Pentagon Charges 6 Gitmo Detainees With 9/11 Crimes

That didn't take long. They'll be tried by a military tribunal.

No Clearer Metaphor

If you haven't yet found a story that depicts exactly what is wrong with the U.S. - nay, human - approach to human relations or how to change the world, I point you to W3IAI's Hiding in the Easter Basket.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Executive Order Alert

President Bush signed an executive order Friday prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment, including humiliation or denigration of religious beliefs, in the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects.

  TPM

Why do I suspect there is a "signing statement" to go along with that?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Update: Next day's post

Remember Camp Cropper

On April 6 it was reported that a detainee died on April 4 at Camp Cropper, one of the early notorious US detention centers near Baghdad International Airport where the military hid at least one detainee from the Red Cross and which has been recently called a terrorist academy. No cause of death has yet been given.

Last month it was reported that the US is expecting a surge of prisoners along with the surge of military operations. Camp Cropper currently holds 3,300 captives, and the military plans to increase its capacity to 5,000. An Australian firm that used to subcontract under Halliburton (and won a lawsuit against Big Dick's old company, claiming Halliburton demanded $3 million in kickbacks for the privilege) will provide food services.

We know a little more about Camp Cropper from the accounts of David Vance, a 29-year-old Navy vet, serving as a security contractor for American reconstruction organizations in Iraq. Vance became a whistle-blower, reporting suspicious and possibly illegal activity at the security firm to the FBI. But when the Americans came in to raid the place, they arrested Vance and took him to Camp Cropper, where his rights went missing. “Even Saddam Hussein had more legal counsel than I ever had." (In fact, he was held in the same section where Saddam had been held.)

Vance's FBI contact was not contacted for three weeks, and even after that, the military decided he was a threat and kept him imprisoned at Camp Cropper for two more months. He was released in part because he said he'd leave Iraq. He went back to Chicago.

“I don’t really talk about this stuff with my family. I feel ashamed, depressed, still have nightmares, and I’d even say I suffer from some paranoia.”

Imagine that.

American military justice

Pfc. Willie Brand, convicted of a variety of crimes in relation to a prisoner he beat to death in Afghanistan in 2002 by hitting him in the knee thirty times (one of two prisoners he beat to death: he was acquitted for the other one), including assault, maiming, and making a false statement but not murder, is sentenced to diddly squat, that is, a reduction in rank to private. That’ll show him. Brand told the jury, "We were trained on these things and when we implement them we were condemned; if we asked questions we are condemned." Yup, damned if you beat two prisoners to death, damned if you don’t.

  WIIIAI post

American detainees

The U.S. military in Iraq has detained five Americans for suspected insurgent activity, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The five have not been charged or had access to a lawyer, and face an uncertain legal future.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to identify any of them, citing the military's policy of not providing the names of detainees. They are in custody at one of the three U.S.-run prisons in Iraq.

One was identified by his family and U.S. law enforcement officials as Cyrus Kar, an Iranian-American filmmaker and U.S. Navy veteran.

[...]

Whitman said the Iranian-American was arrested with several dozen washing machine timers in his car; such items can be used as components in bombs. Military officials said he was arrested with a cameraman and a taxi driver.

Whitman said there did not appear to be any connections among the five.

[...]

In Los Angeles, Kar's relatives said he was born in Iran and came to the U.S. as a child.

They said Kar, 44, was in Iraq to film scenes for a documentary on Persia's founder when Kar was arrested by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Baghdad on May 17, a date confirmed by military officials.

"He just had the misfortune to get into the wrong cab," said Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU's legal director. "Our position is that if the government has any evidence against him, bring him home and charge in a court and then proceed accordingly."

  Yahoo News article

Yeah, well, good luck there. And that'll teach him to go to Iraq and get in a cab while America is patrolling the streets. And for having Iranian blood.

The ACLU's suit, filed in Washington, contends that Kar's detention violates his constitutional rights, federal law, international law and U.S. military regulations.

Tough shit. We're fighting a war on terror.

Whitman said the five Americans were being held in accordance with laws governing armed conflict.

See?