User talk:Randy2063

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Archive 1 - thru January 2008

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[edit] Martens Clause

You might like to read an article I knocked together called the Martens Clause, like the article Military necessity (another one I did for the same reason) I find it useful on talk pages to explain why international law is as it is. As you will see and I am sure be interested, the debate about francs-tireurs has been around for more than a century. For example during the Second Boer War the British executed Boers they found dressed in parts of British uniforms, although usually towards the end of the conflict the Boers were existing on looted British equipment. For one of the Best books ever written on guerrillas warfare I recommended the book by Deneys Reitz "Commando: A Boer Journal Of The Boer War" which reads like an adventure story. He knew everyone who was anyone on the Boer side and fought in most of the major engagements. In the book he mentions a couple of incidents of the British shooting Boers for this offence (see XXII - Moss-Trooping (which is of course a node to the Scottish resistance to Cromwell)). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 03:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll dive into this further. While it may make it a lot more interesting, I don't think it'll change the problem with the unlawful combatant article.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 15:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your opinion please...

Did you read the article published in the NYTimes about Abdul Razzaq Hekmati? He is the Guantanamo captive who died of cancer last December 30th.

I updated his article to take some of the information in the article into account. I'd be interested in what you think of the original NYTimes article, and my attempt to incorporate that material into the article while complying with WP:NPOV.

What did you think of the accidental release of the unredacted testimony of guy who shot Omar Khadr? It shocked me. I had my doubts about some aspects of the official story. I thought maybe the exculpatory evidence that was released to his attorneys, shortly before his December hearing, would reveal that he made a statement, on the battlefield, that indicated he regarded himself as a simple Taliban footsoldier, so, arguably, not a member of al Qaeda. And so, arguably, eligible to greater GC protections than an al Qaeda fighter.

I am planning on creating an article about this surprise release of testimony. If you don't mind, I'd appreciate it if you could take the time to look at it, when it is ready.

FWIW, this surprise testimony was not the testimony revealed to the Defense in December. I don't think I can substantiate this to the extent necessary to state that in article space. But the new Chief Procecutor asserted that OC-1's statement had been made available to the Defense on at least three other occasions. One of the articles in my local Toronto papers -- I think one by Michelle Shephard, who is writing a book on the Khadrs, wrote that it was not the same surprise testimony that stirred controversy in December.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 00:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm very skeptical of Hekmati's alibi. Just as Afghan political hijinx could get him wrongfully thrown into GTMO, it can also cook up wrongful alibis. I don't think it's uncommon for shady alibis to sprout near the date of an execution. I was once embarrassed in an argument over the death-penalty by highlighting a "wrongful execution" that turned out to be an inflated story.
It's always possible that he was wrongfully arrested. It's the sort of thing the bureaucracy would have happen. I'd be more inclined to believe it if Worthington wasn't involved. The article should note that he's a critic of the war, and not some normal journalist. I see that the NY Times apologized today in an Editor's Note (at the bottom) for not doing it when it was first published.
It's also the sort of thing Hekmati's lawyers should worked on. (I don't see a lawyer listed, but I'll keep an eye out for it.)
The Khadr news is more fascinating. I've read that the Green Beret is still sure it was Khadr. If so, the prosecutors will have to have to find a way to prove it. The pictures should help.
This may make everything more difficult (and interesting). He can beat the murder charge but then he's still stuck in GTMO. Unless he's actually shown to be innocent, rather than just not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it'll be difficult for the next president to authorize his release. Bush is the only one not concerned about political capital, and I don't see him wanting to. Hillary and Obama are going to want to build up their military credentials. I don't know what McCain would do.
My own thoughts on the surprise was to imagine a radio intercept from Taliban leaders telling the fighters to observe the laws of war. That might have thrown a monkey wrench into the "unlawful combatant" argument.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 03:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for offering your views, and letting me use you as a sounding board. I appreciate it, as usual.
Hekmati didn't have a lawyer. Something like 200 captives eventually had a writ of habeas corpus filed on their behalf. But only a fraction of those 200 ever got a chance to meet with their lawyer. Alan Pfeuffer, a lawyer who worked on behalf of two captives experienced the typical delay in getting permission to meet with his colleague. So, he traveled to Afghanistan in an attempt to look for witnesses who could confirm or deny his story. Shortly after his trip he got emails that his two clients had been released. He wrote that he has no idea if his clients even knew they had an attorney. Pfeuffer traveled on his own. And went into the hinterland. He was a former cop, turned lawyer, which may have helped him feel comfortable putting his life at risk in the hinterland.
I think Hollywood should make a movie of his story.
Several other lawyers went to Afghanistan, to check out their client's alibis. Near as I can tell every captive whose lawyer had traveled to Afghanistan soon found their client was released.
Might Hekmati have lied? Sure. That is a possibility.
But, is there really any doubt that no-one in the US counter-terrorism establishment made any effort to check out his alibi, or the alibis of any other captive?
The DoD was the wrong agency to interrogate and investigate the captives. Why didn't they take any steps to actually investigate their alibis? My theory -- in military culture I suspect you are not allowed to say, "I don't know how to do that." I suspect that, once orders are given, there is no real mechanism for underlings to report back to their superiors that the orders were poorly thought out. I think what we see in Guantanamo is the military intelligence equivalent of the famous charge of the light brigade -- that incident from the Crimean War where an order that to a British Cavalry Brigade to charge a well dug in Artillery battery was suicidal. The Brigade made the assault, and was wiped out almost to the last man. A famous poem was written about it. The meme is that the Brigade's officers knew that the assault was suicidal -- could never succeed. But orders are orders, so they made the assault anyway, because there was no tradition of asking superiors for clarification. Did the ordinary troopers know it was suicidal? I dunno.
There are accounts of other lawywers traveling to Afghanistan, to try to confirm or refute their clients stories. Journalist Dahlia Lithwick wrote about accompanying some lawyers to Kabul. They didn't go to the hinterland. They counted on the friends and relatives of their clients coming to them. They too got emails afterwards from the DoD that all their clients had been released. Should these releases be seen as tacit acknowledgments that someone in the JTF-GTMO hierarchy was well aware that many of the captives faced allegations that were tissue-thin fabrications? How many of the 200 captives who had lawyers would have been released, if their lawyers had traveled to Afghanistan?
Hekmati was accused of plotting to rescue Taliban leaders, after 9-11. He claimed he rescued Northern Alliance leaders from Taliban custody, prior to 9-11, in 1999. Shouldn't it have occurred to someone that there might have been a mixup?
Do you think there is reason to discount the NYTimes's article's assertion that Hekmati's rescue was famous? Do you think there is reason to doubt that the Taliban offered a $1,000,000 bounty? Ismail Khan is Minister of Energy. His 1999 rescue is verifiable. Do you think the USA would tolerate anyone with a tie to terrorism in Karzai's cabinet?
Zahir Qadir's uncle was killed post-9-11 as he tried to lead in ousting the Taliban. His father, Karzai's Vice President, was assassinated by the Taliban in 2002. Do you think someone with his anti-Taliban creds would lobby for the release of a Taliban leader?
We both agree that there are some captives who have a real tie to terrorism -- guys who merit being stripped of the protections of the Third Geneva Conventions, and merit facing charges of committing war crimes. I think we also agree that there is room for doubt about the alleged ties to terrorism of some of the other captives. I think we only disagree as to how many of the captives faced doubtful allegations. The way I see it investigative efforts that winnow out the captives who don't have a tie to terrorism is important for public safety. And the lack of effort to check alibis has made the public less safe. The way I see it, so long as we suspect guys who could be proven innocent we will be squandering counter-terrorism resources guarding against threats that aren't real threats, stripping us of counter-terrorism resources we should really be using to guard against real threats.
There are accounts of Speer practicing his paramedic skills on some Afghan children, not long before the skirmish. He had young children himself. I think it is safe to assume he was gentle with these Afghan children, and that they reminded him of his own children. There is no reason to doubt he was an honorable guy, a hero, who deserves admiration. His death was a tragedy. And not just for his family. There is no reason to doubt that he would have found a positive way to contribute to American society once he left the Army.
Layne Morris also put his life on the line in his country's service. From everything we know, he too did so honourably. He deserves our respect for that. Personally, I agree with NATO helping in Afghanistan, while I think the invasion of Iraq was a big mistake. But I honour the GIs who went to Iraq, in spite of disagreeing with that policy, provided they behaved honourably while there, because they put their life on the line from good motives. Even if I don't approve of the war, I honour patriots who stepped forward for their country.
I know nothing to make me doubt that Layne Morris behaved honourably, while in uniform. He put his life on the line, for his country. He deserves to be honoured for that. However, his comments following the Broadcast of "Son of al Qaeda" fall short. (Have you watched "Son of al Qaeda"? You can download it from the PBS website.) I'd never use an argument I knew was false to make a point. Some of our fellow wikipedians would do this. But I know you wouldn't do so either.
I've watched Morris being interviewed a couple of times on Canadian TV. In those interviews he claimed knowledge, as if he had personal knowledge, that there is no way he could have personal knowledge of.
Morris has made firm, assertions about Khadr's appearance, demeanor, state of mind -- he has implied that he was in a position to make those assertions. But he couldn't possibly have been in a position to knowledgably make those assertions. He was injured prior to the aerial bombardment. Speer was mortally wounded, and Khadr shot four hours later. I felt sure that Morris would have been evacuated during those four hours, and that he would never have seen Khadr. I felt sure that he had no better basis for judging Khadr's appearance, demeanor or state of mind than you or I.
The recent articles confirm Morris was med-evaced prior to the shooting.
Morris has been widely quoted talking about Khadr's thoughts about the skirmish, and what Khadr acknowledged about the skirmish -- knowledge he attributed to interviews with Khadr's relatives. I have been following what has been published about Khadr's relatives and i haven't seen the comments he based his certainty on. He was making these statement prior to the sole phone call they were allowed with Khadr in 2007. Khadr's family have had no real opportunity to know Khadr's version of the skirmish. Zaynab is almost ten years older than Omar. She had schooling in Canada -- including high school. She is fully literate. But Omar would have had as much formal schooling as a Grade one or Grade two drop-out. The papers up here quoted a letter he wrote, one which ended up getting delivered to his family. His writing ability seemed to me to be at a grade one or grade two level. That letter was less than 25 words. I doubt his level of literacy was up to communicating what Morris claimed he communicated -- even if military censors hadn't censored it.
Okay, Morris lost an eye. He wants payback. He had no training, no background, to keep him within the bounds of honest transparency. He has not proven a good witness. I'm sorry, because he served his country honourably, but either he is knowingly uttering untruths, or he doesn't understand how to testify about his role in this incident, without going no farther than what he can testify to from his own personal experience.
Colonel Morris Davis asserted that the same grenade wounded Layne Morris as mortally wounded Speer. We know that was untrue. He planned to make Layne Morris one of his prime witnesses.
Colonel Lawrence Morris, the new Chief Prosecutor, said earlier this week, that OC-1's testimony had been given to Khadr's Defense at least three times over the years. That account says the medics attended to dressing Speer's wounds first, before they attended to Khadr's wounds. I would have expected nothing less. But Davis, in one of his personal denunciations of Khadr, said medics stepped over Speer's dead body to dress Khadr's wounds. How could he have asserted this, if he was aware of OC-1's testimony? Did he knowingly assert a falsehood, trusting OC-1's testimony would never be made public?
The accounts of OC-1's testimony say he based his supposition that Khadr was the shooter on his "extensive combat experience". But, according to the earlier press accounts, the GIs were all sure no one could have survived the aerial bombardment. Presumably that judgment too was based on his "extensive combat experience".
One candidate for OC-1, is that it was Captain Silver. When I first wrote about this incident I wrote that Speer was leading the squad that cleared the ruins. That was a supposition on my account, because Morris was out of commission, and Speer too was a sergeant. But it was incorrect. Press reports I came across afterwards said that a Captain Silver was on-site, and that he was ahead of Speer as the squad cleared the ruins.
OC-1 testified that he too was ahead of Speer. OC-1 testified that there was rifle fire; testified that he saw a grenade being thrown over the corner of a building. He testified that he ran forward, across the throat of the alley where the grenade thrower was hidden, spraying it with rifle fire as he ran by. It sounds like he did all this as he ducked for cover.
He testified that "when the dust cleared" he saw an adult male, lying near a rifle, who he shot in the head. Then he saw Khadr, facing away from him, sitting upright, and shot him in the back.
It is doubtful that a post-mortem was performed on Khadr's companions. It is likely that some of Khadr's wounds and those of his comrades, occurred during the aerial bombardment. Khadr lost an eye of his own. If the grenade was tossed over the corner of some kind of wall, he didn't lose it from the grenade blast that wounded Speer. How many dead bodies were in that alley? For all we know there could have been a third survivor in the alley, who was killed by OC-1's initial burst of bullets, as he ran by the mouth of the alley. We don't really know how many occupants of the compound survived the aerial bombardment. We don't really know how many of those survivors were sufficiently free of wounds to have provided effective resistance.
The Taliban had a rule. Several Afghan teemagers testified that when they were drafted they weren't enlisted immediately into the Armed Forces -- because their beards hadn't grown in yet. They said it was Taliban policy that only fully adult males were allowed to be fighters. And in a land where most people didn't know their date of birth, this was judged by when their beards came in. When looking for sources on Taliban conscription I came across sources that confirmed that, in the late 1990s, this was official Taliban policy. If Khadr survived with fewer wounds than his companions, it may have been that they sheltered his body with their own, during the aerial bombardment, because he was still a boy, whose beard hadn't come in yet.
Does it matter if the other occupants were Afghans, or foreign fighters? Yeah. I think it matters. Carol Williams wrote, in the LATimes, following an interview with his mother, that his father had sent him to be a translator for an Arab foreign fighter. So, his companions may have included at least one Arab. It could have been that all his companions were Arabs, who used him to translate with the locals. But some accounts say that when the compound was surrounded those surrounding it gave the women (and children(?)) inside a chance to evacuate first. His mother's acknowledgement that he was serving with foreign fighters serves to erode the argument that he thought he was defending his de-facto adopted country with other citizens of his de-facto adopted country.
Accounts of how and when the firing started differ. Some accounts say that the occupants had perfidiously fired on Afghan translators who went forward to negotiate their surrender. Other accounts say that they had already refused to surrender, and that Morris had kept the compound surrounded, while he called for reinforcements -- and that when the reinforcements arrived a mixed force including Morris and some Afghan allies had been sent forward, not to parlay a surrender, but to get the occupants to show their positions.
FWIW there is an account that an American GI risked his life to drag one or more of the wounded Afghans back to cover. I don't really know, but that sounds like an act that could earn a guy a medal. OC-1 running across the throat of the alley, knowing he was running right past a rifleman sounds extremely dangerous. Maybe not as dangerous as the grenade he was avoiding. It must have taken great presense of mind to spray the alley with a burst of gunfire while doing so. How did he manage to do so without getting wounded himself? Khadr was wounded. Maybe the rifleman too was too wounded to provide effective resistance. IIRC OC-1's statement said there was "directed rifle fire". I know my only knowledge of combat comes from movies. But I suspect that, if a hidden enemy is firing in your general direction, all rifle fire is going to seem like "directed rifle fire".
Time compresses when you are in danger, or under stress. Maybe OC-1's recollection that the grenade lob and the rifle fire happened at the same time was false? Maybe the rifleman had let go of the rifle in order to throw the grenade, and hadn't been able to return OC-1's fire because he hadn't picked it back up yet?
Anyhow, thanks again for offering your views, and letting me use you as a sounding board. I appreciate it, as usual.
Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 15:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
While I could easily imagine they didn't thoroughly check detainee alibis, Karzai's involvement meant something. It must have been discussed at a higher level. (The $1,000,000 bounty sounds high for the Taliban, but I see no reason to doubt that it was substantial.)
Hekmati's prominence makes it hard to see him as a victim of ordinary incompetence. Something else must be going on.
It may be that Karzai's comments were just for show, and that he privately prefered Hekmati remain at GTMO. We've seen European leaders turn a blind eye to CIA flights until that hit the news. Nancy Pelosi approved waterboarding behind closed doors and then publicly expressed shock and dismay when it became politically advantageous to do so. Why would Karzai's government be any different? I'm sure they make a lot of strong statements just for public consumption.
I don't know if I've mentioned this often enough, but I see one of the biggest reasons for keeping some of these detainees isn't that they're important individuals, but because they have some intelligence value.
What made the Tipton Three really important was that they must have known names within Britain's jihad movement. Junior-league jihadis in Afghanistan are a dime a dozen, but a junior-league jihadi in Britain will know other junior-league jihadis in Britain.
I'm not saying this applies to Hekmati. His background doesn't look like he wouldn't be cooperative on his own. So, I agree that the facts don't add up right, but I don't agree it automatically means they're wrong to hold him. It could also be that their reason to hold him was completely rational but wouldn't stand up under the 4thGC's guidelines for detaining civilians (if SCOTUS ever decides it's applicable here).
The charge of the light brigade may sound reasonable but I don't see it happening here, or at least not in this way. The military remembers past scandals quite well, and I don't mean just Abu Ghraib. The Tailhook scandal was just off-duty frathouse behavior within the military. It was relatively harmless, and it happened in Las Vegas where most of the participants should have known what to expect. Congress went after them as though it was Abu Ghraib. The Navy took it badly. I have no doubts that the military knows they're being held accountable.
It's a lot like what I said about Navy doctors having no interest in risking medical licenses for no reason at all. Navy lawyers aren't going to risk their reputations (or their law licenses) just to keep some Afghan politician in GTMO. That's especially true when they're releasing others by the dozen. So, those facts don't add up right either.
I've got to thank you for the description of the firefight.
While I agree that Layne Morris has reason to hate the Khadrs, special forces aren't just more physically fit that the average soldier. They're more disciplined, and usually a lot smarter -- especially if he was a Green Beret. I think his testimony would be given more weight than that of another soldier. On the other hand, I don't know if his lawsuit against the Khadrs could be in some jeopardy if the case goes badly. Khadr's defense will bring that up if it's possible in the slightest way.
Morris's testimony won't be the final word. It may not mean much at all. I hope there's less uncertainty about the events than you think. They should have pictures of the location, and both sides will demonstrate how they think it happened. Some of the discrepencies you see will have to be squared with all that evidence. A close analysis of photos is one of the ways the Haditha Marines got their cases downgraded. If we're lucky, a demonstration may show with near certainty that it had to be Khadr (or that it had to be the other guy).
They'll also have the after-action report. It may not be unbiased, but it could have been written without concern over how it would be used in this trial.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 18:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I just came across this. It's a slam against the NY Times for using Worthington as a source in what's supposed to be an objective article.
This part is relevant: "To put it bluntly: Afghanistan, Iraq and other War on Terror hotspots are full of factions and interests that would love nothing more than to take an unsuspecting Western journalist for a ride - a reality of which Times reporters are (we hope) well aware."
It goes along with what I've said about Karzai's own motives. He needs to keep some of these factions happy.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
About that $1,000,000 reward. I think I should go back to the article, and clarify the passage I wrote about that. On re-reading the NYTimes article I think the reward was for the high-profile escapees. I don['t think they would have paid anywhere near as much just for Hekmati. But, even if they were only prepared to pay $1,000 for him, I think that should have been enough to confirm his alibi. If he knew the anti-Taliban leaders it would have been from rescuing those four, and collecting his stipend from the anti-Taliban paymaster when he was in exile in Iran.
Yes, you are correct, President Bush did authorize holding captives solely, or largely, for their perceived intelligence value. You know this, I know this. But I don't think this has sunk through to Legislative and Judicial branches. Personally, I don't see how this complies with the rule of law. One of the Al Marri brothers, the one who is in the combined Naval Brig, was held for over a year as a material witness.
Did you ever watch that BBC miniseries, Prime Suspect. The big plot point was that the police could hold suspects without charge for no longer than 72 hours. They have different rules in the UK for terrorism suspects now. IIRC it is 48 days, for terrorism suspects.
There is something backwards about holding captive a material witness, without charge, for longer than the length of time you could hold someone you think you have enough evidence to charge. We can only hold the actual suspect for a day, a week, a month -- but we can hold the guy we think can provide some evidence against him for a year, or several years? That is backwards.
Canada has held a half dozen individuals on Minister's certificates. They were all immigration candidates, or registered refugees. None of them were citizens. They had some kind of judicial review of the (secret) evidence against them. These rules are being challenged before the Canadian Supreme Court.
I know some argue that terrorism represents a kind of danger that puts fighting it in a class by itself. Some argue we should willing surrender traditional rights as a sacrfice to fighting terrorism. I know there are people who would agree to the sacrifice of our traditional rights, to make fighting terrorism easier. But it is my impression that most of those who would agree would only do so if they thought those counter-terrorism efforts were effective. JTF-GTMO's intelligence efforts have been almost entirely a failure. Some of the captives really do belong in a place like Guantanamo, but more compliant with GC4. A smaller number really do have serious tie to terrorism. But the use of coercive interrogation techniques, and the use of unskilled interrogators who inadvertently drop hints as to the kind of confession or denunciation will earn a captive "comfort items, a slice of pizza, a cheeseburger, has polluted the pool so no one can distinguish the actually true confessions and denunciations from those prompted by untrained incompetents.
It is not the fault of the young GIs. It is not their fault they were weren't properly trained at how to ask questions without dropping hints. It is not their fault they weren't trained in the cultures of the individuals they were interrogating, so they could tell a sensible question from a nonsense question, or a sensible answer from a non-sense answer. Half the Afghan captives weren't even Pashtuns. That should have been a get out of jail card for the non-Pashtuns. All members of the Taliban were Pashtuns. The JTF-GTMO staff don't seem to have realized this. It is not their fault that Geoffrey Miller lead them to hate the captives.
You've read some of the Guantanamo documents. And you know I have read half or more. They aren't doing a flawless job. They are doing a terrible job. You acknowledged that JTF-GTMO may have failed to fully check out some of the alibis as thoroughly as possible.
Well, it is worse than that. They didn't check any of the captive's alibis. Stephen Abraham said as much in his affidavits. JTF-GTMO got sent these hundreds of captives, and for most of them they had practically no idea who they were. They weren't set up to send out investigators to check alibis. The military has no tradition of sending out investigators.
They didn't have enough translators, and those they had were largely incompetent. Jumma Jan told his Tribunal he had just a single 20 minute interrogation, shortly after his arrival. Why did they hold him so long, without further interrogation? Probably because that 20 minute interrogation established he wasn't a terrorist, but they just didn't have enough interrogators who spoke his language.
Steven Abraham, who did himself have a background in intelligence, wrote that those he worked with didn't. They didn't even know how to get information from other agencies. So, the information about the Guantanamo captives relied, to a very large extent, solely on information from the interrogations.
A surprising number of the captives resisted the temptation to falsely denounce fellow captives. But enough did to send the counter-terrorism establishment chasing its tail for years. The flawed interrogation process allowed inexperienced interrogators to taint the captives with too many hints of the information they were looking for. We know this happened even with even the more important captives, like ibn Sheikh ibn al Libi and Mohammed al Qahtani. I think it is safe to assume the same was true for Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The volume of KSM's confessions is embarrassing. Like Forrest Gump his confessions place him on the periphery of every terrorist project that he didn't play a central role. Majid Khan's father's affidavit said that the guards at the camp where Majid and his brother were first held also held KSM's children -- young children. The affidavit reported that the guards said that his children were tortured for clues as to KSM's hide-out. We know that one of the interrogation techniques used was to threaten to rape, torture or kill the captives' family members. In a firm but humane prison, even one of the USA's "supermax" prisons, that complied with the rule of law, those kinds of threats wouldn't be credible. But in Bagram, Guantanamo and the CIA's secret interrogation centres, those claims are credible. Waleed bin Attash, one of the 14 captives who was held in CIA custody, had taken his teenage brother with him to Afghanistan. His brother, Hassin Bin Attash, was older than Omar Khadr -- but still legally a minor. Could he have been a dangerous combatant in a firefight? Sure. Was he a senior al Qaeda leader for whom there was some kind of justification for holding him in CIA custody? No. But he was kept in CIA custody for an extended period of time. I believe his presence there was to put pressure on his big brother.
I don't question, for one minute, that terrorism is a serious threat to public safety. I do dispute that it is such a serious threat that fighting it requires surrendering the hard-fought freedoms that distinguish democratic societies, that observe the rule of law, from despotic totalitarian countries.
Aids transmission could be cut back if public health inspectors were authorized to seize any citizen, and summarily castrate them, if they showed positive on a field-administered AIDS blood test. There was a famous serial rapist, in the UK, about a decade ago. After effective techniques for DNA testing. The authorities had samples of the perpetrators DNA. They had a list of thousands or tens of thousands of suspects -- guys who were suspected solely because of their age, and where they lived. The authorities asked all these men to submit to a voluntary blood test, to exclude them from investigation. Cooperation was widespread, particularly since the authorities promised to destroy the records of everyone eliminated. But the men who held out couldn't be compelled to give their DNA.
Ordinary crime-fighting would be much easier if everyone's DNA and fingerprints were on record, if everyone's phone could be tapped, without a court order, if everyone's financial records were open to scrutiny. We don't do this. There is a long tradition of the build-up of the legal rights that separate our societies from absolutist, totalitarian societies for not doing so.
Some critics argue that this is what the Bush administration tried to do with the Patriot Act.
There was a documentary up here, way back during the Clinton years, about wiretaps. And there were some of those small articles in Scientific American. In the 1990s the US Federal Government was applying for approximately 400 wiretaps per year. State and Municipal governments were applying for a similar number. The Clinton administration worked on legislation for a "clipper chip" -- a program were all telecommunication devices would have to have a back door, allowing justice officials to silently get access to the unencrypted data stream.
Just like with extraordinary rendition it didn't start with Bush.
The number of wiretaps granted under Clinton expanded, IIRC, to about 1000 per year.
This still doesn't seem like that many -- until I listened to the Canadian documentary. It described how broad some of those wiretaps were.
The LAPD got a wiretap on the phone prisoners were allowed to use at the LA County Jail. It was monitored for approximately two years, in a covert program that cost millions of dollars.
The cops doing the monitoring were off-site, not in the main police HQ. When a prisoner and their caller talked about drugs, guns, or criminal plans, the monitoring cop would phone the switchboard at the main police HQ, and make an "anonymous tip".
On the official books all the arrests based on these "anonymous tips" from the wiretappers would look like calls from ordinary honest citizens. In reality the switchboard cops knew the calls were coming from the cops tapping the prisoner's phone.
When a prisoner was on the phone to pals on a cell phone, in a car, and he mentioned, or hinted at, the car containing drugs, or guns, traffic cops would be dispatched to stop the car, "based on an anonymous tip". The traffic cops knew that the phrase "based on an anonymous tip" was code for -- "based on the secret tap of the prisoner's phone at the LA County Jail". So they would be sure to search for the car for weapons or drugs.
I am sure the cops rationalized this -- said it was necessary "to do their job". But I would disagree. I think it would be better to leave those particular guns and drugs on the street, than have cops bending the law.
Real safety from terrorism requires truly competent counter-terrorism professionals. Not amateurs. Amateurs were in charge in JTF-GTMO, and in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Real professionals knew there was way more room for doubt about the WMD claim. Stephen Abraham was a real professional military intelligence officer. He knew the allegations against the captives were unprofessional.
During the 2004 Presidential campaign one of the many things Kerry was criticized for was a comment about accepting that the public would never be totally free from the threat of terrorist attack. I think he was correct. Even in totally repressive totalitarian states the lack of freedom doesn't protect the public from terrorist attack.
There is a phrase used by those advocating the surrender of traditional right -- they say: "that is September 10th thinking." The public may have felt safe, prior to 9-11. But the public wasn't safe. KSM was quietly recruiting his recruits. For all we know admirers of Timothy McVeigh were trading survivalist tips.
I would question whether the public is really any safer today. Even smart interviewers let their interview subjects claim that one of the Bush administration's successes is that it prevented another terrorist attack, like 9-11. Of course there have been other attacks. The Bali bombing, the Spanish train bombing, the UK subway bombings. When I was a teenager I read Basil Liddell Hart's book On Strategy, and bunch of similar mainstream works on strategy -- mainly cause I was interested in playing strategy board games. But one of the simplest lessons those strategy books spelled out was that if you faced several opponents, you attack the weaker ones first. You pick them off -- knock them out of the coalition. Spain and Italy are out. Attacking them first worked. If OBL and Zawahiri read any strategy books they too would hold off on further attacks in the USA while they worked to knock other allies out of the coalition. Spokesmen shouldn't point to the lack of the repeat of an attack in the USA as a sign that the Bush policy is working. Interviewers shouldn't accept this claim at face value.
Kerry was right, in this particular case. We shouldn't think we can ever be safe from terrorist attack. We shouldn't have felt safe from terrorist attack prior to 9-11. The USA had the Timothy McVeigh attack, the Una-bomber, and the 1993 WTC bombing. Up here in Canada we had the Air-India bombing
Complacency kept authorities from taking effective steps to protect New Orleans from flooding. Complacency kept the USA from taking effective steps that would slowed down the 9-11 hijackers.
But we can never eliminate all risk from our lives. Even if the Corps of Engineers had built new dikes that could really protect New Orleans against a class four hurricane, it would still be at risk from a class five. Even if we all quit smoking, we would still be at risk from heart disease because of junk food.
I think we agree that any of the captives who committed real war crimes -- or actively and knowingly supported terrorism, can and probably should be prosecuted. I think we agree that any of the captives who actually engaged in combat against US forces can be held until hostilities are over.
The way I see it any of the captives who are going to be prosecuted should be prosecuted in a real court, where they get a fair trial, with no secret evidence. The way I see it the push for secret evidence in commissions that aren't real courts really only serves to hide the incompetence of the counter-terrorism efforts so far.
Truly fair trials -- unquestionably fair trials, serve the public interest.
  • Truly fair trials are more likely to winnow out any remaining individuals who actually were innocent, and this serves the public interest because then authorities know they have to keep looking for the real perpetrator.
  • Truly fair trials are more likely to be thorough, and find accomplices.
  • Truly fair trials are likely to erode the credibility of al Qaeda sympathizers in that part of the world where they can speak openly and the public is wavering. If the trials are unquestionably fair -- no secret evidence.
  • I know some people think that the public opinion in the Muslim world is a lost cause. But the Muslim world is diverse, just as the West is. There are moderate elements. They could be on our side.
  • One of the surprising thing about the testimony of the Afghan captives is that most of them hated the Taliban, and welcomed America's help in ousting them. Sure, some of them could be lying. But I don't believe they were. Really effective, professional interrogations could have helped figure out which captives were lying.
  • JTF-GTMO analysts assume every Arab who ended up in Guantanamo, who said he was an aid worker, or went to teach the Koran, was a terrorist, lying about providing aid. I won't dispute that some of the captives may have been lying. But I am completely convinced some of them were telling the truth. Fouad Al Rabia, for instance. He got a whole paragraph devoted to him in the report of how JTF-GTMO's efforts were making the public safer. He acknowledged meeting OBL four times. But his story sounds very credible.
    • He had a long history of charitable donations. Very easily verifiable. Verifying it would have removed one of the props to the justification to claiming JTF-GTMO's efforts were effective.
    • He said he was an Americo-phile. That, in his position as an executive for the Kuwaiti airlines he had played a key role in choosing the American Boeing over the European Airbus when the airline was replacing their fleet.
    • He had a long history of making field trips to this sites of the projects he or his family backed, to make sure the projects were well run and the funds were being spent on the projects claimed. His ARB contains photos from some of his other field trips.
    • JTF-GTMO analysts made the truly shameful mistake of assuming any rich guy who met OBL had to be a terrorist financier. Well-informed moderate muslims hate OBL as much as the rest of us.
Woah, another long one. Again, thanks for serving as my sounding board.
Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 21:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I think you may be missing something about rights being rolled back. For the most part, it's not Americans' rights that are being limited. It's yours. (Or rather, those of people in other countries, as there may be treaties protecting Canadians.) If you remember, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld ruled that Americans must still get our day in court, jihadi or not. Constitutional rights have never applied to non-citizens outside the U.S., and even before 9/11 there were ways to hold witnesses.
If there are rights being rolled back for citizens, it's more at your end of the political spectrum. For example, Ezra Levant was dragged into an Alberta "human rights" court for publishing cartoons. Mark Steyn was getting the same treatment. I understand that your legislature might have some sane heads looking at that, but it should have been straightened out with the Scopes monkey trial.
I don't bring that up simply to razz Canadians. There were similar moves at San Francisco State University when the Hamas and Hezbollah flags were stepped upon.
Some of what you're criticizing the U.S. for is really just a matter of the U.S. doing the best it can within a range of bad options.
Let's not forget what type of war this is. It began with hijackers wearing civilian clothes boarding a civilian airliner among innocent civilians. It continues in Iraq where terrorists still dressing as civilians stroll beside innocents until they're among enough of them that they can kill as many as they can.
The traditional way of dealing with this kind of war is through reprisal. It's what kept both the Allies and the Axis from using poison gas during WWII. Lack of an opportunity for reprisal by the Japanese is what allowed Truman to use the A-bomb. Reprisals are still perfectly legal today in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, but we won't be using it while Bush is president.
Propaganda is another tool we could use, but it's being monopolized by the critics. (The U.S. tried to pass out some news stories in Iraq and was promptly condemned for it by critics who, presumably, would prefer we use bombs instead.)
That leaves intelligence which, by necessity, must be done behind closed doors. It could be that they're not doing the best job, but historians will have to decide that. The critics don't really know all the facts (and nothing Worthington says can ever be assumed to be the entire story).
The enemy never needs to worry about a negative reaction to their atrocities. If they think about anything, it's that they want the reaction to be amplified, and used against us.
As you may have noticed, Moazzam Begg appeared at a so-called "human rights" event recently, and there's no sign that he's ever called to answer to the human rights abuses by radical Islamists. It's a sad thing, too. As a supporter of this war, I have to answer for what happens at Abu Ghraib and GTMO. Just imagine if Islamists were ever made to feel any shame for what they do. But they never are.
You're right that these are "hard-fought freedoms", but you're completely forgetting that those freedoms were defended over centuries using much stronger measures than this. Do you seriously believe they would not have interrogated Hitler's driver? Or that he'd have had sleazy lawyers lining up to get him released?
I don't think it's permitted to hold detainees solely for their intelligence value, but it technically wouldn't matter, as the CSRTs had legally determined that every detainee was a probable supporter of Al Qaeda or an affiliate. Yes, I know you don't trust the CSRTs. It doesn't bother me so much because I think they're doing a better job of it than you think. For example, I'll agree that the Tipton Three were small-fries, and may not have done much with their training camp experience, but they ventured deep enough into that world that I don't hold an ounce of sympathy for them. The GCs do give us the right to hold prisoners until the end of the war, no matter how long that war takes, and no matter how low-ranking they are.
You're asking for too much from our translators. It can take years to become proficient in Arabic. This isn't like WWII, when German was already a commonly taken high school subject. They also had German-American citizens to draw from. Some might have been considered a security risk, but not all, and then there were plenty of Jewish German immigrants whose dedication to the war effort was rather obvious.
As Rumsfeld said, we go to war with the Army we have. If our translators aren't good enough, they'll have to make due. That doesn't mean we can give the benefit of the doubt to everyone we don't understand.
I don't see how you can say JTF-GTMO was a failure. The U.S. military says they've had some successes there. The lawyers discount that, but they criticize everything.
What you call alibis are references, not alibis. It may help that a few of them fought the Taliban, but it doesn't end the case. Damien Corsetti started out on the side of the U.S. as a guard, and now he's joined the critics.
That the Taliban were Pashtuns doesn't change the fact that non-Pashtuns were affiliated with them or with al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden is/was a Yemeni. Al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was raised in Kuwait. (He's also from the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization I've mentioned recently.) I don't see how being non-Pashtun could be a "get out of jail card".
I'm skeptical about Steven Abraham. Everything I read about him sounds like he's working on the "innocent until proved guilty" standard, which was never the rule for enemy aliens, whether they're civilians or combatants. Judge Green may be operating from that position as well.
It doesn't surprise me that a CSRT would be run again when they haven't made their case. This also happens in civilian grand juries. The special prosecutor spent a couple of years working on the case against Karl Rove.
One thing we know about Steven Abraham: He chose to speak out. That's sometimes good, and it's sometimes very bad.
It's going a bit far to say that Hassin Bin Attash shouldn't have been kept in CIA custody. Even assuming he has a low rank, that doesn't make him some innocent who should be released. I care more about the truly innocent children who are being killed everyday by his allies.
Fouad Al Rabia could be innocent but there's quite a bit there against him. Politically connected multi-millionaires are seldom railroaded, and it's even less often that they're locked up for long periods with no reason.
Spain and Italy were only knocked out of the coalition against Saddam, not the War on Terror. Britain is almost out of Iraq. It appears that Bush is holding well in Iraq, and the new Iraqi Army is getting better and better. I don't think the First Woman President or the First African-American President will want to surrender that easily. Whatever else happens in Iraq, al Qaeda has been humiliated there. That's a major victory. Polls show that Osama bin Laden's popularity in Pakistan is fading.
I'm halfway in agreement on secret evidence, but only because I think the trials could wait until the war is over, no matter how long that takes. Barring that, we can't put this stuff in open court. We've made too many concessions as it is. I don't believe incompetence could be a factor here, as the lawyers will see the secret the evidence. Historians will also see it one day.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Waterboarding

The Waterboarding article's ArbCom proceeding has been ended without resolving the content dispute. Please contribute constructively on the Talk page. I have proposed removing six words from the lead sentence, and I have also suggested mediation. Thank you. Neutral Good (talk) 21:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I added something to the article. We'll see how long that lasts.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 23:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Randy, please see Talk:Waterboarding#Alleg_quote.2Fedit_by_Randy. Thanks Lawrence § t/e 00:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Waterboarding warning

Hi Randy, I'm sorry-- I left you a warning here on the waterboarding page. I know that you appear to have a genuine distaste for Communists, but Henri Alleg is a BLP. That requires respectful language on-Wiki at all times. You can't compare him to the Klu Klux Klan of all things. That, combined with the waterboarding probation, is not good. Please stop. Lawrence § t/e 05:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This is absolutely unacceptable. You will obey BLP or you won't be editing Wikipedia. Lawrence § t/e 05:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Waterboarding RfM

A Request for Mediation has been filed on the Waterboarding article concerning the content dispute in the first six words of the article. You have been named as a party and your participation would be appreciated. I believe this is the best approach to an amicable resolution of the dispute. Please indicate your agreement here. Thank you. Neutral Good (talk) 20:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Request for mediation not accepted

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party was not accepted and has been delisted.
You can find more information on the case subpage, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Waterboarding.
For the Mediation Committee, WjBscribe 17:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Trying this again, thanks for agreeing to participate

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Waterboarding 2, and indicate whether you agree or disagree to mediation. If you are unfamiliar with mediation on Wikipedia, please refer to Wikipedia:Mediation. Please note there is a seven-day time limit on all parties responding to the request with their agreement or disagreement to mediation. Thanks, Neutral Good (talk) 02:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Khadr

I appreciate the catch, your version is indeed more neutral. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 03:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

good catch Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 17:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I was hoping to remove the POV-template from the Guantanamo section of Omar Khadr, but didn't want to do it without getting you to 'vet' the section one more time for any insidious wording bias and such. Obviously you've caught at least two (per above), and I'd appreciate if you'd go over the wording of the Guantanamo section with a fine-toothed comb. Obviously we disagree on the "overall meaning" of the Khadr case, but I don't think that has to stop us from debating the wording, I'm trying to avoid WP:Ownership issues, while still maintaining some editorial control that prevents well...let's say "DFlahrety and Geo_Swan" turning it into a playground where they both just throw in as much POV as possible, and it comes out a mess. I'm going to nominate the article to go through the GA-team for another (hopefully impartial) analysis and run-through, but I don't think they'll look at an article which has outstanding POV-templates, redlinks (I fixed the last two an hour ago) or uncited statements (I removed the only statement which had a [citation needed] attached). Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 22:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Randy, I appreciate your comments with respect to the Khadr article. The point of my comments were that the article read like a description of a trial and not a proper biography. This was reinforced by Sherurcij's comments that the article needed to state only things said about Khadr by himself, relatives, lawyers, etc. Part of the problem I've had is in becoming accustomed to the Wikipedia co-operative environment, and for that I do apologize. (Though not to Sherurcij. His attitude is far too atagonistic for someone who purports to have a journalistic background, although not entirely unexpected for someone in/from Toronto, Canada :) --Dlafferty (talk) 10:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The only thing that would make me feel that there are WP:Ownership issues is a lack of feedback from yourself on the modifications that resulted from the POV discussion to indicate that the article has been editted by more than one person. Although Sherurcij has deferred to your opinion, it is not entirely clear that you agree with his edits. For instance, did you want the mother's quote deleted from the background having rewritten it? And was the signal for POV flag deletion silenceor am am I reading the wrong forum to find the appropriate disucssion. Some clear comments in this regard would be quite useful. Cheers, --Dlafferty (talk) 10:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

If it makes the internet troll feel better, I'm not from Toronto at all...anyways, on to more relevant points - I'm content with your recent edit if you are. I agree it's fair to remove his father's role entirely, if we can't decide how to represent it - it's not like the information is "lost", it's just on ASK's article. Thanks for remaining patient and slowly working towards compromise and improving the article - obviously I think you're "biased" and you no doubt think I am, but as long as neither of us are ruining the article because of it - that's what matters. I would like to present a bit more of a "united front" increasingly, as the "trolling" gets worse. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 21:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Per edit, I agree with the majority of changes as improving the NPOV balance of the article - I'm just not sure about naming CAIR specifically - if they were the only ones who made the comment, it's fair - but I'm going to try and dig around and see if others have made the same allegation - if so, I'll either re-insert the Arar example (but I won't if other notable critics haven't drawn a comparison), or remove the "CAIR" and replace it with "critics" with a link to at least CAIR and one other organisation. All good? Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 02:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not completely opposed to the Arar example, but the way it was phrased implies that he was proved innocent of any connection to terror, and that's just not the case. That's why I said it's a can of worms.
-- Randy2063 (talk) 03:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)