Pentagon: Ex-detainees returning to fight

[Gunny]

From Mike Mount
CNN Pentagon Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Kuwaiti man released from U.S. custody at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 2005 blew himself up in a suicide attack in Iraq last month, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi was one of two Kuwaitis who took part in a suicide attack in Mosul on April 26, the officials said. Records show that an attack in Mosul that day targeted an Iraqi police patrol and left six people dead, including two police officers.

An announcement on a jihadist Web site earlier this month declared that al-Ajmi was one of the "heroes" who carried out the Mosul operation. A second man from Kuwait also took part in the suicide attack, the Web site said.

Pentagon officials who had been keeping track of al-Ajmi said they were aware he had left Kuwait for Syria, a launching ground for terrorists into Iraq.

A video posted on various jihadist Web sites shows a number of images of al-Ajmi, followed by text reading, "May God have mercy on you Abdullah al-Ajmi. I send you a warm greeting O you martyr, O you hero, O you, a man in a time where only few men are left."

U.S. military records of Guantanamo detainees indicate that a man with the same name and nationality was held at the Cuban prison.

more ... http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/07/gitmo.bomber/index.html

 

[RetiredGySgt]

more ... http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/07/gitmo.bomber/index.html

The stock response you will get now is either " he did it cause we drove him to it" or " So what?" Followed by what an innocent man he was and never should have been held to begin with.

 

[Gunny]

The stock response you will get now is either " he did it cause we drove him to it" or " So what?" Followed by what an innocent man he was and never should have been held to begin with.

I new the "we drove him to it" was coming when I posted the article.

 

[jillian]

Or maybe we just should have tried people and put them away.

 

[Gunny]

Or maybe we just should have tried people and put them away.

Maybe. Maybe this is a new kind of war that doesn't work too well with the rules of conventional war and they're still working on something that does. Prisoners of War are held for the duration of the war then released and not cahrged with crimes unless specific allegations of crimes have been made against individuals.

From a military viewpoint, sending potential enemies back prior to the conclusion of a war so they can resume waging war against you is beyond dumb. Reinforcing the enemies ranks is NOT a sound tactic of warfare.

 

[dread]

Or maybe we just should have tried people and put them away.

We couldnt do that because LAWYERS were too busy arguing whether or not he was an enemy combatant.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354209,00.html

 

[jillian]

We couldnt do that because LAWYERS were too busy arguing whether or not he was an enemy combatant.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354209,00.html

No. They couldn't do that because they were never charged with any crimes.

 

[dread]

No. They couldn't do that because they were never charged with any crimes.

Yes they were. Its called being an enemy combatant.

 

[Larkinn]

Yes they were. Its called being an enemy combatant.

Thats not a crime. They weren't charged with anything, they were accused of actions, but not charged. See charging actually requires something called evidence, or you get laughed out of court. Accusing requires pretty much nothing.

 

[Gunny]

No. They couldn't do that because they were never charged with any crimes.

Again, prisoners of war aren't charged with crimes.

The fact is, not charging soldiers in a war with crimes for fighting in the war works to their advantage rather than harm them as has been continually pushed. Most will go free.

The alternative is to charge each with being a terrorist and/or aiding terrorists/terrorist organizations in which case you would have more people serving actual prison sentences/sitting on death row. The punishment for those crimes is far more severe than participating in a war.

Those charged with actual war crimes, unless they are our own, have not been tried until the conclusion of the war.

I don't know that there is an actual solution in dealing with this situation. Conventional rules don't apply. The war itself is not conventional. But to treat these people better than our own people, and allow them US Constitutional Rights is BS to me, and just allowing them to exploit yet another of out weaknesses against us.

 

[Larkinn]

Again, prisoners of war aren't charged with crimes.

These aren't POW's. At least according to Bush co.

The fact is, not charging soldiers in a war with crimes for fighting in the war works to their advantage rather than harm them as has been continually pushed. Most will go free.

Except thats when soldiers are commanded by their governments and there is a set chain of command. Terrorism doesn't work like that so holding them in camps proclaming them as "illegal combatants" and we can hold them until the war is over is essentially just saying we can grab foreigners we don't like off the street and hold them in jail for as long as we want with no charges.

The really scary thing is that Bush tried to apply that same logic to US citizens.

The alternative is to charge each with being a terrorist and/or aiding terrorists/terrorist organizations in which case you would have more people serving actual prison sentences/sitting on death row. The punishment for those crimes is far more severe than participating in a war.

Maybe, assuming they could actually convict them. I suspect thats why we haven't been trying people. I have no problem with putting these people in jail assuming we can prove they've done something wrong.

 

[Gunny]

These aren't POW's. At least according to Bush co.



Except thats when soldiers are commanded by their governments and there is a set chain of command. Terrorism doesn't work like that so holding them in camps proclaming them as "illegal combatants" and we can hold them until the war is over is essentially just saying we can grab foreigners we don't like off the street and hold them in jail for as long as we want with no charges.

The really scary thing is that Bush tried to apply that same logic to US citizens.



Maybe, assuming they could actually convict them. I suspect thats why we haven't been trying people. I have no problem with putting these people in jail assuming we can prove they've done something wrong.

You really have stated nothing here I haven't already said. I just left off the anti-Bush administration, leftwing spin.

Yeah, we can hold them as illegal combatants. I already addressed the issue of what to call them, thanks. There is no clear rule to apply.

Which does not support the argument that they should just be turned loose to pick up where they left off because a specific rule doesn't cover them. Again, it's a unsound tactic of war to keep resupplying your enemy with manpower.

 

[Larkinn]

You really have stated nothing here I haven't already said. I just left off the anti-Bush administration, leftwing spin.

Right...its spin that Bush wants to hold American citizens like those held in GITMO. Spin isn't defined as facts you disagree with.

Yeah, we can hold them as illegal combatants. I already addressed the issue of what to call them, thanks. There is no clear rule to apply.

There is a morally clear rule. The GC doesn't exactly give a shit ton of rights, but it does give some basic ones. Those should be respected.

Which does not support the argument that they should just be turned loose to pick up where they left off because a specific rule doesn't cover them. Again, it's a unsound tactic of war to keep resupplying your enemy with manpower.

Then we should try them. Picking up foreigners who we don't like, accusing them of crimes with no public evidence and then holding them in jail forever isn't really an option imo.

 

[Gunny]

Right...its spin that Bush wants to hold American citizens like those held in GITMO. Spin isn't defined as facts you disagree with.



There is a morally clear rule. The GC doesn't exactly give a shit ton of rights, but it does give some basic ones. Those should be respected.



Then we should try them. Picking up foreigners who we don't like, accusing them of crimes with no public evidence and then holding them in jail forever isn't really an option imo.

Blah, blah, blah Bush. I'm sorry, did I not respond to your irrelevant deflection?

There's also a crystal clear rule to warfare ... you don't resupply your enemy's army.

By the Geneva Convention, they are POWs. Nothing more for you to worry about.

Holding supected enemies until the end of hostilities is historically documented, and makes perfect sense. A lot more sense than resupplying your enemy with manpower to appease your moral relativism.

 

[Larkinn]

By the Geneva Convention, they are POWs. Nothing more for you to worry about.

I agree. Unfortunately they aren't being treated as such.

Holding supected enemies until the end of hostilities is historically documented, and makes perfect sense. A lot more sense than resupplying your enemy with manpower to appease your moral relativism.

As you pointed out, this isn't a conventional war. Usually you can tell your enemies by their uniform. Now we are picking up people we think might be associated with terrorists.

 

[Dogger]

These people aren't being seized on a battlefied in uniform. They are being turned over to us in non-combat circumstances, often by people seeking exhorbitant bounties.

Murat Kurnaz, a young German Turk spent several years in Gitmo. During an October 2001, trip to Pakistan, he was arrested by the Pakistani police who receive a bounty of $3,000 dollars from US forces. That's a huge fucking sum in a country with an average annual income of $690 per person. His story is not an isolated one.

Imagine I had secured a reward of 5 years income for falsely implicating a Texas polygamy cult on child abuse charges. Is there any doubt that RGS would be crying up a storm about that procedure?

 

[rayboyusmc]

Correct. In some cases, it was a neighbor or rival clan member who turned the person in for money. They weren't all captured in battle. It seems that was not that important a fact to detain them without trial and torture them if needed.

You are right. This is a new type of warfare. No one has rights unless they have a bigger gun than US.

If the Chinese imprisoned Retired for five years after I turned him in for being a frigging conservative, and then sent him home to the US where they were now in charge, I guess he would think it was just hunky dory.

I wouldn't. I would want to kill as many of them as possible and the bastards who turned me in.

Shit, it's called getting even. What the hell did you expect?

 

[Dogger]

I heard a radio interview with an Army officer familiar with the detentions and subsequent torture. Because the rules of engagement were so poorly defined, it really became a case of the right hand and the left hand working independently.

The soldiers who rounded up alleged insurgents in Iraq had limited or no ability to question them, and often relied on shaky information. Many decided to round up anyone who met vague criteria (such as "military aged males") and let the interrogators sort them out.

The interrogators assumed the soldiers had good cause to detain the people in custody, and approached them as if they were actually guilty. This created a cruel paradox. Guilty detainees had information they could trade in routine interrogations, while the innocent weren't so fortunate and thus were more likely to be tortured. Some innocent were afraid that concocting information would get them executed, and they were tortured until they died.

 

[rayboyusmc]

And thanks to the folks who approved torture as only that which results in organ failure or death.

The little pencil pushing assholes who would crap in their pants if they faced what our troops are facing in this stupid unneeded war.

Go Gonzalez. Go Yoo. Go right to hell.

 

[Swamp Fox]

Or maybe we just should have tried people and put them away.

Or just shot him where we caught him and saved us the cost of transporting, feeding and releasing his sorry ass.