Abdul Hamid Abdul Salam Al-Ghizzawi is frantic. “He is in very poor health, which deteriorates day after day (details to be discussed with u in person). He has a family that is in desperate need of him.” The fragment, taken from a page handwritten by another detainee, is the only record of Al-Ghizzawi to emerge from the Guantánamo Bay prison… return to article
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Reader Comments (1)Page 1 of 1 pagesThe point is, in so many cases we have no idea whether Guantanamo detainees are “the worst of the worst” or mere “woodworkers and farmers.” Why? Because they’re beyond due process. They’re beyond either military or civilian justice because the administration apparently cannot live with being bound by Constitutional limits upon power, making the case that America is essentially undefended unless the president has unlimited freedom of action. This apparently includes the freedom to hold suspects without a trial or even a charge.
Gather evidence. Charge. Try. Convict and punish, or acquit and release. Is there some other course of action that makes any sense?
Of course we could just kill them all, but that might look inhumane.
Speaking of “making a case”, the conundrum that is Guantanamo was pointed up by today’s rejection in the Supreme Court of an appeal filed by two Uighur Muslims who have been in Guantanamo for roughly 4 years, as well as having been deemed “unthreatening” by a military tribunal almost a year ago. No threat, yet not to be released, because the detainees face possible torture or death if they are transferred back to Xinjiang province in China.
I guess they can work on their tans in the balmy Cuban sunshine while they languish. They can’t be allowed to enter the US, so it is said, because that would provide a disadvantageous precedent for other detainees’ lawyers to exploit. Conundrum indeed.
It just gets more intricate and convoluted with each passing day, the White House less and less able to manage the unplanned-for consequences of their decisions, the country less and less able to hold up its collective head with the confidence that it is on the right path.
Posted by Kuya on Apr 18, 2006 at 2:20 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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