Talk:Combatant Status Review Tribunal/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Releases

Can't believe theres no discussion on an important topic like this! Camp Iguana suggests more than 4 non-combs have been released. Do we have a source? Rich Farmbrough 21:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Clean-up

As it is the article is somewhat chaotic. I think most pertinent information is in it but somebody might want to restructure it into something that is an easier read. Nomen Nescio 15:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

enemy combatant versus unlawful combatant or unlawful enemy combatant

My fault. I started this article. And when I did I shared the same confusion most people do, over the conflation between "enemy combatant" and "unlawful enemy combatant". Now that I am more familiar with the text of combatant status review tribunals I can see that the nowhere in the released documents do the officials involved in these tribunals use the terms "unlawful combatant" or "unlawful enemy combatant". Rather, each of the 317 reviews that has been released has stated exactly the same goal -- to determine whether the detainee had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant". Each of the 317 Tribunals relesaed so far has used exactly the same narrow definition of "enemy combatant".

I'm not sure what the confusion is regarding these terms but perhaps this will help. According to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (passed by both the House and Senate Bill S.3930 available at http://thomas.loc.gov/) there is a definition for lawful and unlawful enemy combatants, nowhere in this bill is the term enemy combatant used by itself without first being qualified with the label of lawful or unlawful, the basic difference being one belonging to a recognized, national, and uniformed armed forces and the other "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces)," the underlying assumption being they do not belong to an uniformed, national army. Lawful combatants are defined as "(A) a member of the regular foces of a State party engaged in hostilities agsinst the United States, (B) a member of a militia, volunteer corp, or organized resistance movement belonging to a State party engaged in such hostilities, which are under responsible command, wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry their arms openly, and abide by the law of war...." I wonder if US special ops fall into this category. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.227.243.16 (talk • contribs) 16:43, 2006 November 16

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals are separate and unique proceedings from the Military Commissions. As I have pointed out before, every single Tribunal dossier begins with a brief, very broad, definition of enemy combatant, that has nothing to do with legality. -- Geo Swan 22:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Further, many of the transcripts of the dialogue between detainees and their Tribunal Presidents contain passages where detainees have tried to bring up whether what they were accused of, or what they had actually done was lawful. The Tribunal Presidents routinely ruled these discussions out of order. Similarly, when detainees challenged the legal justification of the Tribunals, or asked why they were not allowed a lawyer, they were routinely informed that the Tribunals were not authorized concerned with legal issues.

So I am going to amend every reference to those terms from the article.

The reference to Lindsay Graham's statements are irrelevant. He is part of the legislative branch, not the executive branch. -- Geo Swan 18:08, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Hand and feet shackled to the floor

Fouad Al Rabia, a middle-aged, obese guy, complained about his shackles, and asked to have them removed. His Tribunal's President informed him that this was routine. I read that yesterday. But I had read that on several other occasions, in the summarized transcripts of other detainee's tribunals and in descriptions of how the tribunals were to function. -- Geo Swan 18:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

With a reliable citation saying that was common practice, I'd be ok. Merecat 18:15, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Geneva Conventions

I'll start by admitting to some laziness on my part this morning when I used the "(citation needed)" macro to question one point in the text, and added this note to the edit summary: "relevance of Hamdi to the Geneva Conventions needs to be clarified; I don't see one".

My problem isn't just with the one spot in the article. As I understand it, the Hamdi decision didn't deal with POW status. It was about due process under U.S. law. It recognizes a tribunal as a mechanism that the military has at its disposal to process this requirement, but not that the Geneva Conventions apply here. I can't even find a single reference to Geneva in the Wikipedia article on Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.

Incidentally, I don't know but I suspect that may be why they use the term "enemy combatant". The "unlawful" part is already a given.
-- Randy2063 19:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's why GCIII doesn't apply to the Hamdi decision:

2. Because we hold that Hamdi is constitutionally entitled to the process described above, we need not address at this time whether any treaty guarantees him similar access to a tribunal for a determination of his status. [1]

That didn't apply to all other prisoners. Hamdi was a U.S. citizen.

-- Randy2063 20:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, changing it to Hamdan makes a lot more sense even though it was overruled on appeal. I'll remove the "(citation needed)" bug, and may do some minor edits later.

-- Randy2063 20:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

It was Hamdi being designated an unlawful combatant. The discussion was about the GC obliging the US to hold a "competent tribunal" to determine whether or not a suspect is an unlawful combatant. You will have to change it back. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 08:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I can see why it may need a note when Hamdan loses again in the Supreme Court but I don't follow your reasoning re Hamdi. They were all unlawful combatants.

-- Randy2063 00:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld the unlawful combatant status was contested, since no "competent tribunal" had determined this status. Under the GC a "competent tribunal" is mandatory before any status can be designated. Hence, following this trial the US started the CSRT, claiming they constitute a "competent tribunal." This case started the CSRTs! Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 10:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

That's not how I read it. As I cited above (in my post on 20:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)), the Supreme Court found that Geneva's "competent tribunal" was irrelevant to Hamdi, and so they decided not to rule one way or another. It was Hamdan who won on that, although he lost on appeal and is now waiting for the Supreme Court.

Hamdi won based on his status of being a U.S. citizen at the time.

-- Randy2063 13:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I see that the article on Hamdi v. Rumsfeld says:

The Court recognized the power of the government to detain unlawful combatants, but ruled that detainees must have the ability to challenge their detention before an impartial judge.

I don't know how that squares with the quote from the decision I read above.

-- Randy2063 14:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like the intro in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld was confused. The sidebar agrees with me:

U.S. citizens designated as enemy combatants by the Executive Branch have a right to challenge their detainment under the Due Process Clause. Fourth Circuit decision vacated and remanded.

-- Randy2063 16:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, while some US spokesmen may have initially tried to imply that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals fulfilled the USA's obligations to conduct "competent tribunals", that is completely contradicted by the Tribunal's terms of references. See Moazzam Begg's CSRT tribunal documents. Begg asserted he had been issued an official POW ID card by the ICRC. He tried to call the ICRC employee who issued it to him, and a US officer who had knowledge of the POW ID card, as witnesses. The Tribunal's President was, initially going to allow these witnesses. But, after consulting with the CSRT's legal advisors, she wrote that these witnesses were irrelevant. The CSRTs were not authorized to consider whether detainees should have been classified as lawful combatants, who were entitled to POW status. They were only authorized to consider whether the informal, secret determinations that had classified all the detainees as meeting the narrow definition of "enemy combatant" were correct.

Since determining whether a captive was a lawful combatant was the sole purpose of the Geneva Conventions "competent tribunal", I think it is absolutely, completely clear that none of the detainees have gone through a competent tribunal. They are all held in extrajudicial detention, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Justice Joyce Hens Green ruled that the CSRTs did not fulfill the requirements of the competent tribunal.

More recently you will find US spokesmen defending the CSRT as being better than what they call "article five tribunals" -- because the CSRT provided the detainees with a "Personal Representative". That is a load of crap, of course. The detainees conversations with the Personal Representative were not confidential. I've read over one hundred of the transcripts from the Tribunals and ARB hearings. I have to give some of the Personal Representatives credit for making an honest effort to conduct themselves fairly while caught up in a tainted, flawed -- and possibly illegal -- procedure. But others were clearly lazy, or incompetent, or unable to be objective, and failed to bring forward factors in favor of the detainee's innocence.

IIRC one of the appeal court decisions was that the detainees who faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission would not be offered a Geneva Convention "competent tribunal" prior to facing their commission. IIRC that appeals court ruled that the military commissions could do double duty, and make the determination that the detainees were illegal combatants as well as arrive at a verdict on their guilt. IIRC this is one of the issues that the Supreme Court will address this summer.

In Summary, none of the captives in Guantanamo, in Bagram, or in the black sites, has been given a competent tribunal. Until they are the USA is obliged to offer them every protection of the Geneva Conventions's POW status. Some of them clearly wouldn't qualify. My estimate, after reading so many transcripts, is that less than 100 of the Guantanamo detainees would have been determined to have been "illegal combatants" if they had faced Geneva Convention competent tribunals. Note:

The 1,196 tribunals convened during Operation Desert Storm resulted in 310 individuals being granted POW status. The remaining 886 detainees who presented claims before the tribunals “were determined to be displaced civilians and were treated as refugees.”

-- Geo Swan 17:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Moazzam Begg's POW ID card seems like a minor bit of history to me. I don't see how it matters how he got the card. The ICRC official may have thought it was the right thing to do and overreached his authority, or made a simple bureaucratic foul-up, or he could have been a fellow fascist. It really makes no difference as a matter of law when the ICRC has no authority in this decision.

I agree with you that CSRT isn't the same thing as a "competent tribunal". I thought the counter to that argument was that it's just as good, or at least good enough until someone actually decides to put a noose around their necks. I would add that CSRT is more than they deserve, and the courts agree with me at the moment. I'm only interested that they do their best to separate the terrorists from the dupes. So far they've mostly erred on the side of letting terrorists go free.

Yes, Joyce Hens Green disagreed, but other judges thought differently. We'll have to see how the Supreme Court decides.

I don't see how it's possible to be other than either totally innocent or an unlawful combatant in this. As I've said before, al Qaeda is an outlaw organization, and any knowing involvement is enough to condemn them. Note that charges against Lynndie England included conspiracy. It's the same general idea.

If Moazzam Begg doesn't like it, he should tell his friends to operate in accordance with the laws of war.

-- Randy2063 19:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

What about the following categories: innocent (most of them seem to be), terrorists (AFAIK this makes them criminals), POW's? As to the Supreme Court, it is evident this administration does everything it can to prevent their day in court, i.e. Padilla, disputing habeas corpus. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 09:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Seeming to be innocent is not the same thing as being innocent. Yes, they'd be criminals if they were subject to our criminal justice system. But that system is for the purpose of administering a civilized society. We have such a covenant with ourselves, but not with unlawful combatants.

-- Randy2063 00:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Randy, I am going to reply to your recent comment, point by point:

1. Sorry Randy, I can’t agree with you that Moazzam Begg’s POW status is a “minor bit of history”. Competent Tribunals are required for every captive who a captor does not want to treat as a POW. And, until a competent tribunal determines that a captive is not a lawful combatant, or innocent civilian, they are obliged to grant the captive all the privileges and protections of the Geneva Conventions. The USA signed it. The USA is obliged to follow it.
   • Robbing a captive of his POW card is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It was not the ICRC official who exceeded his authority. Issuing POW cards to captives is exactly what the ICRC is authorized to do. The person violating his authority is George W. Bush, who is obliged, by treaty, to make sure the USA abides by the treaty.
   • Are you calling Begg a “fascist” because he was once imprisoned at Guantanamo? If so, you are prejudging him in a way I think is unjust. The CIA paid bounties to round up every foreigner in Afghanistan, and every foreigner in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Hundreds of them ended up in Guantanamo.
   • Are you calling Begg a “fascist” because he helped found an Islamic bookstore? Suppose he helped found a Christian bookstore in an Islamic country? Would you hold him responsible if that bookstore started carrying a book entitled “Mohammed Sux, Jesus Rox”, after he had moved on, and was no longer involved in the bookstore? Yes, totalitarian countries would hold a guy responsible for the current selection of books at a bookstore at a bookstore he helped found. But, let me suggest that the USA should aim for higher standards than those of totalitarian countries.
2. No, the CSRT is not just as good as a competent tribunal - as Begg’s CSRT, and others, make clear. You say that the detainees didn’t deserve something as good as a CSRT? You say that the military authorities should merely being doing their best to separate the terrorists from the “dupes”? Determining who is a lawful combatant, who is an innocent civilian, and who is neither, is what the competent tribunal is for.
   • I am going to encourage you to read the transcripts from a few CSRT and Administrative Review Board hearings for yourself.
   • Let me repeat that the USA conducted over a thousand competent tribunals during or following the Gulf War.
   • The USA should not be treating its captives with what you or George W. Bush "think they deserve". The USA should be following the rule of law, and treating its captives according to its treaty obligations and its own laws. In the United States there are extremists who are willing to give murder suspects, or abortion doctors, or gays, or uppity minorities, with what they “think they deserve”. They are not allowed to do so. If they have a beef that can be supported by law, they can lay charges, or launch a civil suit. Similarly, George W. Bush, and anyone who thinks that the captives don’t deserve the protections of the Geneva Conventions should be out of luck, if what they “think they deserve” violates the USA’s treaty obligations and the USA’s own laws.
   • You say the courts agree with you? I am not sure what you mean by that. Are you saying that the courts agree that the USA is not obliged to fulfill its obligations under the Geneva Conventions to conduct a competent tribunal for every captive from whom it would like to strip the protections of POW status?
3. Yes, we will have to see how the Supreme Court rules.
4. Regarding whether the USA’s captives could be anything other than an unlawful combatant or totally innocent. Again,
   • I encourage you to start reading some of the transcripts of some Guantanamo detainees CSRT and ARB hearings.
   • Some Guantanamo detainees willingly acknowledged that they had been members in organizations that the USA now considers to be tied to terrorism. But they pointed out that they had been members decades ago, when those organizations were fighting the Soviet occupiers, and were receiving money, supplies, training, intelligence and other support from the USA. So, if those guys were telling the truth, if they hadn’t been a member of the organization since the Soviets were expelled, are they totally innocent? What if their membership predates the organizations adoption of terrorist tactics? Or, if the organization was using terrorist tactics, or otherwise not following the laws of armed conflict, during their period of membership, but they were doing so while the organization was receiving training from the CIA, how does that affect your opinion of their innocence? See Nazrat Khan.
   • Other detainees admit fighting against the Northern Alliance. But they did so before September 11, 2001, before the USA allied with the Northern Alliance. What you should know about the Northern Alliance is that their alliance with the USA was a marraige of convenience. The Northern Alliance’s traditional sponsors was Russia. Various commentators predicted that the Northern Alliance would work to undermine efforts to restore order and democracy to Afghanistan. Several of the detainees have offered believable accounts that they supported the restoration of a constitutional monarchy, but that they were denounced, with false allegations, by Northern Alliance.
5. Why do you describe Begg as a friend to terrorists?
   • First, why shoudln’t we expect the USA to conduct its operations in accordance with the laws of war, without regard to whether its enemies, or some of its enemies, have violated the laws of war?
   • Second, why do you describe Begg as a friend of terrorists? Treating all muslims as terrorists is a very bad choice. I would encourage ordinary Americans, and George W. Bush, to remember that there are moderate muslims, who do not support terrorism any more than you do. I think the wisest course, in the war on terror, would be for the rest of us to build bridges to moderate muslims, who value tolerance, free speech and the rule of law, just as we do. Encourage the moderate muslims, and conducting the operations in the war on terror so that moderate muslims can whole-heartedly support it, isolates the extremists. Conducting the war on terror in an unjust way, that appears to allow or encourage, the demonization of all muslims will backfire, and strip us from the support of moderate muslims.
   • You cited Abdullah Mehsud. US spokesmen, going as high in the hierarchy as Dick Cheney, have cited the limited number of former Guantanamo Bay detainees who sought to fight the USA following their release. Let me suggest that some of those detainees may have been innocent moderates when they were swept up by the net that swept up all foreigners in Afghanistan, but that they were radicalized and driven to extremism, by the abuse they saw or suffered while in the USA’s extrajudicial custody.
   • Let me suggest an alternate explanation for the early release of Abdullah Mehsud.
     • There is reason to believe that US intelligence officials have been prepared to use Guantanamo as a tool to try to recruit moles to spy on extremists. See Abdurahman Khadr. He had extremist parents, who were close to OBL, who told him he was the "black sheep" of his family, because he kept running away from the military training camps they kept sending him to, and he wanted to play video games, and watch rock videos. He had no interest in fighting America. He ran away from his family, when the USA attacked, and spent most of 2002 showing intelligence officials all the safehouses and hideouts he knew about, and identifying the real names of all the senior al qaeda and Taliban captives the USA took. When his usefulness in Afghanistan waned, his CIA handlers sent him to Guantanamo, as a mole, to spy on his fellow detainees. When his usefulness in Guantanamo came to an end he says the CIA sent him to Bosnia, with orders to try to infiltrate jihadists groups there. That is when he bailed out, and returned to Canada.
     • Consider Jamil al Banna and Bisher Al Rawi. They were friendly acquaintances of Abu Qatada, one of the guys described as OBL's european ambassador. They both sought refugee status in the UK at the same time. And their kids went to the same daycare centre. After 9-11 MI5 did not round up Abu Qutada right away. Maybe because they couldn't find him. Or maybe because they wanted to keep him under surveillance, in order to see who his contacts were. It is now known that MI5 used these two as low-level informants on Abu Qatada. When the two made an innocent business trip to Gambia British intelligence officials denounced them, and they were captured by the Americans, in Gambia, and shipped to Guantanamo. Many commentators in Britain now argue that by putting pressure on the innocent men, in Guantanamo, they could squeeze more information from them, or get them to agree to serve as moles.
     • So, Abdullah Mehsud is one of the first detainees set free. Let me suggest that American officials thought they had turned him, got him to agree to serve as a mole, within the Taliban. Maybe he outsmarted them? Or maybe he was a deep agent, and continued to serve the USA in an undercover role.
     • Intelligence agencies can be brutal to informants and moles. Realistically, Abdurahman Khadr would have made a terrible mole in Bosnia. Sure, his father was a close associate of OBL, but his own history of defection first, from the training camps, and then from his family and OBL's entourage, would represent a constant danger of exposure. Asking him to serve as a mole was dangerous -- possibly a suicide mission. During World War Two British intelligence routinely sent agents to occupied Europe unknowingly stuffed up with false intelligence. British intelligence sent them to Europe, planning to betray them, in ways that would encourage the Germans to believe the tainted intelligence. A code specialist, named Leo Marks, wrote a heart-breaking account, of training a brave young guy in how to work his codes, when he knew that this guy was going to be betrayed as soon as he landed. The young agent knew his job was very dangerous. But he didn't know that his death was 100% certain because he was going to be betrayed.
     • Personally I believe that this explanation is just as credible, or more credible, than that Mehsud outsmarted American intelligence to the extent they didn't know that he had been a Taliban leader. He was one of the very first detainees released, while hundreds of detainees who look pretty innocent remain incarcerated. This is very fishy.
   • If you are aware of any verifiable, authoritative sources that provide evidence that Begg was a friend to terrorists I encourage you to add it to his article. -- Geo Swan 17:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I certainly do not consider the Muslim faith to be synonymous with fascism. Muslims have been the victims of our enemies in great numbers. I may use the word "fascism" with a wide margin but no more than fits within contemporary usage.

I used it for Moazzam Begg because of his past support for militant causes and that he was described as "not entirely without empathy" for the Taliban. (And that description is from someone sympathetic to his case.) His lack of cooperation with the Birmingham police in 2000 hasn't impressed me in a positive sense either. Nor does his being an "acquaintance" of someone convicted of benefit fraud (and later terrorism-related charges in Yemen). He's taken sides, and it's not the one I'd have chose.

You misunderstand me wrt the POW card. Although we disagree on the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, I can understand your position. But if it eventually wins out (whether in the Supreme Court or in the future judgment of history), that POW card still won't mean anything. He was either eligible for a competent tribunal or he wasn't. Nobody is going to say he would have been eligible but for the fact that his card had been taken away. You don't even say that. So, the card itself is irrelevant, and that's why I called it a minor bit of history.

Your idea on Abdullah Mehsud having been set free because he was recruited is an interesting idea, and compelling, but he's not the only one that returned to fight again.

Could it be that they were radicalized in GTMO? Maybe, but not because our treatment of them was bad. Others have a different opinion on who's being repressed. It's more likely that they were further radicalized when our efforts at decency were seen as a sign of weakness. This would have reinforced Bin Laden's position that we could be beaten.

You say the purpose of a competent tribunal is to determine who is a lawful combatant, and who is an innocent civilian. A system like CSRT does serve the same purpose with lesser rights. The competent tribunal was agreed upon between nations. It is an obligation we've taken when we signed that treaty in the hope that our combatants might get the same due.

Please be careful not to misunderstand me. I am not arguing that the fact that our troops won't get reciprocal treatment means that our treaty obligations end. The real question is whether Geneva applies to this war. If it applies then you can argue on the competency of those tribunals (and that's another argument). If it doesn't apply then CSRT is far better than anyone should have expected.

I would add that your position weakens the Geneva Conventions. No one expects captured Americans to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and the rest of the world thinks little of it. Inflating our obligations while asking absolutely nothing of the enemy is a sure way to make it worthless. Groups like Amnesty (of which I am a former member) will be more responsible for its demise as an effective document than anything George W. Bush ever did.

-- Randy2063 00:11, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

List of those claiming to be lawful combatants

In light of the fact that so many question the U.S. decision to recognize these prisoners only as unlawful combatants, it may be useful to make a list of any prisoners who've asserted their rights under the Geneva Conventions as a lawful combatant.

The only one I can think of might be Moazzam Begg. There's a problem with that one, however, seeing as how that article tries to say he wasn't a combatant at all, but rather, he was a humble "teacher" and "charity worker". Making such a claim would be in direct contradiction of the Third Geneva Convention.

But there may be others who have asserted their status with name, rank and serial number (or equivalent). If so, we need a list of those prisoners. If not, this whole mess is nothing but another charade.
-- Randy2063 23:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

This and your edits are misleading. The fact that someone does not explicitly claim POW status does not ipso facto make him an unlawful combatant. For several reasons: 1 plea bargaining, 2 there is no such thing as unlawful combatant unless a "competent tribunal" says so. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 09:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I was not talking about that at all. I was addressing one of the claims made in the article:

These hearings are a direct result of the decision by the Bush administration to deny detainees in the war on terror prisoner of war status and classify them as enemy combatants.

That paragraph is at odds with your present argument, which would imply that they still wouldn't be POWs either. This is ironic given that you're the one who wrote it.

If you really think one of my edits is misleading then please let me know why. At the moment it appears that the POW issue is misleading.

-- Randy2063 14:17, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see any contradiction. Bush refused to designate them POW's, invented the unlawful combatant status to justify that, and was then forced, following the Hamdi ruling, to hold "compotent tribunals." By suggesting someone is not claiming POW status it appears as if they then are rightly called unlawful combatant. This of course is an incorrect assertion. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 15:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

You still misunderstand me. The assertion that they are "rightly called unlawful combatant" is a different part of the argument. My point here in this section is only that they aren't called POWs. They don't even want to call themselves that.

I only made a few minor changes to this article. I fail to see how you could call them misleading.

-- Randy2063 16:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Randy, I think you misunderstand Begg's position. Why would he claim to be a "lawful combatant" if he doesn't consider himself to be a combatant, at all?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Geo Swan (talk • contribs)

I understand that, but I didn't see it before. This is why I changed that paragraph to begin by stating that he did not claim POW status. It shouldn't have been buried at the bottom of the quote when the rest of that section leads one to think otherwise.

IAC, the article is still confusing. The article reads as though they all could been classified as POWs.

-- Randy2063 03:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Randy, could you explain how the original wording was misleading? I quoted the legal advisor's statement, in full, without adding my own interpretation. It was the legal advisor's decision to put that statement at the end of the paragraph, not my decision. If you think that more emphasis should be placed on the legal advisor's out of context quote that Begg didn't claim POW status, you aren't disagreeing with my wording, you are disagreeing with the original author, the legal advisor. Are you sure that this kind of comment is within the bounds recommended for wikipedia contributors?

I think I have found myself in similar situations lots of times -- where a conclusion seems obvious and important, but no reporter, no journalist or even blogger has picked up on it. The U.S. allegations that accompanied the U.S.'s extradition request for Abdullah Khadr asserted that he had possessed and traded in WMD. No, I am not making this up. This is a ridiculous claim. His budget was only a few tens of thousands of dollars. I have a theory about this too. Among the items he was accused of selling were mortar shells. Well, when the Bush administration was trying to trump up justifications for attacking Iraq they tried to claim that Iraq's White Phosphorus munitions were "chemical weapons". A year later, when the Marines used White Phosphorus in Fallujah the US position was that White Phosphorus was just a conventional munition. Various groups claimed that the Marines made indiscriminate use of incendiary weapons in Fallujah. Which the US denied, until two low level officers in one of the Marine's artillery batteries published an article describing how they used WP. They alternated rounds of HE and WP in what they called "shake and bake", confirming that the USA did in fact make indiscriminate use of WP where it could be counted on injuring civilians. Anyhow, no reporters, no journalists, not even any bloggers have picked up this alarming discrepancy. If Marines making indiscriminate use of WP in a built-up city is not the use of a weapon of mass destruction, then Khadr selling WP mortar rounds is not trading in WP. Wikipedia's conventions proscribe me putting this conclusion into the Abdullah Khadr article. And, sorry, I think they proscribe you and I from adding our personal conclusions about the meaning of the Tribunal President and the legal advisor's statement about Begg's POW status.

I don't actually know that any of the mortar shells that Khadr is accused of selling where WP shells. But it is the only scenario that seems like it might contain a grain of truth.

I agree with Nescio's interpretation of the articles 3, 4 & 5 of the third Geneva Convention. The USA is obligated to treat all its captives as if they were POWs until they conduct competent tribunals. Personally, I believe that if Begg had been given a fair competent tribunal it would not have concluded that he was a lawful combatant -- it would have concluded he was a civilian.

I suspect that a portion of those accused of being al Qaeda fighters would not meet the criteria to be considered lawful combatants or civilians, and, once the competent tribunal had made its determination, could be stripped of the special protections of POW status. They would still be protected against torture however.

I don't trust the quality of the evidence the authorities have against the detainees. If you had read as many of the transcripts as I had, I strongly suspect you would see how weak it was. Some of the Personal Representatives do as good a job as possible, under very trying circumstances. I think Begg's Personal Representative did a good job. Others did such a terrible job that their personnel files should contain a career ending reprimand. One Personal Representative, when presenting the case for one of the teenage boys the bounties swept up didn't see fit to mention to his Tribunal that he had only been fifteen years old when captured. That's sick. Another Personal Representative had a detainee, who, like Begg, had a last minute change of heart, and decided not to appear before his tribunal, after all. He told the Tribunal that since he had expected the detainee to testify himself he hadn't made very extensive notes. Well, he wasn't kidding. He had written down four or five sentence fragments. That's it. No, I am not making this up.

I thought the service academies had very high academic standards. But some of the recorders and Personal Representatives had shockingly low literacy standards. Most of the Recorders and Personal Representatives were Majors, Lieutenant Colonels, Commanders and Lieutenant Commanders. Not really junior officers.

A half dozen or more of the detainees had been in Taliban prisons, they had gone straight from Taliban custody to Northern Alliance custody, to being sold to the Americans for a bounty. The Americans paid a bounty for every foreigner the Northern Alliance turned over, whether they were really a member of al Qaeda, or just an innocent charity worker. The DoD started holding CSRTs in July 2004, and started holding ARB hearing in December 2004. They did it all backwards. They seem to have devoted more energy to the ARB hearings, even though they had less authority and responsibility. The CSRT had the Recorder serve both as the Prosecutor and the stenographer. The ARB had two different officers to take these roles.

One of the Presidents of one of the ARB hearings was amazingly biased. The factors in favor of his continued detention seemed particularly weak. The detainee seemed polite and courteous during his his hearing. But, unexpectedly, the Tribunal's President started to berate him. Why? Because the Tribunal President saw from the notes that, during his four years of extrajudicial detention this guy was accused of making some "anti-American" statements. Even Mahatma Gandhi, if he was held for four years without charge, when he thought he was innocent, would have had criticisms for his captors.

Surely you agree that the claim that wearing a casio watch suggests someone is a terrorist is laughable?

There are a bunch of detainees who were detained, in part, because their name, or one of their aliases, were found on a list captured from another al Qaeda suspect. I read Abdulla Kamel Abdulla Kamel Al Kandari's dossier six months or more ago. His was one of the 58 dossiers that had been acquired by the Associated Press a year or so ago. There were just three allegations against him. (1) that he traveled to Afghanistan after September 11. He said he went for humanitarian purposes. (2) He was wearing a Casio F91W. Well, he clearly wasn't wearing a Casio F91W - one of the cheapest digital watches - possibly the cheapest one with an settable audible alarm. He described his watch, in detail, and it was clearly a "Casio Prayer Watch". It took me less than ten minutes with google image search to demolish this allegation. (3) the third allegation against him was that one of his aliases was found on a list of names captured from a senior al qaeda suspect's hard drive. It pissed me off that they leveled this allegation against him, and then couldn't spell his name consistently. But yesterday I read the allegations against Faiz Al Kandari He too was accused of having his name on captured list of names. I strongly suspect that there was only one Al Kandari on that list.

The people who prepared the allegations, or "factors", against the detainees for their ARB hearings, seem to have been authorized, or had the time to go into more detail. One of those detainess who had spent the previous two years in the Taliban prison had the number of allegations against him balloon to 24 allegations. Most of them were so clearly bullshit. He was accused of being a follower of some guy who died when he was eight years old. He was accused of all kinds of senior al Qaeda and Taliban activities, during the time he was in prison. He was accused of being an American spy. How this would make him an enemy combatant is beyond me.

As you know, from the Denbeaux study, most of the detainees were captured by bounty hunters. But 1% of the detainees were captured following a skirmish outside the village of Lejay. The intelligence officers seemed to have been unwilling or unable to confine the allegations against the detainees to their own dossiers.

There was a detainee named Abdul Bagi, who said he and his crippled uncle were driving his uncle's tractor to the bazaar to get some filters and motor oil, when they heard an American convoy pulling up the road behind them. So they pulled over, to let the Americans pass. Instead of passing, they are arrested. They are taken to a compound where something like 70 other men were detained. But first they are taken to a nearby well, and asked what it was. Answer, a newly dug irrigation well.

A week or two later, when he finally faces real interrogators, they tell him he was found hiding in a hole, and that he had thrown his rifle in a well. He is outraged. He said that the well had less than a foot of water in the bottom, and that water was crystal clear, that someone would have been able to see even a pen, if it had been thrown in. He called three of his neighbors as witnesses, including a guy named Alif Mohammed. When he has his ARB hearing it turns out that calling Mohammed as a witness is seen as one confirmation of his enemy combatant status, because military intelligence has decided he was a squad leader.

By the time the Lejay villagers have their ARB hearings the story of traveling by tractor, to the bazaar, with an uncle has moved into the factors against Kushky Yar.

After reading all the transcripts I suspect that it was Mohammed who "was found in a hole". Originally he said he was taking a morning bath in an irrigation canal. But, from his ARB hearing it sounds like he tried to avoid the Americans by hiding in a culvert near the irrigation canal. So, he was the one found hiding in a hole.

So how did the allegations move from one dossier to another? Many of the detainees said, that is not me, that is not true. And now that we have a provable, demonstrable example of how lazy, or incompetent a job was done keeping the evidence straight, I am inclined to give them all the benefit of the doubt. Many of the detainees said, "This allegation against me, in the summary of evidence? None of my interrogators ever asked me about this, during all the years of imprisonment and interrogation. Further suggesting very poor evidence control.

Other evidence of poor evidence control? A number of the detainees asked to have items they were carrying, like their passports and visas, introduced into evidence. And the Personal Representatives and Recorders reported that they couldn't find it. In some cases they suggested that the bounty hunters didn't pass those items on to the Americans. Maybe, but some of the detainees said, "I know that evidence should be here in Guantanamo because my interrogators had it with them during my interrogation.

I know there are at least two detainees who are the victims of inexcuseable cases of mistaken identity. During their CSRTs they said, hold on, I am not XYZ. My real name is ABC, and then, when the full list of names were released, I saw that all the time the poor guys interrogators were insisting he was XYZ, and insisting his denials that he was XYZ were lies, the camp authorities were holding the real XYZ right there in Guantanamo.

There are several dozen detainees who names are spelled differently on the two official lists, even though they were released less than a month apart.

-- Geo Swan 05:42, 2006 May 29

And if there are any at all who might claim to be legitimate combatants then I still say there should be a list for those.

-- Randy2063 04:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It is very simply, captives are either POW or civilian. That is what should be mentioned. The Bush administration invented the UC status, but even if it exists, as they interpret it, it can only be applied after "competent tribunals" are held and have decided. To date no such tribunal has been held, so every detainee is civilian or POW. It's that simple. Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 07:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't particularly looking for who claimed to be a legitimate combatant when I read through the transcripts. Most of those accused of being fighters denied being combatants.

• Some claimed to be aid workers, or to have gone to Afghanistan for purely humanitarian purposes.
• Some of those who denied being combatants said they were conscripted, at gunpoint.
• Some of those who denied being combatants acknowledged starting at a training camp, but flunking out, or being injured.
• Some of those who denied being combatants acknowledged going through basic training, but not so they could fight in Afghanistan, but rather so they could go home and fight the occupiers in their own country, or do a better job defending their family or their tribe in local feuds back in their own country.
• Some of those who denied being combatants acknowledged going through basic training, but never joined a fighting unit, or traveled anywhere near where there was any fighting.
• Some of those who denied being combatants acknowledged going through basic training, but said they were never sent to the provinces were there was any shooting.
• Some of those who denied being combatants acknowledged being sent to the provinces where there was conflict, but they were assigned to a second line, 30km or so short of the front line.
• Some of those who denied being combatants said they spent some months manning outposts on the frontier where the Taliban portion of Afghanistan bordered on the Northern Alliance portion. But they were stationed there in 2000, or early 2001, when there was a de facto armistice, with no hostilities, no firing.
• Some of those who denied being combatants acknowledged that they had been members of other Armed Groups within Afghanistan, who had taken up arms, and fought invaders -- the Soviets, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan 15 years earlier, when all of the mujhadin groups were receiveing American arms and training -- and that they had stopped fighting when the Soviets were expelled in 1992; or in 1996 when the Taliban captured Kabul and established control of Afghanistan.

• I am unconvinced that the USA can justify holding someone whose military career ended before September 11, 2001, and was not a combatant during the US attack. If they weren't a combatant during the period of time when the USA was engaged in the conflict how can the USA justify calling them an enemy? Some of these guys, like Nasrat Khan, acknowledge fighting Afghanistan's invaders as part of groups that the USA now considers tied to terrorism. But he was fighting the Soviet invaders, not the Americans. And the group he fought with was receiving covert support from the CIA during the time he fought against the Soviet invaders - arms, surface-to-air missiles, funding, uniforms and other military supplies, and the CIA was slipping foreign jihadist fighters, like Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi across the border to help them. He says he quit fighting over a decade ago. He had a stroke. He is half-blind, and has to use a walker. It is quite possible that his former group uses terrorist tactics in 2002 and wasn't using them in 1992. Khan's son was arrested because he was guarding a cache of arms. He acknowledged that he was guarding a cache of arms. He said that these were excess arms that had been collected by the Ministry of Defense. He said that he was recruited to guard this cache of arms by a senior member of the Ministry of Defense, and that he and the other guardians were paid directly from the coffers of the Ministry of Defense. When he was arrested Khan appealed for his release, and then went to his son's home, to help take care of his family. He was arrested a month later.

• I looked up the the name of the Ministry of Defense official they said authorized the arms cache and paid to have it guarded. His name was Abdurrahim Wardak. Khan and his son requested him as a witness. Most of the time Tribunal Presidents rule witness as not relevant. Sometimes this was clearly a mistake. But, in this case the President did rule Wardak's testimony or affadavit would be relevant. However, when the DoD asked the State Department to try to find Wardak, to take an affidavit from him, they failed.

• Well, Wardak was then the Deputy Minister of Defense. He is currently the Minister of Defense. And the State Department couldn't find him? Jeez, the USA kicks out the Taliban for him, and Wardak can't even bother to give an affidavit?

• My theory is that Khan and his son are pawns. Wardak, and the previous Minister of Defense, were political enemies. During the first year or two of Karzai's administration there was a bigger presence of Northern Alliance leaders in his government. The Asia Times, a newspaper with a good, independent analysis of Asian affairs, explained that the alliance with the Northern Alliance was an uneasy one. They are Uzbeks, historically allied with Russia. Some articles I have read say the Northern Alliance doesn't really want to see full proportional democracy restored to Afghanistan because it is not in their interest of their ethnic group. So, their denunciation of democratic Afghans makes sense. The various elements in the alliance were trying to preserve their private armies and arms caches. If you are trying to maintain a private militia, or private arms caches, being Minister of Defense, or Deputy Minister of Defense, is a big advantage.

• I think Wardak was abusing his position, and using government funds, to try to maintain private Arms caches, in case the democratic process fell apart. I think he over-reached, and the USA raided his private cache. Wardak was then a bid wheel. He is a bigger wheel now. The USA can't nail him, doesn't want to nail him, because he is still useful.

• I think, rather than nail him, they decided to punish the guys working for him, as a warning to Wardak. I suspect they nailed the pawns who maintained that Arms cache, without regard to whether the pawns thought that the Arms cache was a legitimate authorized government project. I think that continuing to detain Khan and his son was a warning to Wardak that if he went farther they could send him to Guantanamo, but so long as he kept his corruption within limits they would turn a blind eye to his activities. -- Geo Swan 13:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• Some of those who denied being enemy combatants acknowledged that they had been carrying arms after the US invasion -- but they were carrying them as part of the armed forces of the new governments Afghan Military Forces. They say they were falsely denounced by machiavellian elements within the new government who were covertly trying to disrupt the restoration of democracy. Several guys were captured when some elements of the AMF lead Americans to a house that had belonged to a senior member of the Taliban. They said other senior members of the AMF had said that the senior Taliban's property was forfeit, and had authorized them using the house as their barracks.

Note what article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention says:

1. Lawful Combatants "answer, through their officers to a chain of command."
2. Lawful Combatants wear "a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance."
3. Lawful combatants "carry arms openly".
4. Lawful Combatants "conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

FWIW the allegation that the Taliban didn't wear uniforms was contradicted by the allegations against some of the detainees. One detainee was accused of being an enemy combatant, in part, because he was issued a Taliban uniform.

Another detainee had been the governor of a province. One of the allegations against him was that he commanded all the Taliban fighters in that province, and that he was responsible for reporting about them to Mullah Omar. One of the criteria for a lawful combatant is that they report through their officers, to a chain of command. The allegations against this former governor is an admission that US intelligence knew that Taliban fighters answered to a chain of command.

The only detainees accused of trying to ditch their arms are the detainees captured outside Lejay. And my reading of the transcripts is that they were trying to accuse several of the detainees of ditching the same rifle. Logically, only one of them can be guilty of trying to ditch their weapon. Ditching one's weapon - maybe that qualifies as "not carrying arms openly". IANAL.

With the possible exception of Alif Mohammed, noted above, I have not come across a single detainee who is accused of violating the laws and customs of war.

-- Geo Swan 05:42, 2006 May 29

Yesterday I read the transcript of one of the detainees who had been assessed not to have been an enemy combatant after all. The DoD calls these guys NLEC, ie. "No Longer Enemy Combatant". But that is pure deceitful spin. Those guys, like a lot of the guys who remain in Guantanamo were never enemy combatants. This particular detainee was a guy from Sudan, who had earned a degree in accountancy. He had taken a job as an accountant, in the Pakistan office of a Kuwaiti charity, the [Revival of Islamic Heritage Society]]. During his Tribunal he described, in detail, how he and his colleagues applied accounting principals to manage the income and expenditures of this charity, and how he could be sure that no one penny had been spent sponsoring terrorism. One of the final questions was, "was the RIHS once known as the "Afghan Support Committee". He said that it once had been. Or, at least, that is what his translator said he said. I'll return to this later.

I had read about Kuwaiti detainee who was held, in large part, because he had been a big donor to, and volunteer for, the Revival of Islamic Heritage. He was well-informed about its operation. He said it was one of the most popular charities in Kuwait. He was able to say what percentage of Kuwaitis donated to the charity, with the tacit endorsement of the Kuwaiti government. He too spoke of the fiscal controls, openness and transparency with which the charity operated.

The problem here seems to be that there are multiple organizations with the name "Afghan Support Group", "Afghanistan Support Committee", etc. Add translation difficulties on top of that. I bet that "Afghan Support Group" and "Afghanistan Support Committee", once translated in Arabic, are indistinguishable. A couple of months ago, when I was reading about some of the al Qaeda related guy in the USA, when I was working on charities accused of ties to terrorism I came across a group with a very similar name. IIRC it had started out as a front group, founded by the CIA. The CIA had sought out the most extreme, fundamentalist mujahidin, thinking that they would be the most dedicated fighters against the Soviets. They founded front groups so they could obfuscate and deny that they were directly funding the importation of foreign jihadists to fight the Soviets. So they established conduits to indirectly fund the jihadists. Well, when the Soviets were expelled the CIA had no more use for the jihadists. But the Jihadists still had funds in their secret bank accounts. The group continued to function, and, with no CIA money coming in anymore, they reassessed whether the USA should join their list of targets. The rump of this organization seems to have continued to function, for half a dozen years, following the cutting off of CIA funding. There was an Egyptian military liason to the USA, who was taking Special Forces training at US Army training centres, and, during his time off, was passing that training on to extremist jihadists in the USA, including guys who were involved in the 1993 bombing of the WTC. That Egyptian disappeared. Was he a CIA mole tasked to infiltrate the ASC? Was he an Egyptian spy tasked to report on both the jihdists and US intelligence? Was he a sincere jihadist himself who fooled the Americans? Who knows. Last night I came across another Afghanistan Support Committee, that a member of the British House of Lords was a member of. So, it sounds to me as if there have been at least four groups with confusingly similar names.

But US intelligence officials are professionals, who wouldn't be confused by simply being unable to distinguish between different things with the same or similar names? Lol. Tell that to Khalid El-Masri.

Returning to the translation problems -- the DoD has a terrible problem getting competent translators. You will notice this, when you read the transcripts. And there are subtle errors that only came to light when more experienced Arabic speakers were able to monitor the proceedings. When the proceeding were monitored by experienced speakers they said that the translators routinely made subtle errors, that wouldn't be apparent to listeners -- like, "did you carry arms before 911" to "did you carry arms after 911", and vice versa. Think about it for a second. That would really screw up the Tribunal's idea of whether a guy was really an enemy. Given the translation problems I think it worth considering that the Sudanese detainee may have said, "Was the RIHS once called the Afghan Support Committee? I don't know. Maybe - its possible - before my time. I had only worked for them for about a year." And the translator translated that as a simple "yes".

Arabic is spoken across many nations -- with many local idioms -- that can apparently make an arabic speaker from one region fail to understand what an arabic speaker from another region really means. -- Geo Swan 14:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

First, I don't mean that any of this was deliberately misleading on your part. It wasn't clear until you get to the last line of the quote that Begg wasn't asking for POW status. It's true that the tribunal president didn't put this until the end, but that section starts with a description, and it's not included there at all.

But now that you mention it, I can see how the phrase "attempt to make it into a technical issue" might need to be backed up. I thought it describes what he was doing, and it may be the most interesting part of the entire story, but I'll re-edit that tomorrow.

On Abdullah Khadr, I can see what you mean about it being called chemical weapons when Saddam had them, and not chemical weapons when Marines use them. But that's the way it always is with lawyers and politicians. It's not so much different than what you had said about Otto Skorzeny, who had a British officer testify that they also operated in enemy uniforms. Karl Dönitz had similar circumstances.

Even if we were to decide Geneva applies, every prisoner is still required to identify himself upon capture. A competent tribunal comes after they give name, rank and serial number.

Most of our disagreements aren't really over this anyway. For example, this one bothered me:

These hearings are a direct result of the decision by the Bush administration to deny detainees in the war on terror prisoner of war status and classify them as enemy combatants.

I thought it was off but the real key may be that this isn't precise enough. It was all the direct result of the Bush administration's reading of the Geneva Conventions as that they don't apply to this war. The non-classification of POWs was just a result of that.

As I've said before, the Conventions were agreements between nations, and they were written with their interests in mind, and in wars between them ("between two or more of the High Contracting Parties"). Expanding its privileges to terrorists, pirates, revolutionaries, or mercenaries was not something they were willing to do at the time, particularly if they were the ones to be overthrown. The Protocols may have expanded on that but we never signed on.

As for the standards of the service academies, what you see in those transcripts would not be a good indicator for you. A lot of military officers followed either ROTC or some other path into the military, and never went to one of the academies. I'm just guessing here, but that could be even more likely for the lawyers, and perhaps medical doctors as well. And on the flip side, there are officers with law degrees who don't want to be military lawyers.

The problem you're describing isn't by any means limited to the military. That's one of the reasons I personally oppose the death penalty, and am very wary of government regulation.

Yes, wearing a Casio watch doesn't mean that someone is a terrorist. But I think you'd agree it could be considered if combined with other factors. For example, if 2% of all Muslims in a region wear Casios (numbers I'm just pulling out of a hat), and 5% of all Muslim terrorists wear them, then that's something to consider along with a lot of other factors. It doesn't indict someone all by itself, but you can't ignore it either.

If someone was held only because of the watch, then that would be stupid. The trouble is, you don't think the other evidence is very solid. I don't think it has to be because this is a war. The fact that someone "started at a training camp" is enough for me, regardless of whether he got all the way through, or graduated but never got into the fight, or claims he had intended to fight elsewhere against somebody else. There is a point where the burden of proof falls back on him.

I've heard of Taliban wearing uniforms, but they're among the few of our enemy that do. I'd put them into a different class, in a moral sense, but I don't think they're a "High Contracting Party" anyway, as the Geneva Conventions require. I don't think they pass the requirement to "conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war" either.

Then there's the issue of using conspiracy law. I did see this, however, that argues against that. We'll have to see how the Court rules.

I can feel sorry for some non-Taliban, like Abdul Bagi. He makes a good impression but I haven't seen the classified sections, and we don't know that his story checks out. He may just tell it very well. Was there really less than a foot of water in that well? I can see him making it up, and I can also see the interrogators making a mistake. Part of the problem with your POV is that you also think that Moazzam Begg shouldn't have been held. These people are not due any benefit of the doubt as though this was some kind of criminal case.

I think you may be overreacting to the phrase NLEC ("No Longer Enemy Combatant"). They were catalogued as enemy combatants. The inadequate translations is another story. I agree that's a problem.

-- Randy2063 00:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Boston Globe Article

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/06/18/detainees_not_given_access_to_witnesses/ this i think should be added here somewhere.Hypnosadist 10:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The Boston Globe article doesn't mention that Nasrat Khan and his son Hiztullah Nasrat Yar had requested an affidavit from Rahim Wardak, who was described as an Afghan Defense Ministry official. They claimed Wardak had authorized Yar to maintain an official government armory. Maintaining an illicit arms cache was the reason for their detention. The Tribunal President stated that Wardak's testimony was "not reasonably available".

Wardak is not just an Afghan Defense Ministry official - he is the Minister of Defense.

No, I am not making this up. -- Geo Swan 13:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Can't insert unsourced opinions in the middle of a quote

A contributor who hadn't signed in felt entitled to add that Robertson's judgement in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld had been "discredited and overturned on appeal" in the middle of a quote.

Robertson's judgement in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was overturned on appeal. And that decision has, in turn, been appealed to the SCOTUS. But I checked the source. Sure enough the cited material didn't say that.

Further, whether Robertson's judgement has been "discredited" is a matter of opinion. The unnamed contributor is in error to state it as a fact, without providing an authoritative source that states that opinion. -- Geo Swan 03:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree that "discredited" is the wrong word. In any case, SCOTUS is going to rule on that appeal any day now (if not any minute now). We might as well wait until that comes out before putting much effort into this.

-- Randy2063 17:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Contributions from User:68.52.221.238

I've taken a second look at the June 27 2006 contributions from User:68.52.221.238.

In this edit they assert, without any reference to a verifiable, authoritative external source, that the CSRTs "are nearly identical" to the AR 190 the military uses to implement competent tribunals. Without providing a reference the "nearly identical" judgement looks like a violation of the no original research policy.

In this edit they assert, again without any reference to a verifiable, authoritative external source, that the CSRTs use identical rules of evidence as the AR 190 the military uses to implement competent tribunals.

In this edit they try to conflate the appointment of a Personal Representative to allowing the detainees the advice of a legal representative who is on their side. This claim is highly deceptive, since the detainees are specifically warned that their Personal Representative is not on their side, that the Personal Representative's sole responsibility is to the Tribunal. Their claim that some PR are lawyers is thus irrelevant, and completely unsubstantiated.

I've already addressed this edit, where they tried to insert a passage, that was not in the original, in a block of quoted text. Their insertion was, I believe, in violation of both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV.

I believe all five of the contributions from User:68.52.221.238 should be rolled back. I'd welcome them to try again -- if they can find sources to back up their assertions. -- Geo Swan 20:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I found the page where the AR-190 series of documents can be downloaded. I downloaded AR 190-8 (.pdf) the document that deals with enemy prisoners. Just a cursory glance was enough to convince me that User:68.52.221.238 was completely mistaken to assert, as a fact, that the Guantanamo detainees had been treated consistently with its provisions. For instance, it specifies that prisoners be treated humanely, and given proper medical care -- these are two issues over which there has been great controversy for the Guantanamo detainees. -- Geo Swan 20:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the rules are not identical. The anonymous contributor had an interesting point in that they're similar in some ways, but that's not the standard the court has set (regardless my own opinion of that decision).

On the alleged mistreatment, that still appears to be a manufactured controversy. I'm sure you know that the rules were changed back in 2003. In fact, those three fascists who killed themselves were able to do so because of ICRC demands that made it harder to monitor them. None of the reports by detainees, ex-detainees, or their lawyers can be trusted.

Even Canada has been accused of abuse by the fascists they captured last month.

"He is being held in a concrete room, approximately 11 feet by 6 feet. A concrete door. There is no window in the room. There is a small slit that is opened when meals are placed in his room. The light is on 24 hours a day and actually as early as 30 years ago, the federal court trial division of Canada had noted and had accepted expert testimony that this type of treatment is known to cause depression and suicide and has held that this type of treatment is, in fact, cruel and unusual punishment, contrary to the Bill of Rights."

But he insists the treatment has gone farther than that - including beatings by a guard.

Cries of abuse seems to be the game plan.

-- Randy2063 03:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Didn't you and I discuss the "Manchester manual" - an alleged al Qaeda manual that Bush spokesmen keep claiming was used to train al Qaeda recruits to lie about being tortured? I think I told you I googled for it, and read the section about what to do if imprisoned. I didn't find a single sentence training recruits to lie about being tortured. On the contrary, this manual, written before the USA entered the conflict, assumed that they would end up in the custody of countries like Syria, Egypt and Uzbekistan, that routinely practice torture. The manual contained the advice that, if captured, the reader should do everything they could to get a full medical exam. This is exactly the opposite of what the manual should advise if it intended the reader to lie about torture. A medical exam prior to interrogation would help a prisoner document that they had been beaten, or tortured, if they had, in fact, been beaten or tortured. Knowing the reputation of the Syrian, Egyptian, and Uzekistani interrogators, the authors of the manual assumed all important prisoners would be tortured. If a prisoner wasn't tortured, the medical exam prior to interrogation would help prove they were lying. If the author of the manual wanted readers to lie about being tortured, seeking a medical exam prior to interrogation would be the absolute last advice it would offer.

So, do you believe that all the detainees who have described abuse or torture lied? Many of them are illiterate, monoglot Pashtuns. They would be incapable of reading the manual. Other detainees who described abuse are clearly innocent And, as you know, the Denbeaux study documented that the DoD is only claiming a small fraction of the detainees are members of, or associated with al Qaeda. If only a small fraction of the detainees are members of al Qaeda, how can we explain how widespread the claims of abuse are?

I think it is a mistake to call the three dead men fascists. Did you read the DoD's explanation of why they had ever considered Mani Al Utaybi tied to terrorism? They believed he had participated in the Tablighi Jamaat. American intelligence agents have proven incapable of understanding their prisoners, their prisoner's culture, or even their prisoner's identities.

Murat Kurnaz was held because he had participated in a Tablighi Jamaat pilgrimage.

What reason do American intelligence analysts have to tie Tablighi Jamaat to terrorism? Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, had participated in a Tablighi Jamaat pilgrimage. So had a number of other individuals suspected of being members of, or associated with al Qaeda. But so had three million other men. Even if ever member of al Qaeda had once participated in a Tablighi Jamaat pilgrimage, that would still mean that 2,999,000 Tablighi Jamaat pilgrims were innocent of ties to terrorism.

Among the documents Murat Kurnaz's lawyers prepared for his Administrative Review Board are three letters, from three American Professors of the history of Religion. They all agree that Tablighi Jamaat is a non-political group. Pilgrims are not even supposed to discuss politics. The pilgrims visit distant cities, they pray with the locals, they sleep in the local mosques, and talk with the locals about the proper ways to pray, and how to be a good follower of Islam.

Now, it is perfectly possible that a terrorist could pretend to be a Tablighi Jamaat pilgrim in order to provide a credible excuse for foreign travel. But I have not come across anyon who has provided any reason to believe that there is any more reason to believe that any random member of Tablighi Jamaat is a terrorist.

The allegation that Al Utaybi was a member of Tablighi Jamaat is the only allegation that American authorities have offered for us to believe he was tied to terrorism. It is a flimsy, tissue thin allegation. If that is all they could come up with, after four years of detention and interrogation, please explain why we shouldn't assume he was merely one more innocent civilian, who was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yasser Talal Al Zahrani was accused of being a "front line fighter for the Taliban". Are you arguing that this makes him a fascist? You and I would agree, I am sure, that the Taliban have values that you and I find dreadful - like women as chattels. Well, without regard to Laura Bush's visit, these values are just as prevalent in the Northern Alliance, and in Saudi Arabia too. We don't know the extent to which Al Zahrani shared this view. I

If Al Zahrani really did serve on the Taliban's front line, but he did so prior to 9-11, is it fair or reasonable for the USA to classify him as an "enemy combatant"? I think I asked you this question before.

The allegations that American intelligence analysts prepared for the CSRT and ARB hearings are totally untrustworthy. I am sure we discussed the dreadful case of Abdullah Khan, who told his Tribunal that he kept being accused by his interrogators of lying about his identity. They kept insisting he was really Khirullah Khairkhwa. And he kept pleading with them to check the roster of Prisoners, because not only wasn't he Khirullah Khairkhwa, but other prisoners told him that the real Khirullah Khairkhwa had already been in custody for more than a year before he was captured.

How could the American intelligence analysts make sure a terrible mistake?

And, when, because the judicial branch had forced a review of the detainee's status, the intelligence analysts had to devote enough attention to Khan's dossier to realize that he wasn't Khirullah Khairkhwa, what did they do? Did they release him with an apology, and a letter acknowledging that he had been detained in error? No, they made up a brand new set of allegations. Khan told his Tribunal that the allegations he faced in the unclassified "Summary of Evidence" were brand new to him. They had never been raised during any of his interrogations.

This was not an isolated incident. Errors like this were routine, frequent. I have read at least a dozen transcripts where the detainee told their Tribunal that the allegations against them were brand new, had never been raised during their interrogations. There are other detainees who requested documents as evidence, to present to their Tribunal, only to be told that the documents couldn't be found, that they weren't in Guantanamo. These guys told their Tribunal that they knew the documents were in Guantanamo because their interrogators had brought them to their interrogation sessions, and had shown them, when they demanded explanations.

And then there are allegations that were obviously invented. As you probably know hundreds of the detainees have, as one of the allegations against them, that when the American bombing started they fled for their safety. No reasonable person would argue that fleeing falling bombs makes one an enemy, or a terrorist. There was one detainee, I wish I had made a note of his name, who had an allegations against him that was obviously made up. Following the allegation that when the bombing started he fled for his life, was the allegations that he was probably carrying an AK47 when he fled. Probably? This is an allegation that was not based on evidence.

I have pointed out how ridiculous the allegations that wearing a Casio F91W tied one to terrorism, just because Achmed Ressam, the millenium bomber bought two prior to his attempt to plant time-bombs at LAX. And I pointed out that several of the dozen or more of the detainees who were held, in part, because they were wearing a Casio watch, weren't even wearing that model. What we have to accept is that a kind of hysteria had infected the intelligence analysts, so they didn't really care if the allegations were the truth.

Please bear in mind that Yasser Talal Al Zahrani was a minor, when captured.

Admiral Harry Harris, the new commandant, asserted that there are no innocent men in Guantanamo. You must know by now that this is untrue. Murat Kurnaz, for instance, is obviously innocent. I think we should assume that Mani Al Utaybi was an innocent man too. At least five of six Bosnians, in the Algerian Six are obviously innocent. They had their trial, in Bosnian courts. And they were acquitted. Nevertheless, an American snatch team captured them, and kidnapped them, following their release from jail, following their acquittal.

In October 2001 American intelligence officials in Bosnia said that they detected an increase in "chatter". They concluded that this chatter signalled a plot to attack the American embassy. And they concluded that these six Bosnians of Algerian descent were the plotters.

The Bosnians told their Tribunals that their interrogators never interrogated them about the plot to attack the American embassy. They seemed to think that they Bosnians were not terrorists, but may have known terrorists.

One of the miniscule grains of truth in the American allegations is that the Bosnians met regularly -- once a month. They all worked for charities -- charities that had some joint projects that required coordination. American intelligence officials seem to have, initially at least, thought that these meeting were just cover for their plotting to attack the embassy. The other grain of truth was that signals intelligence showed that one of the six made dozens of calls to Afghanistan during the month following the attacks on 9-11. Well, he had, a few years earlier, worked for a charity in Afghanistan. So, those calls could merely have been touching base with people he had known there. Those calls do not prove he was a terrorist, or was sympathetic to terrorism. Some of those calls were claimed to be to a phone that had once been used by Abu Zubaydah. This is still not proof he was a terrorist, or was sympathetic to terrorism.

I am sure you want America to be as safe as possible from terrorist attacks. I too want America to be safe from terrorist attacks. I want Canada, and the rest of the developed world to be safe from terrorist attacks. I want all moderate muslims to be safe from terrorist attacks. And I even want those fundamentalist muslims who are opposed to terrorism to be safe from attack.

Indulging in demonizing those muslims who aren't terrorists, who can be proven to have not been terrorists, might be satisfying to those who want vengeance for the attacks of 9-11, without regard to whether those on the receiving end actually share any responsibility for those attacks, makes us all less safe. Maintaining Guantanamo has been expensive, very expensive.

• Halliburton was paid over $100 million dollars to construct the various camps.
• Halliburton provides the meals, at $100 per individual, per day, even when the detainees are on bread and water.
• Rumsfeld tied down several battalions to guard the detainees, when every warm body was desperately needed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A terrible waste when 80% or more of the detainees were not terrorists.
• Rumsfeld set in place interrogation policies that lead to a stream of very unreliable intelligence.
  • Mohamed al-Kahtani's interrogation was so brutal that an FBI agent who saw him wrote, in a memo, that al-Kahtani was gibbering in a corner, experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations. Should we be shocked that the confessions he made in this state were entirely unreliable.
  • I think we need to assume that Sheikh Al-Libi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were subjected to the same level of interrogation, and that no trust should have been placed in the confessions wrung from them under those circumstances.
  • Other detainees betrayed their fellow detainees, and falsely denounced them under less pressure from their interrogators. Detainees who denounced other detainees were rewarded with take-out meals fetched from the bases McDonalds, with movies, with white uniforms, with access to the soccer field, the freedom to mix with other detainees. Some detainees had the strength of character to refrain from falsely denouncing their fellow detainees, to increase their privilege level. Others didn't.
  • Basing decisions on bad intelligence puts lives at risk.
    • It puts lives at risk because you send people in harms way, letting them think they are safe.
    • It puts lives at risk because you waste counter-terrorism resources guarding against non-existent threats, and those counter-terrorism resources will not be available for other threats, that are considered less important, but are actually real threats.
    • It puts lives at risk because it raises the stress levels of ordinary civilians. Ashcroft and the first Director of DHS, whose name I have forgotten, kept raising and lowering the threat level, based, in part at least, on the tainted intelligence as extracted above. Americans, some Americans at least, have spent the last five years in an unnecessarily heightened state of alarm.
• Flagrantly ignoring the Geneva Conventions has been very costly. It has been like a big F.U. to every person, in the rest of the World, who believes in the rule of law, fundamental justice, and the principle of the presumption of innocence. I was just sick Thursday and Friday to hear conservative commentators react to the Supreme Court ruling by repeating the lie that all the detainees were al Qaeda fighters. As you know the DoD only alleged that less than 20% of the detainees were members of al Qaeda. And I consider those allegations unreliable. Asserting that they were all members of al Qaeda is simply unforgiveable.
• And treating the detainees with cruelty is likely to have taken innocent, moderate muslims, who were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and radicalized them and made them hate America.
• See above. I am old enough to remember Watergate. Watergate lead to a big increase in public cynicism. We are still experiencing the echo of Nixon's betrayal of the public. Eventually the American public, or some portion thereof, will realize that war crimes were committed in their name. And I believe this will be damaging to America, to the sense Americans have of themselves that they are the pre-eminent defenders of freedom, and what is right and just.

America will be safer, the rest of the world will be safer, if the decisions about how to spend the resources we devote to counter-terrorism are made rationally, and intelligently. Precious resources shouldn't be wasted on innocent men. It is as crazy as making every airplane passenger take their shoes off before they boarded the plane.

I am sure you know that a month or two ago the DHS decided to slash the counter-terrorism resources spent in NYC and Washington DC. DHS officials said that NYC did not have any sites of cultural significance! DHS's counter-terrorist resources have been hijacked by pork-barrel carpet-baggers.

I urge you to refrain from labelling detainees, who you don't know have any ties to terrorism, as terrorists, or fascists. Labelling men who might be innocent with false allegations makes us less safe, because it encourages us to waste precious counter-terrorist resources. -- Geo Swan 08:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not labelling detainees as "fascists" without cause, nor am I applying it to every detainee. But I do consider the three who've killed themselves as such. For the rest, I have little doubt that all but a handful could be called fascists in the same general sense that the word is often applied to Nazis.

Regarding the question of innocence, there are two points here. One is whether the charge itself is legal, and the other is whether the accused was not guilty of that charge. It's important not to mix up the two.

The Denbeauxs are questioning the legality of the charge more than just their innocence. I can't believe that you seriously think we should limit our categorization of "enemy" to actual card-carrying al Qaeda members only, and even then, only those among them who've carried a weapon into battle. And members of any other militant groups should be let free? That's how I read the Denbeaux study. Its very nature reinforces many of my views about the detainees. If these were all simple sheep-herders and innocent teachers, then why do their advocates have to be so disingenuous?

I was in error when I first agreed with you on the al Qaeda manual, and whether or not its instructions really say to raise false claims of torture. I went back and found the document, and it looks like those claims do have validity.

1. At the beginning of the trial, once more the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security [investigators] before the judge.
2. Complain [to the court] of mistreatment while in prison.

Those who went to training camps may have learned this, illiterate or not, and whether they read the manual or not. The rest could learn from the example of others. My view wasn't dependent on that manual anyway. They can figure some of this out on their own much the way that babies learn that crying can be very effective.

Looking through Murat Kurnaz's documents, I see a description for Tablighi Jamaat starting at the bottom of page 96. The writer's intent was to show that the organization isn't a structured one, and there's no way you could say it's affiliated with any other group. Those same attributes make it an attractive cover story.

There's no link to Al Utabi's CSRT transcript but I doubt their understanding of Tablighi Jamaat is a deficiency here. A different document referenced elsewhere shows (on pg.4) how a link to that organization is used as a starting point, and it goes on from there to show other links. Do you really think Al Utabi's or Kurnaz's only links are as members of Tablighi Jamaat?

Al Utabi was recommended for transfer to another country. As I understand it, the U.S. government wanted him to remain in custody somewhere else. It's a shame Canada didn't ask to take him.

Yes, Yasser Talal Al Zahrani's actions with the Taliban are enough for me to call him a fascist. Add in everything that we read about him now, and it's clear he continued to bond with the worst of those in GTMO.

The official U.S. definition of enemy combatant includes the qualifier "that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." That implies fighting against the U.S. or the Northern Alliance. Regardless, a Taliban fighter whose term of service expired before 9/11 could still be called a fascist regardless of whether they were committed enemies.

In WWII there were plenty of Europeans who donned Nazi uniforms because they wanted to fight against communism. Would you deny that made them enemies of the U.S.? I don't doubt that some of them were minors, too.

I already responded to al-Kahtani's mistreatment once before. First, he was given sleep deprivation, and he was insulted. As bad as you think that is, that makes U.S. interrogators saints compared to what the other side does (with nary a word of concern from the rest of the world). Second, that was even before the interrogation rules were changed back in January 2003. And third, his confessions would initially be considered unreliable anyway, regardless of whether they used sleep deprivation or ice cream cones. Those who develop intelligence from those interrogations should understand all this at least as well as you and I do.

I wouldn't call what we did "flagrantly ignoring the Geneva Conventions". The U.S. read the treaty very carefully, and the difference in interpretations was determined by only one Justice. I would say that the rest of the world has been (and still is) ignoring the Geneva Conventions. The proof of that is all around us. The Supreme Court has in effect given al Qaeda some recognition as a nation. Now that we're operating in Afghanistan under Geneva, do you think we're going to see everyone "in the rest of the World, who believes in the rule of law" suddenly turn around and start demanding that al Qaeda and their ilk follow the Geneva Conventions? I'm not holding my breath. Public opinion went against us after the first few weeks in Afghanistan. That was while we were still counting our dead at the WTC, long before Bagram, Iraq or Abu Ghraib, or the Geneva dispute, and yet they still sided with the Taliban.

You may not agree with my characterization of that as their siding with the Taliban, but they weren't marching in the streets against Taliban atrocities then, nor are they now protesting the terrorists' killing of civilians in Iraq. Not being even-handed means they are taking sides. Many of them do support the other side even though it has added to the death toll far more than what the U.S. can be accused of.

And, no, I do not believe the rest of the world is quite so concerned "in the rule of law, fundamental justice, and the principle of the presumption of innocence" as you seem to think they are. That horse is already out of the barn. Just look at the conspiracy theories given voice here. Carolyn Wood didn't get presumption of innocence. It seems the only time a U.S. soldier gets presumption of innocence is when he's trying to shift the blame for a real atrocity to one of his superiors.

-- Randy2063 17:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello Randy, you seem to be mixing up the Media and the Courts, so i'll explain for you. The many US personel who have, will or are now on trial for crimes they are accussed of will get three things that the detainies at gitmo won't: Lawyers, a jury of their peers and The Presumption of innocence. So the world thinks they did these crimes, Tough! the US military lost all its goodwill over 30 years and a few thousand dead vietnamise civi's ago. I find the fact you can't tell two apart very worrying.Hypnosadist 22:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

No, Hypno, I had it right all along. You didn't explain how it is that "the world" demands that the U.S. conform to Geneva in this way, but not al Qaeda in any way.

I don't want this to turn into a flame war, so I'll readily concede that the U.S. was shameful in abandoning South Vietnam after a shaky peace agreement, and that too many died after the communist aggression started up again. Hundreds of thousands died in the aftermath. But it's also a shame that those who first insisted that they wanted peace had suddenly become silent while that was going on.

More on topic, I don't know that presumption of innocence will play that big a part in whatever new system replaces the CSRTs -- assuming that there is a new system.

-- Randy2063 23:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

"He did it too", has never been accepted as justification for violating the law. As to "I don't know that presumption of innocence will play that big a part," this is exactly what is wrong with the treatment of detainees.Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 23:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

"The world" knows full well al Qaeda does not obey the Geneva convensions, thats why they are terrorists, the "Bad guys" as some would call them. The "Good Guys" follow the rules, thats how we tell them apart.Hypnosadist 23:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

We are following the rules. As I said, it was a questionable interpretation of Article 3, and the difference was made by only one Justice. That wouldn't happen if we weren't following the rules very closely.

On presumption of innocence, I'm not sure how it will work out, but I suspect that the Supreme Court might like whatever it is more than you guys do.

-- Randy2063 00:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"We are following the rules." Apparently the supreme court thinks otherwise. Or did it not just rule that the Bush administration is bound by the Geneva Conventions and that it nevertheless ignored them?Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 00:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Did you actually read my message in its entirety? It wasn't that long.

That link to common Article 3 was there for a reason. The Bush administration had a difference of opinion. They lost but it turned out to be very close. The justices in the minority were even pretty adamant about the decision being wrong.

IAC, the closeness of the ruling indicates that it wasn't as obvious as you want to make it.

-- Randy2063 02:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think part of this has to do with difference between the spirit and the letter of the law and also that America is a more legalistic country than Europe and so more open to justice by technicality and process(ie taking as loooooong as possible). You are following the rules "sort of" but only because POTUS is being held to account by his own people and by external diplomatic means.

As to presumption of innocence at gitmo, no chance in hell. Going to find it difficult under a ballance of probabilties to get convictions let alone reasonable doubt. Very few external witness statments of crimes, Confessions can't hold up under Marnda rights if the Constitution comes into play. Hypnosadist 01:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

We're following the rules to the letter. Without the technicalities, the law would be left to a whim. It's proper to allow leeway on most occasions but not if people can die, and that's what we're talking about here.

-- Randy2063 02:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The Geneva Conventions are ignored and the Supreme Court ruled that that is a violation of international law. How can you say this administration follows the rules?Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 03:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I say this because they followed the rules as they were strictly interpreted at the time. Do I need to remind you that Bush won the Hamdan case after their first appeal? That means our treaty requirements were fulfilled as they were then understood.

You might have a better point if Article 3 was more clear about the details as the Supreme Court sees them, or if the Court ruled with a less tenuous majority.

It's a shame no one is asking the fascists to follow international law.

-- Randy2063 16:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Defense of User:68.52.221.238

Because that was me, before I knew what was going on.

I've provided one of many available links that tells explicitly that the CSRT was modeled after the AR 190 (because J. O'Conner told them to in Hamdi). I can get a lot more if you like.

It has always been the US government's position that it is providing medical care and humane treatment. Using that to distinguich the tribunals is bizarre. Just look at the possible categories page...it is the only difference I can find (besides the personal rep below). The language is even similar and identical in places. You have to remember the timeline...detention, then ARB's created, then Hamdi came recommending AR-190-esque procedures, THEN the CSRT.

I'm not sure how to deal with the personal represantive part. This is from the CSRT FactSheet at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2004/d20040707factsheet.pdf

Personal Representative. Each detainee will be assigned a military officer as a personal representative to assist in connection with the Tribunal process. This person is not a lawyer but provides assistance to the detainee that is not normally offered in the process cited favorably by the Supreme Court or required by the Geneva Conventions

(FYI that "process favored by the Supreme Court" refers to the AR 190.) Regardless, this quote could be used to support both of our assertions. I'm not sure.

My prior inserting into a block quote was ignorance, not malice. I'm still new.

Editorializing: I think one thing that is being left out of this argument is the STARTING point for treatment of enemy combatants (both lawful and unlawful) under the law of armed conflict. Death. Militaries can kill one another all day long and no one makes a noise. I'm not talking about soldiers killing civilians, but, rather, combatants killing enemy belligerants. It is encouraged under LOAC. But detain them and people start squawking. Recall that the US claim is that this is a war. As such, the US can kill those enemies that take up arms against it. Those that are not killed in combat may be captured...if so, they can be detained until hostilities cease in order to prevent them from returning to the fight. Most scholars seem to agree with that, at least in theory, and using an expansive definition of war. Anyway, it's not the killing, it's the detaining that's making news. Interesting. This seems to incentivize killing, but I may be wrong.

This article could be served with less anecdotal evidence. I'm sure, if we had clearance, we could post an opposing story of some killer down there who deserves detention, even in the eyes of the clearly agenda-motivated GeoSwan. I don't think anecdotes add much to an article entitled Combatant Status Review Tribunals. It seems to show a lack of a NPOV.
-- User:Robp 09:16, 12 July 2006

Welcome to Jihadpedia, and thanks for joining in here.

While Geo has a definite point of view, I doubt he'd have stomped on you that way if you hadn't been logged on as an anonymous user. You'll find that makes a bit of a difference.

BTW: You should end your posts in talk sections with four tildes ("~~~~") to add your signature. I inserted one for you above.

-- Randy2063 20:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for my ignorance of Wikipedia conventions. I'm still learning. Thanks for the signature input.(Robp 22:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC))

Robp "This seems to incentivize killing, but I may be wrong." yes you could, some USMC lads weren't out killing taliban fighters one day and part way through and went why not send the rest on holiday cuba, that would be nice! These people were taken to interogated(see how NPOV i'm being) in a legal blackhole. All the while saying things like your're "leaders of the free and demorcratic world". Oh and welcome to "Jihadpedia" rob.

PS concerning "personal representative's" would you trust/ find useful your lawyer if he worked for the police, recorded your conversations and gave them to the court as well as your defence stratagy. To associate "personal representatives" with lawyers is a complete load of BS, many are only para-legals anyway not full lawyers.Hypnosadist 20:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Have a citation for the paralegal comment? You may be right, I've never heard that. I understand they're not required to be lawyers. And I tried to be nuetral in my description of the personal representative. Perhaps I fell short. You miss my point in the incentivizing killing. Many, or at least some, of these detainees were captured on a battlefield engaged in active combat with American troops (or their proxy allies). My point is, if the default treatment was to treat these captives like you would a criminal robbing a bank, how do you square that with the active combat taking place only moments before? As far as my "personal representative," if I were captured by an al Qaeda member, I'd be pleasantly shocked by such treatment, paralegal or not.

No, it's not a criminal law standard, nor is it designed to be. It's the law of WAR. Even assuming these persons were captured on the battlefield and treated in full accourdance with GC3, they would NOT rate a lawyer for their AR-190 Article V determination. Nor would the bestowing of POW status change much with the "on-paper" treatment of the detainees. I understand there are allegations of torture etc., but torture violates the current US policy as written. What amounts to "torture" vs. "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" is, or should be, the subject of an entirely different article. I still have yet to hear a coherant defense of the anecdotal information provided in this article. Peace to you and yours. (Robp 22:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC))

London calling! OK here is what most people outside the US think about gitmo, that the detainees were ment to be Disappeared a-la south america. If it wasn't for them damn kids(the free press and human rights groups) the Bush admin would have got away with it!!!

I do not hate america but i am mighty pissed by some of the actions of Bush. That view is why you will cop some sh*t sometimes (sorry) and why this article is quite ballanced considering the strength of views on this. CSRT's are viewed as the latest redout of a legal deffence solely based on how long it takes to go through the legal process, PERFECTLY LEGAL and very unsporting chaps.

As to the on-topic part, anecdotal information is perfectly acceptable on wikipedia if it is accurately artibuted from a notable source on that topic (wikipedia is not a court of law). That means what ex-detainees say is perfect of wikipedia as it fits all those, it is atributed to them so you can decide how much wieght to give it, but it is important information. If you want to talk about any quote specificly then cool lets talk.Hypnosadist 23:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, as long as we're discussing opinions, I don't think the US detention policy is the way to go. It's unpopular, to say the least. It erodes the US's soft power. Unless I'm missing something, it fails economically under even the most rudimentary cost-benefit analysis. All that being said, being a bad policy decision does not make something a violation of the laws of war. I acknowledge your point about anecdotes. I'm going to see if I can find some. Hat tip to whoever did your research. Cheers. --Robp 01:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)