E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

BBC: Guantanamo detentions blasted
Some unfair and imbalanced reporting from BBC...
A senior Red Cross official has launched a rare attack on the US detention of al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Christophe Girod told the New York Times it was unacceptable that the 600 detainees should be held for open-ended terms without proper legal process.
Boo friggin’ hoo.
His criticism came as a group of American former judges, diplomats and military officers called on the US Supreme Court to examine the legality of holding the foreign nationals for almost two years, without trial, charge or access to lawyers. Mr Girod said the International Committee of the Red Cross was making the unusually blunt public statement because of a lack of action after previous private contacts with American officials. "One cannot keep these detainees in this pattern, this situation, indefinitely," he said during a visit to the US naval base where the Taleban and al-Qaeda suspects are being held.
Maybe the splodeydopes should have thought of that when they were training to attack the U.S. in a previous "safehaven".
US officials insist there are reasons for holding the alleged fighters and say they will get a fair legal hearing in due course. Mr Girod is leading a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has just completed an inspection tour of the detention camp in Cuba. Although he did not criticise any physical conditions at the camp, he said that it was intolerable that the complex was used as "an investigation centre, not a detention centre". "The open-endedness of the situation and its impact on the mental health of the population has become a major problem," he told the New York Times.
Mental health of Islamist killers?
They'd be dead a lot longer than they're going to be detained, more's the pity...
Christine Huskey, an American lawyer representing 28 Kuwaiti inmates, told the BBC she had had "absolutely" no access to them. "I represent a ghost," she told the World Today programme. In the past 18 months, 21 detainees have made 32 suicide attempts, and many more are being treated for depression, the New York Times says.
"Depressed, Mahmoud?"
"Yeah. I wanna go home to Yemen."
"Here, have some giggle juice."
"Thanksh! I feel mush bedder..."
Mr Girod says prisoners who spoke to his team regularly asked about what was going to happen to them.
"You're gonna grow old and die living in cages."
On Sunday a group including former American judges and military officials filed legal papers urging the US Supreme Court to intervene. Don Guter, the US navy’s judge advocate general until last year, said it was not acceptable simply to hold suspected al-Qaeda or Taleban members until the US war on terror was over.
It's not "acceptable" for their victims to be dead forever, either...
The argument filed to the Supreme Court by Mr Guter and others said: "The lives of American military forces may well be endangered by the United States’ failure to grant foreign prisoners in its custody the same rights that the United States insists be accorded to American prisoners held by foreigners." That view was backed by ex-prisoners-of-war, some of whom told the Supreme Court they owed their lives to the fact that their captors abided by the Geneva conventions. On Wednesday an Australian lawyer representing some of the suspects said they were being submitted to torture.
Here comes BBC’s version of "fair and balanced" reporting--one short sentence:
US officials have denied torturing detainees, saying they are allowed to practise their religion and given good medical care.
Geez, thanks for the help in fighting terrorism, mates.
Posted by: TJ 2003-10-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=19703