Justice Denied: Voices from Guantanamo

[Fletch]

"My experience of America prior to this was everything I'd seen in the films: the concept of 'the good guys', the concept of people trying to do the right thing... and that was shattered."

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm-tFt3Itoc"]YouTube - Justice Denied: Voices from Guantanamo[/ame]

And despite the fact that our system abused and tortured these guys for 3 years, to the point where one of them even lost an eye, then released them because they're apparently no danger whatsoever, it doesn't look like they'll be able to recoup any damages for their trouble.

 

[haldir]

Of course to be fair, W released this guy over the objections of all our intelligence agencies. They believed then and still believe now that he was involved in terror.

Moazzam Begg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Begg's known and suspected contacts with extremists
Shahid Akram Butt
Leader of the 'Lynx Gang', in Birmingham, England known associate of Begg arrested in Britain for fraud and in Yemen on conspiring to cause death and destruction[3][19]
Khalil al-Deek
lived in Peshawar, Pakistan while Begg lived there;
invested with Begg who claims there was nothing more than that[1][3]
Abu Zubaydah
an associate of al-Deek;
Begg claims never to have met Zubaydah, but United States Department of Defense (DoD) says he admitted to it during interrogation.[1][3]
Richard C. Reid
DoD suspects links but Begg claims never to have met him[3]
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi
DoD suspects links but Begg claims never to have met him[3]
Abu Qatada
DoD suspects links but Begg claims never to have met him[3]
Dhiren Barot
Wrote a book that was commissioned and published by Begg's bookshop in 1999[4][34]
[edit]Combatant Status Review

edit standard intro The George W. Bush administration asserted that the protections of the Geneva Conventions could be withheld from captives in the "War on Terror."[35] Critics argued the Conventions obliged the United States to conduct competent tribunals to determine the status of prisoners. Subsequently, the US Department of Defense instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals, to determine whether the captives met the new definition of an "enemy combatant."
The CSRTs are not bound by the rules of evidence that would apply in civilian court, and the government’s evidence is presumed to be “genuine and accurate.”[36] From July 2004 through March 2005, a CSRT was convened to make a determination whether each captive had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant". Moazzam Begg was among the two-thirds of prisoners who chose to participate in tribunal hearings.[37]
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal, listing the alleged facts that led to his detention. His memo accused him of the following:
[38]
The memo listed the following allegations against him:
a. The detainee is a member of al Qaida and other affiliated terrorist organizations.
The detainee recruited individuals to attend al Qaida run terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
The detainee provided money and material support to al Qaida terrorist training camps.
The detainee has received extensive training at al Qaida run terrorist training camps since 1993. He has been trained on the AK-47, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), handgun, ambush theory, detection of land mines and he manufacture of improvised grenades.
The detainee provided support to al Qaida terrorists by providing shelter for their families while the al Qaida members committed terrorist acts.
b. The detainees engaged in hostile acts against the United States or its coalition Partners.
The detainee was armed and prepared to fight on the frontlines against US and allied forces alongside Taliban and al Qaida fighters.
The detainee retreated to the Tora Bora Afghanistan along with other Taliban and al Qaida fighters.
The detainee engaged in these hostile actions while neither he nor his fellow fighters wore distinctive military emblems on their clothes, not followed a typical chain of command.
The detainee provided support to Usama Bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network with full knowledge that Bin Laden had issued a declaration of war against the United States and that the al Qaida network had committed numerous terrorist attacks against the United States and its citizens.

 

[Fletch]

I can understand the concern, but I would think that 3 years is enough time to gather evidence enough to charge him with something.

I'm also reminded of how "the other side" of the American gun debate sees us... folks with lots of weapons, seeking paramilitary training at various "camps", talking about "fortifying our compounds", occasionally dancing with the topic of fighting government forces... and surely we've all got a relative or acquaintance or three who's on the bad side of the law. We don't see ourselves as "potential terrorists", but anyone who's read anything from the Brady Bunch or VPC in the past decade or so knows that they could probably write up a dossier on each of us that pretty well matches the above.

So if the positions were reversed, wouldn't we want some respectful treatment while incarcerated, some formal charges, and an opportunity to face our accusers?