Senators Want Action on Gitmo Detainees

[Whoa_Nelly]

WASHINGTON -- Three senators just returned from Cuba said Friday it was time the Pentagon decided what to do with terror suspects who have been held for two years and longer at the Navy's Guantanamo Bay base.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., spent Wednesday touring the military's high-security prison, which holds some 660 detainees from more than 40 countries.

"The treatment of the detainees is not an issue. However, a serious concern arises over the disposition of the detainees -- a considerable number of whom have been held for two years," the senators wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"We firmly believe it is now time to make a decision on how the United States will move forward regarding the detainees, and to take that important next step," wrote the senators. Graham and McCain are both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

more...
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-guantanamo-detainees,0,1637769.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[htuttle]

1. I wonder if the visit brought back any memories for McCain?

I still can't tell whether McCain is human or one of those soulless lizard-things like Bush and Cheney.

[velocity]

2. It has been two years, if McCain the POW was human

he would have been attacking Bush on this from the getgo.

Remember the Muslim Chaplin and his case falling apart...

[montanacowboy]

3. McCain is a souless lizard thing

just like the rest of them - if you pull back the collars on their shirts, they have gill slits.

If he were a real human being, he would have denounced * long ago, when * made a fool of him and trashed him and his family over the SC primary - no human person allows himself or his family to be so degraded and then come back and say, "my good friend George Bush". Bullshit!

[pinto]

4. I fear the decisions made by this country in the few months immediately

after 9/11 will haunt us for years to come.

[Malva Zebrina]

5. I just do not understand this Guantanamo

supposedly these prisoners are Taliban fighters. Supposedly, they were fighting for their country and we all know that the Taliban was a repressive regime and not very nice at all to it's citizens, especially it's women. We courted the Taliban, though and rewarded them for putting a damper on the opium production which practically disappeared under the Taliban. And--it was not the Taliban, actually, who attacked the WTC , but supposedly, Al Queda, who, it is said, was given sanctuary by the Taliban. :shrug: I am not sure I buy that whole thing.

These warriors fought, did not have a chance in a million, and were captured. They are being held, though, not as prisoners of war but as enemy combatants? Howcome? What kind of a war isthat?

I just do not understand why we continue to keep them-it must be costing us a fortune to keep six hundred of them--feed and clothe them and we do not know a single thing yet as to why they are there and what purpose they serve--they may not have a single piece of valuable information to offer--and that should be obvious by now. They have given us nothing as far as any real intelligence is concerned. Their families do not have any idea what happened to them or where they are. They are anonymous ghost beings. It is time to do something with them, I think. Meanwhile, the opium production, since the Taliban have been thrown out, is reaching bumper crop production-wow--the farmers are really making a killing off of drugs-troops are becoming addicted as well, Bin Laden escaped and is no where to be found and we keep paying for the upkeep of these pitiful Taliban soldiers. Do I have that right?

And the Taliban is making a comeback.

[pinto]

6. POW's get Geneva Convention considerations and if they were held in US

defense lawyers would have strong habeas corpus arguments for access to prisoners.

[Pastiche423]

7. Another question...

What are "we" getting out of keeping them detained? After all, "we" have only made war, in the last 50 years or so, if there is some type of profit in it.

I am trying to understand their motive. (I know, dangerous thinking.) It is long past the time anyone of them could have knowledge that would help "us" in obtaining OBL or Al Qaeda.

So, why do "we" keep them?

[pinto]

8. I think the Admin's stuck,

1. Won't have open trials - afraid of info in public venue, security or other

2. Closed military tribunals conjure up all those memories of "secret trials" and would be internationally condemned.

3. There are some well, you know, British, Australian, Canadian "detainees", too. What do we tell our allies?

4. Who knows?

it's a mess.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. International law? What's that? Let me get my lawyer....

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