Peregrine wrote:
innocent

 Grundz wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
If you are buying into it that the only thing we have on them has been obtained by "torture".

Which is the schizophrenia showing again. Either it's NOT torture, which we keep getting told, so you should be able to prosecute them of something, or it is, which means that the US Goverment has been torturing humans for information.

US Soldiers are not Law Enforcement officials. As such anything that was obtained for a lot of these people on the battlefield would be inadmissable in a US Court.

So you're saying they would be tried in us court and not a tribunal? What do do you think judge judy will rule in that reality?

 Breotan wrote:
Getting a little tired of all this moral high ground stuff regarding torture. When you're conducting a military campaign against an enemy you need data from people you capture. How do you get that data from hardened terrorists if not through torture? Hugs and giggles?

 xole wrote:
Innocent in this case meaning not found guilty in a U.S. court of a crime.

 Peregrine wrote:

Or meaning "we got the wrong person": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri

 djones520 wrote:

 Grundz wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
If you are buying into it that the only thing we have on them has been obtained by "torture".

Which is the schizophrenia showing again. Either it's NOT torture, which we keep getting told, so you should be able to prosecute them of something, or it is, which means that the US Goverment has been torturing humans for information.

US Soldiers are not Law Enforcement officials. As such anything that was obtained for a lot of these people on the battlefield would be inadmissable in a US Court.

So you're saying they would be tried in us court and not a tribunal? What do do you think judge judy will rule in that reality?

You were the one saying we were scared of bringing them into the US to be tried in our system because they'd go free, before making the torture claim. I was just laying out the reality of the situation.

 xole wrote:
Yes, that's one person. You used people, which is plural.

"We got the wrong person" as a definition of innocent can't apply to all of them. unless you are asserting that because one person was inaccurately arrested, they all were.

 Seaward wrote:
It's not an issue with evidence being inadmissible. It's simply not having enough of it to ensure conviction despite knowing perfectly well what they are.

 Peregrine wrote:
And of course we should just trust the government when they say they know, because the government would never lie or get it wrong.

Also, I look forward to applying this standard to ordinary criminal cases. Why give the defendant any kind of rights, or even a trial? They might be found innocent, and we all know that anything less than a 100% conviction rate is unacceptable.

 Breotan wrote:
Getting a little tired of all this moral high ground stuff regarding torture. When you're conducting a military campaign against an enemy you need data from people you capture. How do you get that data from hardened terrorists if not through torture? Hugs and giggles?

 Peregrine wrote:

 xole wrote:
Yes, that's one person. You used people, which is plural.

That's one person that we know about.

"We got the wrong person" as a definition of innocent can't apply to all of them. unless you are asserting that because one person was inaccurately arrested, they all were.

Nice straw man. I never said that everyone there is innocent, just that it's a really stupid idea to have summary executions when you can't even be sure you got the right person. Unless of course you want to give up the moral high ground and decide that killing all the guilty people is the most important thing, and who cares if you kill a few innocent people in the process.

 xole wrote:
And you accused me of straw manning!

Spoiler:

 Fafnir wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
Getting a little tired of all this moral high ground stuff regarding torture. When you're conducting a military campaign against an enemy you need data from people you capture. How do you get that data from hardened terrorists if not through torture? Hugs and giggles?

I remember seeing/hearing somewhere (I forget where from, so I can't back this up with actual evidence, but this is just conjecture) that in some cases, being friendly to someone can make them more inclined to divulge information than torturing them. It would make sense that people would be more willing to share information if they felt that the person asking questions was looking out for their best interests.

 Fafnir wrote:
Ultimately though, if an administrative official is going to authorize the use of torture to glean information that should be used in the interest of saving lives and defeating enemies, that those actions have repercussions. The people in power need to take responsibility for their actions, and part of that responsibility means not being able to properly prosecute (and thus, possibly having to actually release) someone with information gained through torture.

 Seaward wrote:
Why on earth would you apply it to ordinary criminal cases?

Do you think the Constitution is applicable across the globe or something?

 xole wrote:
And you accused me of straw manning!

How many wrongly accused people do you think there are in Gitmo?

 Breotan wrote:
In a situation with a subject who's hardened against giving up anything or in a "ticking time bomb" scenario, you need data regardless if it is reliable or not.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
In a situation with a subject who's hardened against giving up anything or in a "ticking time bomb" scenario, you need data regardless if it is reliable or not.

And I suppose we'll just ignore the fact that a "ticking time bomb" scenario involves a time limit, and if your subject stalls you with false information all you've accomplished is torturing someone. Just like we'll ignore the possibility of getting the wrong person, or the subject not knowing the information you want, in which case all you've accomplished is torturing someone.

 Peregrine wrote:
But hey, at least you honestly and openly admit that you're a fan of torture.

 Jihadin wrote:
If your really in need of info just turn them over to the local government forces and wait thirty min....

Is that right? I'm going to have to look back at my post and see if I can figure out what the hell you read that I didn't write.

 Breotan wrote:
You've no way of knowing the likelyhood of failure anymore than you do the likelyhood of success, I'd say your argument is flawed.

Is that right? I'm going to have to look back at my post and see if I can figure out what the hell you read that I didn't write.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
Is that right? I'm going to have to look back at my post and see if I can figure out what the hell you read that I didn't write.

You said it perfectly clearly when you went out of your way to explain how torture is "necessary" in some situations.

 Peregrine wrote:
So, question for those of you who think that torture is necessary: what about torturing soldiers from your own country? If a US soldier is captured and the enemy needs to get information about an attack they believe is about to happen, can they use torture? And if they do, will you accept it as just something that needs to be done sometimes, or will you be outraged and demand retaliation for it?

 Breotan wrote:
You've no way of knowing the likelyhood of failure anymore than you do the likelyhood of success, I'd say your argument is flawed.

Yeah, who knows the chances of success or failure. Might as well torture them just to find out.

So, question for those of you who think that torture is necessary: what about torturing soldiers from your own country? If a US soldier is captured and the enemy needs to get information about an attack they believe is about to happen, can they use torture? And if they do, will you accept it as just something that needs to be done sometimes, or will you be outraged and demand retaliation for it?

Sergeant Bergdahl has been held by the Taliban since 2009 and has been the subject of prisoner exchange negotiations that so far have not borne fruit. Over the years, the Taliban have released at least five videos of Bergdahl and have demanded $1 million ransom in exchange for his freedom.

Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq War)[edit]

A small number of coalition soldiers went missing in action in Iraq immediately following the 2003 invasion. Eight servicemen were captured and later released (see American POWs in the 2003 invasion of Iraq). Other cases were quickly resolved when the bodies were recovered. Following this were the following POW/MIA cases:
On April 9, 2004, US Army soldier SSG Keith Matthew "Matt" Maupin (at that time a PFC) was captured in an ambush near the Baghdad International Airport. On April 16, 2004, Maupin appeared on a videotape that was broadcast by the Arabic-language television network Al Jazeera. On June 28, 2004, Al Jazeera reported that Maupin was executed by a group identifying itself as The Persistent Power Against the Enemies of God and the Prophet. The method of execution in the video was a gunshot to the head. On March 30, 2008, Maupin's father told local newsmedia that the remains of his son had been found. He stated that an Army general had told him that DNA was used to identify the remains. According to an Army statement, Maupin's remains "were recovered northwest of Baghdad on March 20, by soldiers from 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, based out of Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, part of the 25th Infantry Division's 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team."
On June 19, 2004, a US Marine of Lebanese background, CPL Wassef Ali Hassoun, went missing and claimed to have been captured. He later turned up in Lebanon, and was flown home to the U.S. It was soon discovered Hassoun made the kidnapping story up, and Hassoun is currently a fugitive.[100]
On June 16, 2006, a three-member US Army patrol in an armored humvee was overwhelmed south of Baghdad. One soldier died during the fight, while the other two were captured and tortured to death. Their names were PFC Kristian Menchaca and PFC Thomas Lowell Tucker. Their bodies were found on June 20, 2006.[101]
On October 23, 2006, US Army soldier SSG Ahmed Kousay Altaie (at that time a SPC) was captured by insurgents. He appeared in a proof of life video in February 2007 but was not heard of again. Ahmed's remains were recovered in February 2012.[102][103][104]
November 27, 2006 - An F-16C Fighting Falcon, serial number 90-0776, from the 524th Fighter Squadron crashed near Fallujah while on a low-altitude ground-strafing run. The pilot, Major Troy Gilbert, was killed. His body was taken by insurgents. It was never recovered.
On January 20, 2007 insurgent commandos raided provincial headquarters in Karbala, Iraq (see Karbala provincial headquarters raid). The attacked resulted in three American soldiers being wounded and 1 killed. Four servicemen, CPT Brian Freeman, 1LT Jacob Fritz, SPC Jonathan Chism and PFC Shawn Falter were captured and executed.
On May 12, 2007 a US Army observation post was overrun by Iraqi insurgents. Four American and one Iraqi soldiers were killed. Three US soldiers were captured. They were PFC Joseph J. Anzack Jr., PVT Byron W. Fouty, and SPC Alex Jimenez. Iraqi police found PFC Anzacks' body in the Euphrates River south of Baghdad on May 23, 2007 bearing signs of torture. On June 4, 2007, the insurgent organization Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) claimed that they killed PVT Fouty and SPC Jimenez and also claimed that their bodies were buried and would not be returned to their families. On Wednesday July 9, 2008,[105] the bodies of PVT Byron Fouty and SPC Alex Jimenez were found in an area south of Baghdad known as the "triangle of death".[106] The families of the victims were notified and the Defense Department released a statement to the public on July 11, 2008.[107]

Afghanistan

On July 1, 2009, US Army soldier SGT (then a PFC) Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Ketchum, Idaho, was declared missing, which was later changed to captured on July 3 of that year. A video was shown of him on July 18, 2009 indicating that he had been captured. A second video was released on December 25, 2009, again showing him in captivity. On April 7, 2010, the Taliban released a third video of Bergdahl in captivity. In the new video Bergdahl has a full head of hair, a beard and pleads for the release of Afghan prisoners that are held in Guantanamo and Bagram.

On July 4, 2011, a British soldier went missing in central Helmand Province in Afghanistan. The Taliban later confirmed responsibility for his capture, but also announced they had executed him when ISAF forces attempted to rescue him in the following hours.[108] The soldier was later named as twenty-year-old Highlander Scott McLaren of the 4th Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland. His body was recovered and returned to the UK following a firefight with the insurgents holding his body.[109]

 Jihadin wrote:
One US Army soldier...if he is still alive...which quite a few of us in the military believe he is dead

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment and interrogation facility of the United States military located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in January 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees it had determined to be connected with opponents in the Global War on Terror including Afghanistan and later Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia. It is operated by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which fronts on Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.[1]

The detainment areas consisted of three camps: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana, and Camp X-Ray, but Camp X-Ray has been closed. The facility is often referred to as Guantánamo, G-Bay or Gitmo, after GTMO, the military abbreviation for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.[2][3]

After Bush political appointees at the U.S. Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice advised the Bush administration that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could be considered outside U.S. legal jurisdiction, military guards took the first twenty captives to Guantanamo on 11th January 2002. The Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Ensuing U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 2004 have determined otherwise and that the courts have jurisdiction: it ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on 29th June 2006, that detainees were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.[4] Following this, on 7th July 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners would, in the future, be entitled to protection under Common Article 3.[5][6][7]

Current and former prisoners have complained of abuse and torture, which the Bush administration denied. In a 2005 Amnesty International report, the facility was called the "gulag of our times."[8] In 2006 the United Nations called unsuccessfully for the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp to be closed; one judge observed 'America's idea of what is torture...does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations'.[9] Susan J. Crawford, appointed by Bush to review DOD practices used at Guantanamo Bay and oversee the military trials, told Bob Woodward of the Washington Post in an interview in January 2009 that Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured while being held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, making it the first Bush administration official to concede that torture occurred there.[10]

On 22nd January 2009, President Barack Obama signed an order to suspend the proceedings of the Guantanamo military commission for 120 days and to shut down the detention facility within the year.[11][12] On 29th January 2009, a military judge at Guantanamo rejected the White House request in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, creating an unexpected challenge for the administration as it reviewed how the United States brings Guantanamo detainees to trial.[13] On 20th May 2009, the United States Senate passed an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346) by a 90–6 vote to block funds needed for the transfer or release of prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[14] President Obama issued a Presidential memorandum dated 15th December 2009, ordering Thomson Correctional Center, Thomson, Illinois to be prepared to accept transferred Guantanamo prisoners.[15]

The Final Report of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, dated 22nd January 2010, published the results for the 240 detainees subject to the Review: 36 were the subject of active cases or investigations; 30 detainees from Yemen were designated for 'conditional detention' due to the poor security environment in Yemen; 126 detainees were approved for transfer; 48 detainees were determined 'too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution'.[16]

On 7th January 2011, President Obama signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill, which, in part, placed restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the mainland or to foreign countries, thus impeding the closure of the facility.[17] U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates said during testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on 17th February 2011: "The prospects for closing Guantanamo as best I can tell are very, very low given very broad opposition to doing that here in the Congress."[18] Congress particularly opposed moving prisoners to facilities in the United States for detention or trial.[18] In April 2011, Wikileaks began publishing 779 secret files relating to prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[19] As of March 2013, 166 detainees remain at Guantanamo.[20][21]

I wasn't referring to a specific person, just a general case. Are you willing to accept our enemies torturing US soldiers for information, or would you be outraged at that treatment? And let's even remove the terrorism issue, and say that Syria (a legitimate national government/military) captures a US soldier and is interrogating them about the time and location of a shipment of US weapons to the rebels. Are they justified in using torture to get the information they need?

CRISIS IN KOSOVO: THE PRISONERS; American Soldiers Were Beaten When Captured, the Pentagon Says

The three Army soldiers released from Serbian captivity on Sunday had been beaten with rifle butts, kicked and punched by the men who captured their vehicle near the Macedonian border, a Pentagon official said today.

''Although there were also periods of harsh treatment during interrogation, we believe the bulk of their injuries were sustained in the early moments of the captivity,'' said Kenneth H. Bacon, a spokesman for the Pentagon.

''They were taken by a substantially larger force'' of armed personnel in Yugoslav Army uniforms, Mr. Bacon said. ''They felt that they didn't have any alternative but to stop. And in fact, as they tried to get out, they ran into an obstacle which I believe was a ditch, which also made it difficult for them to get away.'' Mr. Bacon said the three were inside Macedonia, not in Yugoslavia, as the Serbs had claimed.

When examined by doctors on Sunday, Staff Sgt. Andrew A. Ramirez was found to have a stitched-up wound on his head, two fractured ribs and swelling of his right leg. His injuries are healing and no surgery is planned.
Staff Sgt. Christopher J. Stone was found to have a broken nose and bruises and abrasions on his face. Shortly before his release, Sergeant Stone gave his prison guards in Belgrade a thank-you note for treating him with respect and dignity. The Army said that these guards were not the ones who had captured and beaten the three.

Doctors said Specialist Steven M. Gonzales had light injuries to his wrists.

The three are scheduled to return to their homes on Friday.

Mr. Bacon said the Army's investigation found that one of the three Americans was manning a .50-caliber machine gun on the Humvee scout vehicle at the time they were captured, and together the three also had one M-16 rifle and two unspecified sidearms.

The machine gun apparently had ammunition but was not in position to fire, Mr. Bacon said.

''It was not ready to go because typically when you drive around you don't have the thing ready to fire,'' he said. The soldier manning the machine gun ''followed the normal rule of getting out of the line of fire so he wouldn't be shot,'' Mr. Bacon said.

 Ouze wrote:
It's wrong to scoop up people and put them in prison forever without ever giving them a chance to argue against their case against their continued detention.

 Ouze wrote:
The fact anyone would argue against this just amazing.

Bullockist wrote:
defacto police my arse, defacto bully more like. A policy of "whatever we do is ok because we have reasons" does not seem to relate to police at all in my opinion.