Tenth war-crimes court defendant confesses -- in English

[Freddie Stubbs]

By CAROL ROSENBERG
[e-mail]


GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- An American-trained Saudi engineer accused of being part of an al Qaeda bomb-making cell flat out refused his Navy lawyer today, telling his war court judge:

``I'm going to make it easy for you guys. I fought against the United States. I took up arms.''

Ghassan al Sharbi, 31, made the startling admission at his first appearance at a Military Commission, looking like an Arabian version of Rip Van Winkle -- a jet-black bushy beard and straggly hair running down his shoulders soon after he entered the chamber in a tan prison camp uniform, his trousers rolled to his calves.

Sharbi, a 2000 electrical engineering graduate of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., appeared a soft-spoken, fluent English speaker as he explained to the presiding officer, Navy Capt. Daniel O'Toole, that he had no interest in having any American attorney represent him.

more: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14436217.htm

[mike_c]

1. this is a shameful way to treat POWs....

Bastards.

[Freddie Stubbs]

2. What improvements would you make?

:shrug:

[mike_c]

3. in the first place, the Geneva Conventions prohibit prosecution...

...of enemy prisoners for taking up arms against their captors. That would be a good place to start. These "military tribunals" are a gross violation of human rights.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. And we're the country that demanded release of

prisoners held by North Vietnam while our Air Force was still bombing the crap out of Hanoi and Haiphong.

Until the Busheviks made it up on the spot, there was no such term in international law as "enemy combatant." Either you're a P.O.W., and you're supposed to be treated according to the Geneva Convention, or you're an accused criminal, and you aren't supposed to be held without charges. Or the country holding you is guilty of war crimes.

Chutzpah, thy name is United States.

*I'm not saying that the prisoners in Guantanamo are all saints. Most likely not. But when we say that it's okay to waive the Constitution or international law for one class of people, then it's easy to say that we should waive these standards for this other, slightly less undesirable group of people. That's how dictatorships usually work, not by imposing dictatorship all at once, but by chipping away at civil liberties, starting with groups that the mainstream doesn't like.

[HuffleClaw]

5. this whole process is illegal

and a sad sad joke of 'justice' that would be roundly condemned if even one american was being subjected to the same thing.