Fair Tribunals at Guantanamo? (Was: YANK CHILD ABUSERS :: another reason to kill americans abroad ???)

Jim Watt wrote in
:

[snip]

Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA is a socialist party rather
like the Ba'ath party.

Suggestive of certain possibilities that is.
Like oh say delivering a ton or so of high speed steel and concrete
to Gerry Adams' front sitting room some fine evening.

IBM

__________________________________________________ ____________________
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"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

:In message , Fred J. McCall
writes
:"Paul J. Adam" wrote:
::Frantic evasion by Fred noted with amusement.
:
:Paul, you can expect this every time your name and the IRA appear
:together. I know it's one of the topics where your brain shuts down
:and your 'cream' glands fire up.
:
:Fred, you're the one showing signs

Nope, because I'm going to once again decline to be dragged down into
yet another pointless discussion with you of the whichness of the why
on this issue. I realize that my not caring to play your games is one
of the things that foams your mouth up, but I consider that a personal
problem on your part and not something I'm particularly concerned
about.

:The IRA, like the Palestinians, is pretty much a REGIONAL
:problem (and yes, the Palestinians have operated in other countries,
:too).
:
:If "regional" includes operations across Europe, in North Africa and in
:both Americas, then yes.

'Operations'? Sorry, but acquisition of funds and material and hiring
out as trainers are not 'operations'.

:Which terrorist organisations _don't_ fit this model of "regional"?

Al Qaeda, for one.

:Being 'international' requires actually having global reach (out of
:region) routinely, not just the one-off op or so.
:
:Oh, so now we're accepting that PIRA _do_ have "international reach",
:just not _enough_ of it to meet your definition?

Paul, anyone who can afford an airplane ticket potentially has 'global
reach' for one-off ops. That hardly makes them a global organization.

:This is why I don't generally
:bother to talk about this issue with you, Paul. Reason left when this
:topic comes up in your vicinity.
:
:Yep,

Well, pleased to see you're at least finally admitting that reason
indeed deserts you on this issue. Recognizing you have the problem is
the first step toward doing something about it.

:but I'm not the one ignoring the facts and making up definitions on
:the fly.

No, you're just the one foaming and blotting, as usual, while
substituting snide remarks for logic.

Again, not interested in that game.

--
"I was lucky in the order. But I've always been lucky
when it comes to killin' folks."
-- William Munny, "Unforgiven"

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 18:20:28 -0700, "TinCanMan"
wrote:

internet nonsense omitted
television rant snipped

I said it was
entertainment and it is, even the news and proported documentaries. FWIW,
I'm not a hermit living in a cave. I had TV till 10 years ago and decided it
was entertainment, poor entertainment at that. I'm also aware those who
choose to do so may obtain inexpensive satellite service providing 500+
channels of programming, including numerous Canadian, Mexican and other
Latin American stations.

As I keep telling you that is American television.

Thats not what I am talking about.

I've seen whats on US cable. You have not seen whats available
here. spot the difference.

I don't find it surprising you might receive Iraqi
programming as it is no farther from Seville-Baghdad than it is
Miami-Seattle and I can drive there without being subject to the whims of
half dozen or so tinpot dictators who's ideas of justice include the
traumatic removal of body parts for minor indiscretions and the stoning of
women for adultry.

Have you any evidence that that was happening in Iraq?

And you say you're offended we execute murderers.

How many wrongs make something right?

Uropeeans appear quite happy to do business with these folks without a
wimper

And the US is very happy to take oil from Saudi and sell them all
sorts of hardware. Indeed Saddam was good business at one time
and who was shipping arms to Iraq?

and yet question U.S. justice and motivation. How cheesy.

We cannot even question things then?

No wonder Congress rejected the IKK.

Yes, because it would act as a control on your excesses.

But the bottom line is that British citizens expect their
government to attempt to ensure that when accused of a
crime by a foreign government that they either receive a
fair trial abroad, or they are repatriated to face the British
Justice system.

There is not the slightest evidence that people kidnapped
and taken to an offshore US base in Cuba, held in dubious
conditions etc are going to see justice.

There is no point in a 'war on terrosm' when your leaders act
in exactly the same way as terrorists themselves.


--
Jim Watt http://www.gibnet.com

On 29 Jul 2003 04:58:21 GMT, IBM wrote:

Jim Watt wrote in
:

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 15:42:43 -0500, "Jim" wrote:

On the contary, I've kept to facts rather than decending into
peronal abuse - apart from your president who is an
expletive deleted


Considserbly better then you.

He is certainl;y better at telling lies, killing innocent people
taking cocaine and getting elected in Florida.

Certainly more talented than Algore and his crew.

Can we interest you in Tony Blair ? He may not be able to
kick a ball like Bechkam but he can put more spin on things.


--
Jim Watt http://www.gibnet.com

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 01:05:05 +0200, Jim Watt wrote:

The A-team are still going strong on RTL. there are a lot of German
channels free-to-air. Just wish I could understand more of the Arabic
channels to know what they really think.

Once I began learning German, I liked to watch a lot of shows on German TV.
One of the favorite channels was RTL because they showed a lot of the more
recent shows and such. I even today miss listening to German radio
stations not just for the music, but the news and such every hour.

Dave
--
You can talk about us, but you can't talk without us!
US Army Signal Corps!!
www.geocities.com/davidcasey98

In article ,
says...

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 18:20:28 -0700, "TinCanMan"
wrote:

I said it was
entertainment and it is, even the news and proported documentaries. FWIW,
I'm not a hermit living in a cave. I had TV till 10 years ago and decided it
was entertainment, poor entertainment at that. I'm also aware those who
choose to do so may obtain inexpensive satellite service providing 500+
channels of programming, including numerous Canadian, Mexican and other
Latin American stations.

As I keep telling you that is American television.

Well, hold on a minute.......

Cheers,
dba

(TomR) wrote in message . com...
(Jeffrey Smidt) wrote in message . com...
:The US government has shown the same
:respect for the principles of international law most of the past
:century's two bit dictators and terrorists have, which is none at all.


International Law is a concept not a reality. Law implies someone
enforces behavior and punishes misbehavior as directed by the law.
There is no international enforcement, nor international legislative
or adjudication bodies. The UN is a meeting of ambassadors who can
purpose treaties which member nations can accept or reject. Imagine a
community with a written set of suggestions for proper behavior, but
no courts, police or judges....... Thats 'international law'.


International law is codified in treaties. Most countries have some
defined method of ratifying treaties, after which they have the force
of law within that country.

You right that there is no overarching power that forces governments
to comply with their treaty obligations, but how is this any different
from the lack of anyone forcing governments to comply with domestic
laws? I don't think anyone would say that the U.S. government, for
example, is not constrained by law at home. (Thought the courts might
be less willing to reign in the executive branch--does anyone know of
a case where a foreign government/entity used the U.S. court system to
force U.S. treaty compliance?)

And, at a more mundane, civil law level--air traffic, contracts, money
flows, trade, postal services, etc--international law seems to work
quite well. Hard to imagine that the global economy would be quite so
global if it was just anarchy out there!

The treaties request the voluntary compliance of the participants,
with no binding legal authority and no government with the power to
enforce participation. The closest we get to it was the UN
resolutions against Iraq, authorizing the use of force to enforce the
will of the council.

When it comes down to it though, it's still a bunch of people living
in a community following self imposed 'rules of proper behavior'.
Sorta like the wild, wild west except their ain't no sherriff, nor
marshall. The 'town' leaders gather in the saloon once and a while to
argue, and suggest changes to the rules. The only way 'law' gets
enforced is forming a posse.

Henrietta K Thomas wrote in message . ..
(newsgroups trimmed way down)

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 13:44:48 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote, in us.military.army:

"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

:What would _you_ consider a "fair trial", Fred, and would your opinion
:change if you were the defendant?

Paul, nobody wants a 'fair trial' when they're the defendant. They
just want to get off.

Sometimes 'getting off' IS a fair trial. :-)

This lot will get fairer trials than they've got coming. Why is it
none of your lot are willing to wait for the bad outcomes you keep
shrilling about to occur before tearing your hair out and wailing to
the skies?

Because, by that time, it may be too late. Under international law,
every accused person is entitled to be treated humanely, to be
properly advised of any charges against them, to be properly
advised of their right to defend themselves. Holding people at
Guantanamo doesn't excuse the US from obeying international
law. We get away with it only because we're the most powerful
nation on earth and no one dares to challenge us.

Hell, wait until the first trial happens and someone gets sentenced.
Then you MIGHT have something to complain about. However, I'd bet you
won't. The military, unlike a civilian court, is going to be pretty
scrupulous about things before they'll sentence someone to death.

My understanding is that there will be no appeals, or at best,
limited appeals. So if, by chance, something -does- go wrong,
all avenues of redress will be closed. I don't call that a 'fair'
anything.

You might want to look at just when the last time was that a military
court handed down a death penalty.

Irrelevant to the question at hand. Regardless of the outcome,
all trials must be fair if justice is to be served.

It would have been better, IMO, if we had asked the UN to
set up an international tribunal to deal with the situation.
But we did not, so we are stuck with the decision made
by our government to do everything in secret behind
closed doors. No offense intended to the US military
justice system, but I think it was a bad call.


Actually the trick is to use the threat of the kangaroo courts to
force guilty pleas

from Today' washington post


LACKAWANNA, N.Y. -- Even now, after the arrests and the anger and the
world media spotlight, the mystery for neighbors in this old steel
town remains this: Why would six of their young men so readily agree
to plead guilty to terror charges, accepting long prison terms far
from home?......

But defense attorneys say the answer is straightforward: The federal
government implicitly threatened to toss the defendants into a secret
military prison without trial, where they could languish indefinitely
without access to courts or lawyers.That prospect terrified the men.
They accepted prison terms of 61/2 to 9 years.

"We had to worry about the defendants being whisked out of the
courtroom and declared enemy combatants if the case started going well
for us," said attorney Patrick J. Brown, who defended one of the
accused. "So we just ran up the white flag and folded. Most of us wish
we'd never been associated with this case.".....

Future defendants in terror cases could face the same choice: Plead
guilty or face the possibility of indefinite imprisonment or even the
death penalty. That troubles defense attorneys and some legal
scholars, not least because prosecutors never offered evidence that
the Lackawanna defendants intended to commit an act of terrorism.....

"The defendants believed that if they didn't plead guilty, they'd end
up in a black hole forever," said Neal R. Sonnett, chairman of the
American Bar Association's Task Force on Treatment of Enemy
Combatants. "There's little difference between beating someone over
the head and making a threat like that."

Several of Buffalo's better-known defense attorneys signed on to
represent the Lackawanna Six. The lawyers didn't view their clients as
innocent but planned to poke enough holes in the prosecution case to
draw a better deal. They found that allegations that their clients
spent large sums of money arose from a casino credit card jointly held
by an extended family. And there was no evidence that the men had
spoken of or planned an attack."We'd been able to convince the press
and the public that there wasn't all that much evidence," said John J.
Molloy, who represented al-Bakri. "We had enough to make the
government work for its pound of flesh."

But they did not reckon on the new legal world. The defense lawyers
asked to question .....al-Dosari, in hopes of proving their clients
had been duped into traveling to Afghanistan. .....Al-Dosari is widely
reported to be held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But the Justice Department does not acknowledge that. "Juma?" U.S.
Attorney Battle asked last week. "I don't know anyone named Juma."

Battle said defense lawyers came to realize two facts of life.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft would not hesitate to veto any
deals. And the Defense Department stood ready to ask Bush to designate
the defendants as enemy combatants.....

comment

This is just another example of how the adminstration is willing to
throw away hundreds of years of development of law and civilization.
Winning will be meaningless if we push the world back into barbarism.

Vince

"David Evans" wrote in message
...
William Black wrote:


"David Evans" wrote in message
.. .
William Black wrote:

Neither have I ever been asked to swear allegiance, unlike
soldiers...

I bet you stay seated when you toast Her too.

Nope.

I stand, like everybody else with reasonable manners.

To suggest otherwise is a grave insult.

As far as I know, naval officers aboard a ship toast the Queen seated.

Am I wrong?

On a ship yes, and I think there's an army unit of some sort that doesn't
stand at any time, but I'm not sure about that, a vague memory of an old
story about some king or other saying something like 'No need gentlemen,
you loyalty is not in doubt'.

--
William Black
------------------
On time, on budget, or works;
Pick any two from three

"William Black" wrote in message
...

As far as I know, naval officers aboard a ship toast the Queen seated.

Am I wrong?

On a ship yes, and I think there's an army unit of some sort that doesn't
stand at any time, but I'm not sure about that, a vague memory of an old
story about some king or other saying something like 'No need gentlemen,
you loyalty is not in doubt'.

http://www.readyayeready.com/traditi...om-customs.htm

About half way down covers the Loyal Toast (article from mid-1950s) A RN
ref from 1934 says to sit when drinking the Loyal Toast is not permitted
when the National Anthem is played, following a ruling given by the late
Marquis of Milford Haven on June 4th, 1914, when he was First Sea Lord.

Men toasted the Sovereign at the Grog Tub drinking their tot as soon as it
was issued, the motto "The King, God Bless Him" being written on the Grog
Tub. When quinine was issued in the Army or Navy the senior officer would
toast the Sovereign with his draught, thus ensuring that all officers and
men following in line took their medicine out of loyalty if not obedience.

Regards,
Barry