US charges six suspects over 9/11

**MIG-31** · Feb 11, 2008, 05:10 PM

I know those in America has seen the news before this post.. Im posting this for the many who may of missed it for different reasons.

Source: BBC News
____________
The Pentagon has announced charges against six Guantanamo Bay prisoners over their alleged involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six, who include alleged plot mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The charges, the first for Guantanamo inmates directly related to 9/11, are expected to be heard by a controversial military tribunal system.

OmegaRED · Feb 11, 2008, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York executive director Vincent Warren said: "These trials will be using evidence obtained by torture as a means to convict someone and execute them and that is absolutely abhorrent to what we believe in here in America.''

This trial is a joke. Throw anyone in prison for 4-5 years and they'll admit to plotting 9/11, beheading journalists and killing JFK. These guys are probably guilty but Americans can't prove it without torture.

I'd rather they were executed without trial rather than make a mockery of the entire justice system and corrupting Americas Constitution; those six lives simply aren't worth the toll it's going to take on America.

[hobo]eclipse · Feb 11, 2008, 09:38 PM

convenient timing as well.........

then again the war is doing so well, right? .....we got the bad guys?

cozumel · Feb 11, 2008, 09:58 PM

I just don't see how any democratic country can disregard human rights in the name of freedom. It defnitely sends out the wrong message to China, Burma, N.Korea and all the other regimes that rely on oppression to repress the free will of their citizens. It is appalling and a disgrace that any civilised democratic country holds prisoners indefinitely without trial or allow miltary courts to implement its justice system without a jury of peers.

Maddogg6 · Feb 12, 2008, 12:09 AM

Gitmo should be closed - its an illegal occupation that should have never happened.
So, is it a surprise it is used to circumvent our constitution?? not to me.

calidan · Feb 12, 2008, 01:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maddogg6

Gitmo should be closed - its an illegal occupation that should have never happened.
So, is it a surprise it is used to circumvent our constitution?? not to me.

How is Gitmo an illegal occupation?

Quote:

By the war's end, the U.S. government had obtained control of all of Cuba from Spain. A perpetual lease for the area around Guantánamo Bay was offered February 23, 1903, from Tomás Estrada Palma, an American citizen, who became the first President of Cuba. The Cuban-American Treaty gave, among other things, the Republic of Cuba ultimate sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay while granting the United States "complete jurisdiction and control" of the area for coaling and naval stations.

A 1934 treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or the U.S. abandoned the base property. Since the Cuban Revolution, the government under Fidel Castro has cashed only one of the rent checks from the US government. The Cuban government maintains this was only done because of "confusion" in the heady early days of the leftist revolution, while the US government maintains that the cashing constitutes an official validation of the treaty. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (A position that has ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer.

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maddogg6 · Feb 12, 2008, 01:59 AM

Quote:

Since the Cuban Revolution, the government under Fidel Castro has cashed only one of the rent checks from the US government.

Obviously, the government wants out of this 'treaty'... (refusing to cash checks)

Best summed up here...
Cuba Solidarity Campaign : Cuba Si : US occupation of Guantanamo Bay is illegal, says top lawyer
1) The treaty was imposed by force.

Quote:

The US administration made it clear that there would be no Cuban constitution unless it included an appendix, known as the “Platt amendment” which demanded the right for US military intervention in Cuba and a naval base. Initially rejected in Cuba, the Platt amendment had also been unpopular in the US Senate, described by one Senator as an “ultimatum to Cuba”, the Cuban government had no other choice but to yield to US pressure and agree to the lease if they wished to have any form of independence.

2) The treaty while binding in 1903, is illegal in the post-colonial age'.
3) The terms of the lease have been broken.
4) The treaty breaks the rules of sovereignty.
Thats how I understand the situation....
But, I guess, only international lawyers could debate intelligently if it is technically legal or not.

Bottom line is... *it is* being used to skirt our constitution. Despite points of law - its not what many (if not most) americans proudly stand for in principal.