Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiAfghan Detainee's Confession Excluded on Torture Grounds at Guantánamo Trial
Case marks first use of international standard • Move marks rejection of Bush lawyers' opinion
Afghan police threatened the family of teenager Mohammed Jawad while he was undergoing interrogation at a Kabul police station, said army colonel Stephen Henley, the judge, in a three-page ruling.
Jawad, now facing trial by military commission, is accused of throwing a grenade inside an Afghan bazaar in December 2002, which wounded two US soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. None was killed.
Henley found in the ruling that there was reason to believe Jawad was under the influence of drugs at the time of his capture and forced confession.
He also accepted the accused's account of how he was threatened, while armed senior Afghan officials allied with US forces watched his interrogation.
"You will be killed if you do not confess to the grenade attack," the detainee quoted an interrogator as saying. "We will arrest your family and kill them if you do not confess."
Jawad confessed, was turned over to US forces and was transferred to Guantánamo two months later.
The judge said he was accepting Jawad's account of what happened to him because the government had been unable to provide timely disclosure of evidence for the coming war crimes trial, scheduled for January 5. A Jawad case prosecutor recently quit the war court to protest over his inability to provide potentially exculpatory evidence.
Yesterday's ruling was the first at the war court to exclude a confession on grounds of torture using the international standard, noted attorney Jamil Dakwar, a military commissions observer with the American Civil Liberties Union.
In doing so, Dakwar said, the military judge was rejecting a legal opinion by Bush administration lawyers that early on sought to soften the definition of torture by sanctioning threats to family members.
"'Torture' includes statements obtained by use of death threats to the speaker or his family," wrote Henley, the military judge. "The actual infliction of physical or mental injury is not required."
Said major David JR Frakt, Jawad's defense attorney, who is seeking dismissal of the case and his client's return to his family: "He the judge is adopting a traditional legal definition of torture, rather than making one up."
Another judge excluded some statements from the summertime trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan. In that ruling a Navy judge found that Hamdan was subjected to a potentially coercive environment in Bagram, Afghanistan, but did not define it as torture.
43 Comments so far
Show AllCarol
None of these people have the same rights as Americans do None of them but I don't believe in torture in any way shape or form and that is a fact.
If these people are guilty of doing something to our Americans that are there then and only then they should be put on trail and settle what they did or didn't do.
I think that Bush is a person who has to be put on trail for killing our men in illegal war and that is a fact as well.
Dose this mean there is an empty cell in Gitmo for Bush?
The empire which the has been building requires ever greater military spending, more secret soldiers, and an ever increasing level of torture and abuse both in and outside the nation to maintain.
When you get to mercenaries (Blackwater and the like), open use of torture (Gitmo, etc.), spying on all your citizens and economic ruin, you have a final choice to make: Give up the empire(Britain) or go down in one final suicidal act (Hitler's Germany).
So far the empire is still the choice.
Why hasn't the Democratic party, in power since January 2007, made loud noises against torture? Why haven't they passed legislation to ban it? Why hasn't this been discussed regularly and loudly this election cycle?? Voters who vote for McCain or Obama are complicit. Torture in america would include slavery, slaughtering of native americans, occupations and sanctions that have killed millions of people!
People may quit, but the machine will survive.
Yes, there is hope, but I find it monstrous that systematic torture, out in the open, has been proceeding unhindered in this so-called war on terror, under cover of a legal and judicial apparatus (even if it is one as broken down as Kafka's torture machine in "In the Penal Colony"). The very fact that the judicial mechanism is still be permitted to function even though torture is a known and established fact is chilling. Congress is complicit with the White House in agreeing to approve legislation to set up this apparatus, after the Supreme Court struck down detentions without habeas corpus rights. This is why there has been no impeachment. Just as chilling as the torture of individuals, is the fact that the United States government has set up procedures institutionalizing it, guaranteeing that it will survive even when the Bushies depart.
Judges and lawyers may quit in disgust, but the machine will survive, waiting for the next Bush to come along and start it up again, with its new purposes (maybe not 2008, but 2012, 2016), maybe to be used on atheist, socialist, abortionist types if the Palins of the world have their way (they may not win this time away, but they will survive, waiting for their moment, and they will get it).
None of this has been seriously discussed during the presidential campaigns. I have heard Obama mention that he would "close Guantanomo," but not much else. McCain flip flopped on torture, no doubt afraid he would be seen as soft on the quixotic war on terror. How can we take any of what is being in these campaigns seriously if no one is willing to speak about it on the national stage?
I've heard the opinions of several neocon wannabes on torture over the last few years, and they proclaimed the same reasons (excuses) the Bush people have used for torture. Its refreshing to know that this defense counsel and judge, as part of the professional military, still require the "good guys" to follow the rules.
These guys probably finished high in their classes at West Point and law school while Dubya and McCain partied and slept through college, and enjoyed "social promotion" for well connected white guys. How come these two "children left behind" get to run things?
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=73720§ionid=3510203
CIA allowed concealing torture documents (Thu, 30 Oct 2008 03:12:52 GMT)
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the Washington D.C. Circuit Court declined to review torture allegations from men held in the CIA's prisons-because it could put the nation at risk of grave danger if allowed to be made public.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it filed in March, a Freedom of Information Act request for the documents from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which decide if prisoners at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, qualify as "enemy combatants."
The judge's decision not to look at the allegations to see if secrets are involved allows the Bush Administration to continue to hide its use of torture techniques, according to Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.
"The government has suppressed these detainees' allegations of brutal torture not to protect any legitimate national security interests, but to protect itself from criticism and liability," Wizner said.
The US government has come under scathing criticism for allowing interrogation techniques that at best border on torture to be used on terrorist suspects detained indefinitely at US prisons in Guantanamo, Iraq and other places.
Bring America Back !!!!
**Common sense made into common law. Good work on the part of the
Judges there !!!
**We fully expect the Military Commissions Act to get a Constitutional Test,
and it just depends which case throws it up there to the Supreme Court.
**The problem is the war criminal Commander in Chief and his Military minded
Nincompoops keep sending these trials up for prosecution, to justify what
crimes they commited in the first place.
>>"One of the foundational principles of American democracy is (or was) that defendants are to be considered innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"
>>Fortunately, it still is
Since when Thomas?
The President of the Inited States and his executioners have executed people the world over, without first proving their guilt and or has kidnapped these people and sent them to third parties to be tortured.
That the President of the United States, or the agents that carry out such crimes have not stood trial for those crimes and have in fact been retroactively pardoned for said crimes, demonstrates clearly that "Innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is a lie and a farce.
Oh, I'm just here to provide entertainment to the American bashers.
Can you name specific instances. More than likely not. Just "reports" If you'd care to name a country, any country, including Canada, I;'ll be happy to provode a list of offenses against humanity that could match anything you'd care to bering up for America.
Do I think that the CIA participated in things named above, you bet. Or other places, of course. Times were different, mindsets were different, circumstances were different. The world was different.
As near as I can tell from the America bashers here America is the omnipotent spider all over the world. If its bad, those olsd Americans must be doing it or if someone else is doing it, those Americans must behind it.
If I have to go before a court, I'll take ours thank you. I invite all that critisize us to participate in the legal system of Burma or Brunai, Venezulea or many other countries around the world. Other countries that give you justice at the end of the barrel or the edge of a knife.
If you believe GWB and Dick Cheney represent the American people and America, then you and I have nothing further to say about this. We'll just disagree.
>>Can you name specific instances. More than likely not. Just "reports" If you'd care to name a country, any country, including Canada, I;'ll be happy to provode a list of offenses against humanity that could match anything you'd care to bering up for America.
Have you forgotten Syria just a few days ago? They claimed the person executed a SUSPECT. Where was his trial or that of the opthers executed?
Have you forgotten all the executions in Somalia? 40 some sheepherders slaughtered with your military claiming a SUSPECTED militant was amongst them?
They sent a GUNSHIP to gun down everyone in the area..where was the trial?
Have you forgotton all the peoples tortured at Gitmo, Bargram and Abu Ghraib? They were hardly innocent until proven guilty. Did you bother to read Tegubas report?
Have you forgotten Panama and Granada.....where was Innocent until proven guilty when THOSE peoples were killed?
Have you forgotten the Predator air strikes in Yemen, in Pakistan and elsewhere. The man who "looked like bin laden" who was executed by such a strike until it found out later he was just a junk dealer?
Did he have a trial. In all these instances where is Innocent until proven guilty.? The people are just slaughtered and your Military claims they were "Terrorists" without offering one iota of proof. They don't even know the names of the bulk of those executed.
I am not going to even bother to get you links as this is something you can easily do yourself. That you have not, or suddenly pretend none of these episodes happened merely demonstrates you have an UNWILLINGNESS to do so.
Once more that blind patriotism of yours.
Now I will give you a list of a dozen countries off the top of my head. Please give examples of crimes against Humanity they have committed that are equal to those of the United States.
Sweden. Denmark. Finland. Ireland. Switzerland. Costa Rica.
And while you are at it, even though I recognize Canada does not have its hands clean it was YOU that made the charge that you can bring up examples of any other country committing crimes against humanity that match those of Americas. You are free to do so.
Keep in mind though, I will not slavishly defend said actions. The difference between you and me is I recognize the wrongs and want Canada to be "better". I do not support them and suggest "everyone else does the same".
As to justice at the end of a gun or knife.
I will take one example but there are many.
What exactly WAS the atack visited on Libya and ordered by St Reagan wherein over 100 civilians killed by an air strike if not justice at the end of a gun?
>>Oh, I'm just here to provide entertainment to the American bashers.
The typical fall back defense.
If the torture of people, if dropping bombs on Villages wherein dozens of innocents are killed, If violating the territory of nations at will to launch military strikes against them, if sending Predator drones into foreign countries to blow up houses just based on teh suspicion of who might be in them, If kangaroo courts, unwarranted eavesdropping , torture by rendition are what you consider AMERICAN values, then yes being against them is America bashing.
Paul Siemering
i remember the last time Mohammed Jawad was in court. the judge got mad at him because he was being ucooperative, and also talking out loud about how this was not a real court or real trial, and also putting his head down on the table and crying. finally the guards yook hold of him in an attempt to get him to act properly,
and that was when he yelled at the judge "Let me go! I'm a human being!"
of course that was news to the judge and everyone else in the courtroom. A human being. Imagine that.
DAMN proud to be an American!! By God, waterboard the whole stinking lot of sand-nigger turban-wearing raghead Islamo-fascists! We must channel a bit of the dark side if we're gonna protect our God-preferred country over the hordes of Allah-worshipping terrusts! Gotta break a few eggs if you're gonna make an omelette! A little collateral damage is unfortunate but not that big a deal, since we have a pure, God-given quest to bring Democracy (tm) to all those stupid sand-niggers! Torture, smorture, it ain't no big deal, just a fraternity prank, hell those terrust ragheads in Guantanamo live near a beach in nice tropical weather, get 3 squares a day, and get the finest healthcare available! When the ragheads do it it's torture, when we God-loving Americans do it, it's protecting our national security!!
Er...um, sorry...was channeling Republican there.....I'm o.k. now...
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
"...soften the definition of torture by sanctioning threats to family members."
This statement reminds me of the wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim al Douri (former vice president of Saddam's revolutionary council) being kidnapped and held for ransom by the US military. The ransom was al Douri himself. His wife and daughter were sent to Abu Ghraib, and have not been seen or heard from since. There's very good anecdotal evidence to support the contention that they were likely brutalized through torture and rape, and then murdered while in US custody. They were far too close to a powerful man in Saddam's inner circle to escape "special" treatment at the hands of the cold blooded torturers in Abu Ghraib.
Just as a point of reference, kidnapping in this country is a capital offense that carries the death penalty. I wrote to Human Rights Watch and The Progressive years ago about these two women, and Matthew Rothschild wrote me back that he had no information on what had become of these two innocent victims of Bush's Rape of Iraq. He asked me to write if I found any more information on their whereabouts. I never found anything. They have been disappeared.
From http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/al-douri.htm ...
"In November 2003 the Coalition launched a public information campaign across Iraq to promote a $10 million reward for information that will lead to his capture or killing al-Douri. On 29 November 2003 the wife and daughter of Izzat Ibrahim al- Douri were arrested in Samarra. The US military detained some of his family members and the son of his doctor in an attempt to pressure him to surrender."
This was a war crime. Those who perpetrated this outrage against human dignity need to be brought to justice. My hope is that the second decade of this century will see a campaign to bring ALL of the Bush era nihilist criminals to justice. All it takes is the public will to pressure our representatives into appointing a special prosecutor who will follow all the trails of brutality, torture and death to the perpetrators. Once located and taken into custody, a war crimes tribunal should be started, and it should go on as long as it takes to bring all of the inhuman animals who did these things in our name, to the justice they so richly deserve. They only differ from the Nazi's in the amplitude and frequency of their brutality. The brutality is the same. And it is a crime against humanity, i.e. us all. No stone should remain unturned to bring these cold blooded killers to trial and punishment. The law is clear on all of this...it's now time to uphold the rule of law, and clean the troughs of this evil parody of a government.
Here's another article in this regard...
http://www.progressive.org/node/985
If more Americans shared your revulsion toward the Bush administration's atrocities, Bush and all his sycophants would already have been tried for war crimes. One of the saddest aspects of Bush's filthy reign of horror is the general indifference that Americans have shown in the face of the kind of brutality you describe. On the Republican side, they even celebrate it! No matter who wins the upcoming election, we will have to live knowing that we let these horrors happen.
Well, it's a start.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
It would be a good move for Americans if North Carolina was held to the same legal standard.
"The methods and photos from Abu Grahib and Guantanamo were no shock to any Palestinian who had been in prison between 1967 and the ‘80’s. All the methods used in Abu Grahib were normal procedures against Palestinians.
"In 1999 Internationals, Palestinians and Israelis for human rights threatened a boycott against Israel and that is what forced the Supreme Court to address the torture issue.
"They did not ban torture and the General Prosecutor can choose not to prosecute those who still use it."-Ala Jaradat, Spokesperson for ADAMEER [Arabic for conscience] to me on Jan. 5, 2006 @ ADAMMER's Ramallah Headquarters during one of my 5 [soon to be 6] trips to occupied Palestine.
Eileen Fleming, Citizen Journalist, Author,
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and
"13 Minutes with Vanunu" FREELY STREAMING
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
wilmoor, Jim Glover, Bill from Saginaw
Congratulations on detecting the important part of this article and "giving credit, where credit is due"
Lobo Gris
I'm sure your suggestion that "the real shame is that we don't have George Bush and Dick Cheney on trial" is also due credit.
Do you realize, with the "help" of an elitest, booze swilling panzy, We have eclipsed Hitlers' Germany?
Hell, with the evil lies I've discovered in the last 8 years, including the phony holocaust, I'm beginning to doubt ALL the "evidence" against Germany.
I do know this, if the American Sheeple allow that foul swine Bush to slither away with the deaths he caused, they're begging for it to happen again.
I hope to hell the gal running for AG in,...vermont?, is elected and prosecutes that bastard.
My complaint with this post is in trying to blame it all on a 'elitist, booze swilling panzy'.
This is the policy of the US government. Both parties support it. Democratic leaders in Congress have been breifed, and offer no opposition. The Democratic majority in Congress controls the nation's purse strings and makes sure it is funded.
And, it didn't start with Bush. Maybe people should go back and read some history of the US in Latin American in the 80's. The only difference between now and then is that then, the CIA officer didn't actually wield the torture instruments. Instead he was just in the room 'observing' and listening to what was said as the victim screamed in pain.
Or, maybe read the details of the School of the Americas and its training of people in Latin America in torture techniques. Note carefully that this happened during both Dem and Repub Congresses and Dem and Repub Presidents.
Or, maybe go back to Vietnam history. Maybe read a bit about the Phoenis program and other CIA activities in the region. That was all done of course under Dem majorities in Congress and under Dem and Repub Presidents.
Or, maybe read abit about the Shah of Iran and his secret police, which of course worked closely with and was trained by the CIA.
Or, maybe go back to Europe right after World War II. Greece at that time is an interesting history to study. There, and in most places, we backed the former Nazis against the resistence movements that had arisen opposing fascist rule. The US claimed that the Resistence was 'communist', and thus backed the elites, most of whom had been nazi supporters in trying to crush that. Again, the CIA was involved and torture was not unknown. This was under Dem President Truman.
Or, maybe we can go further back to the Phillipines. Or to the treatment of American Indians. Or the treatment and punishments meted out to slaves.
So, its the part where you try to blame this on an 'elitist booze swilling panzy' I don't get. That leads to the mistaken belief that voting Democrat will change this. When a reading of history shows long Democratic support of exactly the same sort of policies for a long, long time now.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
Yes, but can you list any actual examples of the U.S. supporting torture in the past???
Seriously, I urge readers to visit www.soaw.org, the School of Americas Watch web site, to learn more about the history of U.S. involvement in civil rights abuses, torture, and murder in Latin America. Note that "www.soawatch.org" is NOT the School of Americas Watch web site, it's a military recruiting site!
"phony holocaust"
I trust this is a jest?
The true Dead Ender is George Wanker Bush. All Glory is fleeting, you miserable little sadist! Did no one ever inform you of that inescapable truth?
He believes Jesus is going reward him with the purist lines of coke available, along with all Jack Daniels single barrel reserve he can drink, maybe throw in a few boytoys, so he and Alberto Gonzales can reminisce.
Are you kidding? His Coke planes keep crashing, and he dearly misses his FUCK buddy Karl Rove, and the fake news reporter Jeff Gannon. Jack Daniels is too strong for the wimp chimp!
Coffeelover,,,,
This subject qualifies as a prime area of lying, so:
Oh, look, it's John McSame on his Joe the blowhard tour coming to a city near me.
As Gore Vidal recently wrote, John has "round, blank Little Orphan Annie eyes," a "malicious little face," and Sarah Palin as former "mayor or was it mare?" of an Alaskan village is "a giggly Piltdown princess out of pre-history." Such superficialities are staples of argumenta ad hominem of course, but in the case of the presidency relate to American image in the world.
Vidal also wrote of the McCain penchant for cliches and outdated smears, a corresponding imperviousness to serious thought, and an eagerness to lie, lie, lie ad infinitum.
In fact John has lied so much (this I now, not Vidal) that like his weenie mentors Reagan, Nixon and the Bushes, he has resembled the U.S. Mint printing a trillion extra dollar bills. All this prevarication has drained from the word "lie" its clout. Should we reward these dopes for this sin any more much less put our fate in their hands?
But without torture, how will the Pentagon know which civilian villages to bomb by remote-control?
A Ouigi board or a Tarot deck would be cheaper, and probably just as accurate.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
I look forward to President Obama finding some way to undo the kangaroo court for what it has become. If conservatives hate the French as they claim, then there is no excuse for these same scumbags to follow their evil "guilty until proven innocent" ways. So much for conservatives these days ! Thank God my wife reformed me out of conservatism !
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
I highly recommend the documentary screening on HBO and elsewhere called "Taxi to the Dark Side" regarding the evolution of Bush's torture, rendition, and indefinite detention policies. It is depressing, but an excellent resource. Especially revolting is the replay section from a Bush State of the Union address in which Bush smugly refers in euphemism to detainees who died in US custody, and receives a bipartisan standing ovation.
As to this latest legal ruling, three cheers to the military judge who suppressed the challenged confession. Let's give credit where credit is due.
Long before there were Miranda safeguards, federal and state judges applied the exclusionary rule to confessions extracted under circumstances that gave rise to suspicion that the coercion involved may have generated falsehoods. It was a haphazard, shock-the-judicial-conscience standard applied case-by-case and usually in only the most egregious situations, but which nonetheless recognized the core truth - that false confessions happen, and that the use of torture increases the likelihood of false confessions exponentially.
So at least on a case-by-case basis, some work product produced by "harsh interrogation techniques" synonymous with torture as defined by international law may sometimes get excluded from some Military Commission Act proceedings.
This is an important baby step in the right direction. How long do you think it will take for the mainstream US media and our elected representatives in Washington DC to figure out the really significant historical context of America's descent into the use of torture?
The sole basis obliquely cited by Colin Powell in his infamous UN Security Council argument justifying the invasion of Iraq contending that Saddam had a history of training and supporting Al Quaeda terrorists turned out to be a confession, obtained under torture from a single detainee who had been rendered to Egypt.
The primary basis cited by the 911 Commission's final, official report on the hijacker conspiracy specifics was a confession obtained under waterboarding and other torture techniques applied to a single detainee, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who is perpetually identified as the "mastermind" of the Al Quaeda plot.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Bill from Saginaw
Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.[1]
The film focuses on the murder in custody of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar.[2] Dilawar was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_to_the_Dark_Side
Every American should thank Colonel Stephen Henley for this decision. It's a breath of fresh air blowing through the fetid miasma of the reign of Bush.
Paraphrasing Donald Rumsfeld, "These are the worst of the worst" was all part of a great propaganda scam on the US citizens. Over 500 of those so-called terrorists at Guantanamo have been sent back to their countries and released. The CIA and FBI knew within months of the arrival of most of these prisoners that they had the wrong people, but the Rumsfeld/Cheney mentality would not allow for admissions of mistakes so these men were held for years. The neo-cons attempted to say that dozens of the released men had again taken up arms against the US, but not more than five did so. If Obama gets in as President, there should be a really good purge of the military and give the boot to some of the rah rah ideologues in uniform who were willing to march in lockstep with every phony legal argument that was cooked up in the Pentagon.
This is gratifying news.
Now the prosecution will have to rely on other trumped-up evidence to get its conviction.
I presume they seeded Gitmo and other Imperial dungeons with "informants"; like pyramid schemes, the "informant" scam remains surprisingly successful, even though by now you'd think that tryers of fact would see through it.
It involves law enforcement scraping up some vile, reprehensible scumbag to befriend the accused and do everything in the scumbag's power to persuade the accused to advocate, or engage in, "terrorist" and criminal actions.
The scumbag will do 99% of the work, including providing contacts and physical evidence-- if necessary, he'll fire the shot, then wipe off his fingerprints and hand the smoking gun to the accused.
So despite this unexpected reversal, I'm sure the prosecution will recover and continue their remorseless pursuit of... oh, yeah: justice.
Americans have used torture before.
They even subjected unwilling hospital patients to all sorts of experiments and not ONE doctor or nurse broke the silence in all the years it was going on. I believe it was talked about on Democracy Now a few years ago. A reporter was researching non human animal experiments by the military and came across a bunch of human test files.
Obviously I dont condone torture but it always strikes me as strange that people tend to get more worked up about alleged or convicted criminals or combatants and less upset about innocent parties.
Just the way humans treat non humans on an institutional basis is bad enough.
If you think Gitmo is bad, try your local university psychology lab.
Naomi Klein's book, the Shock Doctrine, begins with CIA experiments on torture techniques at the Canadian McGill University. I'm pretty sure other parts of that program were at US hospitals and universities.
And it tracks how the ideas developed in those studies still form the basis of CIA torture today. And this isn't new, but these experiments were done in the late 50's. Ie, long before Bush ever dreamed of being President.
Just one source. I'm sure there are others. But that's a book that should be read by everyone for several reasons.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
"... it always strikes me as strange that people tend to get more worked up about alleged or convicted criminals or combatants and less upset about innocent parties"
I doubt that anyone who finds the Bush administration's policy of torture abhorrent would be any less disturbed by the past medical experiments you mentioned. In any case, the comparison is flawed since the existence of the experiments was evidently not widely known.
One of the foundational principles of American democracy is (or was) that defendants are to be considered innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If you reject that principle, you support totalitarianism; if you accept it, you should not be surprised when some people get worked up about alleged criminals being tortured; rather you should get equally worked up.
Excellent post.
"One of the foundational principles of American democracy is (or was) that defendants are to be considered innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"
Fortunately, it still is.
Bush has not made anyone proud of his War.... this was a good ruling by a military court that is no longer obeying the Bush Doctrine... I am a little bit proud of at least that.... Now let the attack begin.
The real shame is that we don't have George Bush and Dick Cheney on trial
Lobo Gris
That sane heads are still out there gives me hope.
According to the Wikipedia article, he was also tortured at Guantanamo. He was subjected to sleep deprivation and their "frequent flyer" program. He tried to kill himself in December 2003. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Jawad#cite_note-CNN-4)
Doesn't that make you proud to be an American?