I would feel a little better about this if, say, these people were convicted of crimes and the art was sold as restitution a la OJ Simpson. But how can you call these people perpetrators when they've been held without trial for decades? They've been convicted of nothing. We've locked people up for years because they wore a model of Casio watch that was popular with some members of Al Quaeda (before any Bayesians jump in, it's worth mentioning that the watch is also popular with people who aren't members of Al Quaeda, which makes those indefinite detentions even more egregious IMO)
Proven you say? So much proof that they continue to be held without even having been charged (never mind tried and convicted on so much supposed clear evidence) for crimes years after their detention.
elementary school level basic rules of justice: If you have evidence, you use it to bring forth charges quickly, otherwise, shut up and release whoever you're holding. The U.S government certainly doesn't lack the resources to just proceed with a trial.
How can his guilt be confirmed if he was never even charged?
I am sorry, but what kind of substance abuse and education is this?!
Are you allowed to grab your AR15 and shoot foreign tourists? Can you keep them as slaves?
Have you thought about the implications of what you've written for even two seconds?
Nobody would ever travel or do business in a country where they have no rights, you'd have as many foreign PHD students as Somalia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_Cases
> The preliminary answer came from a series of Supreme Court rulings, now known as the Insular Cases, which responded to the question of how American constitutional rights apply to those in United States territories. The Supreme Court held that full constitutional protection of rights does not automatically (or ex proprio vigore—i.e., of its own force) extend to all places under American control. This meant that inhabitants of unincorporated territories such as Puerto Rico—"even if they are U.S. citizens"—may lack some constitutional rights (e.g., the right to remain part of the United States in case of de-annexation)[2] because they were not part of the United States.
Never overturned.
You sure about that? I believe US territories are subject to the jurisdiction of the Constitution. Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is notably not a US territory.
By that point, Qasim had been in Guantanamo nearly half his life, aged 23 to 43. Like almost all the men sent there, he has never been charged with a crime.
Not even charged, not to mention convicted. Certainly no reason to believe he’s a terrorist that ruined someone’s lives. His was certainly ruined though. How much more should we ruin random lives for what I can only see as some sort of “revenge”?
For what it’s worth, artwork from Guantanamo is only valuable because of its terrible history as a torture site and imprisonment of innocent people - not because it’s known for holding guilty killer terrorists.
I have no doubt that Guantanamo Bay was used extensively for abuses of power, but the reality is that we (the public) will never be privy to much of the reasoning behind the capture and continued imprisonment of these folks.
that said, given the lack of due process towards their imprisonment and outcomes i'll likely never refer to them as guilty, but being left in the dark as towards the reasons why they're there prevents me from proclaiming their innocence, either.
I imagine that moral ambiguity may be induced on purpose in order to foster support or inaction towards it, but that's where i'm at personally for good or bad.
My reasons are:
1. There’s evidence that the evidence used was exceptionally flaky - wearing a very common watch was considered evidence to imprison somebody
2. The political climate at the time was fervently “anti terrorist”, and there was plenty of incentive to “imprison first and ask questions later” - get any wins/info that you can at any cost.
3. When the political climate turned against Guantanamo, the government couldn’t even come up with a charge to justify it (to be fair there could be concerns about revealing sources, etc. but I would think a charge itself wouldn’t do so)
And in general, I’m a pretty firm believer in innocent until proven guilty. In this case we just took someone and held them and didn’t even make a proper accusation, and did so in a case where I see the government having strong incentives to do so regardless of guilt.
That's completely irrelevant. Military tribunals can be set up to adjudicate these cases. The problem isn't that, the problem is that they're - thanks to the power of imagination - not eligible for due process.
There are good reasons why the legal system involves more process than just letting anyone who feels wronged do whatever they want to whoever they think might've been involved.
It doesn't make sense that the only people who have been convicted of terrorism are the ones that are released the earliest.
There isn't, but how is that murder? You said it yourself, soldiers, in a war zone, killing them is not murder. The US case is not only built on rotten foundations (torture), it doesn't even make sense.
> It seems like everyone was tortured at Guantanamo...why were so few convicted then
Because torture was less than useless in most cases, but gave "enough", apparently, for some convictions like Omar's to be pushed through on the vain hope that the torture won't come up and ruin the conviction. That didn't stop the sick fucks at the CIA from continuing the torture for quite some time. Everyone from them up to the White House inhabitants at the time deserves at the very least a trial and some jail time.
So torture is less than useless in most cases, but it also helped secure a conviction against Khadr. Which is it? Why didn't torture help secure a conviction against everyone else at Guantanamo?
The US has released some people from Guantanamo, saying they picked up the wrong person. Of course such things happen when people are imprisoned without trial, which is against even US law. They have never been given a trial, nor are they considered POWs, and some have been released when the US realized they got the wrong person, yet you piously and sanctimoniously desire to punish them even beyond the illegal punishment they've been meted.