Rubbing Salt in Guantanamo's Wounds: Task Force Announces Indefinite Detentions

[undeterred]

Friday 22 January 2010
by: Andy Worthington, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis



With a stunning lack of sensitivity, President Barack Obama's Guantánamo Review Task Force chose the anniversary of the president's failed promise to close the prison to announce its conclusions regarding the eventual fate of 196 prisoners. As the Washington Post explained, the Task Force said, with no trace of irony, that "nearly 50" of the men still imprisoned at Guantanamo "should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war."

The administration's invocation of the laws of war actually refers to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which authorized the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001" (or those who harbored them), as interpreted by the Supreme Court in June 2004, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in which it was asserted that "Congress has clearly and unmistakably authorized detention" of individuals covered by the AUMF.

This may technically be legal in the United States, but it is at odds with everyone else's understanding of the laws of war. As every other civilized country understands them, the laws of war involve holding combatants for the duration of hostilities according to the Geneva Conventions, which, under Common Article 3, prohibits the "humiliating and degrading treatment" and coercive interrogations to which the men in Guantánamo were subjected, after President Bush declared in February 2002 that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Moreover, these men were never screened to ascertain whether they were actually combatants in the first place. Under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention (relative to the treatment of prisoners of war), if there is any doubt about whether those detained fit the description of Article 4 (broadly speaking, regular armed forces), they should be treated as Article 4 prisoners until their status has been determined by a competent tribunal. Held close to the time and place of capture, these were convened in every U.S. war from Vietnam onwards, and in the first Gulf War, for example, 1,196 tribunals were held, and 886 men were subsequently released.

http://www.truthout.org/rubbing-salt-guantanamos-wounds-task-force-announces-indefinite-detentions56308

Shameful.

[Demeter]

1. Yeah, Well, There's a Lot of That Going Around

Insensitivity, that is. It seems that this Administration is tone-deaf as well as color blind.

[jgraz]

2. Kick