Judges Criticize Government's Evidence To Hold Guantanamo Detainees

New York Times:

In the first case to review the government's secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims. The unclassified parts of the decision were released on Monday.

With some derision for the Bush administration's arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents.

The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem "The Hunting of the Snark": "I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true."

"This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true," said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The unanimous panel overturned as invalid a Pentagon determination that the detainee, Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority in western China, was properly held as an enemy combatant.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[paixa3]

Read the headline. The ENTIRE U.S. Government has been doing this for 8 years !!!!!!

[Sinister Minister]

"Pentagon officials have claimed that the Uighurs at Guantánamo were “affiliated” with a Uighur resistance group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and that it, in turn, was “associated” with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. "


I recall members of the Taliban visiting Crawford Ranch before 9/11 to discus some pipeline or other. Does that make George an enemy combatant based on that affiliation? Shouldn't he be in Gitmo also?

[brushfinch]

It seems to me that if these detainees were held illegally,their lives screwed up by this administration,and they cannot go back to thier country,we should at least allow them safe haven here,and bring their families here, or make serious efforts to resttle them and their families ina safe country,with opportunities to learn a job or getting an education....., after experiencing Guantanamo Iam notsure they would want to stay, but we should be responsible and make every effortto help them out.

[Heavenhelpusall]

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise. Remember Gomer Pyle?

[vippy]

Is this a surprise. Am I the only one who saw this coming. The US rounded up a bunch of guys
and sent them to GITMO to convince us the war on terrorism is working. In then meantime they
had to let about 50% of them go. Currently, a German is sueing the US for holding him for 4 years
with torture in Guantanamo and not one word in our press.

[qdog112]

If we don't hold them accountable - the world will HOLD US ACCOUNTABLE.

[Heavenhelpusall]

And according to Lieberman's sources, during President Obama's first term. Hope the CIA/FBI/Homeland Security/TSA/FAA/007/Superhero departments have their act together.

[CaptainObvious]

What do you mean - "bare and unverified claims"? President Bush has declared them to be "enemy combatants"! What more proof do you need?

[Marlyn]

He said it three times.

[Deeg]

I'm having flashbacks of Beetlejuice

[Heavenhelpusall]

Who has time for those pesky little details, not the Grand Oil Party. They are too busy with the details of no-bid, bidded contracts to pump more, you guessed it!

When do we light the feet of the MSM? We need the message to hit the purse strings.

[dphilip]

Yes, we as the Democratic party must give our full 100% support to all of Guantanimo detainess...We hold views more common with them than we do with the Repugs!

[Rog49Thomas]

What godless loony liberal president appointed Judge Sentelle to the bench in 1985 and then promoted him in 1987 to his current position where he replaced that "most distinguished" "jurist" and "great legal mind" Justice Scalia?

Probably the sort who would cut and run in the face of terrorism and did in 1983.

How sad!

[qdog112]

""most distinguished" "jurist" and "great legal mind" Justice Scalia?"

Great sarcasm Rog. WHAT'S HAPPENIN'?

[Rog49Thomas]

I guess you missed his 60 Minutes interview.

I believe he said he was at the top of the class with a smirk to rival that of Pan's

(Of course, Pan never was top of his class, unless the reference is to social classes)..

[ProfessorDuh]

"Detainees" is a funny term for life prisoners who have, up until now, been robbed of all legal rights and routinely subjected to U.S. torture.
The word makes them sound like people who might have been temporarily delayed by some pesky paperwork, doesn't it?

-----------------
"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests."
— Gore Vidal

[aturner18]

oh, I feel so bad it make me want to cry. boo hoo boo hoo

[helonias]

Its simple folks they are enemies of the state who engaged in counter revolutionary activities.

Don't you see?

[qdog112]

"Its simple folks"

Folks my A*s. They grabbed any and everybody they wanted to or paid someone else to grab. ENEMIES OF THE STATE live @ 1600 Penn Avenue.

What goes around comes around.

[Marlyn]

I see the USA helping China to oppress their citizens.

[Mark701]

I pulled the following quote out to the NYT article: "“This case displays the inadequacies of having civilian courts inject themselves into military decision-making,” said Glenn M. Sulmasy, a law professor at the Coast Guard Academy and a national security fellow at Harvard"

Excuse me? You mean because civilian courts demand EVIDENCE to hold a man for six years? Is that the "inadequacy" that these idiots are concerned about? How can these men sleep at night?

[RoloTomassi]

George Carlin said that the US is big on bombing Brown People....

So, it logically follows that we should also "detain" brown people; otherwise, they might get away.

[osage]

Apparently, there are those in the military who believe that the commander-in-chief should be a military decision-maker rather than a civilian decision-maker. So the military higher-ups know best? If the military higher-ups were making the decisions during the Cuban Missle Crisis, most of the people who were alive then would be dead now, and most of the people who were born since then would never have been born. But at least the nuclear annihilation would have been started by a genuine "military decision-maker".

When I enlisted in the service in 1968, the first thing that really surprised me was how incompetent and or dangerously simple-minded and inexperienced many of the officers were. I quickly learned that the non-coms were the wiser and more rational "people". The officers were dogmatic zealots and the non-coms were practical realists. Psychology 101 only works on people who don't know any better and who are afraid of you. That part of boot camp endoctrination wears off almost immediately after arriving at a field of combat where the fear of dying is a clarifying and all-consuming motivator.

"During the Vietnam War, fragging was reportedly common. There are documented cases of at least 230 American officers killed by their own troops, and as many as 1,400 other officers' deaths could not be explained." Military decision-making ain't always as reliable as it should be. Sadly, under Bush/cheney, civilian decision-making is even more deadly.

[lisakaz2]

Sounds like he's a "true believer" who lost his way, making the ends justify the means. He's not even aware of it. Lots of 1940s Germans were like that.

[Marlyn]

"making the ends justify the means."

The END never justifies the MEANS. This is the mistake the Bush administration makes over and over.

It is fine to have some wonderful goal, like creating a shining new democracy in the Middle East, but reality is how you get there, the means and methods. And you can't create democracy at the point of a gun, and by bombing the hell out of them with Shock & Awe.

[ProfessorDuh]

Could we please abandon this "detainee" fascist newspeak? They are not being "detained." They are prisoners, and many of them are, as we now know, political prisoners.

[hope]

Their reasoning sounds so familiar.

Ah, yes. Click, click, click.

There is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home.

[NHGranite]

Let me see if I got this straight. If a secret document has 3 claims that you are guilty, therefore you can be imprisoned indefinitely and never go to trial? OK, here goes.

Hey you Huffington Posters, keep this secret: Bush committed high crimes and misdemeanors, Bush committed high crimes and misdemeanors, Bush committed high crimes and misdemeanors.

Now can we jail him? Preferably at GITMO? And please let his attorney be Alberto Gonzalez.

[RoloTomassi]

Nice try, but remember, it has to be a SECRET document...!

[NHGranite]

You can keep a secret, right?

[hope]

With some derision for the Bush administration's arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents.

The great legal minds of the Bush administration, hard at work.
I suppose this is what you get with mail-order diplomas.

[3Gs]

I constantly find myself wondering how the Bush family can wake up in the morning knowing they have to face the public with the treachery their demon spawn son has incited time and again. How is it? It goes beyond any nightmare I can imagine.

[vincent1]

Ah, but given the family history, the son is an apple that didn't fall far from the tree.

[Viper]

No doubt and their degrees are likely to be from Liberty University!

Regards

[Marlyn]

Just say it over and over. That has always been the Bush strategy in the past for everything, so why wouldn't it work at Gitmo too?