Hicks could be paid $1m for story (Guantamamo detainee)

[ursi]

Source: World News Australia

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee, David Hicks, is fielding lucrative offers for his story and reportedly could be paid up to a million dollars in a major test of proceeds of crime laws.

News Limited reports as many as 30 TV networks and publishers have made contact with his Adelaide-based lawyer.

Hicks was freed from South Australia's Yatala prison on December 29, and remains under a US-imposed gag order until March.

But his father, Terry Hicks says, it is reasonable that Hicks be paid should he decide to tell his story after that date.


Read more: http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/hicks_could_be_paid_1m_for_story_539401

[Orsino]

1. Congress should be inviting him to testify.

I'd certainly understand, though, if he wanted to stay as far away from America as possible, and if Congress prefers to bury its complicity.

I suspect that most American media outlets that could afford to pay him a million would similarly choose to ignore him.

[robcon]

3. Why would Congress want to hear from a Jew-Hater?

That's all Hicks can testify to - that the Jews are responsible for all the problems of the world. Spare me.

[Orsino]

4. I would settle for any other detainees...

...who could testify to torture and other abuse.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Good,

He should get more than that. Everyone we tortured and imprisoned should be compensated.

[ursi]

5. I agree

[Pavulon]

6. Should those imprisoned

after being caught armed in Afghanistan be compensated?

I agree anyone tortured should be compensated and those responsible found.

Those we did not turn over to the northern alliance to be stuffed in transfer trailers left in the sun have no claim.

In ww2 they would have been shot on the spot or hanged.

Complicated matter.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. How were people who were in Afghanistan

and members of the organized militias of the government of Afghanistan not covered by the Geneva Conventions? Being armed in Afghanistan is not some crime. If it was a crime, then by all means charge these criminals with crimes. So far, other than plea bargains like Hicks and Walker, that has not happened. You do realize that we never actually bothered to declare war on Afghanistan? Have you foolishly bought into the patently false 'illegal combatant' theory that the Bush cabal made up to provide cover for their war crimes?

How absurd to invade a country, bomb it to shit, and then claim that anyone who resists your invasion is an illegal combatant.

Years of detention and torture without charges - but still people think 'well they must have been guilty of something'.

[Pavulon]

8. They are covered by the convention

as illegal combatants. That does not allow the US or any nation to torture people. The term illegal combatant is in the convention.

Interpretation is up to the reader.

So now we have a quandary. Sen them home, they die at the hands of their own nations. Keep them, not to popular. Turn them loose in scottsdale, not a great option.


The events leading up to 911 and those after can be subject to ones political views. However the reality is we invaded. We invoked the nato treaty and the fact that no war is declared does not allow a conflict to be executed outside the geneva conventions. We use force. We will continue to use force.

It is clear the US intelligence community, as well as others, continue to kill people who conspire to attack the US.

These are realities. They will continue to be realities after the election. No matter who is voted in to office. They will be read in on what is really going on and will continue to authorize these actions.

Just as congress continues to fund the war(s), and not destroy the intelligence community by allowing operational aspects of its work from going into public trial.

The us will act in what it considers its best interest. Most of the people running these operations span administrations, the institutions span decades.

That is the way it is.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. You don't get it

The Bush regime invented 'illegal combatants.' (And it is actually unlawful combatant.)

The phrase "unlawful combatant" does not appear in the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII).<3> However, Article 4 of GCIII does describe categories under which a person may be entitled to POW status; and there are other international treaties which deny lawful combatant status for mercenaries and children. In the United States, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 codified the legal definition of this term, and invested the U.S. President with broad discretion to determine whether a person may be designated an unlawful enemy combatant. The assumption that such a category as unlawful combatant exists is not contradicted by the findings by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Celebici Judgment. The judgement quoted the 1958 ICRC commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention: Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law."<4> However—unlike the terms "combatant", "prisoner of war", and "civilian"—the term "unlawful combatant", or similar, is not mentioned in either the Hague or the Geneva Conventions. So while the former terms are well understood and clear under international law, the term "unlawful combatant" is not.<5><2>

At the First Hague Conference, which opened on 6 May 1899, there was a disagreement between the Great Powers—which considered francs-tireurs to be unlawful combatants subject to execution on capture—and a group of small countries headed by Belgium—which opposed the very principle of the rights and duties of armies of occupation, and demanded an unlimited right of resistance for the population of occupied territories. As a compromise, the Russian delegate, F. F. Martens, proposed the Martens Clause, which is included in the preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention II – Laws and Customs of War on Land. Similar wording has been incorporated into many subsequent treaties that cover extensions to humanitarian law.<6><7><8>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant

The huge leap to 'anyone bearing arms against us in Afghanistan' not being covered by the GC, the implication of your first post. Is unsustained by any legal doctrine other than the crap issued from the Bush regime and the complaint Congress of the last seven years.

[Pavulon]

10. This is not a new issue

in every major war of the last century there were armed groups that did not conform to the concept of uniformed combatants. Some armies shot them. Others had three officers pass judgment and then shot them. Others did nothing.

They are certainly covered by international law. The convention allows POW's to be detained as long as a war continues. So there is a problem here.

In my opinion they should have never left the combat area. They should have been turned over to the provincial government in the nation where they were captured. Problem over. The Afghans would have released them or killed them.

In reality whom ever occupies the whitehouse will have to deal with this issue. The reality is that many of these people are and were hostile to the us and will continue to fight.

My solution is to repatriate anyone who does not have direct evidence against them. Those where evidence exists should be tried and dealt with in a manner compliant with international law.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. You specifically claimed that 'unlawful combatant' was a term in the GC.

It is not. Its legal definition was invented by the Bush regime.

[Pavulon]

12. The term yes.

the concept no. During IFOR/KFOR we detained people. I would bet some were interrogated by various intelligence agencies.

Many of those detained were captured in civilian garb by (para)military forces tasked with finding them.

I agree the Bush administration has made HUGE errors in handling lots of things.

But the problems here will persist and have to be dealt with in a logical way.

What do you think we should do with the people we captured on the battlefield?

[Warren Stupidity]

13. people we captured on the battlefield?

The Afghan war ended five years ago. Perhaps we ought to let them go, as is normally done in any other conflict.

"The term illegal combatant is in the convention." - not.

[Pavulon]

15. No the term is not

however the concept is.

Where should we let them go. If we let them go in Afghanistan some will be killed on the spot, others will present a direct threat to US and they will kill or be killed by nato troops.

If we send them back to their home nations the same problem occurs. We can not legally send a guy back to saudi where he will get 500 lashes and die over 5 days.

Regretfully the right thing here is difficult.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. The GC covers exactly what is to be done.

I know it is a quaint idea, but perhaps we ought to try this 'rule of law' thing.

[Pavulon]

14. BTW I really enjoy talking

with you.
My point is not to attack you buy delve into the problem of what to do with those we have captured.

The other reality that this will continue into the next administration will be difficult for some. The president, clinton or obama, will be required to make direct approval of operations that kill people.

They will be read in on things they do not know now that may change their position on some things.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. The next administration, unfortunately, will not change much.

I have almost no hope of a substantial change in foreign policy. At best we will moderate to a little less arrogant and a little less militaristic, but all of the candidates have signed on to the basic framework of the Washington Consensus, the neocon/neolib game plan of corporatism and imperialism under the banner of free market fundamentalism.

The people we have captured from Afghanistan, were almost all sold to us for huge bounties by the northern alliance militias when we got there. They are nobodies. The taliban leadership and al qaeda mostly all got out. The situation in gitmo is a kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare where the problem is now that these folks are witness to the war crimes perpetrated against them for no reason at all and the easiest solution is to just leave them where they are.