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"Guantanamo Bay"

So then...5 people are released without charge after having been held incommunicado for 2 years without charge. These men are entirely innocent. Not one charge is levelled against them, and no implication is made that they are anything other than men who were in the wrong place with the wrong skin colour at the wrong time. These men make it clear that they were tortured both physically and mentally by American troops whilst in Guantanamo Bay. These are not terrorists or soldiers remember; they're innocent men. Now aside from the standard claim of the mentally deficient on this board (which will doubtless be along the lines of "Ah, you're so naive if you think they're REALLY innocent"; christ, I sometimes think that if Bell ever saw The Crucible he'd be at a loss as to what the problem with the Salem witch trials actually was...), there is no evidence whatsoever to claim otherwise. So the Americans, as well as torturing men who may be Al-Quaida members, are torturing innocent people.

Remind me again; why are we fighting this "war on terror"? Surely the point was to stop terror. Seems to me that we're actually fighting for the right to terrorise nations of brown men and women whilst making sure they don't get uppity and help us to reap what we sow. Has anyone with half a brain in their head got any thoughts on this one?

So then...5 people are released without charge after having been held incommunicado for 2 years without charge. These men are entirely innocent. Not one charge is levelled against them, and no implication is made that they are anything other than men who were in the wrong place with the wrong skin colour at the wrong time. These men make it clear that they were tortured both physically and mentally by American troops whilst in Guantanamo Bay. These are not terrorists or soldiers remember; they're innocent men. Now aside from the standard claim of the mentally deficient on this board (which will doubtless be along the lines of "Ah, you're so naive if you think they're REALLY innocent"; christ, I sometimes think that if Bell ever saw The Crucible he'd be at a loss as to what the problem with the Salem witch trials actually was...), there is no evidence whatsoever to claim otherwise. So the Americans, as well as torturing men who may be Al-Quaida members, are torturing innocent people.

Remind me again; why are we fighting this "war on terror"? Surely the point was to stop terror. Seems to me that we're actually fighting for the right to terrorise nations of brown men and women whilst making sure they don't get uppity and help us to reap what we sow. Has anyone with half a brain in their head got any thoughts on this one?

Apart from utter disgust that they haven't been released earlier, and utter disgust at the fact that American troops that tortured these people are not going to have chanrges leveled at them, no.

Sure they may [edit]noT[edit] be whiter than white (no racial slur intended) but whatever happened to "Innocent until proven guilty"?

Holding them for two years without trial hardly seems that.....

They should have handed them over to British custody straight away. Only goes to show how much America really valued our presence over in Afghanistan.

Light wrote:
> Remind me again; why are we fighting this "war on terror"?
> Surely the point was to stop terror. Seems to me that we're actually
> fighting for the right to terrorise nations of brown men and women
> whilst making sure they don't get uppity and help us to reap what we
> sow. Has anyone with half a brain in their head got any thoughts on
> this one?

Well, to be fair to the Americans, since their 'War On Terror', there have been no more 9/11s. So, Terrorism might not be being destroyed, but, in the eyes of the US public, the 'War On Terror' must be doing something good.

monkey_man wrote:
> They should have handed them over to British custody straight away.
> Only goes to show how much America really valued our presence over in
> Afghanistan.

This i agree with.

See, now me being the paranoid lefty militant that I am?

I wondered about the accuracy of media claims that Al-Queda lay claim to the Spanish bombs on the exact day the media starts worldwide starts to report on the releasing and non-charging of these people.
Kind of bumps this story onto the middle section huh?

And, according to an interview on Newsnight last night, the editor of the newspaper that recieved this letter is sceptical about it's veracity seeing as he recieves the same letter for every explosion/plane crash regardless of current political clime.

So instead of the public being outraged at the detention and torture of innocent people held without charge?
We're all quaking with fear at Johnny Muslim and hey, if they can do that in Spain then surely it's worth keeping/beating innocent civilians just in case?

...yeah right.
Welcome to "The War on Terror". And the sequel will be "The War on Personal Freedom and Choice".
So don't question how this happened to innocent people, don't become angry at the treatment of completely innocent men.
Instead, be disgusted with Al-Queda and, by proxy, those being held at Guantanemo Bay.

Oh, and this is to those that have been most vocal in their support of the UK & US government during these times - you have to accept that these men are utterly devoid of any guilt whatsoever.
Or, if you don't believe they are innocent, then you have to accept the government got that wrong and, therefore, are just as susceptible in other areas.

They've been held there for two years, with no wrong doing, endured torture and had their freedom completely removed. Now they're back, and it's "oh, they're back. Who are they again?" Instead of what should be said, ie "What? Held for two years? In Guantanamo? No charges? No wrong doing? Why is nobody doing anything about this?"

It disgusts me.

I think part of the problem is that people are too divided - the major groups protesting about Guantanamo are anti-Iraq and generally anti-war on terror.

I don't think it's right what's happening in Guantanamo after this amount of time, but then again I wonder what the US has to gain from holding the men if there is no real evidence against them. Bush could do without it in an election year and it would silence some critics as well as ease relations with other countries. Yet Guantanamo is still there.

Whilst I'd admit those that have been released had little evidence against them I think there reasons for being where they were were questionable at best.

The fact is that there stories are very strange - at least two told their families they were going to Pakistan, and 3 others they were attending a wedding...yet the three ended up in a warzone (not known as a common setting for a wedding).

I'd agree with you that there is something that seems a little dodgy about these people and the circumstances, but I don't think that's the point. The point is, you can't hold a group of people indefinitely without any kind of charge against them. It's not legal, and it's the sort of thing that the Bush and Blair governments go to war to stop. Supposedly.

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

We're holding plenty ourselves, we just didn't build a special camp to put them in. I forget the numbers but we've had people imprisoned since 9/11 without trial, though they get less headlines than those nasty Americans doing likewise...