McClatchy Newspapers: Studies differ on threat from Guantanamo detainees

[laststeamtrain]

Studies differ on threat from Guantanamo detainees
Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: June 14, 2008 10:59:31 PM

WASHINGTON — Had a majority of the men imprisoned at Guantanamo after 2002 attacked the United States or American troops?

It depends on whom you ask.

A study published by a professor at the Seton Hall School of Law found that 45 percent of 516 Guantanamo detainees examined had committed hostile acts against the United States or its allies, and that only 8 percent of them had been al Qaida fighters. The study drew on unclassified Department of Defense transcripts and documents from military tribunals at Guantanamo.

West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, however, working from the same set of unclassified documents, found that while the tribunals determined that 56 percent of the men had committed or supported hostile acts — such as direct combat, manning the front lines or planning combat operations — 73 percent of them posed a "demonstrated threat."

Seton Hall is an independent Roman Catholic university in New Jersey, and a professor who represented two Guantanamo detainees co-authored its study in 2006. West Point is the U.S. military academy, where many top Army officers receive their university educations.

So who got it right?

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/38769.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. What, people who don't just lay down and roll over, when a gigantic hostile power

invades their country--they pick up a rifle, man front lines or plan combat--deserve to be arrested by the U.S. army, hooded and shackled, tortured, flown half way round the world (if they don't die in horrible detention conditions first), and imprisoned without charge--with no contact with the outside world--and tortured some more, and driven out of their minds, for 3 to 5 years, with no end in sight?

Did the U.S. do this to German or Japanese soldiers? How can this be considered a "demonstrated threat'--that they don't like their country being invaded, and tried to stop it?

I don't agree with the criteria. And WHO is drawing up this criteria, on the basis of what facts, and in what sort of process?

This is totally shrouded in secrecy. We don't even know how many are still detained, where or in what conditions.

Frankly, I think the widespread use of indefinite detention without trial and torture were/are cover for something else, and have nothing to do with any kind of threat to this country. My suspicion: hunting down, torturing and killing witnesses along the Bush Cartel/Al Qaeda money trail; witnesses to U.S./Bush-Cheney arms and drug deals, and for covering up other crimes and promoting corporate "business" interests.

How dare the U.S. try these prisoners, after this outrageously illegal and heinous treatment?! No properly constituted court of law can try them now. It is too late. Many prisoners have suffered permanent psychological and physical damage; some are dead; many are still unaccounted for. We owe these people healing and reparations, and God only knows how that can be safely and properly arranged, but it is what we must do--if our country is ever to redeem itself for these horrendous acts.

Maybe turn Guantanamo Bay over to Cuba, and let Cuba's highly regarded medical professionals create a place of healing. The Bible says, "turn swords into plowshares." We can add a new chapter, and turn our torture dungeons into hospitals and gardens and a healing place for the victims of the Bush Junta.

[bemildred]

2. Gitmo "detainees" are now by definition a threat, simpy because they are witnesses.

Allowed to run around loose, they can testify, tell their story and what happened to them. And THAT is one heck of a threat.