Where do you stand on "Tookie" Williams ?

[DJ Leon]

*cough* Guantanamo Bay

Exactly, why is the world so outraged by it? Because it's the US.

 

[El Presidente]

In direct contrast to our approach of giving them accommodation, benefits, freedom of speech, freedom to plan, plot and bomb.

Gitmo isn't as bad as people think, you let yourselves get carried away by sensationalism. And as for what some of you no doubt believe "torture" to be Interrogation and tactical questioning bears no resemblance at all to Running Man, kneecap drilling favoured by the Provos, and genital-hotwiring favoured by many Middle Eastern countries.

Fair enough but

1. Limitless internment without trial or access to legal representation is the sign of a police state. If we hold ourselves out to be a democracy then we guilty of hypocrisy in relation to criticism of the regimes of the Middle East that you rightly highlight.

2. If these people are guilty then prosecute them and let them serve an appropriate sentence.

3. The reason why they are held in Guantanamo Bay is that the US government would be violating it's own constitution if these people are held on US soil. That stinks.

At present they are guilty of having dodgy beards, in which case this gentleman needs sending there too

.......on second thought I am with you 100%. DK out, Magoo for the dustbin, vote ARS

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

Yes, we are hypocritical in our views, but we are trying to find a new base to work from. Working against people who don't share our values is difficult, because they are willing to employ tactics that we find morally reprehensible. Do we meet them on their terms, or takes hits whilst maintaining our highground? We will, inevitably, slip whilst we try and find a level to work from. We don't turn on the Chinese for their baby farms, or their treatment of prisoners, we don't round on the Russians for their history of abuse of political prisoners or their human rights abuses - we only ever turn on the Americans because they are an easy target. The big "red white and blue Satan" are too open for their own good sometimes - perhaps they should take a leaf out of the Communist books and shut down the media, black out the reporting, and tell everyone that this in their business and no-one else's.

The Geneva Convention applies to all parties involved in a conflict, even if only one of the parties are signed up to it. Iraq signed up to the GC because they knew they could breach it with impunity, whilst the lawyers and GC monitors would be all over the allied forces - Iraq simply wouldn't allow the inspectors near their forces. Saddam also signed up to the convention decreeing that females would be given education, training, etc, and that was a bit of a joke! We are bound, even now, by the GC - which specifically bans the use of non-uniformed combatants, combatants who disguise themselves as medical staff, etc - some of the very tricks that these people use! Should we adopt the same tricks, or should we keep trying to remain up front and honest about how we do our business?

The internees in Gitmo do have legal representation, they also have all their needs and requirements met within the constraints of the regime. Unfortunately, it is not quite as simple as proving guilt and prosecuting. The layers and threads that require untangling are not done in 48 hours, and require massive cross checking, verification, and resubmission.

 

[El Presidente]

Well said HS. There is no right or easy answer.

We do have someone with a clipboard here at the Albion who could perhaps ask a few questions and write down teh answers to speed things up though

 

[London Irish]

perhaps they should take a leaf out of the Communist books and shut down the media, black out the reporting, and tell everyone that this in their business and no-one else's.

You mean like bombing the only independent Arab broadcasting network to smithereens?

Surely they wouldn't go that far, would they?

 

[Dandyman]

Yes, we are hypocritical in our views, but we are trying to find a new base to work from. Working against people who don't share our values is difficult, because they are willing to employ tactics that we find morally reprehensible. Do we meet them on their terms, or takes hits whilst maintaining our highground? We will, inevitably, slip whilst we try and find a level to work from. We don't turn on the Chinese for their baby farms, or their treatment of prisoners, we don't round on the Russians for their history of abuse of political prisoners or their human rights abuses - we only ever turn on the Americans because they are an easy target. The big "red white and blue Satan" are too open for their own good sometimes - perhaps they should take a leaf out of the Communist books and shut down the media, black out the reporting, and tell everyone that this in their business and no-one else's.

The Geneva Convention applies to all parties involved in a conflict, even if only one of the parties are signed up to it. Iraq signed up to the GC because they knew they could breach it with impunity, whilst the lawyers and GC monitors would be all over the allied forces - Iraq simply wouldn't allow the inspectors near their forces. Saddam also signed up to the convention decreeing that females would be given education, training, etc, and that was a bit of a joke! We are bound, even now, by the GC - which specifically bans the use of non-uniformed combatants, combatants who disguise themselves as medical staff, etc - some of the very tricks that these people use! Should we adopt the same tricks, or should we keep trying to remain up front and honest about how we do our business?

The internees in Gitmo do have legal representation, they also have all their needs and requirements met within the constraints of the regime. Unfortunately, it is not quite as simple as proving guilt and prosecuting. The layers and threads that require untangling are not done in 48 hours, and require massive cross checking, verification, and resubmission.

Hants, is it not the case that The School of the Americas (now renamed) at Fort Benning has been used to train Latin American murder and torture squads for many years ?

As far as I am aware no one held at the US base in occupied Cuba has yet to be found guilty of anything before a court of law and to have received treatment consistent with POW status.

China and Russia receive criticism and official connivance in the same way as any other country that the Government finds useful.

 

[Dandyman]

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), formerly School of the Americas (SOA), is a US Army facility at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, USA. It is a training facility operated in the Spanish language, especially for Latin American military personnel. Around 60,000 people, roughly 1,000 per year, have taken courses. The SOA was renamed to WHISC, in 2001, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.


History

The institute's remit is "to provide professional education and training" while "promoting democratic values, respect for human rights, and knowledge and understanding of United States customs and traditions".

WHISC's $10 million budget is funded by the US Army and by tuition fees, usually paid through the International Military Education and Training (IMET) grants, the International Narcotics Control (INC) assistance programs, or through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.

In 1946, the SOA was established in Panama as the Latin American Training Center - Ground Division. It was renamed the US Army School of the Americas in 1963. It relocated to Fort Benning in 1984 following the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty.

In 2000, mounting pressure upon the United States Congress to stop funding the SOA reached a point where the Pentagon decided to rename the school the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, abbreviated as WHISC or WHINSEC.[1]


Controversy

Repeated efforts in Congress to curtail training at WHISC have failed. In 1999, after disclosures about torture manuals being used in the training, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a bill to abolish the school, but its passage was stymied in a House-Senate conference committee. As a cosmetic gesture, in 2001 the Pentagon changed the name of the school.

A bill to abolish the school with 123 co-sponsors has been introduced to the House Armed Services Committee in 2005[3]


Criticisms

The SOA has been accused of training members of governments guilty of serious human rights abuses and of advocating techniques that violate accepted international standards, particularly the Geneva Conventions. Graduates of the SOA include men such as Hugo Banzer Suárez, Leopoldo Galtieri, Manuel Noriega, Efraín Ríos Montt, Vladimiro Montesinos, Guillermo Rodríguez, Omar Torrijos, Roberto Viola, Roberto D'Aubuisson, and Juan Velasco Alvarado.[4] Because many of its students have been associated with death squads, the school's acronym is occasionally reparsed by its detractors as the "School of Assassins".

There is usually a demonstration at the gates of the SOA/WHISC in late November each year. The date for the annual demonstration commemorates a Latin American massacre linked to the SOA, through its graduates. On November 16, 1989, six Salvadoran Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter were murdered at the University of Central America (UCA). Of the 27 soldiers cited for that massacre by a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission, 19 were SOA graduates. The School itself officially denies its curriculum teaches tactics contrary to human rights standards.


SOA Watch

Inspired by the call of slain Archbishop Óscar Romero, that "we who have a voice must speak for the voiceless", Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois and a small group of supporters formed SOA Watch in 1990. They began to research the SOA, educate the public, lobby Congress, and practice creative, nonviolent resistance at Ft. Benning.

The November anniversary of the UCA massacre continues to be an important focus for the growing grassroots movement to close the SOA/WHISC. Indeed, the original band of ten resisters who gathered at the main gate of Ft. Benning in 1990, to commemorate the first anniversary of the UCA massacre, has grown in recent Novembers to a resistance community of 1,000s. People come from all over the country and even the world to honor victims of the SOA – as well as their survivors – with music, words, puppets and theatre. Estimates for the 2004 vigil attendance was 16,000 and for the 2005 vigil, nearly 20,000.

Traditionally, the legal vigil and memorial service concludes with a mock funeral procession, using the Presente litany, onto Ft. Benning, with all who choose to march onto the post technically at risk for arrest. Subsequent to 9/11 and the erecting of a security fence at the main gate of Ft. Benning in 2001, protesters who wish to take their mourning onto the post need to go over, under, or around that fence, as opposed to the simple marching of the past. Over the years, hundreds and even thousands have chosen to risk arrest for criminal trespassing.

At the 2002 protest, the city of Columbus began requiring all attending the event to submit to a metal detector search at the designated entrance. After a lengthy legal battle, however, in October, 2004, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the forced search was unconstitutional.


External links

Benning.army.mil - 'Libertad, Paz y Fraterndad', Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC home Page)
Carlisle-www.army.mil - 'The US Army School of the Americas Officially Closed its Doors at 1200 Noon on December 15, 2000 After a long Tradition of Service to the United States of America. This Site is Available Only for Historical Purposes.', School of the Americas (official site, last updated December 20, 2000)
Hartford-HWP.com - 'History of the School of the Americas (SOA)', World History Archives
InfoAnarchy.org - 'School of the Americas' (wiki), InfoAnarchy
HiddenInPlainSight.org - Hidden in Plain Sight, 'Feature-length documentary that looks at the nature of U.S. policy in Latin America through the prism of the School of the Americas, the controversial military school that trains Latin American soldiers in the USA'
CommonDreams.org - Hidden in Plain Sight documentary review, Leah Wells, Common Dreams NewsCenter (November 18, 2003)
SOAW.org - 'Shut Down the School of the Americas', School of the Americas Watch

Media coverage

AlterNet.org - 'Teaching Torture: Despite a lot of talk about torture being "un-American," Congress is quietly keeping alive the School of the Americas, our country's infamous torture-training school', Doug Ireland, LA Weekly (July 22, 2004)
AxisOfLogic.com - '20,000 demonstrate against US military torture training center' Patrick Martin, International Committee of the Fourth International (November 24, 2005)
Guardian.co.uk - 'Backyard terrorism: The US has been training terrorists at a camp in Georgia for years - and it's still at it', George Monbiot, The Guardian (October 30, 2001)
NCROnline.org - 'SOA protesters headed for prison: Sister, students among 14 charged with trespass at Army school', Patrick O'Neill, National Catholic Reporter, (February 18, 2005)
NCROnlin.org - 'More than an image problem: During the familiar annual processing ritual for School of the Americas protesters this year, new information surfaced about a comprehensive plan devised by the U.S. Army to deflect criticism of the school' (editorial), National Catholic Reporter, (February 18, 2005)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation"
Categories: Human rights | Military education and training in the United States | Military facilities of the United States

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

You mean like bombing the only independent Arab broadcasting network to smithereens?

Surely they wouldn't go that far, would they?

That was an accident. Both times.

Anyway, Al Jazeera is hardly independent, despite hiring "alzheimers" Frost as a new presenter.

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

The SOA is a strange place, it seems to be owned by some Government departments, and it also seems to have got slightly out of control. Too much high power floating around there, and it's original intention of providing agents for destabilisation seems to have been lost in the mists of time. The manuals and death squads was not actually anything to do with the school, in that they were not teaching that subject - some of the tutors and students that had been "placed" there were carrying out extracurricular training on behalf of other agencies/countries.

Gitmo - none of them have yet appeared in court as "investigations are ongoing" - and yes, I know this is woolly. They are, however, being treated fully in accordance with the PW instructions - you need to hunt through the schedule though, as normally PWs are released as soon as possible, unless they are thought to hold information that is relative to the current conflict, or their release may be of benefit to the enemy. It's very much a case of "how" you read it, and their legal experts are on concrete ground for this, which is why very few have been released so far.

 

[El Presidente]

That was an accident. Both times.

Anyway, Al Jazeera is hardly independent, despite hiring "alzheimers" Frost as a new presenter.

To be fair Fox is hardly a beacon light of independence either.

Was the accident a bit like when I shagged the wife's sister twice one Christmas on the grounds that they look similar?

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

To be fair Fox is hardly a beacon light of independence either.

Was the accident a bit like when I shagged the wife's sister twice one Christmas on the grounds that they look similar?

Easy mistake to make. In the dark, when shit and rockets are flying everywhere, slipping a couple of rounds into the wrong building (twice) is understandable.

When you say similar, you mean the same colour, and not an adopted ebony and ivory set, don't you? Could be hard to get out of that one.....

 

[NMH]

If you think waiting 24 years on death row to be killed isn't cruel or unusual, then I don't think I can really persuade you otherwise.

I am opposed to the abuse of human rights and the death penalty wherever they occur. However, the US is our closest friend and ally and claims to be a champion of human rights. They should know better, because they certainly talk the talk.

You don't sound like you are against the death penalty.

Last sentence first - I am against the death penalty, because it ends the term of punishment. I don't think death is as punishing as it is perceived by most living souls. Neither is life in jail a pleasant time well spent - so I prefer to see a life sentence without chance of parole for the likes of tookie, and no preferential treatments whatsoever, of course.

Just a point here, but keeping a bad man alive incarcerated (in the US or Britain), costs enough money to save several children in most of the rest of the world. That bad man also uses a lot of resources, i.e. paper, electricity, food, etcetera.

Just an addenda;
In Compton this year 68 people have been killed, and police say, almost exclusively due to gang violence. (39 last year). Some victims were children and even babies caught in crossfire or hit by stray bullets.
Two new murders today, two men sitting in a car.
A 17 year-old honour student (female) also died earlier this month in her car.
(verbatim, from the news as I type)

 

[NMH]

Fair enough but

1. Limitless internment without trial or access to legal representation is the sign of a police state. If we hold ourselves out to be a democracy then we guilty of hypocrisy in relation to criticism of the regimes of the Middle East that you rightly highlight.

2. If these people are guilty then prosecute them and let them serve an appropriate sentence.

3. The reason why they are held in Guantanamo Bay is that the US government would be violating it's own constitution if these people are held on US soil. That stinks.

Have you never heard of PRISONERS OF WAR ?
Ahem, just in case you haven't been paying attention, the US and GB are at war, as we type.

Wanna send those poor incarcerated POW's back to freedom, where our soldiers are at work?
Yeah, right

 

[Dandyman]

The SOA is a strange place, it seems to be owned by some Government departments, and it also seems to have got slightly out of control. Too much high power floating around there, and it's original intention of providing agents for destabilisation seems to have been lost in the mists of time. The manuals and death squads was not actually anything to do with the school, in that they were not teaching that subject - some of the tutors and students that had been "placed" there were carrying out extracurricular training on behalf of other agencies/countries.

Gitmo - none of them have yet appeared in court as "investigations are ongoing" - and yes, I know this is woolly. They are, however, being treated fully in accordance with the PW instructions - you need to hunt through the schedule though, as normally PWs are released as soon as possible, unless they are thought to hold information that is relative to the current conflict, or their release may be of benefit to the enemy. It's very much a case of "how" you read it, and their legal experts are on concrete ground for this, which is why very few have been released so far.

web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510632005

Is the AI view on Gitmo.

SAO is indeed a strange place - one, IMO, with a long record of training terrorists, murderers and torturers.

 

[El Presidente]

Have you never heard of PRISONERS OF WAR ?
Ahem, just in case you haven't been paying attention, the US and GB are at war, as we type.

Wanna send those poor incarcerated POW's back to freedom, where our soldiers are at work?
Yeah, right

As far as I am aware we are not at war with Afghanistan, where these individuals have been collected from.

You are assuming that they are guilty of a crime. If that is the case surely they should be prosecuted. To date that has not been the case with these people.

Also if they are prisoners of war, why transport them half the way around the globe.

 

[London Irish]

That was an accident. Both times.

Here's another "accident", the Downing Street memo detailing Bush's bombing plans

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4469044.stm

You're right - Al Jazeera isn't "independent" - it's owned by Qatar, a friendly western government. But despite that, the journalists do a brilliant job keeping its editorial line genuinely independent

 

[NMH]

As far as I am aware we are not at war with Afghanistan, where these individuals have been collected from.

You are assuming that they are guilty of a crime. If that is the case surely they should be prosecuted. To date that has not been the case with these people.

Also if they are prisoners of war, why transport them half the way around the globe.

The US are at war against terrorism, which, although general in description, means they hold terrorists as prisoners of war. That includes Afghanistan, where aggression does still continue - if only distracted by that in Iraq.
POWs do not get prosecuted the same as criminals.

 

[El Presidente]

The US are at war against terrorism, which, although general in description, means they hold terrorists as prisoners of war. That includes Afghanistan, where aggression does still continue - if only distracted by that in Iraq.
POWs do not get prosecuted the same as criminals.

If they are terrorists then by all means arrest them. As has been seen by the British citizens that have been interned at Guantanemo Bay, the evidence against them has varied betweeen flimsy and zero. Consequently they were released, but only because of the special relationship (poodle) between Blair and Dubya. This was due to public pressure back here in the UK.

Just because you are a Muslim does not make you a terrorist, but that is the basis for many of the 'POW' arrests made in Afghanistan.

The USA via the CIA was behind many terrorist activities in South America, and of course the biggest supporters of the IRA were from ........New York. I don't see the FBI arresting those prominent supporters and funders of the IRA and sticking them away without trial for 2-3 years. By all means wage war on terror, but apply the rules consistently.

 

[m20gull]

Here's another "accident", the Downing Street memo detailing Bush's bombing plans

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4469044.stm

No. Here's anoher unfounded allegation peddled by the BBC as news.

 

[NMH]

Just because you are a Muslim does not make you a terrorist, but that is the basis for many of the 'POW' arrests made in Afghanistan.

The USA via the CIA was behind many terrorist activities in South America, and of course the biggest supporters of the IRA were from ........New York. I don't see the FBI arresting those prominent supporters and funders of the IRA and sticking them away without trial for 2-3 years. By all means wage war on terror, but apply the rules consistently.

Whatever the US have done, they have waged a war on terrorism, not Muslims. They don't arrest every Muslim male in Afghanistan either - they took Taliban prisoners (i.e. the ones that were fighting against US troops) and incarcerated them pending the end of hostilities. Like in any war, you don't let your prisoners go back and rejoin the war just so they can kill your soldiers. That wouldn't go down well with fathers and mothers sending their lads into the foreign fray now, would it?

The US as a country did not support the IRA, let's get that straight. Some donations would have come from N.Irish expats and sympathizers I imagine. You could than also point to the donations that Israel gets from all over America (and Britain and etc), but that is countering the donations the other side receive from the Arab World (not that any of it is for the greater good).