Uncensored Justice System Discussion

JUSTICE1st · Joined: 13 Dec 2007 Posts: 715 Location: USA

For anyone who still thinks that "the government is usually right" when it comes to charging citizens with crimes, such as being an "Enemy Combatant" (legal term for terrorist), PLEASE read the article below. The Washington Post is a well-respected publication, and not one known for "yellow journalism." If for any reason the link doesn't work, go to "Google.com," type in the article title, and you should be able to get it that way.

A Blind Eye to Guantanamo?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102954.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[quote]

A CIA analyst warned the Bush administration in 2002 that up to a third of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been imprisoned by mistake, but White House officials ignored the finding and insisted that all were "enemy combatants" subject to indefinite incarceration, according to a new book critical of the administration's terrorism policies.

The CIA assessment directly challenged the administration's claim that the detainees were all hardened terrorists -- the "worst of the worst," as then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at the time. But a top aide to Vice President Cheney shrugged off the report and squashed proposals for a quick review of the detainees' cases, author Jane Mayer writes in "The Dark Side," scheduled for release next week.

"There will be no review," the book quotes Cheney staff director David Addington as saying. "The president has determined that they are ALL enemy combatants. We are not going to revisit it."

The reported exchange is one of dozens recounted by Mayer in a volume that describes how Cheney and his legal advisers pushed for policies on domestic wiretapping, detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mayer, who has written extensively about terrorist detention for New Yorker magazine, argues that the administration set the stage for the use of waterboarding and other controversial techniques with a series of legal memos that gave government agencies virtually unchecked power in waging war against terrorist groups.

"For the first time in its history, the United States sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment U.S.-held captives, making torture the official law of the land in all but name," she writes.

A spokeswoman for Cheney declined to comment, noting that the White House had not been provided a copy of Mayer's book. While the book officially goes on sale Tuesday, a copy was obtained in advance of release by The Washington Post. The New York Times reported some details of Mayer's findings in yesterday's editions.

The classified CIA report described by Mayer was prepared in the summer of 2002 by a senior CIA analyst who was invited to the prison camp in Cuba to help Defense Department officials grapple with a major problem: They were gleaning very little useful information from the roughly 600 detainees in custody at the time. After a study involving dozens of detainees, the analyst came up with an answer: A large fraction of them "had no connection with terrorism whatsoever," Mayer writes, citing officials familiar with the report. Many were essentially bystanders who had been swept up in dragnets or turned over to the U.S. military by bounty hunters. Previous published reports have described the CIA analyst's visit but have not provided details of its findings.

According to Mayer, the analyst estimated that a full third of the camp's detainees were there by mistake. When told of those findings, the top military commander at Guantanamo at the time, Major Gen. Michael Dunlavey, not only agreed with the assessment but suggested that an even higher percentage of detentions -- up to half -- were in error. Later, an academic study by Seton Hall University Law School concluded that 55 percent of detainees had never engaged in hostile acts against the United States, and only 8 percent had any association with al-Qaeda.

The CIA findings prompted a vigorous debate with the administration and prompted calls for a review of detainee cases. But "Addington's response was adamant and imperious. 'We are not second-guessing the President's decision. These are enemy combatants,' " Mayer wrote.

[End quote] To read the full story, click on the link below, or go to Google, and type in the article headline.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102954.html?hpid=moreheadlines

This was only nine paragraphs from the full article, and I was spitting mad after reading the first three! angryfire

How can our government, at either the state or federal levels, expect its citizens to "trust its judgment" when our top officials, including the VICE PRESIDENT of the United States, make it clear that due process of law is to be tossed aside when it's convenient for them to do so? The answer is simple; they can't expect us to trust them, and I sure as heck don't! They have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Mad

J

_________________
"We must remember, always, that accusation is not proof, and conviction depends on evidence and due process of law."
EDWARD R. MURROW, 1954