JAN 11: INTERNATIONAL DAY TO SHUT DOWN GUANTANAMO:
January 11th, 2007, will be the fifth anniversary of the first prisoner arriving at the US Guantanamo Bay detention centre. The "war against terror" has since that time seemed to become even more endless, and the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo has become a source of international and domestic controversy. A number of mostly faith based groups have called for an international day of action to shut down the torture/detention centre at the US base on January 11th. After 5 years not a single detainee has been charged and convicted of any crime. The torture centre has been condemned by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch amongst others. Court cases in the USA have brought the constitutionality of the methods used at Guantanamo into question.
The coalition that includes the Center for Constitutional Rights, CodePink, the Network of Spiritual progressives, Pax Christi, the School of the Americas Watch and United for Peace and Justice have called for an international day of action with its focus on Washington DC on Jan. 11th. To learn more about this action, to add organizational endorsement or to see how you can organize support actions in your own community go to the Witness Against Torture site.
6 comments:
Why are these people supposed to get a trial? They are POWs (Prisoners of War). These people were pulled from the battlefield. They are POWs. Since when has a enemy combatant ever received the right to a trial. They were captured on the battlefield trying to kill American soldiers. You keep saying that we should not force our politics on the Iraqis, then you say that we should force our Bill of Rights and Constitution on them.
I understand that you want to protect and even help the insurgents that are trying to kill as many Americans and anyone from any Western and non-muslim culture as possible.
As for the United Nations, just because they are in the United States does not mean that they like the United States. They see us as a resource to pay for whatever goes wrong in the world outside of the United States. Did anyone from the United Nations come to the aid of New Orleans, aside from the contribution of anti-American, anti-Bush comentary? Of course not.
Whatever you do, do not say that you support the troops. You do not. If you support the enemy combatants in Gitmo and you support not fighting those that wish to kill Americans, then you do not support the war on terror and you do not support the troops.
And if you really believe in anarchism, socialism, evolutionary biology, animal behavior and a whole raft of other subjects, perhaps you should move to a country that share your views. North Korea comes to mind.
Keep in mind that the only reason that Canada has such a small military budget is because they have the United States to rely on for protection. No thanks is necessary. None is expected.
And if you really think that America is really the Imperial Death Machine, please move away from the protection that we provide for you. There are lots of countries to choose from.
Actually to have a "prisoner of war" you have to have legally declared a war. That is something that the USA has NOT done in any of its recent (and not so recent) adventures. By the very American Constitution that so many of your countrymen swear by but never live by ONLY congress can declare a war. The most recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are illegal by the very American constitutional process you exalt but drag in the dirt at the same time. If the Guantanamo detainees were indeed "prisoners of war" they would have the full protection of international law. This is something the American government vehemantly !!!!! denies. According to that which you worship the Guantanamo prisoners are NOT !!! "prisoners of war".
Seems that there is someone here who is MUCH closer to the North Korean mindset than I could ever be. Is there nothing that your own Dear Leader (JW) does that you can find ANY fault with ??? Is EVERY criticism made of your country part of some paranoid fantasy very much like that promulgated in North Korea. A fantasy that lets you make claims that I said things that I have NEVER said on this blog nor in my life. All the blather about the Iraqis and "forcing" them on this or the other thing is not just beside the point. I never said anything about them.
I also ask you, when you sober up from your latest week long binge on 'Old Glory Juice' to note that Iraq is as irrelevant to Gitmo as it is to any of my points. The detainees in Gitmo are from Afghanistan ! not Iraq. Have you never heard of as map ? You know, it's one of those things that presents FACTS. Ever heard of those ?
Your stirling if incoherant patriotism would do a great number of regimes proud. If the American people pull back from their illegal wars they you may have to move to a country where your frame of mind is more acceptable.
I suggest you start learning Korean now. It is just as easy to believe in the infallibility of the Dear Leader as it is to believe the lies of the present US government. A person with your capacity for cobfused belief would be VERY welcome in the Hermit Kingdom.
Finally, it is good to hear that there are no Iraqis in Gitmo. CodePINK seems to think otherwise, but it is good to hear that there are no Iraqi combatants in Gitmo. I guess that because they are from Afghanistan then they are not from Iran either. Now that is agreed upon, al-Qaeda was the Afghan government and they are the ones that attacked us on 9-11. The enemy combatants that are being held at Gitmo are treated much better than the prisoners that al-Qeada have captured. They get beheaded. This includes civilian women from the west. The Gitmo prisoners are being treated under the rules of the Geneva Convention. al-Qaeda does not show the same consideration. I noticed that you did not have anything bad to say against them.
So your assertion is that because there is no "Declaration of War", the prisoners at Gitmo are not technically "Prisoners of War". Ok...I could grant you that. You would rather have another name. "Enemy Combatant Detainees". And you think that they should all have lawyers and trials? Again, I will ask, when does an enemy combatant have the right to a trial. Remember, the reason that they are being held is so they do not start killing American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. You seem to be opposed to that because you do not want them held. If you put them back on the battlefield, you are only going to endanger everyone.
There was a time that we wanted to send some back to their own country, but they did not want to go back. They felt that the treatment was better at Gitmo than back home where ever that was... and according to you, it was Afghanistan.
Congress gave President Bush the right to use whatever force was necessary. You must have forgotten that fact.
"Seems that there is someone here who is MUCH closer to the North Korean mindset than I could ever be."
You are the one that stated your beliefs were socialist. I just acknowledged that you stated that in your discription of your blog.
I would bet that I have done more to stop socialism and move away from the likes of North Korea than you have.
Check out these websites. They ought to raise your blood pressure to unsafe levels.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
http://www.conservativeusa.org/
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/
Glad to see that you have sobered up and appear a "little" more rational. I REALLY not responsible for your education, given the poor state of American education where medieval superstition such as "intelligent (sic) design can actually get a hearing. If YOU want another place to move to where you views are compatible with the rulers I'd suggest that you start learning either Arabic or Farsi because, outside of the madrassas of either America or the Islamic world evolution is a given fact NOT to be challenged by theology as it is in the USA, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iran. Also, if you care to educate yourself-even if others haven't- you could see how opposition to the facts of evolutionary biology has played very well in Stalinist dictatorships such as North Korea. How is your Korean going ? Your mindless following of the rulers of your country is,once more, a trait very much admired by such regimes as North Korea. You'd be very much at home there. Thank God the majority of your compatriots in America have a little more sense. See the reprint of a piece by a great American, Mark Twain, above this article to see how you've been conned. The nice thing about America is that even if the population is educated at a level below most of that of the civilized world the general national character is such that indoctrination tends to stick very lightly to their views, and they eventually sober up. Often very fast, as they apparently have in terms of Bush's war in Iraq. Or are you still under the illusion that Saddam Hussain, who was supplied by the Americans during the period of his worst atrocities, was "involved in 9/11 ? Your view has as little credence in the civilized world as the Islamic fantasies about the international Zionist conspiracy.
As to further matters now that you are sober. You can guage my own views on BOTH Leninist regimes AND Islamic fascists by reading back in this blog. A recent post was about North Korea's nuclear tests, and you can see from there what I think about Leninism in action. As to Marxism in general, which I also oppose, ALL that I can suggest is that you try and educate yourself before you undertake to give pronouncements. There is as little point in my argueing here in the light of your almost TOTAL ignorance as if I were to argue with anybody totally ignorant about physics about "relativity", with a health food nut, totally ignorant about immunology, about the value of a fad diet in "strengthing the immune system" or with a religious fundamentalist from your country or Saudi Arabia who is TOTALLY ignorant of pretty well ALL of modern science about "creationism".
You have no idea about what "socialism" is. You conflate American liberals such as "CodePink" with real socialists, and in turn you conflate them with Leninists such as the North Korean regime. You go even a step further by conflating anarchists with Leninists. Out here in civilization we have a little (more than a little) greater knowledge because knowledge is valued out here in civilization over reflex LOYALTY. Down there amongst a MINORITY of the US population and out there in North Korea and SOME parts of the Islamic world your idea of "us and them" is VERY popular.
Once more- self education- I'd suggest you learn a foreign language other than that of the countries where such views as yours are popular ie NOT Korean, Farsi or Arabic. Learn Spanish, French, Chinese, Hindi,etc.,etc.,etc. and then travel to see how narrow your views are.
Eventually you may learn what a lot of the world has already: that "truth" is NOT derived from adherance to one side or the other. If you do this you will appear less similar to good indoctrinated North Koreans or residents of Pakistan's western borders. You may even give up your emotional crusade against socialism and appreciate the good in your own country rather than the evil side.
You may even bother to investigate such matters as how the Guantanamo detainees have been denied the rights of "prisoners of war" and how the US government has fought this definition tooth and nail against the rest of the world. You may even begin to question the motives of those who feed you LIES such as this, just as many from the Islamic world have questioned the lies of THEIR leaders. YES, IT IS A LIE PLAIN AND SIMPLE, BUT YOU HAVE NEVER BOTHERED TO LOOK INTO IT YOURSELF. All you listen to is rhetoric, but as a citizen of America you have the ability to actually find out what the lies are if you bother.
What you remind me of is the WORST aspect of my own mad comardes who live on emotional rhetoric and carefully shield themselves from dissenting views. These people are NOT what you imagine in your fantasies, but they are still repulsive to me. You also remind me of a good Stalinist circa the 1930s (when, by the way, real genetics and evolutionary biology was as 'unappreciated' in the USSR as it is amongst the fundamentalists of your country)who will believe ANY lie as long as the leaders tell them to.
Try to learn that claims require proof. It is perhaps possible that there are Iraqis detained in Guantanamo. Code Pink simply repeats the claim that there are "35 nationalities" held in Guantanamo. As far as I can find from their site they make NO claims about Iraqis in Guantanamo. They oppose US illegal detention IN IRAQ of Iraquis, and demand that they receive either the protection of the US Constitution or the International Law of the Geneva Convention. Opposing the actions of the Empire that you love in ONE instance is NOT the same as claiming it is the same as ANOTHER brutal action. REFERENCE your claims. That's what we do out here in civilization.
Yes, I know that you love your country and your flag and that you will defend everything your leaders say even if it is not just contrary to the facts but also contrary to common sense. I've seen the same attitude elsewhere, most prominantly amongst Stalinist true believers and the more irrational fringe of anarchism.
Belive it or not facts are NOT determined by what side you are on. The belief that they are is childish and hardly worthy of the country of Jefferson, Thoreau, Emerson,Whitman, Emma Goldman, Paul Goodman, Martin Luther King and many others. There is an American patriotism that has escaped you because it hasn't been taught in the indoctrination machines that you call "education". America is one of the greatest countries in human history, but its greatness is something that is too often hidden by those who want it to resemble any other dictatorship.
Grow up and become a TRUE American patriot and look beyond the lies of your leaders.
One more point. The claim that Al Queda was "the government of Afghanistan" is simply and plainly "BULLSHIT AMIGO/A". They were "honoured guests" (I think they have as little "honour" as you do, but I also think that the actions of ideologues who send American poor people to die in Iraq for the sake of American rich people controlling the oil of the Middle East are EQUALLY or even more DISHONOURABLE). The government of Afghanistan was the TALIBAN. Look it up in the same way that you should look up "maps". There is a world!!! out there away from the tiny world that you inhabit.
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