MoJo {Mother Jones} has a couple of articles in it’s new edition that sheds some more light, and to me shows how we have become the ‘Old Soviet Union’, ‘China’, and Even ‘Iraq’, add your own Nation Human Rights Violaters, those we’ve always Condemned on this line, _______________
___________________________, you can add to line if you so wish.
The title comes from this new report which covers this ‘Excerpts from military tribunal transcripts’
By Dave Gilson
July 12, 2006
Under rules drawn up in hasty response to a 2004 Supreme Court ruling, the Pentagon gave the Guantanamo detainees one chance to prove that they were not–as the U.S. government had vigorously asserted for the past two years–“the worst of the worst.”
The above is the lead off. We all have followed this, read about it, listened to the yelling, on the so called free press media channels, etc. etc. etc., so no need to rehash, and this article is:
These excerpts were taken from the thousands of pages of tribunal transcripts released this spring under the Freedom of Information Act.
Now a few tidbits of the transcripts:
Detainee 152, a Yemeni named Asim
Thahit Abdullah Al Khalaqi, was confronted with a list of the U.S. government’s reasons for calling him an enemy combatant.
al khalaqi: Are these evidence or accusations?
tribunal president: They are in the form of both….
These are short snippits but it gets interesting after that as you might have guessed, you might have to use imagination, than again probably not.
Detainee 024, a 24-year-old British citizen named Feroz Ali Abbasi, was released and sent back to England in January 2005.
tribunal president:Once again, international law does not matter here. Geneva Convention does not matter here. What matters here and I am concerned about and what I really want to get to is your status as enemy combatant based upon the evidence that has been provided and your actions while you were in Afghanistan. If you deviate from that one more time you will be removed from this tribunal and we will continue to hear evidence without you being present….
The tribunal unanimously affirmed that Detainee 1094, Saifullah Paracha, a 57-year-old Pakistani businessman, was an enemy combatant.
tribunal president:I do know you had some questions about the legality of your detention. That would be referred to other organizations of the government, but you will be receiving more specific instructions shortly of how to bring your question to U.S. courts.
paracha: Your honor, I have been here 17 months; would that be before I expire?
And so on, it goes on to give short takes of Seven more Detainees!
And than we have this:
The Man Who Has Been to America
The Bush administration’s late embrace of the Geneva Conventions may or may not be sincere. Either way, it comes too late for hundreds of prisoners who’ve spent years of their lives in U.S. detention–like Muhibullo Abdulkarim Umarov.
And than MoJo gives us this Prisoner’s Dilemma
‘Mother Jones’ coverage of U.S. detainee policy since 9/11. A series of articles.
Now, when do we change the name, or symbols, of this country? Or do we keep what we have, worship it/them, with blank stares while cheering with abandon, empty, hollow, meaningless words. For we really are no longer ‘United’, or are we{?}!
Or do ‘We The People’ bring this Divided Country back together and on the Path It Should Be, as an Example of True ‘Democracy’, and Do As We Say With Meaning while Condemning What Our Recent Past Has Been!!!!!!