GITMO trials unfair according to former Nuremberg prosecutor.

[Bullypulpit]

There are those who wish to draw analogies between the "war on terror" and the war against Nazi Germany. For them, lets look at a concrete example of that analogy.

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._King>Henry King Jr.</a>, former Nuremberg prosecutor and current law professor at Case Western Reserve University compared the Nuremberg trials and the military tribunals at GITMO.

<blockquote>"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo..."

"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949." <a href=http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/guantanamo-trials-unfair-nuremberg-prosecutor/2007/06/12/1181414270317.html#>Henry King Jr.</a></blockquote>

I, and other critics, have offered this criticism for some time now, only to meet with sneering derision from the right. For someone of Mr. King's experience and stature to come forward in this manner gives past criticism all the more credence and credibility.

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Jackson>Robert H. Jackson</a>, chief architect of Nuremberg and former US Supreme Court Justice, would be appalled at the the proceedings at GITMO according to Mr. King, who went on to say...

<blockquote>"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of,"</blockquote>

These notions were foreign to American jurisprudence, whether civilian or military, until the Bush administration introduced them, much to the shame and disgrace of this nation.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

There are those who wish to draw analogies between the "war on terror" and the war against Nazi Germany. For them, lets look at a concrete example of that analogy.

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._King>Henry King Jr.</a>, former Nuremberg prosecutor and current law professor at Case Western Reserve University compared the Nuremberg trials and the military tribunals at GITMO.

<blockquote>"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo..."

"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949." <a href=http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/guantanamo-trials-unfair-nuremberg-prosecutor/2007/06/12/1181414270317.html#>Henry King Jr.</a></blockquote>

I, and other critics, have offered this criticism for some time now, only to meet with sneering derision from the right. For someone of Mr. King's experience and stature to come forward in this manner gives past criticism all the more credence and credibility.

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Jackson>Robert H. Jackson</a>, chief architect of Nuremberg and former US Supreme Court Justice, would be appalled at the the proceedings at GITMO according to Mr. King, who went on to say...

<blockquote>"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of,"</blockquote>

These notions were foreign to American jurisprudence, whether civilian or military, until the Bush administration introduced them, much to the shame and disgrace of this nation.

Comparing Terrorists to uniformed members of a national Government is patently Idiotic.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Comparing Terrorists to uniformed members of a national Government is patently Idiotic.

It seems not to be so idiotic when right wing-nuts draw the analogy between WW II and the "war on terror".

But more to the point, American jurisprudence has always been about fairness, which doesn't include coerced testimony, evidence available to the prosecution but not the defense or hearsay evidence. That is not justice. America established the basis of war crimes tribunals with the Nuremberg courts, and tried criminals greater than any of the detainees at GITMO could ever claim to be, and it was done in accordance with the principles of a fair trial, which is a cornerstone of American justice. We are either as good as our principles or we are no better than the terrorists.

 

[mattskramer]

I never quite understand the ethics involved with the detaining of alleged terrorists as we do. They are not prisoners of war subject to the Geneva Convention. They are not criminals subject to our criminal court system. What are they and what laws apply to them? Are they simply America’s enemy combatants subject to the whims of the Bush administration? Do they have no rights? “We are making up the rules to suit us as we move along”. As I see it, a soldier captures someone - Joe - and says that he is an enemy combatant. There might even be no evidence. Joe just looked funny as the soldier walked by so the soldier takes Joe to some detention cell and leaves him there. Joe is kept in this jail - Gitmo - indefinitely. It might be a life sentence with no formal charge and no court date. Please explain to me where this scenario is incorrect.

 

[Bullypulpit]

I never quite understand the ethics involved with the detaining of alleged terrorists as we do. They are not prisoners of war subject to the Geneva Convention. They are not criminals subject to our criminal court system. What are they and what laws apply to them? Are they simply America&#8217;s enemy combatants subject to the whims of the Bush administration? Do they have no rights? &#8220;We are making up the rules to suit us as we move along&#8221;. As I see it, a soldier captures someone - Joe - and says that he is an enemy combatant. There might even be no evidence. Joe just looked funny as the soldier walked by so the soldier takes Joe to some detention cell and leaves him there. Joe is kept in this jail - Gitmo - indefinitely. It might be a life sentence with no formal charge and no court date. Please explain to me where this scenario is incorrect.

It ain't th' sojer sayin' Joe's an enemy combatant...It's Chimpy McPresident. Other than that, you're spot on.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I never quite understand the ethics involved with the detaining of alleged terrorists as we do. They are not prisoners of war subject to the Geneva Convention. They are not criminals subject to our criminal court system. What are they and what laws apply to them? Are they simply America’s enemy combatants subject to the whims of the Bush administration? Do they have no rights? “We are making up the rules to suit us as we move along”. As I see it, a soldier captures someone - Joe - and says that he is an enemy combatant. There might even be no evidence. Joe just looked funny as the soldier walked by so the soldier takes Joe to some detention cell and leaves him there. Joe is kept in this jail - Gitmo - indefinitely. It might be a life sentence with no formal charge and no court date. Please explain to me where this scenario is incorrect.

Doesn't happen this way. There ARE exhaustive checks and counter checks. No one is simply locked up and forgotten. Nor are they locked up and left to rot.. Making such claims belies your failure to even know what you are talking about.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Doesn't happen this way. There ARE exhaustive checks and counter checks. No one is simply locked up and forgotten. Nor are they locked up and left to rot.. Making such claims belies your failure to even know what you are talking about.

Would you care to provide some links supporting your assertions?

According to a <a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040501950.html>report</a> from the ICRC on April 5th of this year, your "exhaustive checks and counter checks" are pretty much non-existent. And from a <a href=http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/usa-detention-update-121205>May 31, 2007 report</a>:

<blockquote>While the ICRC welcomes any development that leads to a clarification of the future of the detainees at Guantanamo, it does not believe that there is presently a legal regime that appropriately addresses either the detainees' status or the future of their detention.</blockquote>

And there's <a href=http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engAMR510442007>this</a> from Amnesty International regarding trials held under the aegis of the Military Commissions Act:

<blockquote>These trials cannot be divorced from the context in which such proceedings would occur. This context is one of practices pursued in the absence of independent judicial oversight that have systematically violated international law. A thread through the "war on terror" has been the pursuit of unchecked executive power and efforts to keep detainees captured and held outside the USA away from the ordinary courts. Under the government&#8217;s war paradigm, judicial consideration of habeas corpus petitions from "unlawful enemy combatants" is seen as unwarranted interference in military operations. In the absence of this basic safeguard against enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture, such violations have occurred.</blockquote>

There's quite sufficient documentation to refute your, or the Bush administration's, claims as to the legal status of the detainees at GITMO. Your grasp of the issue seems tenuous and rooted more in the talking points of of the Administration and the right wing noise machine than in fact.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Yup, not one person has ever been released from Gitmo. Once sent there you simply fall off the face of the earth. There have been no Court cases and no lawyers with clients at Gitmo. I suggest YOU do some research before you spout off using left wing organizations as your source.

 

[Edward]

I never quite understand the ethics involved with the detaining of alleged terrorists as we do. They are not prisoners of war subject to the Geneva Convention. They are not criminals subject to our criminal court system. What are they and what laws apply to them? Are they simply America&#8217;s enemy combatants subject to the whims of the Bush administration? Do they have no rights? &#8220;We are making up the rules to suit us as we move along&#8221;.

The problem I have is that the manner in which we treat them justifies their terrorist acts and I think we shouldn't be justifying their actions in any form. We say they don't have any rights because they are enemy combatants and do not have the same rights as soldiers under the Geneva Conventions and other international laws and we say that our legal system and laws do not apply to them nor does our constitution but we object when they behead our soldiers on television and act all offended at their barbarity and complain, "they aren't playing by the rules..." Which rules would those be? The rules we set and then break and then expect them to adhere to a higher standard of warefare? Let's not forget that while they are terrorists it is in fact a war we are fighting and it may be a war that goes on for decades or longer and if we want to be secure than it is wise that we start abiding by the rules and we may find that they will at least adhere to a few.

As I see it, a soldier captures someone - Joe - and says that he is an enemy combatant. There might even be no evidence. Joe just looked funny as the soldier walked by so the soldier takes Joe to some detention cell and leaves him there. Joe is kept in this jail - Gitmo - indefinitely. It might be a life sentence with no formal charge and no court date. Please explain to me where this scenario is incorrect.

There really is no difference in the action other than that we are the "good guys" and they are the Godless communists (oops, I confused the generation of our chosen enemies).

 

[Bullypulpit]

Yup, not one person has ever been released from Gitmo. Once sent there you simply fall off the face of the earth. There have been no Court cases and no lawyers with clients at Gitmo. I suggest YOU do some research before you spout off using left wing organizations as your source.

They only recieved the benefit of legal counsel and hearings after the <a href=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3867067.stm>SCOTUS ruled</a> the prisoners at GITMO could take their cases to US courts. Congress recently reversed itself on the issue of <i>habeas corpus</i>, repealing the provision of the Military Commissions Act which suspended it.

Perhaps you should actually READ the links I posted...BTW, where are the links supporting your original assertions?

 

[Gunny]

There are those who wish to draw analogies between the "war on terror" and the war against Nazi Germany. For them, lets look at a concrete example of that analogy.

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._King>Henry King Jr.</a>, former Nuremberg prosecutor and current law professor at Case Western Reserve University compared the Nuremberg trials and the military tribunals at GITMO.

<blockquote>"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo..."

"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949." <a href=http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/guantanamo-trials-unfair-nuremberg-prosecutor/2007/06/12/1181414270317.html#>Henry King Jr.</a></blockquote>

I, and other critics, have offered this criticism for some time now, only to meet with sneering derision from the right. For someone of Mr. King's experience and stature to come forward in this manner gives past criticism all the more credence and credibility.

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Jackson>Robert H. Jackson</a>, chief architect of Nuremberg and former US Supreme Court Justice, would be appalled at the the proceedings at GITMO according to Mr. King, who went on to say...

<blockquote>"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of,"</blockquote>

These notions were foreign to American jurisprudence, whether civilian or military, until the Bush administration introduced them, much to the shame and disgrace of this nation.

I find it rather humorous that you would reference one of the biggest show-trials and railroad jobs in history as anyhwere near comparable to GTMO tribunals.

 

[mattskramer]

Doesn't happen this way. There ARE exhaustive checks and counter checks. No one is simply locked up and forgotten. Nor are they locked up and left to rot.. Making such claims belies your failure to even know what you are talking about.

Do you have any proof or is this merely your imagination and speculation.

See the following web site that says otherwise:

http://amnesty.textdriven.com/guantanamo/home/

Also, consider this somewhat dated web site:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/01/12_400.html

At Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, where 660 "enemy combatants" from 42 countries are being held in legal limbo -- charged with no crime yet regularly interrogated, unable to talk with lawyers nor even aware that the U.S.

I doubt that anything has changed.

 

[Gunny]

Do you have any proof or is this merely your imagination and speculation.

See the following web site that says otherwise:

http://amnesty.textdriven.com/guantanamo/home/

Also, consider this somewhat dated web site:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/01/12_400.html

At Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, where 660 "enemy combatants" from 42 countries are being held in legal limbo -- charged with no crime yet regularly interrogated, unable to talk with lawyers nor even aware that the U.S.

I doubt that anything has changed.

POWs are rarely charged with crimes unless they commit them as POWs. One not charged with a crime doesn't get the dime to call an attorney.

Here in the states, you can be picked up without being charged, and interrogated for as long as the police like.

And I'd say the GySgt probably has more than a modicum of knowledge when it comes to military justice since odds are good he served on more than one court martial, and probably had Marines he had to take to Office Hours.

Military justice is one of the topics drummed into Marine's heads on regular basis.

 

[mattskramer]

POWs are rarely charged with crimes unless they commit them as POWs. One not charged with a crime doesn't get the dime to call an attorney.

POW’s are entitled to rights of the Geneva Convention. According to the Bush administration, these are not POW’s. Criminals, those charged with crimes, are entitled to an attorney. If they can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed.

Here in the states, you can be picked up without being charged, and interrogated for as long as the police like.

I think that they can be held up to 24 hours without being formally charged. I might be mistaken, so let’s say that they can be held for 2 or 3 days. No criminal has been held for 2 years without any formal charges.

 

[Bullypulpit]

I find it rather humorous that you would reference one of the biggest show-trials and railroad jobs in history as anyhwere near comparable to GTMO tribunals.

In his book "Advance to Barbarism", F.J. P. Veale spoke of the Nuremberg trials being a "show trial" only inasmuch as the judgments were not rendered by a disinterested party. Given the history that preceded the Nuremberg trials, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a disinterested party to render judgment. Whose life had not been touched by the war and its aftermath?

Unlike the GITMO military tribunals, at Nuremberg the rules of evidence and <i>habeas corpus</i> were applied. For a concise review of the lessons learnt and the legal precedents handed down at Nuremberg, I would suggest you go <a href=http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/nuremberg_3049.jsp>HERE</a>.

Were those lessons and precedents actually to be applied most every US president and most of the rest of the world's leaders since WW II would have been subject to criminal proceedings at the Hague, not the least of which would be the current occupant of the White House.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Anyone wants to try our leaders, com arrest them.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

When are you going to get around to comparing a few hundred detained terrorists living it large on tax payer funds to the millions murdered by Nazi Germany?

 

[Annie]

Bully if memory serves, Nuremberg trials were conducted after the war?

 

[Bullypulpit]

Bully if memory serves, Nuremberg trials were conducted after the war?

Yes...And your point is?

 

[Annie]

Yes...And your point is?

The war isn't over, whether they are 'enemy combatants' or 'non-enemy combatants' as defined in Geneva Conventions, it's pretty much assumed they will be detained until the end of hostilities. Then it would be decided whether to put on trial or just release.