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Bill is right. These people have not been tried. Some are possibly not guilty. Punishing them in the manner in which they are being punished is revenge and not justice.

Yesterday was Remembrance Day. It is a day to remember all the soldiers who died, and this year it was the anniversary of the end of WW1. The death toll in that war was terrible. It marked the population of Europe for years to come. Many of the troops died in battle, some in senseless and meaningless conflict.

Six names were added to the War Memorial in Canberra yesterday. They were the names of the latest Australian soldiers to have died in war- this time Afghanistan. Now the memorial stretches from 1914 to yesterday-- that's nearly 100 years of young soldiers dying. No amount if ill-treating the enemy will bring them back.

The prisoners need a trial, and if they are found guilty they need to pay the penalty. At the very least they should be returned to their countries of origin, where they can be brought to trial and dealt with appropriately.

First off they are not being held in a foreign country.
the Guantanimo Cuba Naval Base is U.S. ground.

I agree they should be tried , but there are many things to consider.

1) suppose we tried one and found him not guilty.
we then returned him to where we captured him.

he blends in with the population and will always be considered as
someone who through information could have caused the deaths of terrorist , how long will he live?

2) if he was found not guilty but really was a terrorist and is returned to where we captured him.
he will always be considered as someone who through information could have caused the deaths of his fellow terrorist , how long will he live?
what must he do in order to achieve the trust of his fellow terrorist?
strap on a bomb and murder hundreds of innocent bystanders?

3) the release of a terrorist will tell terrorist that if they
are captured they will be returned at a later date.

perhaps the in humane United States should just strap a bomb on
one of them and allow one of them to remotely detonate the bomb while they are having dinner.

we have a bomb , we have innocent people , lets blow us up.

its what they do , they do it well , and they wouldnt care if
any of them are innocent or not , they would make a profound statement at that point.

and that statement would be that we are stupid heartless idiots.

Good logical thinking Paul, but taken to its logical conclusion is the stuff of genocides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp


169 people out of 779 does not sound like genocide to me.

half of the 169 detainees have been cleared for future release.

how did you arrive at your logical conclusion?

One of the first things we were told in expert witness training was: Whatever question the opposing barrister asks you, use it as a means to say what you want to say. Either you are working on this principle, Paul, or you are deliberately misconstruing what I am saying. Either way, its getting a bit pointless, and distinctly non-scientific. Another case of quot homines, tot sententiae.

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there are many opinions by many men about the detention center but today was the only time I have heard anything about genocide.

were you trying to claim something so that I would question you about it so that you could claim that I was in error by questioning you about it?

or is that just the way your mind works?




perhaps you could elaborate a little bit more about what you were wanting to say.

I am not suggesting that the following reflects US policy, just that there is a similarity between your reasoning and, for example, the thinking which has resulted in genocide in other parts of the world.
Try a line of thought that goes something like your points 1 – 3.

These people might want to blow us up.
We should try them to find out.
If we try them and find them not guilty, they might be picked on when we send them home.
Better not try them, just in case, just keep them locked up.
Since we don’t know if they are guilty or not (because we haven’t tried them) we might as well torture them a bit to see what we can find out.
These people are all a potential threat, chances are if we let them go they will blow someone up.
Wouldn’t the world be a safer place without any of them?
Actually it would save a lot of trouble if we just bombed them.

I was not talking about just letting terror suspects go free. I was talking about British citizens being returned to this country for trial. Do you think the British are incapable of conducting a fair trial?

Re re-drawing national boundaries to suit political target. We do that here. We have chopped up Australia into bits that aren't Australia and decided other bits are, so the we can deport refugees there and can say they are not n Australia. The prison is on one of those sort of areas in Cuba. Very legal indeed. And totally morally suss.

Our two guys were returned to us a while ago, One without a trial and scarred from torture in another country from the US, but under its control. The other was tried in America and sentenced, then returned here to finish his sentence. He did so and recently was described as not amongst the 'worst of the worst' after all. Which I am sure he is p[leased about. It's just a shame no one realised that before he served his sentence.

Maybe the idea is that if the whole thing is strung out long enough and the treatment is harsh enough, there will be no one left there after all. Or, as Bill remarks---bomb them. After all that is what happened in their homelands.

We'll let's hear how you guys would want the detainees to be
handled then.

give us an idea of what we should do in your opinion.

My opinion: Anybody in US custody should be granted the constitutional rights of any American. After all we think that the rights granted us under the constitution are fundamental and all men should have them. That means if we really believe in the constitution we should apply it in all cases. Prisoners of war and convicted criminals are a slightly different situation, but they still have rights.

Bill Gill

Aggression = evasion, not an answer.

do we have detainees at guantanamo who are brittish ?

its really hard to try and figure out what your trying to say
Bill s , maybe you should try and understand that I am not familiar with any brittish detainees , perhaps we have several in city jails awaiting trial in some city.

and I dont have a clue about the brittish courts system.

so I couldnt answer your question.

but where did this come from?



we were discussing the detainees at guantamino naval base
and you seem to want them to either get a trial or released
or something , which is why I asked those of you who seem
concerned about this matter to post a suggestion or two about what you think we should do with them.

just continually repeating that we should do something
is senseless , it may be time to say put up or shut up!

there's a problem with that also.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law



by granting a wartime prisoner the same right's that we have because we are American citizens or our Constitutional right's
would mean that a wartime prisoner could not be deported.

because American Citizens cannot be deported.

I dont think that wartime prisoners should be granted our rights as citizens , which are written down in the constitution and the many additions or amendments to the constitution.

Let’s get things in perspective. My understanding is that SAGG is a discussion forum. How dull discussion would be if everyone agreed with everyone else all the time. You will recall that I tempered what seemed to be a unanimous appreciation of Obama with a mention of something he had promised but not delivered. That is hardly enough to tarnish the halo of a popular politician, it’s something that most, if not all, do.

You seem immediately to have responded as though I had criticised America’s use of Guantanamo Bay. Whatever thoughts I might have had on that subject, I kept them to myself. Any implied criticism was yours.

Only in response to your comments, such as: “our People dont want them in the U.S., would you like to have them in Essex?” did I raise the question of the difficulty our Government had negotiating the return of British nationals. Again, this was not a criticism of policy, it was simply an attempt to discover how well your assertions matched reality. Clearly, however appropriate a long list of names may have been to what was in your mind, it did nothing to address my quest for clarity.

If you are going to take issue over criticism, it might be a good thing to make sure the criticism is real rather than a product of your interpretation.



If you are not familiar with the situation, how wise is it to hold forth about it?

You complain that prisoners of war aren't citizens and shouldn't have the rights of citizens. I didn't say they should. I clearly said that POWs and criminals were a special case, but that they should still have the basic rights we are guaranteed in the constitution.

Bill Gill

Prisoners do have basic rights already , and
heres a link where you can read about them.



http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights

and heres a handbook that might also help.

http://www.pailp.org/Images/PRISONERS%20RIGHTS%20HANDBOOK%202009.pdf

hope this helps.

maybe its because we can't figure out what you are trying to ask us to do...

have you ever considered that being direct and to the point
helps in negotiations vs dropping little hints and quoting latin?

maybe we will just keep them a few more years until you guys
figure out how to actually tell us what you want to tell us...

it sounds fair to me.

but its not fair to them , now is it.

Brittish barganing skills that consist of dilly dallying around
in the same manner as you dilly dally around isnt heping.


You guys once owned and operated America , however due to your
governing skills you lost America to people who didnt understand
why you did things the way you did.

face it , your tiny little country wouldn't even exist anymore were it not for the in humane U.S. govenment stepping in to save
you from ruin (( not once but 3 times now )) , we seem to be capable of governing ourselves and our territories ...

the Brittish empire was at one time the greatest on earth
what happened ?



heres a nice little animated map of the brittish empire as
it grows in strength and shrinks in strength.



as far as capabilities go , there's a definite capability
that the brittish have.

Thanks Paul, I take it as a compliment to contemporary Brits that those who would criticise us always seem to have to resort to history. Compliment accepted.

BTW, there is only one "T" in Britain, in spite of the numerous brands we drink.

Paul- It may interest you to know that many of Britain's Empire members still have the Queen as Head of State, and the independence they enjoy was achieved in close co-operation with Britain.

I do not expect others to understand the details of this situation but it is known as The Commonwealth of Nations and is still alive and more or less viable, and an amazing achievement of peaceful independence and growth.

Commonwealth countries are democratic and allow the possibility of equality among their citizens.

No, it's not perfect, but it is a very good effort!