Rumsfeld Defends U.S. Policy on Guantanamo Prison

[Khephra]

MIAMI (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday interrogations of the hundreds of foreign terrorism suspects held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had yielded vital information and he defended their indefinite detention.

Rumsfeld also said the United States will create a board to review each year the cases of prisoners held at the remote U.S. naval base to consider whether they can be released or must be held further as a threat to U.S. security.

Speaking to a business group in Miami, Rumsfeld called the continued detention of the roughly 650 Guantanamo prisoners without charges or access to lawyers a "security necessity, and I might add it is also just plain common sense."

"I recognize that in our society the idea of detaining people without lawyers seems unusual, detaining people without trials seems unusual. After all, our country stands for freedom and it stands for the protection of rights," Rumsfeld said.

more.............

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=E2SJOMXXPJUROCRBAEZSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=4357469

[pinto]

1. Rummy thinks war will last "indefinitely", hence detentions could also.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. The people at Gitmo receive the same treatment the US would wish for

its own citizens, when they are seized by a foreign power.

[Sandpiper]

3. No Rummy

"I recognize that in our society the idea of detaining people without lawyers seems unusual, detaining people without trials seems unusual.

It doesn't seem unusual, it seems illegal and unconstitutional you fascist fuckwad. :mad:

[sallyseven]

4. Everytime Rumsfeld opens his

mouth he double talks. He has that smirk that defies you to not believe him. I hope they get nailed in the next election and they all go to jail.

[BeFree]

5. A stain on America

That this has gone on for as long as it has, tends to reinforce the dread of the anti-patriot act. Gitmo seems to be a warm-up of how people will be dealt with if the president marks you as an enemy.

There is no Justice in Gitmo. It is nothing but a stain on America.

[revcarol]

6. There IS no defense for this.

International law condemns it...AND I CONDEMN IT, AND I VOTE!!

[54anickel]

7. Funny, reminds me of that fundie book series Left Behind. People were

held in prisons on no charges and only released if they would accept "The Mark". Wonder if they see the similarity - Nah.

[teryang]

8. He never got off first base

He kept saying "the law of war." The law requires a that a tribunal determine whether a presumptive detainee is in fact "an enemy combatant." Von Rumsfeldt has determined a priori that all the detainees are "enemy combatants." Yet at the same time he implied that they were unlawful enemy combatants. Contrary to his contentions, unlawful enemy combatants are criminals. Yet that determination cannot be made without an additional formal proceeding with due process standards. He did not articulate any appropriate standards or procedures for making these determinations. None of these determinations has been made in any formal legal process.

One thing that is clear is that the criterion of when the war on (of?) terror is over is so vague, that there is no way that it complies with the minimal due process required by the Geneva Convention. If an enemy combatant is not "unlawful" then he is to be released at the termination of a conflict. Yet the conflict is so vaguely defined the prisoners could be held until the end of time. If this so called "common sense" is accepted by Americans, we are setting a very very bad precedent. If a combatant is "unlawful" or if he has committed crimes against humanity or otherwise, he should be tried and sentenced in a formal proceeding. Nowhere, do we see this necessary legal framework in the Rumsfeldt bizarre vision of the "law of war" he defines as "common sense."

An undercurrent of this whole slapdash make it up as you go abuse of international law and human rights is the implicit threat to all persons that this despotism is answerable to no higher standard than its own foggy definition of "common sense." It is in essence, a lawless regime.

[daleo]

9. It used to seem unusual

But since Rummy and the PNAC gang got in power, this seems highly usual.