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Tuesday, June 17, 2003
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 Tuesday, June 17, 2003
started 6/17/2003; 10:18:46 AM - last post 6/17/2003; 2:42:04 PM
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Doc Searls - Tuesday, June 17, 2003 
6/17/2003; 2:18:46 PM (reads: 3295, responses: 1)
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Pounding sand 
| | Time to point to one thing. Maybe two. So how about this story about Guantánamo detainees, released without charges, who say conditions were so desperate there that some captives attempted suicide. |
| | The conditions described sound more like a kennel than a prison. |
| | Who was it who said you could tell the degree of a society's advancement by the way it treats its prisoners? Churchill? |
| | The simple fact remains that we have kept these people as prisoners of a war no longer being fought in any conventional sense of the word. The "war on terror" has every sign of being a rhetorical excuse for the suspension of rights, and that it will go on indefinitely, which is the de facto approximate sentence given to these prisoners, who are being held without any suggestion that a trial will ever be held. Unless I'm missing something, which perhaps I am. (I'm not in a position to look much up here.) |
| | In any case, it seems to me that holding these prisoners in limbo for years violates various amendments to the Constitution. (Being held without indictment, cruel and unusual punishment...) |
| | I'm sure some of these people are dangerous and need to be detained in some civilized fashion. How about one that's lawful and humane? From what we've gathered so far, this is neither. |
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Actually, Doc, these people are (according to the Bush cabal) "detainees," and not "prisoners of war" or even "prisoners." You see, according to the Bush administration we are in a "war," but because "terrorists" are not soldiers of a particular government, they don't count as POWs.
It is this semantic maneuver that supposedly justifies their being kept under those conditions, without access to legal representation. Furthermore, these "detainees" are not American citizens, and are therefore not subject to Constitutional rights. That's the argument, anyway.
The entire Guantanamo Bay detainees story is a travesty of justice, and one of the worst violations of the Constitution under the "war on terror."
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