NYTimes: Senators Laud Treatment of Detainees in Guantánamo

geeze, I didn't intentionally leave out any portion of the article, did I?

 

Vakhitov said he spent 18 months at the camp locked in a tiny cell and allowed out for a 15-minute walk twice a week and a shower twice a week.

Vakhitov did not mention the AC, so he must be lying!!!

 

Probably more rigorous than say the WH.

 

They say everything can be replaced
They say every distance is not near
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here.

I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

They say every man needs protection
They say every man must fall
So I swear I see my reflection
Someplace so high above this wall.

I see my light come shining
from the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

Standing next to me in this lonely crowd
Is a man who swears he's not to blame
All day long I hear him shout so loud
Crying out that he was framed.

I see my light come shining
from the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.

 

The first article isn't really significant and that is why it was on page 16. It would be more significant if it was a step towards opening the dentention center up to independent observation. That would be big news, and showing gitmo run in model humanitarian fashion would disarm any future criticism.

The second article is slightly more significant, but it isn't anything that I haven't heard reported before.

As far as the Russian man released, are you saying he is an Al-Qaeda operative?

If you are, then why was he released?

If you aren't then what is the relevance of mentioning standard operating procedure for Al Qaeda?

 

I actually don't think the guy is credible. I agree with you on that. I would certainly not take anything he says at face value without other confirmation.

I agree that other quotes by him cast serious doubt on his credibility. It was just the response about Al-Qaeda standard operating procedure that carried no weight.

 

Offshoring with a different slant...

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050628/1/3t7ec.html
US suspected of keeping secret prisoners on warships: UN official

The UN has learned of "very, very serious" allegations that the United States is secretly detaining terrorism suspects in various locations around the world, notably aboard prison ships, the UN's special rapporteur on terrorism said.

While the accusations were rumours, rapporteur Manfred Nowak said the situation was sufficiently serious to merit an official inquiry.

"There are very, very serious accusations that the United States is maintaining secret camps, notably on ships," the Austrian UN official told AFP, adding that the vessels were believed to be in the Indian Ocean region.

"They are only rumours, but they appear sufficiently well-based to merit an official inquiry," he added.

Last Thursday Nowak and three other UN human rights experts said they were opening an inquiry into the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Washington has been holding more than 500 people without trial, and into other such locations.

The United States has neither refused nor granted requests by Nowak's group to visit Guantanamo.

"We have accepted, upon the request of the State Department and Pentagon, to limit our investigation for now to Guantanamo, but even in accepting this we have not had a positive response" to the request for a visit, Nowak said.

He said that if the "investigation into Guantanamo leads us to other things, we will follow them. We will bring up all these matters to the US government and expect Washington to say officially where these camps are."

The use of prison ships would allow investigators to interrogate people secretly and in international waters out of the reach of US law, British security expert Francis Tusa said.

"This opens the door to very tough interrogations on key prisoners before it even has been revealed that they have been captured," said Tusa, an editor for the British magazine Jane's Intelligence Review.

Nowak said the prison ships would not be "floating Guantanamos" since "they are much smaller, holding less than a dozen detainees."

Tusa said the Americans may also be using their island base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean as a site for prisoners.

Some 520 people suspected of terrorism are currently being held without trial at Guantanamo and others are in camps the United States has refused to acknowledge, the human rights organization Amnesty International has said.

The United States has said that prisoners considered foreign combattants in its "war on terrorism" are not covered by the Geneva Conventions.

 

basso, you haven't finished drinking kool-aid?

 

basso do you remember the press conference last week with Bush and the new PM of Iraq when bush invited the press down to gitmo to check it out? Well can you explain why the admin still after a year have not allowed human rights investigators into Gitmo?


U.N. investigators say U.S. stalling on prison visits

GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators on Thursday accused the United States of stalling on their request to visit foreign terror suspects at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.

They said they had had no reply to their year-old request to probe "serious allegations of torture", arbitrary detention and violations of the right to health and due process at Guantanamo.

"We deeply regret that the government of the United States has still not invited us to visit those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Guantanamo Bay naval base," the four rights investigators said in a statement.

"The lack of a definitive answer despite repeated requests suggests that the United States is not willing to cooperate with the United Nations human rights machinery on this issue," they added.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050623/3/22vxz.html

 

Most would consider fully disclosing something to a prominent media outlet like the Boston Globe public disclosure. Are you angry because the records undermined the Swifties credibility even further?

As far as the UN observing Gitmo, it has nothing to do with trust. What is there to trust. They come in, observe, and leave. It isn't like they are going to have UN orange jumpsuit theft scandal, or a UN cuban cigars for prayer mats scandal. It is observation. They could have the red cross come in as well.

But even pushing aside the irrelevance of the scandal free situation observing Gitmo should be, trusting the UN shouldn't be that big of a problem. There is little reason not to trust them when investigating human rights in a situation like gitmo.

 

That's your answer? Because they don't trust the UN and why should they?

And what the **** does Kerry have to do with any of this?

LOL!!!

 

if iraq says we dont want UN inspectors thats of course casus belli? if north korea says it? thats casus belli. if iran says it? thats casus belli. but why should the US trust the UN?!