump in again with yet another non sequitur in an attempt to derail it?

(I think) everyone agrees that if someone was captured after shooting an AK-47 at US troops in Afghanistan that it would be okay to lock them up as POWs until the end of hostilities with the Taliban.

If they were captured elsewhere then the justification "we are keeping them as POWs until the end of hostilities with the Taliban" makes no sense, because they weren't captured as Taliban or Taliban-aligned combatants.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
If they were captured elsewhere then the justification "we are keeping them as POWs until the end of hostilities with the Taliban" makes no sense, because they weren't captured as Taliban or Taliban-aligned combatants.
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Armed conflicts are not confined to specific geographic regions. In WWII, the Germans used places like North Africa, France, Greenland and even the United States to stage combatant activities. In all of these instances, those captured were treated relative to their combatant status.

The current armed conflict is not restricted to the Taliban.

BTW, no-one in the government are claiming these are POWs.
 
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gumboot said:
The very act of rendition itself was roundly condemned.
...(Rendition is clearly illegal under international law and domestic law).
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Well, ok. Sure. Everyone would like it if we always played by the rules, and some people will find fault with anything.

Harboring murderers is also illegal, so there's plenty of illegality to go around. I'm sure that when the Israelis sent their guys in to capture Eichmann, some people were upset about violating the laws of wherever it was they picked him up. (Argentina?)

The bottom line is that if we find out where Osama is hiding, and send in a team to get him, there will be protests filed with lots of official indignation at various embassies, and various political groups in the US will say that this was an outrageous thing. However, the diplomatic protests will be formalities and the domestic complaints will be predictable.

I vaguely recall back when Ollie North forced down a plane carrying some terrorists, and shipped them, to Italy if I recall, for trial. I guess that was an example of illegal rendition. There were protests within embassies, and there were complaints from opponents of the Reagan administration, but the average man in the street said, "Cool" and the terrorists were convicted. Keep it on that level, and there won't be any trouble.
 
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