US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships FYI
The United States is operating “floating prisons” to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.
Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.
Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.
I think that the country is really just into prisons.We have more of our own people in jail than anyone else too. We’re not the world’s policeman, we’re the world’s jailer.
Found by Aric Mackey.
Not to derail, but I can imagine a setup for a sure way for Obama to lose the election.
In 2006, the Democrats promised to not impeach Bush in a bid to win the election. It worked perfectly, because most people didn’t want to be dragged through non-stop congressional investigations.
If Obama is questioned and he is supportive of the idea of congressional investigations into the Iraq War, I think that would have a chilling effect.
Grant, that isn’t the role the chief executive but I guess what I’m saying is that I think the country is tired of unlimited arm-chair quarterbacking on this kind of stuff.
If the ships were near Diego Garcia, this would have been Afghanistan detainees being interrogated right after 9/11 when we were trying to get Bin Laden and frankly I don’t have a lot of sympathy for most of those higher-up-the-food-chain Taliban, Pakistani and Bin-Laden friends.
Iraq is a different story than Afghanistan and as far as I know, Gitmo and the foreign country detainees was for the Afghanistan prisoners and domestic terrorism captives.
Call me old school, but the ones that encouraging global jihad around 9/11 or protecting Bin Laden near September 11th, I won’t cry for them.
“I guarantee you that when war becomes that profitable, there will be more of it.” – Chalmers Johnson, Ph.D
“I guarantee you that when prisons become profitable, there will be more of them, and reasons to fill them.” – The Pirate, Patriot
#1–HMeyers==its truly pathetic you think holding our leaders accountable for their lack of performance, if not the undermining of good government, if not illegal activities is “arm-chair quarterbacking.” Its attitudes like that that create these monsters in the first place.
Prison ships are very effective. They were used extensively in the American Revolution and Civil War. Cheap, hard to escape, easy to control. Where you gonna dig to?
American warships are considered American Sovereign Soil according to centuries old international legal precedent. This means the constitution with all the trappings of habeas corpus applies equally to anyone on a warship same as if they were within the territories of the US.
That said, I will bet money that these ships were used to transport “enemy combatants” who technically are not citizens of the US and therefore do not have the protections of the Constitution.
(Aren’t loopholes wonderful?)
The article also clearly states that these ships were used as prison transports and not permanent facilities, albeit with an interrogation or two on the side.
If they got me sea sick I’d tell them anything they wanted to know.
And the waterboarding would be dramatically easier!
Hmeyers said
Call me old school, but the ones that encouraging global jihad around 9/11 or protecting Bin Laden near September 11th, I won’t cry for them.
Yeah, I hate Bush and Cheney too.
It’s hard to believe anyone would be against prison ships especially considering the alternative of just lopping their head off, which is what the other side does.
The crying about this is a bit hypocritical since we know as soon as the infiltrators begin setting off bombs in the US the same people who now complain the loudest will be screaming why didn’t the government do something?
>>It’s hard to believe anyone would be against >>prison ships especially considering the
>>alternative of just lopping their head off
Yeah, that’s great! The United States is more humane than murderous barbarians whose culture is rooted in 1000-year-old brutality. Wow. We should really be proud of ourselves!
Everyone complains about these enemy combatants, but no one ever offers a solution other than unconditional release. I say try them under military tribunal(that’s the universal standard for enemy combatants, like it or not), convict them if possible, and send them to super-max to spend their time, or outright deport them if acquitted.
>>I say try them under military tribunal
I believe that’s been suggested. Dumbya’s regime is unwilling to do that. He’d rather just keep ’em locked up in Gitmo or on a prison ship until January 9, they pass the problem on to Obama.
The omnipresent “guidance” of Bush & Co. still doesn’t take precedence over the self-censorship practiced by our media lords. There was a time – within recent decades – that American journalism had sufficient guts and motivation to break a story like this.
When the story hit the Web, last night, I Googled it and it was a Guardian exclusive. Now, this morning, 50 or 60 sources have picked it up. Most of those just because one or another wire service offered it, no doubt.
Used to be that a half-dozen or more US newspapers + CNN had the staff and courage to seek out and challenge government brutality around the world. No more.
Now, they pat themselves on the back for downloading a Sunday sermon from YouTube.
req’d listening: Phil Ochs – Cops of the World
With this administration, anything could happen.
#10 – That’s the solution EVERYBODY’S offering! The problem is our government never reaches the all-important tribunal phase of your plan.
What, WaterBoarding and now KEEL-HAULING TOO ???
Probably just transporting the prisoners by ship, since keeping them aboard is too cheap for the war profiteers.
I doubt this story. It is just too expensive to make a prison ship. Besides, after all these years there would be more than a little leak. I’ll put this down as the same sort of slop the 9/11 twoofers promote, lots of conjecture and little substance.
That is not to say that some prisoners may have been held for short periods of time on larger US ships.
“It’s hard to believe anyone would be against prison ships especially considering the alternative of just lopping their head off, which is what the other side does.”
This is the core of the neo-con philosophy: We should be *more* like terrorists, not less!
I thought that the core Neocon philosophy was “As long as you’re better than Hitler, you’re OK!”
…and when you a) get tired of them or b) got all they have to give you, dumping the evidence is easy as slave ship culling.
“Call me old school, but the ones that encouraging global jihad around 9/11 or protecting Bin Laden near September 11th, I won’t cry for them.”
Is “old school” the new codeword for “ignorant?” I won’t bore you with a lecture on the rule of law…but I expect your fellows will have the same “old school” disregard for your rights when you’re rounded up, as long as you’re correctly labeled…
What a great idea…even better…just send ’em to MS HQ…I’ve been there and would NEVER want to go back…send me to ship prison instead…PLEASE!!!
If what Bush was doing was legal, prisoners would be housed on American territory rather than in quasi-territories such as Bagram, on the high seas, and Gitmo.