Prison Camps

Article


BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention.

But others say there's no need to hold these thousands outside of the rules for prisoners of war established by the Geneva Conventions.

U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan declared last March that the extent of arbitrary detention here is "not consistent with provisions of international law governing internment on imperative reasons of security."


Ok. so , you caught this guy , on the battle field , with a rifle in his hand , shooting at you. Only instead of killing him on the spot you got him to surrender.

And you want to do ... what ? Send him back home so the enemy can put another rifle in his hand and he can shoot at you a second time ? Is that what you're thinking ?

Or ... more entertainingly....
You pick up this suspect out of his bed at night , and question him for a while , and then let him go. But of course , you have to let him know why you picked him up in the first place, thats the LAW isn't it ?
"Your next door neibour Abdul turned you in."
Two days later Abdul's body shows up with his head cut off.

Yeah .... right.


"If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York. "You can't have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there."


Afghan Warlords don't send secret messages to the western forces that you're a bad boy. They Just shoot you. And your whole family. And your whole village if they're really pissed off. Having you picked up by the wimpy westerner's who wont even touch your women and will probably release you in a few months or years is just the wrong message to send to a warlords enemies. A bullet to your head is the way to go , from their view point.


so what do I think of these detention camps ?

yah got two choices when you pick up someone off the field of battle with a rifle in his hand. shoot him , or make him a prisoner of war until the war is over. Turning him lose is like shooting at the western soldiers yourself, and thats negilgence causing death on YOUR part. Peace activists who believe otherwise need to spend some quality time in our prison system.