"Future of Guantanamo Unchanged" Topic

Despite warming relations between Cuba and the U.S., the Pentagon has no intentions of releasing control of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay back to Havana, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told reporters on Wednesday.

There is "no anticipation and no plan" to turn the more than 100 year-old naval base back to Cuban authorities, Carter said during the press briefing.

The same day, Havana and Washington announced the establishment of new embassies…

link

Though it would be interesting to see the reaction if we just handed everything back to Cuba including the buildings and everyone currently incarcerated in them.

Uh huh.

Sure, there are no plans to do that, he says with dripping sarcasm.

Sorry, but given all the other misinformation put out by certain individuals, I don't believe a word of it.

doug redshirt:
Since 2001, there have been more political prisoners in GB than in all of the Castro's' Cuba. A bit of irony which nobody seems to mention when they are disparaging the Havana regime. Ain't spin-doctoring grand?
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Actually Rod, apparently up until about a year ago, if this article is correct, Cuba was holding about as many political prisoners as we have detainees (prisoners), in 2015:

PDF link

I suspect the number of Cuban political prisoners is fairly low, since they used to, and probably still do, execute a good portion of them.

The "detainees", or enemy combatants being held by the US are there because they are a real danger to our people and others, and shouldn't be released until the war with radical Islamists is over, if it ever is.

Mako …

Mako 11:
link
If you scroll down a ways you will see that 5% of detainees were captured by the US armed forces and 86% were turned over by third parties for bounty money.
At its height GB had more than 700 detainees which is about five times the number of political prisoners which Cuba has. Number of people executed by Cuba since GB prison opened – 3 (high jacking a ferry boat). Number executed by the USA – 1160+. The US should try the GB detainees before a court with proper legal jurisdiction or release them. No charges, no real legal representation, no conviction, thirteen plus years of detention. That sounds like political prisoners to me.
Rod Robertson.

Of course they're political prisoners.

Held without due process – no trial date, no prospect of release.

And yet tomorrow you celebrate the overthrow of an alleged tyrant….

The raw macho insanity exhibited by a staggeringly incompetent government after 9/11 cost us a lot. In the first Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers knew that if they surrendered, they would be fed, have their wounds tended, and be kept safe until the end of hostilities – or they could fight the Marines. In my war, our opponents knew that if they surrendered, they would go to the kind of prison where people disappear, and have electrodes attached to their naughty bits. You may have noticed that they put up a bit more resistance the second time around.

Even if you believe that the detainees we have left belong in US custody (some inarguably do), it's not cost effective to spend something along the lines of $5 USD million per annum per head to keep them in Cuba. I'm not sure why a certain contingent publicly wet their pants whenever bringing these folks Stateside is discussed, but they aren't supermen, and actually tend to be less physically dangerous than the general prison population.

Okay, so how many political prisoners did Cuba have at their height (since that appears to be what we're comparing) of the Cold War, and before they executed them (this keeps Cuba's numbers lower than it would normally be), or forced them to leave by leaky boats, rafts, or inner tubes?

In 1994 – 1995, it's estimated in the last link, that 1,200 – 1,500 people were being detained in prison for "crimes against the state", and in 1994, 30,000 Cubans fled their country by various means.

100,000 – 200,000 prisoners are/were believe to be in Cuban prisons (which can in no way be compared to "Club Fed" at Gitmo), of which only 300, or so are classified as political prisoners (see above), but I suspect that number may be under-reported (not to mention that our "political prisoners" are much better treated than those in Cuba):

link

link

link

"In 1995 a priest, speaking in his personal capacity, gave the
following oral testimony to the Special Rapporteur, who believes that it
represents the views of many citizens on the situation in Cuba:

"I have known persons who were detained for 40 days and who lost more
than 40 pounds, or about half a kilo a day. When society sees that a
person spends 40 days in prison and comes out looking like a walking corpse
and has been totally disoriented psychologically by the pressure and the
anguish he has suffered, that society is simply living in terror, and there
are plenty of other ways that may be utilized elsewhere to exercise
violence and power, because there are other means which are ultimately more
effective and evidently more destructive of the person and of society. I
am referring, for example, to the methods of control and surveillance, to
the distrust that has been created between people, to the system of
denunciations in Cuba, which is even used against children and the elderly.
A person is sure to distrust everybody else because anyone could be an
informer" [quoted from the last link above – so, as you can see, certainly not "Club Fed"-like conditions for their "political prisoners"].

Enemy combatants/terrorists, not fighting on behalf of a country (in their army), not in that country's uniform, and not being signatories to the Geneva Convention, may be summarily shot on the battlefield, if desired, like we did back in WWII.

Of course, we've had this discussion before, so no sense delving into it at length again, I imagine.

I suspect we could significantly reduce those costs, if we weren't running a Cuban "Club Caribbean", or "Club Fed" for them, building brand new soccer fields, etc., etc.

I'd let Arpaio run it.

Room temperature, bologna sandwiches for everyone, twice a day.

If people live in a totalitarian nation and are not free to leave, are they not all then political prisoners unless they fully support the regime and it's oppression?

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Unlawful combatants are not covered by the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They are also not entitled to due process. It's one of the many risks one assumes by being a terrorist. As for being turned in by bounty hunters, I don't see that it makes a difference how we got them. You cannot assume that we paid bounties to anyone who showed up with a prisoner and asked for cash.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Malo11:
At the height of the Cuban post revolutionary period (1959-1970) the number of political prisoners is estimated to have been between 12,000 and 20,000 depending on which sources you believe. In that same period between 2,000 – 5,000 may have been executed with the most likely number hovering in the vicinity of 2,500 executed.
Rod Robertson.

Mako11:
Link #1 opening line states "if the numbers are accurate" and the rest of the article has only anecdotal evidence and never proves the claim of 100,000 prisoners in 200 jail/camps.
Link #2: Cuba Veradad is well known to be backed by the Miami Cuban-exile community. Even so the conditions are no worse than Mexican, Central American or Eastern European jails. Cubans should be ashamed of such conditions but they should not be singled out as if this kind of abuse is unique or ideologically driven.
Link #3: Your best evidence but as I skimmed and read it the complaints were no different in scope or size from complaints leveled against the US government throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Is the Castro regime an example of enlightened rule and gentle means? Of course not. But nor is the USA so that was the irony I was pointing out above.
Rod Robertson.

Bunkermeister:
Read and learn, you are very wrong.
link
Rod Robertson.

Rod, can you name one 'political prisoner' at Gitmo? I'm guessing the answer is no as there aren't any. they are unlawful combatants. they were not captured in uniform and were not wearing any identifying insignia. they are, in fact, subject to immediate execution upon capture.

The article you linked to is one person's opinion. Just because it made it to the internet it does not make it fact.

Dn Jackson:
86% were not captured by American troops at all and therefore were not unlawful combatants as their status at the time of their capture cannot be verified. Since the vast majority of the detainees were never even charged with any crime, they are all political prisoners. If you want a name – Omar Khadr – a 15 year old kid who went to Afghanistan with his father. He was a joint Afghan and Canadian citizen and was defending the country of his father's birth from a foreign invader as any American boy would likely do if America was being invaded. He was finally transferred to Canadian custody in 2012 and was still in jail in Canada despite Canadian court orders for his immediate release until the Alberta Court of Appeal finally forced his release on bail in May of 2015. He was by all definitions a child-soldier but was never treated as one.
Presently 44 prisoners who were cleared for release in 2009 are still being detained in GB.
link
Rod Robertson.

Kyoteblue:
Just doing a little schooling here. No harm, no foul, dude. Just laying out some facts and letting others make up their own minds.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

"Link #2: Cuba Veradad is well known to be backed by the Miami Cuban-exile community. Even so the conditions are no worse than Mexican, Central American or Eastern European jails. Cubans should be ashamed of such conditions but they should not be singled out as if this kind of abuse is unique or ideologically driven".

Rod, perhaps not as far as the conditions go compared to other jails in some areas of the world, but they certainly shouldn't be compared to Guantanamo, which really is a "Club Fed" vacation resort by comparison, and of course it is ideologically driven. That's to spread fear amongst the Cuban people, who know how horrific the conditions can be, if you get arrested for speaking out against the Castro brothers, and/or their cronies.

That's how they keep their populations in line.

"Link #3: Your best evidence but as I skimmed and read it the complaints were no different in scope or size from complaints leveled against the US government throughout the 20th and 21st centuries".

I don't recall ever hearing about prisoners not being fed for 40 days, and losing 40 pounds in the USA, but maybe I missed that.

link

link

Rod Omar Khadar was captured on the battlefields AFTER faking surrender and then attacking a medic that had came to give him medical treatment. Read the ing Geneva codes. The ONLY international recognized rules of war. His faking surrender to lure people into an attack makes him a war criminal. Under the Geneva codes again the ONLY REQUIZED INTERNATIONAL RULES for holding and treating of captured troops and war crimes he is a war criminal and under the only REQUIZED rules of warfare could be executed. He is not an innocent farm boy that you claim. And yes I know the USSR is no more but

Also Rod the fact the ONLY way you try to make your point by showing number of people executed in the U.S. Vs cud a is apples to oranges in one the accused had a trail with representation and after being found guilty years of appeals. Also you say how Omar defended his homeland from a foreign invader but completely ignore the country that hosted, shielded and were the 9-11 highjakers. After 9-11 the Tailban was asked to turn over the people responsible but sheiled them. Again read the Geneva codes on hosting attacks from you territory. But no you willn't just like you will cilia ice the U.S. For Afghanistan and Iraq while keeping quite on Ukraine, Georgia, islands in the South China Sea being taken over by China. I would say more but face it say hello to my stifle list

Mikeda:
SFC Speer was a medic but he was not administering first aid to anyone at the time of his mortal injury. He was part of a special operations team operating covertly in Khost province. He and his fellow team members were dressed in indigenous clothing and were not wearing helmets. They were checking a compound which had been hit by an air strike when a fire fight erupted between the Afghans within the compound and Speer's comrades in arms. A grenade did wound SFC Speer during the fire fight and he was attended to by two other American medics who after attending to Speer's wounds administered first aid to a wounded and incapacitated Omar Khadr. It is and always will be a tragedy that this young American soldier lost his life but the facts make it clear he died as a result of wounds received in combat and was never lured to his death.
An accidental release of evidence collected by the US military investigators at GB to one of Khadr's lawyers made it clear that there was little or no evidence that Khadr had thrown the grenade. However, desperate to get out of the legal limbo he was put into, he decided to plead guilty to a list of charges as part of a deal to repatriate him back to Canada to finish serving his sentence at home.
You can find this all documented here:
link
It is interesting that Omar Khadr was labeled an "unlawful combatant" for not being in uniform while bearing arms but that the US special forces who attacked the compound were not considered as such, despite being in indigenous clothing and in no recognized national uniform or with no markings of their true status. The truth can be a real pain in the butt sometimes.
I wish you good health comrade and long live the Revolution!
Rod Robertson.

The only problem with the 'unlawful ocmbatant' arguement is…

… no such category exists outside the Americans' imagination.

If they're fighting, they're a combatant. If doing so illegally, then they're criminals.

And hence entitled to lawyers etc.

Yes Cuba under the Castros hasn't been a wonderful place to live – though it has had some startling successes given the circumstances, notably in medicine and education.

But 'being better than Cuba' in the field of human rights is setting the bar rather low.

A correction: the Khadr family were of Egyptian and Palestinian ancestry and not Afghans. Omar Khadr was Canadian-Egyptian. He and his father and brothers went to Afghanistan to defend the Ummah – a religious rather than national motivation. My apologies for the error above; we can all learn from this thread!
Rod Robertson.

He was part of a special operations team operating covertly in Khost province. He and his fellow team members were dressed in indigenous clothing and were not wearing helmets.

That is the nature of Spec Ops … Had any of those Spec Operators been captured by islamists, they would have been treated much worse than Khadr and his comrades were treated by the Spec Operators … It appears combat can be a …

He was by all definitions a child-soldier but was never treated as one.

On the battlefield, in a combat situation, anyone who picks up a weapon and tries to kill you and your comrades. At that time he/she just becomes a target … again … it's the nature of war.

And yet tomorrow you celebrate the overthrow of an alleged tyrant….

Yep and those Yankees kicked some Limey Red Coated Lobster along with their Kraut eat'n Hessian merc allies ! Long live George Washington ! Seriously stu … take down your Anti-US flag … your comments get quite tiresome … Yes we know you believe the USA is the Great Satan, etc., etc. … we have all heard this so many times before …

If they're fighting, they're a combatant. If doing so illegally, then they're criminals.

Regardless … if they are trying to kill you and your comrades … they are targets and should be taken out …

Good to see your sense of humor, Rod, since I know even you cannot seriously equate the post links you provided about starving US prisoners to the plight of Cuban political prisoners.

Quote, from the first link – "On Monday, Commissioner Scott Martin said the prisoners were upset because of smaller meat portions and no cheese on their sandwiches".

Smaller portions of meat and cheese on sandwiches are not crimes. I'm upset that mine are at home as well, but such is life, as rampant food inflation, due to printing too much money, rears its ugly head.

I do agree with this statement – ""I don't know why they have expectations of cake and steak in prison. If you don't like the diet, don't come to prison," Martin said".

Also, voluntarily going on a hunger strike to make a point is far different than having food withheld for 40 days by the jailers.

"The strike began on Monday, July 8, with 30,000 people across California's prison system refusing meals. Some vowed to refuse food until their demands were met or their bodies gave out".

They could have had a meal any time they wanted to, but chose not to.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Legion – I don't think it's anti-American to point out the irony of a nation allegedly founded due to oppression and on a love of human rights despoiling it's reputation by inventing an entire category of person just so they can ignore all basic concepts of those rights.

Especially when the definition concerned rather neatly encapsulates the entire idea of a 'Minuteman'….

edit:

Forget it. Can't be bothered.

Bangor, you are still somewhat of a at times… but love ya' anyway.

Mako 11:
Sorry to not get back to you sooner but I decided to give this thread a rest for July the Fourth. My intent is to be objective in this discussion but I am well aware that some view what I am saying as anti-American. I did not want to start year 239 of the Great Republic of the USA on a sour note. There is no doubt that there is oppression and brutality in the Cuban Regime. That is stipulated. However there is also no doubt that there is real oppression and institutional brutality at work in the USA. This will likely continue until enough Americans become aware of these abuses and push for reform. The Spin-doctors attempt to obfuscate and distract the American people from gaining a clear understanding of what's going on in their name. That, to my mind, is a great shame because at its core values the USA is one of the most hopeful political experiments which mankind has ever undertaken. Now, back to the discussion of Gitmo and Cuba.
The testimony of the priest you cited from the UN document does not say food was withheld from the inmates, just that some of the people whom the priest recalls dramatically lost weight and resembled the walking dead after 40-day stays in detention. In another section of the report it says that poor quality and even rotten food was given to some inmates triggering illness and severe weight loss. In another section the report remarks that prisoners had to wait up to 19 hours to be fed while in detention. The withholding of food for forty days straight would result in very high death rates as prisoners would have gone into metabolic shock and shutdown between 3-5 weeks into the incarceration. This in no way is meant to excuse what certain Cuban officials are doing. The report also cites the fact that Cuba is trying to curb the worst offences and is closing some of the worst prisons.
Between 1953 and 1955 Fidel Castro was imprisoned in Cuba under the Batista regime. After organizing fellow prisoners to sing revolutionary songs during a presidential tour of the jail, Castro was thrown into solitary confinement, fed dreadful food and after fourteen months of such treatment was very weakened and ill. So this kind of abuse has deep roots in Cuba.
The two links I posted were to illustrate the bloody-mindedness of prison authorities in some parts of the USA. When the prisoners in Lancaster PA made a fuss, the prison's solution was to lock closed the prisoners' cell windows making their non-conditioned cells unsafely and unbearably hot. In the second link the repeated hunger-strikes were triggered by the policy of using extremely long periods of solitary confinement (up to 12 years) against prisoners who were associating with gangs or expressed approval of radical political organizations such as the Black Panthers. The fact that thirty thousand inmates and their families maintained a hunger strike for 60 days and the callous response of Californian authorities illustrates that there are real problems in American prisons too.
However I think we have strayed too far from topic. The simple fact that I tried to make above was that there were more political prisoners being held by US authorities in GB than political prisoners being held by the Castro brothers' regime is not reported clearly to the American people. Some may argue that the Gitmo detainees were not political prisoners at all but the UN has labelled them that and there is no denying that the prisoners are in Gitmo for political expediency at best and political oppression at worst.
The status of GB has been a thorn in the side of the Cuban people since the McKinley-Roosevelt years. Perhaps it was needed in 1900 as a coal station but it's utility today as a resupply point has long since passed and could be done from Puerto Rico or Florida. Would it not be better to give the struggling economy of Puerto Rico the fiscal stimulus of an expanded naval base there rather than to continue to humiliate and antagonize Cuban nationalists? It now serves as a reminder to all Cubans of the bitter history of colonial exploitation which Cuba has had to suffer first from Spain, then from the USA and finally from the USSR. It has inspired the armed resistance of Jose Marti and the Castro brothers and will no doubt lead other Cubans to pick up arms and plunge their homeland into deeper misery.
Rod Robertson.

"Since the vast majority of the detainees were never even charged with any crime, they are all political prisoners."

Soooo, every German and Japanese captured in WWII were political prisoners? Not one was charged with any crime until after the war.

"However, desperate to get out of the legal limbo he was put into, he decided to plead guilty to a list of charges as part of a deal to repatriate him back to Canada to finish serving his sentence at home."

And so your contention is that, even though he pled guilty to charges, he was never charged and is thus a political prisoner. Despite pleading guilty… Your logic is infalable and thus, I am humbled.

"If they're fighting, they're a combatant. If doing so illegally, then they're criminals.

And hence entitled to lawyers etc."

Congrats Stu, you just added one and one and came up with 11. No, they are not entitled to lawyers, bail, etc. Under the convention they are entitled to be shot upon capture.

"When the prisoners in Lancaster PA made a fuss, the prison's solution was to lock closed the prisoners' cell windows making their non-conditioned cells unsafely and unbearably hot."

You're right Rod, making someone hot is almost the same thing as denying them food for 40 days. Thanks for opening my eyes!

"The simple fact that I tried to make above was that there were more political prisoners being held by US authorities in GB than political prisoners being held by the Castro brothers' regime is not reported clearly to the American people."

And in this you failed miserably. The one 'political prisoner' you named has, by your own admission, pled guilty to crimes and as others have pointed out was, in fact, an unlawful combatant being in a country not his own shooting at Americans and Afghans for religious reasons.

"Some may argue that the Gitmo detainees were not political prisoners at all but the UN has labelled them that"

The same UN that had China, Iran, and Nigeria on the Human Rights council? Thanks, but I think we can inore their more than a little biased views.

Not one prisoner in Gitmo is there because they belonged to the wrong political party, tried to organize a union, or even tried to vote. How many of Castro's prisoners are there in prison for those henious crimes?

The much revered Che Guevera, owned a dog when he was commandant of a prison in Cuba for political detainees. He trained that dog to go to the execution site of the prison every day to lap up the blood of those who opposed the Castros.

There are no political prisoners in the US except in the fevered imaginations of those people who hate this country and wish to project their own failed systems on us.

Regardless … if they are trying to kill you and your comrades … they are targets and should be taken out …

And your guys were trying to kill them, the argument cuts both ways. I note that some posters here seem to feel it's acceptable for Spec Ops to wear local civilian clothes but it's a crime if the locals do.

Ahh? A computer glitch nuked my post and seems to have replaced it with the one above.

Here follows my post:

Dn Jackson:
In order to be a prisoner of war there must be a war. As the US Congress never declared war on Afghanistan the people captured by the US were defacto abductees and not prisoners of war. The use of the phrase "Unlawful Combatant" is a legal fiction created by US politicians and lawyers to give cover to extralegal detentions. The reason why the detainees are held in GB is because their detention is illegal under American law and the military would be forced to charge them and try them or release them. Because so many detainees were handed over to US military authorities by third parties for bounties, there is no way a court of law could successfully prosecute the vast majority of detainees, so they were kept off of American territory to shield the military from being forced to prove its accusations in open courts of law. Had the US declared War on Afghanistan and captured these detainees itself then their internment would have been legal and your citation of German, Italian and Japanese POW's would be valid. But that didn't happen and the result is that these detainees were squirreled away in Gitmo to do an end-run around American law.
For a legal treatment of "unlawful combatant" see the following link:
link
About Omar Khadr:
He was charged with five charges, including inexplicably espionage on the USA, He maintained his innocence for eight years despite coercion and an " enhanced interrogation" regime. He was abandoned by his own country (Canada) which refused for the most part to aid in his defense and also refused to take him back when the US government offered to repatriate him. His legal representation was an ever-changing merry-go-round of US military lawyers who either resigned their mandate out of protest against his illegal detention or moved on to new jobs. After eight years of being isolated from family, friends, proper legal council and after eight years of being intimidated by fellow detainees and prison authorities he through in the towel and capitulated.
Regarding Lancaster PA prison protest:
As explained above, the Cubans were not denied food for forty days. They were given poor or rotten food in some cases and Mako 11's citation is anecdotal and by the UN report's own admission limited to a few cases. Also heat-stroke is potentially fatal, so punishing unruly prisoners by forcing them to survive in dangerous conditions is not enlightened penal management.
Regarding the naming of "one political prisoner" that is what you asked me to do and you also bet that I could not do that. If you want more you can select from here:
link
What crime did the detainees commit remembering that American law has no standing in the territory of Afghanistan? The answer is none. They were detained for defending Afghanistan from foreign invasion. An invasion that did not even have legal standing under American Law as no declaration of war was ever made. The Congressional mandate to use all necessary force was not a legal declaration of war and therefore the detainees cannot be considered prisoners of war. Nor can they be considered "unlawful combatants" because they were captured in a country where just about every male goes about armed and they were not legally at war. I might add that every American in Afghanistan was also a foreigner shooting at Afghans and their foreign allies and therefore by your own definition an "unlawful combatant".
Regarding political affiliation of Gitmo prisoners. They are all there because of their political affiliation (Al-Qaeda) and because through that affiliation they did try to form a union (a Pan-Arab Caliphate was also an Al-Qaeda goal).
Regarding the UN:
So if the UN is not valid, do you reject the UN Charter of Universal Human Rights, the Fourth Geneva Convention, UN Peace Keeping and the whole international system?
Regarding Che Guevera's dog:
Can you provide proof of that claim? I can't find any reference to it.
Rod Robertson.

Rod, you're way off base calling the detainees in Guantanamo "political prisoners".

As a liberal, left-wing progressive, I know when the people on my own side of the aisle get too carried away about the wrong things, based on wrong information.

This whole thread of Rod breathlessly waving his hands about Guantanamo has no connection to miniatures, no connection to gaming, and only a tenuous connection to modern warfare. Bill, time to wade in here and shut it down. Don't know why you would open something like this in the first place, unless you deliberately wanted controversy.

Tuscaloosa:
While I strongly disagree with your first two points, I agree with your final one that this is out of the scope of a miniatures forum, and so I will say no more on this thread.
Sorry if I ruffled any feathers but reality is never simple nor straightforward.
Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

I like how these topics get posted, while the DH is filling up with people DH'ed for "politics".

The root problem with Guantanamo is that it is a symptom of a larger issue; that the Westphalian paradigm has generally fallen apart since WWII. Generally, up until WWII war was between states; since then, non-state actors have been legitimized for a variety of reasons as combatants.

Under the Westphalian paradigm, which includes the Geneva Convention, one could go to war, take prisoners, and, after the war was completed, you could return prisoners to their respective state. But when is a war completed and when does a war end when the Westphalian concept doesn't apply?

Leaving aside the fact that in hindsight Guantanamo was a huge mistake, another current factor is that no state wants to take the prisoners, or the US can't return the prisoners to their state because of a reasonable expectation that they will be killed/tortured.

In the old days war existed between states, and a declaration of war was easily understood. Those days are gone. We have yet to deal with this new reality which is something the international community has not done. Instead people with different perspectives tend to use existing law to justify their own political positions. (And don't quote the UN; for all practical purposes the UN is nothing more than a bully pulpit that nations use or ignore as they chose.)

rod, no offense, but you really don't know what you are talking about.

"In order to be a prisoner of war there must be a war."

If you really want a declaration of war, Bin Laden and crew declared war on the US.

"The use of the phrase "Unlawful Combatant" is a legal fiction created by US politicians and lawyers to give cover to extralegal detentions.'

Read the Geneva Convention for goodness sakes. It explicitly states that someone taken on the battlefield out of uniform or without a definitive token of their allegiance can be executed without a hearing. Pretty much the definition of an unlawful combatant.

"An invasion that did not even have legal standing under American Law as no declaration of war was ever made."

Seeing as such military actions have taken place since the people who actually wrote the Constitution were still alive, (the Quasi-war with France), I'm going to accept their idea of what is legal rather than yours.

"They are all there because of their political affiliation (Al-Qaeda) and because through that affiliation they did try to form a union (a Pan-Arab Caliphate was also an Al-Qaeda goal)."

Wow, talk about tying yourself in knots to get the outcome you want. This statement is the equivalent of saying that hanging pirates in the 16th, 17th, and 18th, centuries because they were of the political group of 'Pirates' and had legal protections based on that. in fact by that logic capturing Somali pirates is illegal since they're of the 'Pirate political Party' of Somali and are now political prisoners.

"So if the UN is not valid, do you reject the UN Charter of Universal Human Rights…"

I do as a matter of fact. Have you ever read the declaration? It reads in part: Article 29 section 3, " These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

In other words you have all these wonderful rights, unless the UN says otherwise. Yes, I reject that totally. At least our Constitution says we have those rights that the founders believed were from God and those rights can not be abridged no matter how much the government wants to.

Che's dog comes from "Exposing the Real Che Guevara" by Humberto Fornova<sic>

"Also heat-stroke is potentially fatal, so punishing unruly prisoners by forcing them to survive in dangerous conditions is not enlightened penal management.'

Yet, none of them got heat stroke. Being in nice cool A/C is not a right and being hot is not a violation of someone's human rights.

As for your earlier suggestion that we move the facilities from Gitmo to Puerto Rico, we had a base on Puerto Rico up until 2001. It was at vieques until the locals didn't want it any more so we closed it down. Soooo, Puerto Rico had all that money coming in, they chose to lose it due to anti-American sentiment.

"He was a joint Afghan and Canadian citizen and was defending the country of his father's birth from a foreign invader as any American boy would likely do if America was being invaded."

He was fighting the Pakistani Taleban and Saudi Al Qaeda? Good lad!

So how did he end up in Gitmo…?

DN Jackson – doubtless you could quote that passage?

Article 5, Third GC states that the status of a detainee must be determined by a tribunal and until that has happened they must be treated as POWs.

Hence the USA is committing a war crime.

Well … I'm back in the saddle again … Now where to start ?

This topic went south….

Nothing to do with The South … do try to stay on topic Old Boy …

Legion – I don't think it's anti-American to point out the irony of a nation allegedly founded due to oppression and on a love of human rights despoiling it's reputation by inventing an entire category of person just so they can ignore all basic concepts of those rights.

Especially when the definition concerned rather neatly encapsulates the entire idea of a 'Minuteman'….

stu … call me L4 … Now back OT … Nations who live in glass houses should not throw stones. When it comes to oppression, human rights violations, etc. … If for no other reason then the UK is older than the US. The list is long and spans generations after generations. And the US is an a direct responses to that. Many of the Irish and Scots that came over here to the colonies of New World didn't leave the UK because they were in good standing. They were considered 2d Class citizens etc. … And treated as such for Centuries. And that is only one example. Oz was colonized by force. Either stay in a British jail or got to a new colony on the other side of the world. So stu … again … watch where you throw stones … again … Your UK hands are much dirtier than the USA's.

And your guys were trying to kill them, the argument cuts both ways. I note that some posters here seem to feel it's acceptable for Spec Ops to wear local civilian clothes but it's a crime if the locals do.

Yes, I remember in Infantry Officers School at Ft. Benning, GA. They taught us the mission on the Infantryman was to kill, capture and destroy enemy personnel and equipment. And we all know the teachings of Mao and Che on guerilla/insurgent warfare. Hide among the civilian populous, blend in, "move among the fish". To paraphrase Mao. Modern COIN ops requires for Spec Op units to operate far forward, deep inside enemy areas. So to blend in, they "go native" a bit. To help take away the big advantage the insurgent has … he looks like any other local. You can't ID foe from the average local on the street. Until he start shooting at you in many cases. It's generally an effective and accepted tactic. Because it works. The modern COIN paradigm has changed many of the traditional concepts of warfare in the past. It's about taking the fight to the enemy. Of course we could always wear red coats, march in straight lines and in the open. But we all know how well that worked out.

Rod … I have to completely agree with raylev, Mako, Buckmeister, mikeda, tuscaloosa and Dn Jackson. Of course if I'm right, they like me, are Yanks and many are vets. So we'll see things much differently than you. Sometimes Rod you come off being a bit "pie in the sky" and miss some of the reality of the situations, IMO …

Bangor, you are still somewhat of a at times… but love ya' anyway.

But I have to strongly disagree with you here raylev. It should read … "at all times … most of the time … very, very frequently". And to paraphrase Tina Turner, " What's love got to do with it "!