On the sixth anniversary of the imprisonment of detainees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, a United States judge threw out lawsuit brought by four former British detainees against Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse, ruling that th the detainees are not "Persons" under U.S. Law, which according to another judge, means that they are less than "human beings".
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also ruled that torture is a "foreseeable consequence" of military detention in dismissing the action brought by Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith, who spent more than two years in Guantánamo and were repatriated to the U.K. in 2004.
In a 43-page opinion, Circuit Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute that applies by its terms to all “persons” did not apply to detainees at Guantánamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law.
The Court also dismissed the detainees’ claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants,” and ruled that even if torture and religious abuse were illegal, defendants were immune under the Constitution because they could not have reasonably known that detainees at Guantánamo had any constitutional rights.
Judge Janice Rogers Brown agreed with the result but attacked the majority for using a definition of person “at odds with its plain meaning.”
“There is little mystery that a ‘person’ is an individual human being…as distinguished from an animal or thing.” she added and concluded that majority’s decision “leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantánamo are not ‘person[s].’ This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human.”
“We are disappointed that the D.C. Circuit has not held Secretary Rumsfeld and the chain of command accountable for torture at Guantánamo," Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, co-counsel on the case, commented. "The entire world recognizes that torture and religious humiliation are never permissible tools for a government. We hope that the Supreme Court will make clear that this country does not tolerate torture or abuse by an unfettered executive.”
Comments
Taken wildy out of context.
Taken wildy out of context.
That makes sense...
That makes sense...how? Back yourself up please.
Not Human Beings?
IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES?
Hamas, of course, is not merely a group of ordinary combatants. Because of its irregular organization and illegal tactics, its members are in fact unprivileged or unlawful combatants. Under the traditional laws of war, based on centuries of state practice, such individuals are fully subject to attack, just like lawful combatants. But, if captured, they do not merit the rights and privileges of prisoners of war (hence the non-POW status of the U.S.'s Guantanamo Bay detainees) and can be subject to prosecution in military courts. Hamas is, as a matter of law, in precisely the same position as al Qaeda.
By now it is no secret that Europe views the situation differently. Leaving aside the Old World's growing consensus that the war on terror should be treated as a criminal law-enforcement matter — a recipe for disaster and defeat — most European states have accepted the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions. Like the 1949 Geneva Conventions (to which both the United States and Israel are parties), this instrument preserved the classification of unlawful combatant. But it also can be interpreted to provide new and extraordinarily beneficial advantages to such groups. In particular, under one of Protocol I's provisions, irregular or guerilla fighters can arguably be attacked only when they are themselves attacking. At all other times, they must be treated as part of the civilian population.
KNOW YOUR ROLE AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH PRESSCUE!
The Assault on Freedom
"Under the traditional laws of war"There are no laws of war, there are only laws of the land. There is a great distinction between countries that are subject to the "rule of law" and countries that disregard their own laws when they are inconvenient. It is the dividing line between a country that is home to free men and a country where the powerful may put their boot to your neck if you oppose them. The way we have handled the "post 9/11 world" has done far more damage to out status as a free country than the actual attack on the World Trade Center. Standing in Lower Manhattan seeing the towers fall, I feared only for the people in and around the towers; today I fear our government.
The Assault on Freedom
"Under the traditional laws of war"There are no laws of war, there are only laws of the land. There is a great distinction between countries that are subject to the "rule of law" and countries that disregard their own laws when they are inconvenient. It is the dividing line between a country that is home to free men and a country where the powerful may put their boot to your neck if you oppose them. The way we have handled the "post 9/11 world" has done far more damage to out status as a free country than the actual attack on the World Trade Center. Standing in Lower Manhattan seeing the towers fall, I feared only for the people in and around the towers; today I fear our government.
Military vs Law Enforcement
Quote: "By now it is no secret that Europe views the situation differently. Leaving aside the Old World's growing consensus that the war on terror should be treated as a criminal law-enforcement matter — a recipe for disaster and defeat —"
Hmmm...an interesting debate and one that no thoughtful person should quickly make up their mind upon...many conflicting viewpoints, much conflicting information and even more conflicting analyses of ends, means and justification.
However, one thing is abundantly clear to even the most casual observer. The only, ONLY, real progress that has been made globally against al Queda and their terror attacks has come through traditional law enforcement means. All military action has universally acted to greatly exacerbate the problem.
I believe that everybody involved, from the military to the Intelligence community to even the Bush administration at this point, except for the rank ideologues, partisan hacks, aggressively stupid and maliciously ignorant, agrees with or concedes this argument now.
So let's not be weakening the debate with meretricious arguments and factually absurd statements just because we cannot keep our emotions in check when our most strongly cherished, or most unsupportable, ideas and assertions are demolished, hmmm?
So much rage
Jason, it's clear your moral is flexible enough to hold other people treatment as less than humans. I wonder how, on Earth, you think that will help the overall situation. How the heck do you think that will make a better place for your children? (I hope you have kids, so you can see thing from THAT perspective). How do mistreating human beings, no matter how badly they have acted helps anything? I hope you don't call yourself a religious person - that would be too much hypocrisy. Even if you are not a religious person - I am not - use your brain: violence causes violence. You are the evidence of it: you want violence to be made to avenge the violence you suffered. There's only one way to stop everyone from becoming violent with everyone: someone has to be noble enough to drop it. Someone has to be enlightened and abandon the violence. It's just sad that you are on the other side.
I'd like to respond to
I'd like to respond to Alexei in brief. One caveat: I don't believe we should be torturing anyone.
However, everything Jason says is 100% true fact. I studied national security law in the context of the "War on Terror" this past semester, and so I spent a great deal of time with the Geneva Conventions. Aside from Jason's "KNOW YOUR ROLE..." statement (which I don't understand who "PRESSCUE" is), I don't know where Alexei is getting the idea that Jason's morals support this. His comment didn't condone what's being done in any moral way. He merely stated the law, which was accurate.
There is, of course, international human rights law that makes torture unacceptable. However, there is debate about how much force IHRL has over the military when international humanitarian law has taken over (i.e., during a conflict of this type).
I ask that Alexei reread Jason's comments. Nowhere does he say it's great that we're torturing people. He merely outlines the law, and it seems to explain a bit the first Anonymous's comment about the judge's decision being taken "out of context." It is true that laypeople tend to not understand the nuances of judges' decisions, especially in the GWOT.
I think this should be an international police effort and not a military effort, but that's a political question that could be decided either way that our elected officials decided would be best pursued with military force instead of police force.
so what IS the law?
The original story did look to me as though it was quoting out of context, but does anybody here know the context of the judges' ruling, so we can see what they meant by finding a law applicable to "all persons" not applicable to Guantanamo detainees?
On a related note, what is the legal history of the term "unlawful enemy combatant"? I sort of assumed it had been invented by the Bush administration in 2002 so they would have a category of people who had neither the rights of a criminal defendant nor the rights of a POW. Is there actually a basis in international law for that category, and what rights (if any) do they have? Are there any objective criteria and process for putting somebody in that category?
Likewise, what does international law say about detaining people in a place like Guantanamo where neither Cuban law, nor U.S. law, nor apparently any other body of law, applies?
context
OK, I found this quotation:
"Because the plaintiffs are aliens and were located outside sovereign United States territory at the time their alleged RFRA claim arose, they do not fall with the definition of 'person,'" the court ruled. The law provides that the "government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion."
Now, it's certainly true that to the ordinary person on the street, "person" means H. sapiens, without regard to citizenship or current location, but ... IIRC, the RFRA was written by the religious right to protect themselves from, say, public schools not setting aside time for prayer. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the definition of "persons" in the law is restricted to U.S. citizens inside the U.S.
On the other hand, the third judge's concurring opinion specifically objects to disqualifying the detainees as "persons", so it must not be entirely black-and-white.
US military bases overseas
US military bases overseas are considered US soil as far as laws are concerned. Guantanamo Bay is controlled by the US Military. Therefore, US law applies in Guantanamo Bay. It's not rocket science.
1º consider yihadists as
1º consider yihadists as members of a cult
2º consider this cult as dangerous for everybody
3º treat dangerous cult members as mentally ill
4º treat their mental disorder changing their ideas
5º to do that make this: pig blood transfusion for yihadists
(more radical they are , more efect will have)
They can also do that with the corpses of suicide bombers to avoid attacks.
not human beings ?
stop arresting them if you are not giving them the POW status thing. damn.
1º consider yihadists as
1º consider yihadists as members of a cult
2º consider this cult as dangerous for everybody
3º treat dangerous cult members as mentally ill
4º treat their mental disorder changing their ideas
5º to do that make this: pig blood transfusion for yihadists
(more radical they are , more efect will have)
They can also do that with the corpses of suicide bombers to avoid attacks.
Pathetic
Religious fanatics and Nazis are in power in America, and this prooves it. Someone please help us.
Who is watching the watcher?
Using illegal tactics on people who use illegal tactics is with out doubt still illegal. Stop for one moment and think if this was you by mistake, at least you would hope that justice could be served on those responsible but it provides none.
The scary part is that this is a steady decline on human rights. Once we get use to this then out goes even more and so on and so on. Enough is enough.
The U.S. /does/ tolerate torture and abuse
Mr. Ratner's comment at the end of the article, his hope in the Supreme Court, that it will declare that the U.S. does not tolerate torture is in fact hopeless.
The U.S. has declared on multiple levels that it does tolerate torture. We like torture. We relish in torture. We are a vengeful and greedy state that will stop at nothing to destroy our detractors and those we consider enemies of our goal, which in the case of our current administration is a goal very much different from that of the American destiny.
In Deep Economy, Bill McKibben argues that happiness peaked in the 1950's. We had just saved the world from tyranny. We had liberated a people from genocide. We had literally saved the world from evil. We were good.
Since then we have invaded multiple countries in pursuit of selfish ends. We have slaughtered millions /more/ for their resources. We burned babies with napalm and left them to rot under the open sun. We financed dictators and terrorists and then invaded their countries with tanks and hung them from the rafters like bleeding carcases fresh from the hunt.
We have become a disgusting country and our happiness displays it. A stroll through a grocery store will reveal our zombie nature doing what we can to deny and ignore our greed. We have become lazy and unconscious because our conscious is distraught.
I wouldn't use these exact words, but you're dead on
While I wouldn't be so blunt in wording, I agree with you.
The USA is taking to many in the Old World the image of a country which stops at nothing in pursuing its own selfish ends, and applies disturbing double standards.
Guantanamo Bay (and the childish way it justifies the way it is conducted) is a disgrace to any country or organization calling themselves "civilized", even more so to the self-appointed leader of the civilized world.
I just wish that those who agree on the way human beings are treated in that place would get a sample of the same treatment.
Law, what Law?
The problem here is that lawmakers and the people who are supposed to be protected and served by the law are speaking entirely different languages, and the lawmakers and the courts are losing all credibility when they presume to interpret common words in fundamentally new ways, with the intent of seeming to offer protections under the law, until such time as it is convenient to do otherwise. Lay people who read the law would justifiably think that the word “persons” means “human beings” and as such would assume that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would apply to this case, and yet we have judges bending over backwards and flipping through hoops to deny common sense definitions. This is not a case where jargon is misinterpreted by laypeople. Instead, it is dishonesty of the most subversive and clandestine kind, hiding the meaning of law under misdirection and tortured use of language.
The danger in this is not just that detainees are being misused and trampled by this interpretation of the law, but that this same kind of hucksterism can be used to rewrite, for the sake of convenience and political ease, any law. Cats are fish and rocks are trees, and persons are not detainees, just because judges and lawmakers say so. We would not have supported a law that in plain language excludes whole classes of people from protections of civil rights. Knowing this, the lawmakers hide in plain sight. This interpretation is a derringer hidden in a sleeve. With one hand, empty of a weapon, the courts says “see we are upholding the highest standards of civil protections of human beings” but with the other, they ready the assassin’s companion, “But these person’s aren’t persons under our interpretation.” Is it too much to ask that our law be moral and honest, that we again take the high ground and promise not to torture, even our enemies?
Lastly, the ruling that torture is a “foreseeable consequence” of military detention flies in the face of other conventions and sets a dangerous tone for our own military personnel who are captured. Do we really want to set precedence in our own courts that justifies waterboarding? Our enemies win when we willingly become like them. May God help us avoid that fate.
Yet, I'll bet you were delighted
with Associate Justice John Paul Stevens' tortured use of language and the tortured reasoning he used when he ruled that the conflict in Afghanistan was not an international conflict -- despite the direct participation of a half-dozen or more countries and the indirect participation of more than 40 others.
Stevens and four of his cohorts wanted to reach a particular conclusion -- that the Guantanamo prisoners were covered by the Geneva Conventions, even though a plain language reading of the Conventions' words said they were not. He wanted a particular result, and he used results-oriented reasoning to achieve it.
In law, the word "person" is a term of art used to refer to the subset of human beings to whom the law applies, not to human beings in general -- the plain language meaning given to the word outside the law.
Unfortunately, because of its often far-ranging consequences, the language of the law is far less precise than the language of of mathematics -- just one of the reasons I became a mathematician rather than a lawyer. I also wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror without cringing.
I think they are forgetting...
To read the words of our founding fathers...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Does this say all men that are not in thiscountry? Does it say all men that are Christian? Does it say some men? No! It says ALL MEN! when they capitalize Men they refer to every individual of the genius and species Homo sapiens. (Though some may not have meant ALL men). Since our govenment has turned its back on recognizing human status on some men, does that now give us the "Right" to alter or abolish our government? We have already altered our government so that is a mere husk of what these forward thinkers dreamed. Isn't what the people we fight in this so called war want is to change the very nature of our way of lives? Isn't this proof that those we fight have won? We still have time! We still have a chance! Make our voices heard that we will not allow our government any more intrusion because we fear death! Make a stand with your very lives and live in a world that may not be as safe, but is worth living in because we are free!
There is no grey zone
None. You are EITHER a soldier or a civilian. If they do not qualify as POW's for any reason, then they MUST be tried under the civilian justice system.
These laws were not written in any nebulous way; the entire "enemy" or "unlawful" combatant shtick was pulled out of their asses as this brand new "third" category that magically does not have the rights of either.
However, international laws and treaties, which the US signed, and thus, by the constitution, ARE in fact to be considered laws by the US, are extremely clear on the matter and have always been. These people must be considered POWs, *OR* they must be tried for *criminal* acts, which terrorism technically falls under.
Its one or the other, and certainly not "neither", no matter how many times your unelected 'president' may claim it.
There is no grey zone
None. You are EITHER a soldier or a civilian. If they do not qualify as POW's for any reason, then they MUST be tried under the civilian justice system.
These laws were not written in any nebulous way; the entire "enemy" or "unlawful" combatant shtick was pulled out of their asses as this brand new "third" category that magically does not have the rights of either.
However, international laws and treaties, which the US signed, and thus, by the constitution, ARE in fact to be considered laws by the US, are extremely clear on the matter and have always been. These people must be considered POWs, *OR* they must be tried for *criminal* acts, which terrorism technically falls under.
Its one or the other, and certainly not "neither", no matter how many times your unelected 'president' may claim it.
Foreseeable? Not!
If the US has signed the Geneva Convention, then torture is NOT a foreseeable consequence of military detention. And therefore, according to the judge's own reasoning, the defendents were right.
But even if it was foreseeable (the US military has broken so many human rights indeed) then the foreseeability still does not contradict, not even decrease, the illegality of the military torture. It is plain illegal - foreseeable or not.
These guys also made a
These guys also made a documentary of what happened and how it happened...its a very good documentary called 'The Road To Guantanamo'.
"persons" not what you think
The average "man on the street" would think that a "person" is a human being, but since the end of the 19th century, the law has defined it differently, where a corporation has attained "personhood." Thus, by the latest definition, apparently a corporation can be a person, but a human is not necessarily one!
"The world is turned upside down"
THey shoudltnt be there
I think a lot of the prisoners shouldnt be there.There were 3 British prisoners there for 3 yrs and they have never committed any crimes. Just because they had arab names.Pathetic. I wrote a few comments on my blog, http://www.opentopix.com/topic/world-news/guantanamo-detainees-are-not-h...
What are they then?
What are they then? Aliens?
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2324191
Hitler rises from the dead.
These are exactly the tactics Hitler used to support the tyranny against the Jew and anyone else he considered a threat. The first thing you do is convince the public that these people are not 'Persons'. It then becomes easier to treat them like animals.
What?!
I can't believe what I have just read. As has already been said here, there are some things that you just can't do, such as pervert your own laws on a whim just because it it convinient.
The scariest thought is that once you have started taking away rights from those you deem 'unworthy', and it started a long time ago, where does it stop? To paraphrase a saying: "When they took the muslims, I said nothing. When they took the gays, I said nothing. When they took the poor, I said nothing. Now I am taken, and there is no-one left to speak out for me."
Sri Lankan standards of journalism crack me up!
This is rich. If I ever get the choice between going to Guantanamo (the American base, not the Castrist Detention Facility, aka. Castro's Concentration Camp) and moving to Sri Lanka, then it's off to Gitmo for me!
Bwahahahahaha, Human Rights and Sri Lanka, what a total, complete oxymoron. Of ocurse, these guys put the "moron" in "oxymoron".
<strong>Really?</strong>
What will be the next? The earth its flat.
There is a nation chosen to break the world
I did a search for sites
I did a search for sites that might help me not feel so alone in my depression and hopelessness. This one came up so I figured I would comment. You know what they say, the older you get, the less you are invited to weddings, and the more you go to funerals. On that positive note, I invite you to come to my blog, http://lazyfathead.blogspot.com, and join me in my delightful spiral into death depression and nothingness.
Thanks for your time. Remain happy ?
Not Human
And when George Bush declares YOU an enemy combatant, throws YOU in some Hell Hole, and holds YOU incommunicado. Who are YOU going to appeal to?
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