Pentagon Calls Suspects Enemy Combatants

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Pentagon Calls Suspects Enemy Combatants

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, August 9, 2007

(08-09) 09:37 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The 14 so-called "high-value" detainees who were transferred
from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year
have all been declared enemy combatants and are subject to
trial.

The Pentagon announced the declarations Thursday.

The detainees, including suspected planners of the Sept. 11
attacks, the USS Cole bombing and the 1998 bombings of U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, will now be thrust into a
military trial system mired in legal challenges and hampered
by lengthy delays.

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has approved the
"enemy combatant" designation for all 14, after reviewing
recommendations from their Combatant Status Review
Tribunals, which took place over the last six months.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would not say Thursday
when England made the decisions, but indicated that they
were done over a period of time.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/09/national/w091051D48.DTL

[C_U_L8R]

1. We are an embarrassment to all humanity

Sadly, this is all being done in our name...
and because we've not been successful
in stopping these crooks, we also share the blame.

[dipsydoodle]

2. All armed contractors in Iraq are too

presumably. This is known as you can't have your cake............

[sillyphoenix]

3. So let me get this straight...

The guys who bombed the USS Cole have been declared "enemy combatants". Isn't that a bit redundant?

I mean, blowing up a ship is a very serious crime. Therefore, shouldn't they be tried as criminals, in a court of law? If there is evidence that they committed the crime (which there must be), show the evidence to a jury and let them decide. In all likelihood, they'll convict them.

It seems that the only reason to try these guys in a military tribunal would be to keep the evidence secret, or to hide the fact that we're trying them at all. But it would be GOOD P.R. to try them publically (sp?), because that's how civilized people deal with criminals.

*scratches head*

Sometimes I really don't get it...

[davekriss]

6. Guantanamo and the Miltary Tribunal system...

...is meant to be first and foremost visible. It is a tool of State Terror. It is meant to be seen and be awful, a black pit into which enemies of the United States can fall. It is overt. It is meant to diminish motivation and strike fear in the hearts of those who would thwart the hegemonic will of our ruling class.

[gratuitous]

4. Thought we'd gotten to the bottom of the rabbit hole?

Nope, Congress handed this crooked administration an industrial steam shovel, and now they're digging in earnest. We can never let these men go, and they will be executed in the name of national security, even as we become less and less safe from a world that has more and more reason to hate us.

Well voters, we had one chance in 2006 to do something about this, and we knocked that sucker farther out of the park than Barry Bonds ever dreamed of. We gave control of both houses of Congress to the opposition party against all the odds and all the conventional wisdom. And the leaders we installed to combat this criminal regime have fumbled away chance after chance appealing to a non-existent honor and a no longer valid system of customs, checks and balances.

Thomas Jefferson told us what the duty of the people is in such a situation. Are we up to the task?

[Judi Lynn]

5. Detainees declared 'enemy combatants'

Detainees declared 'enemy combatants'
From correspondents in Washington
August 10, 2007 04:45am
Article from: Agence France-Presse

FOURTEEN top terrorist suspects, including the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, have been officially designated "enemy combatants" after reviews at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Pentagon spokesman said overnight.

All 14 detainees were moved to Guantanamo last year from secret CIA prisons overseas, and brought before military tribunals that reviewed their cases.
(snip)

At a hearing before a tribunal in March, Mohammed confessed to plotting the September 11 attacks "from A to Z" and claimed responsibility for a string of other attacks.

The Pentagon has released a censored transcript - but not an audio recording - of the hearing.
(snip/...)

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22220524-23109,00.html