Our very own Gulag...

[michaeledward]

Help me, oh, great one, with the legal implications of this sentence ....

The hearing will determine whether three soldiers from Fort Carson will stand trial for the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush

Doesn't that mean that no one has been charged yet? or convicted?

 

[Tgace]

Charged with murder are Chief Warrant Officer Jefferson Williams, Spec. Jerry Loper and Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, who was not part of the hearing. Final charges are pending against the fourth accused soldier, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer.

:idunno:

 

[Tgace]

You posted it..not me "Oh great one".

 

[Tgace]

Most Gulags dont even hold hearings on prisoner deaths do they???

 

[michaeledward]

First ....

The hearing officer has forwarded the case report, and Fort Carson's commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Mixon, will make the final decision on whether the soldiers will be court-martialed.

​

Second ....

I wish everyone could get over the reference 'Gulag'. Some nincompoop used the phrase in an interview, I understand it was not part of the official report.


Third ....

Please, keep defending beating a prisoner with the handle of a sledge hammer. That's find quality police work, ain't it.

Don't you do it that way in New York?

 

[Tgace]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050531-121655-7932r.htm

An al Qaeda handbook preaches to operatives to level charges of torture once captured, a training regime that administration officials say explains some of the charges of abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/085051.php

I do not believe for a moment that the majority of the abuse stories at Camp X-Ray are true, especially in light of the recent revelation that al Qaeda trains its operatives to make abuse allegations. However, it is probable that some of the stories are true, even if the majority of those stories turn out to be the kind of routine behavior accepted at most US detention facilities. Abuse happens in prisons, and such abuse should be rooted out. But if you cannot accept any level of abuse at a prison then you cannot accept any penal system.

So then how do the abuses at Camp X-Ray compare to the Soviet gulags? Are such comparisons fair?

What is a gulag?

From the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office's Gulag study which investigates and seeks the return of the bodies of US soldiers held in the Soviet gulags:

The word “gulag” became a familiar term in the West with the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel, The Gulag Archipelag, in 1973. A Russian acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerey (Main Administration of Camps), “Gulag,” is often used to mean any oppressive penal system.
The problem with calling any penal system which is 'oppressive' a gulag is that it minimizes the enormity of the crimes committed in the Soviet gulag system. Still, the term is lightly thrown around among polemicists wishing to make a point.

It is important to recognize three distinguishing characteristics of the gulags that seperate them from other prison systems.


First, the gulags were a form of political terrorism. These massive prisons were used to weed out those that were even remotely suspected of having all but the most enthusiastic of feelings toward the Soviet system. Solzhenitsyn, for instance, found himself in a Siberian gulag for making the mistake of making a joke about Stalin in a letter.

Can a single prison holding less than 500 people be considered a widespread tool of political terrorism?

Second, the gulags were a source of slave labor. It is not a coincidence that the massive increase in the number of prisoners in the gulags is timed precisely with the announcement of Stalin's first Five Year Plan. Although most of our knowledge of the gulag system comes from the intellectual class that survived them, such as the memories of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelego, most of the victims were simple peasants. The gulags were not prisons in the Western sense of the word. The gulags were massive industrial complexes of forced labor.

No prisoner at Guantanomo or at any other detention facility for war prisoners has alleged forced labor.

Third, while the purpose of the gulags was not necessarily to torture or kill prisoners, the gulags were a place where humiliation, torture, and genocide scale mass deaths occured. Unlike survivors of the holocaust, though, who have found voice in the state of Israel, in US based interest-groups, or who have captured the fascination of Hollywood, the story of the gulags remains largely unheard of for the vast majority of the American public. While we understand that the gulags were bad places in the Soviet Union, the horrors of the gulag do not seem to resonate with us in the same way.

Very few cases of death are alleged to have occured in any US war related detention facility, none at Guantanamo.

 

[Tgace]

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_2725531

Lesser charges urged in death of Iraqi
A May report obtained by The Post recommends that one GI be given immunity to testify against two others in the case.
By Arthur Kane
Denver Post Staff Writer



A hearing officer has recommended a reduction in charges for one Fort Carson soldier accused of murder in the 2003 death of an Iraqi general and the dismissal of all charges against another in the case.

Capt. Robert Ayers recommended that Chief Warrant Officer Jefferson Williams face involuntary manslaughter and assault counts instead of murder charges.

"It is possible his actions were inherently dangerous, but more than likely government counsel will only be able to prove at court-martial that CW2 Williams acted with culpable negligence," Ayers wrote in his report dated May 5 and obtained Tuesday by The Denver Post.

Williams, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer and Spec. Jerry Loper were charged with murder last year after Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush died during an interrogation.

Ayers, who presided over Article 32 preliminary hearings for Williams, Loper and Sommer, recommended that all criminal charges against Sommer be dropped, that he receive a reprimand for failing to protect Mowhoush, and that he be given immunity so he can testify against Williams and Welshofer, according to Ayers' report.

For now, Welshofer still faces a murder charge. Information about Loper's status was not available, and his attorney could not be reached for comment.

BTW keep up on making it personal, I enjoy it. Point out anything that "defends" these guys.

Again, from the article you posted...

Charged with murder

are Chief Warrant Officer Jefferson Williams, Spec. Jerry Loper and Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, who was not part of the hearing. Final charges are pending against the fourth accused soldier, Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer.

What are we arguing about?
:idunno:

 

[Tgace]

BTW. These hearings are similar to grand jury hearings. These guys have been charged, the hearing (grand jury) has been started and now we see if it goes to trial. I predict it will go to trial (court martial) but the possibility is that the charges may be changed/plead. Just like the civilian side. The judgementalism is telling.

 

[Tgace]

Hello?

Bueller? Bueller?

 

[michaeledward]

Tgace ... it's Mike, not Beuller, thanks.

I'm not arguing. I am adding evidence to a thread with the premise that unreasonable abuse has taken place at American Military prisons.

Maybe you heard, the White House squashed an Amendment to a bill this week that would demand the U.S. Military prisons actually treat prisoners according to the guidelines spelled out in the current military manuals. Apparently, Vice President Cheney thinks we need to keep sledge hammer handles in the 'interrogation toolbox'.

Over the past several months, additional evidence has been put forth that the abuses in Iraqi prisons was authorized further up the chain of command than has been reviewed or persued.

I'm sure there are some people who read these forums, and don't post. Our mutual dislike for each other need not be part of that information sharing. Sometimes I think you look for my posts just to bust my balls.

Have a great day, sunshine.

 

[michaeledward]

Why do I hate America so much?

Maybe you heard, the White House squashed an Amendment to a bill this week that would demand the U.S. Military prisons actually treat prisoners according to the guidelines spelled out in the current military manuals. Apparently, Vice President Cheney thinks we need to keep sledge hammer handles in the 'interrogation toolbox'.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072201727_pf.html

White House Aims to Block Legislation on Detainees

The Bush administration in recent days has been lobbying to block legislation supported by Republican senators that would bar the U.S. military from engaging in "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees, from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not authorized by a new Army field manual.

Vice President Cheney met Thursday evening with three senior Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to press the administration's case that legislation on these matters would usurp the president's authority and -- in the words of a White House official -- interfere with his ability "to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack."

It was the second time that Cheney has met with Senate members to tamp down what the White House views as an incipient Republican rebellion. The lawmakers have publicly expressed frustration about what they consider to be the administration's failure to hold any senior military officials responsible for notorious detainee abuse in Iraq and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

This week's session was attended by Armed Services Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) and committee members John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). Warner and Graham last week chaired hearings that explored detainee abuse and interrogation tactics at Guantanamo Bay and the concerns of senior military lawyers that vague administration policies have left the door open to abuse.

Neither Cheney's office nor the lawmakers would say exactly what was discussed at the meeting, citing a routine pledge of confidentiality. But Cheney has long been the administration's chief defender of presidential prerogatives, and at the meeting he reiterated opposition to congressional intervention on the topic of detainee interrogations, according to a source privy to what happened.

The White House, in a further indication of its strong feelings, bluntly warned in a statement sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday that President Bush's advisers would urge him to veto the $442 billion defense bill "if legislation is presented that would restrict the President's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice."

The threat was a veiled reference to legislation drafted by McCain and being circulated among at least 10 Republican senators, Senate aides said. No effort has been made by McCain to cultivate Democratic support, although his aides predict he could get it easily. John Ullyot, a Warner spokesman, said that the senator has been working with McCain and Graham on detainee legislation and that "the matter continues to be studied."

A spokeswoman for McCain, Andrea Jones, said yesterday that McCain plans to introduce the legislation next week. McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, has criticized the way detainees have been treated by U.S. forces and is said by aides to want to cut off further abuse by requiring that the military adhere to its own interrogation rules in all cases.

One McCain amendment would set uniform standards for interrogating anyone detained by the Defense Department and would limit interrogation techniques to those listed in the Army field manual on interrogation, now being revised. Any changes to procedures would require the defense secretary to appear before Congress.

It would further require that all foreign nationals in the custody or effective control of the U.S. military must be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross -- a provision specifically meant to block the holding of "ghost detainees" in Iraq, in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The provision would not apply to detainees in CIA custody at nonmilitary facilities.

Military investigations into the abuse in 2003 of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad disclosed that dozens were held without being registered at numerous prisons; the administration has said it needed to do so to conduct interrogations in isolation and to hide the identity of prisoners from other terrorists.

Another McCain amendment prohibits the "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" of anyone in the custody of the U.S. government. This provision, modeled after wording in the U.N. Convention Against Torture -- which the United States has already ratified -- is meant to overturn an administration position that the convention does not apply to foreigners outside the United States.

Graham, who has been outspoken on the need for Congress to get involved in the issue of detainee treatment, said in an interview that he intends to pursue additional amendments that would define the term "enemy combatant" for purposes of detention and regulate the military trials of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

Graham said he believes that his amendment would strengthen the president's ability to pursue the war on terror because it would give congressional support to the process of prosecuting detainees after they are transferred to Cuba, an issue that has been hotly contested in federal courts. "Every administration is reluctant to not have as much authority as possible," Graham said, adding that he has gotten mixed signals from the White House. "But we need congressional buy-in to Guantanamo."

The Republican effort is intended partly to cut off an effort by Senate Democrats to attach more stringent demands to the defense bill regarding detainees. One group, led by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), has proposed an amendment calling for an independent commission -- similar to the Sept. 11 commission -- to look into administration policies on interrogation and detainee abuse.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Why do I hate America so much?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072201727_pf.html

You hate America because we treat terrorists badly?

 

[Tgace]

What does that have to do with the fact that the government will in fact press charges for murder when a soldier kills a prisoner...."sunshine"? (whats with the pet names? you miss rmcrobertson that much?)

Kinda slipping past the point you were trying to make a few posts ago huh?

 

[Tgace]

You hate America because we treat terrorists badly?

At least hes finally admitting it. Maybe if I removed the flag from my uniform we'd get along better.

 

[Tgace]

Where again was I "defending" those soldiers???

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The problem in part here, is using procedures that violate the concepts this nation once stood for. Part of the argument is that there are in fact rules and guidelines and laws even, that are being violated and broken, and encouraged to be broken, all supposedly in the defence of America.

I'm sorry, but you cannot have a system of torture, prisoncamps, inhumane treatment, and sadists be the front line in the defense of a nation who once was the shining beacon of human rights, freedom and fair play.

Hooking up someone's groin to a set of jumper cables is just not right, I don't care who they are. It's not the American way....at least, not the way of the America my family fought for through 2 world wars, Korea and Vietnam.

But, this is a different America. One where people bang chest and scream that to disagree is "UnAmerican", that shields it's leaders from the views of the people, that has moved beyond that silly idea that "We The People" are actually in charge allowing for our elected Emperor and his cabel of Princes to tell us what we can and cannot do.

This America, likes the idea of putting people away just because. It thinks it's ok to lock people up, without charge, without trial, without representation. Just incase.
We actually have to argue wiether or not it's acceptable to violate an individuals beliefs, to not only violate, but ridicule then, humiliate then, and torture them, with some of us claiming it's all ok, just so we don't get attacked again.

America once stood as an alternate to the Repression of the Soviet System, a beacon of hope for those in nations that lived under the iron hand of fear. Now, it sometimes seems like there are those who would gladly allow it to become that which for so very long we rallied against.

We live in a nation where we gladly give up that which our fathers fought and died for, where laws and powers are passed giving more and more away, and we do it gladly.

Some will say I'm a fool...or worse. That I am encouraging softness, supporting "terrorists". Neither is true. We cannot save and protect America by defying that which it stands for. Allowing this treatment, encouraging it, regardless of the "filth" level of the recipient is not right. It's not American.

You cannot save America, by ignoring what it stands for, and violating it's own laws in the process.

 

[Tgace]

Yet these soldiers were still charged with murder. There ARE lines. Where they are may be open to debate, but there are "rules". Are they being broken? Im sure they are at times, will the rule breakers be immune? I dont think so. There may be perhaps a "do it, but if anybody finds out you are the one to take it for the team" thing going on as well for all I know. However in this current political climate I dont think anybody is going to get a free pass when the whistle gets blown. Currently Rove is the meat of choice. Note how few in DC seem to currently care about POW's or gitmo?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

But it shouldn't be a "do it, but if anybody finds out you are the one to take it for the team" policy, but a "Dont do it or else." one.

The "Its only wrong if you get caught" rule is not the right one, y'know?

 

[Tgace]

Ive posted my opinions at length in this thread and others but in a nutshell. Physical abuse=Bad, Environmental Controls (time dep., physician monitored sleep/feeding dep., lighting, uncomfortable positioning)=I have no problem with. And BTW for good or bad this isue isnt new or unusual. Every war has dealt with it.

 

[Tgace]

But it shouldn't be a "do it, but if anybody finds out you are the one to take it for the team" policy, but a "Dont do it or else." one.

The "Its only wrong if you get caught" rule is not the right one, y'know?

I agree, but do you think this is new or really party dependant? I wonder how many Russian spys were "liquidated" during the cold war under Dem. Presidents? How Vietnamese soldiers were treated? Civil War soldiers. Japanese Americans under FDR? Yes, we should strive to do the right thing. Equating Bush to Darth Sidious is kinda silly though IMO. Could easily be any leader in this situation.