Top five Gitmo falsehoods (Media Matters)

[struggle4progress]

<snip> Conservative commentators have repeatedly attempted to dismiss the alleged detainee abuse at Guantánamo as unsubstantiated or harmless. But these claims ignore firsthand accounts by FBI agents and human rights monitors that paint a much grimmer picture of detainee treatment at Guantánamo. <snip>

But the Pentagon's decision to release numerous Guantánamo detainees suggests that many were not terrorists. In a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Matthew Waxman reportedly wrote that, as of April 2005, "167 prisoners had been released and 67 had been transferred to the custody of other countries." The 167 detainees released were presumably found not to be terrorists, as in the cases of Abdul Rahim and Mamdouh Habib. Both men were captured in Pakistan following September 11, 2001. The U.S. later transferred them to Guantánamo, where they remained for more than two years, accused -- but never charged -- of involvement in terrorist activities. In 2005, the United States released them without charge. <snip>

Numerous media figures have defended the harsh treatment of Guantánamo detainees by claiming that the Geneva Conventions apply exclusively to prisoners of war (POWs). Though many legal scholars agree that Al Qaeda detainees are not entitled to POW status under the Third Geneva Convention, which details protections specifically for POWs, the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) grants different protections to non-POWs. <snip>

Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law. (Commentary: IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 1958) <snip>

http://mediamatters.org/items/200506230006