Ok ok … completely poor use of the term “deomcratic”. All I was saying is that the Americans make such a thing out of what animals the Taliban are … I think it undermines the efforts of the US/UK to act like animals, too.
i never said nurse them and set them free, what i am saying is that they should be held as POW’s, in the same way that Nazi war criminals were held. i’m also saying it would be good to see the poeple who murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent women children and men in the vietname war in the haig being tried. it is utterly hippocritical of america to label people war criminals or illegal combatants when all they are doing is getting revenge. it is the same situation as it has always been, eg. the commander of the Japanese forces that took Signapore in WWII was tired and hung, when in reality there is evidence that he did everything in his power to prevent war crimes. whenever america wins a war they have the leaders of the opposition murdered so that america cannot be proved to be bad and if they lose they make films about their troops being wonderful and de-humandise the enemy.
seems not
Well let me clarify one thing for you people. The ‘Prisioners’ that the americans are holding in CUBA? are NOT TABLIBAN members, but are meant to be AL-QUADI members. now correct me if i am wrong but if they are taliban memebers, they are meant to be treated as wartime prisions, therefore the book should be thrown at America for extraditing these men ILLEGALLY, and holding them under the basis that they too were involved in the september 11th attack!
This concept of Democracy is a mere ideaology, but what the american’s stand for (this is for Ben) is the equal rights, fair trials, ‘FREEDOM’ and so forth…the basic American dream.
Macca i must admitt that your opening post was extremely true, and well the Americans throughout history make these mistakes over and over again!
dagnam those yanks … someone needs to fly a plane into one of their buildings or something.
oh hang on… they already did. trusty muslims, always there when you need 'em.
this post has come across rather nastily. i didn’t actually mean it that way. the point i was trying to make is that whilst we’re all sitting here going “god… yeah … americans think they’re so fair but they’re NOT” we might be losing sight of the fact that 5,000 people were killed on september 11th. yes, america have made mistakes on a worldwide scale, as have most countries, but i think they’re not the only country that needs criticising.
the al queda guys aren’t illegal combatants, they are criminals, it’s a whole different ball game
just read what you’re posting! you’re using all these fancy words, “prisoners of war” “illegal combatants” “criminals” and you don’t have a clue what you’re on about. By calling them something different you’re not changing the fact that they are a military sect who wish to kill every westerner in site.
If Al-Qaeda caught some american troops they would torture them and kill them without even batting an eyelid. The americans are doing NONE of this. They are not driven by a twisted form of religion. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are the scum of this earth and they need to be prevented from going anywhere outside their cages. They are not civilised, they are animals and for some reason everyone forgets this when the media latches onto the whole american thing.
You’re just playing a semantics game and not really tackling the issue.
Nicola:
Try and drop the sarcasim it ruins ur posts, remember sarcasm is the LOWEST form of WIT.
Ben by calling these prisoners something different u r changing their legal status. Right now the prisoners have no sight, no smell and they cannot hear. When the Americans started their bombing campaign in Afghanistan u conviniently forget that the Taliban still had prisoners who were Westerners. Instead of slaughtering the prisoners (as everybody expected) the Taliban treated them with the utmost courtesy and respect that a prisoner could possibly have…those held prisoner have personally testified to that. U say that Al-Qaeeda will torture the American soldiers to death, don’t give me rhetoric give me proof. Al-Qaeeda and the Taliban are scum off the earth, hold on a sec u have to distinguish between the two they are not one and the same. They are uncivilised human beings ?! Why because u don’t understand their mentality ?! What the Americans are doing, is as usual, pure and blatant hypocrisy. Even Britain is raising an eyebrow at whats happening, and thats saying something. America go on preaching about their civilisation, about them being the peacekeeprs and the maintainers of democracy…well where is the fairness in the treatment of their prisoners. Where has the whole essence of innocent till proven guilty ??? And neway guilty of what ??? Gulity of defending their land against a foreign aggressor ?!? (The Taliban prisoners) U forget that Bin Laden has not been caughtand two all the key players in Sept 11th are dead. Its imperative that emotions does not blind sound and rational judgement.
It’s odd that the amerikans make such a big deal of punishing people for “crimes against humanity” whan it is they who are holding back the International Criminal Court, which would make it easier to try warcriminals. The reason they are holding back, they want a clause excluding Amerikan military commanders from prosecution. Freedom and Justice for all my arse
------------------
Join the POEE!
Paratheo-anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric
A Non-prophet organisation
rawilson.com/main.shtml
freedom and justice for all of HVD’s arse? I think you needed a comma there.
i agree with what The Muslim Representative and HVD it is victors justice is in an illegal court. i don’t sympathise with the Taliban or agree with them on just about anything but they did not commit war crimes, if they sponsored terrorism (which would have to be proved with REAL evidence in a court, not just testimonies) then america should be on trial too. just abotu all of the IRA’s funding comes from america, as does a large proportion of the arms for terrorism, eg. Bin Laden’s weapons and the Taliban’s arms. it’s about time that american war criminals (aswell as british and all the rest were tried) were brought to justice and past presidents/heads of CIA/etc admitted they have sanctioned the murder (not killing) of thousands of people.
Muslim Representative;
Try to spell correctly. It rather ruins your posts when everyone has to wade through pre-school standard spelling.
(I don’t take well to criticism. Does it show?)
My opinion on the whole prisoners thing has changed completely over the past few days, for some reason. Whilst Muslim Rep’s point about the Americans kept prisoners around Sept 11th is very valid, it’s worth remembering that the Al-Quaeda were probably crapping their pants at their point, seeing as they had just almightily pissed off the most powerful country in the world. They’d be fools NOT be nice to that set of prisoners, if only for PR purposes.
The prisoners at Camp X-Ray (I love the space-age name) are not being treated brutally - they’re being kept safely. It’s been completely blown out of proportion by the press - when those photos of the camp were published, all the papers were like “they’re shackled down!” Bollocks they were - they were crouched down. I say keep them there, as they are, with the basic human rights (food etc) and nothing more.
I wouldnt mind that the prisoners are treated that way, (not shackled etc., since they’re not. Nicola was right.) but what pisses me off is that there is no chance that western war criminals (the butchers of Hiroshima and Vietnam, the French who aided Iraq, the masterminds behind Dresden, Pinochet etc) will be treated in this way, tried and brought to justice.
I dont want to play the race card but it does seem to me that if you are white AND dont piss off Britain, Israel or the USA then you will get away with it, whatever you do.
Example: sanctions against Mugabe (justified I admit, the guy’s a maniac.) for stealing land from whites to give to blacks.
BUT!!! Nothing against Australia who backed down on their land re-distribution programme which would have given back some to the aboriginies. (not to mention that both USA and Israel are built on land stolen from coloured folks))
------------------
Join the POEE!
Paratheo-anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric
A Non-prophet organisation
rawilson.com/main.shtml
just something pointed out about one of the taliban prisoners. he leaves the uk and 1 month later is captured by the americans, in that time how could he have possibly been trained as a terrorist and risen the ranks to be very senior?
An interesting topic, I do find it bizzare that the Americans decalre war on terroism. But the prisoners that they capture during this war are not treated as “Prisoners of war” and given their rights. What these people indirectly or directly perpetrated was un-forgivable, but denying them the rights that all other prisoners have can only be a dangerous president. (or should that be spelt “precedent”! I guess both ways make sense)
Olly
[This message has been edited by Olly (edited 30 January 2002).]
why are they not illegal comabatants?
if they were fighting the americans in ware then they were
they weren’t the legal recognised government in the country
and where did it say they can’t see, hear, or smell?
Olly, you’re right, Bush is a very dangerous president
why aren’t they the recognised government of the country? the americans funded them so why shouldn’t the west recognise them. the fact remains they were defending their country, terrorists may have been there but if the americans call people who habour terrorists terrorists themselves then to avoid hipocracy they will have to bomb their own cities, this is just another case of americans doing whatever they want. as per usual the super power ignore human rights and international law at their whim but fail to see in this case it WILL create more suicide bombers.
why are they war criminals? firstly the taliban
taliban: yes they killed their own people for ‘crimes’. they did not massacre people any more than americans have massacred people in their own prisons as the taliban too had their own legal system (their religious scriptures). the americans kill civilians every time they go into action but there has yet to be an american tried for war crimes - eg. in the pacific theater in WW2 it was army policy to kill japanese solider rather than take them prisoner as they may have concealed explosives. the taliban were defending their own country from external forces and from internal militants (you could even clas the northern alliance as terrorists as their track record is a few western embassy bombings and a one way trip to new york short of al qe’ad’s (just look at what happened the last time they re-took kabul, hundereds if not thousands of civilians were murdered).
al qe’ad: for the supossed members they first have to be proved to be beyound resonable doubt to be members of al qe’ad (confessions just after battle or after being subjected to stress positions/hooding for 24 hours do NOT count as proving membership beyoung resonable doubt). you also have to prove they are willing members and not press ganged into it. you have to prove they knew the full extent of al qe’ad’s operations. you have to prove with ACTUAL evidence all, and more, of those things.
above all - YOU HAVE TO TREAT THEM AS THE LAW PRESCRIBES (WHICH THEY ARE NOT) OR MORE AMERICANS WILL DIE, THERE WILL BE NO AMERICANS RETURNED AFTER CAPTURE, THEY WILL DIE HORRIFIC DEATHS AFTER TORTURE.
that is not in dispute, if al qe’ad or the taliban capture americans or coalition forces for that matter, they will die horribly. and it will be the americans who iniated in the first place as they broke th geneva convention first. in this instance the americans are clearly in the wrong, are lying hippocrits who obviously do not value the lives of their service men or they would attempt to give them some form of chance if they were captured.
as far as i see it, this consitutes the US digging themselves deeper and deeper. no matter what arguemtns they give to try and justify what they are doing, if they decide that they are above and beyond the laws that everyone else is bound by, then they are digging the ground from underneath their feet. this seems to be a pretty common state of affairs with the US in recent years, and it cant go on forever… they make themselves even more enemies each time they do something like this.
someday (presuming they dont have an imbecile like bush in power at the time) they’ll realise that they’ve made half the world hate them… and with everyone polarised into either allies or enemies of the US, who knows what’ll happen next.