Justice?

This is coolbert:

Again, from the Chicago Tribune today:

"Al Qaeda ex-driver's sentence: 5 1/2 years"

"GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - - A military jury imposed a surprisingly lenient sentence of 5 1/2 years on Osama bin Laden's former driver Thursday for a war crime that could have brought him a life term."

"The sentence - - all of but about 4 months of which has been served by Salim Hamdan - - appeared to be a rebuke . . . of the Bush administration"

"Hamdan, relieved to know his fate after nearly 7 years in U.S. custody here and in Afghanistan thanked the jurors for their decision."

I'll bet he did thank them. Being "primitive", this must all come as a shock to him. "I am found guilty and sentenced, but then - - more or less - - will be let go??!!"

Well, this somewhat similar to what I thought was going to happen. But not quite such a lenient sentence. He has already been confined for longer than the sentence arrived at by the jury. So he could potentially be eligible for release at any time?

NO possibility for the GED now! Maybe the obligatory book, the book signing tour, the talk-show circuit, with potential fame and fortune to follow?

NOT SO FAST Salim!!

" Longer term - - The Pentagon has made clear it intends to hold Hamdan as an enemy combatant beyond the time his term ends"

NO!! Salim is not just an enemy combatant, he is an UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT!! NOT subject to the usual and customary practices by which prisoners are treated during a time of war!

And - - ask yourself the question - - what would Muhammad have done!!

coolbert.

The jury is out!!

This is coolbert:

“I have done nothing seriously wrong!! I am just a small fry! I was just obeying orders! Why are you persecuting me?”

From the Chicago Tribune today:

“Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - - “The case against Salim Hamdan - - Osama bin Laden’s former driver - - goes to the jury Monday”

“Military jury weighs 1st Gitmo Verdict”

We wait, with baited breath, for the verdict to be rendered in the case of Salim Hamdan. The first Gitmo prisoner to be tried by military tribunal.

Hamdan is:

* "Accused of transporting weapons for Al Qaeda."

* "Swearing an oath of loyalty to bin Laden."

* "Helping him [bin Laden] escape U.S. retribution [by acting as a driver]"

It is alleged about Hamdan that:

* "Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001 with two surface-to-air missiles [SA-7?] in the car"

* "He was a low-level employee paid $200 a month."

* "Hamdan was too 'primitive' [uneducated/unsophisticated] to be involved in terrorist plots.” [so says Khalid Sheik Mohammad]

Well, he was only a driver. Well, he was only transporting the weapons, not actually firing them. Well, he only did “help” bin Laden. Well, he was low-paid. Well, he was primitive, uneducated and unsophisticated.

None of that is material? HE HAS sworn allegiance to bin Laden and thereby condemns himself? Belongs to a terrorist organization whose stated aim is to kill 4 million Americans, 1 ½ million of them children! Is accused in front of the tribunal for giving material aid and support to Al Qaeda and bin Laden.

That Hamdan IS a small fry and HAS done nothing seriously wrong is not even a question here. Merely giving material aid and support to Al Qaeda, even of the most trivial nature, is enough to get you a long sentence.

Please recall the case of the German saboteurs in World War Two. Ruled unlawful enemy combatants, tried, found guilty, and executed, all within two weeks. EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD NOT COMMITTED ONE ACT OF SABOTAGE!!

Hell, Salim might get a relatively light sentence, say twenty years [that is normally considered to be a life sentence in most locales], and counting time already served at Gitmo, might be out of prison in three years or so!!?? Presumably he can get his GED and maybe even consider college courses if he is interested.

Now, in Saudi Arabia, the punishment would be!!??

Being flippant - - are we now??!!

coolbert.

POW.

This is coolbert:

From my previous blog entry concerning the interrogation "methods" used in Gitmo as based upon what occurred to American POW's in Korea:

"What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force [U.S.] study of Chinese communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners."

"Methods", as used by the communists in Korea to elicit confessions, many [if not most all of them] false.

"Methods" of interrogation, BUT NOT LIMITED STRICTLY TO THE CONVENTIONAL MILITARY INTERROGATION, THE PURPOSE OF WHICH IS TO DEVELOP USABLE INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION OF STRATEGIC, OPERATIONAL, OR TACTICAL VALUE!!

"Methods" as used by the communists against American POW's in Korea that WENT FAR BEYOND INTELLIGENCE GATHERING AS COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD!!

Experimentation of a nature only usually associated with the German Nazi and Dr. Mengele of Auschwitz infamy!!

Here from the 1996 testimony before Congress by the Czech defector Senja:

"and their use for various communist nuclear, biological, chemical and mind-control drugs experiments"

"In brief, hundreds [American POW's] were used in Korea and in Vietnam as human guinea pigs."

"we [Czechs] received instructions from Moscow to build a military hospital in North Korea. The advertised purpose of the hospital was to treat military casualties. But this was only a cover, a deception. The Top Secret purpose of the hospital was to experiment on American and South Korean POWs."

"The POWs were used as bodies for training military doctors in field medicine --- for example treating serious wounds and conducting amputations."

"The POWs were used to test the effects of chemical and biological warfare agents and to test the effects of atomic radiation."

"The Soviets also used the American GIs to test the physiological and psychological endurance of American soldiers. They were also used to test various mind control drugs"

"The Americans and South Koreans were very important to the Soviet plans because they believed it was essential to understand the manner in which different drugs, and chemical and biological warfare agents, and radiation affected different races and people who had been brought up differently; for example on better diets."

"The Soviets also wanted to know whether there were differences in the abilities of soldiers from different countries to stand up to the stress of nuclear war and keep on fighting."

Many of those American POW's [not all of course, but many] were the cream of the crop, so to speak. The very elite of American youth, the fighter pilot. A person at the very peak of physical and mental perfection, highly trained and educated, chosen especially with aggressive performance in mind!!

I am sure Soviet intelligence and those doctors associated with same salivated with enjoyment at the opportunity to EXPERIMENT on American subjects who represented the elite within the American military and American society as a whole.

Find out to what extremes an American fighter pilot could be pushed before he "breaks"! Physical and psychological limits vary from culture to culture and nationality to nationality!!?? Experimentation on Americans taken POW in Korea allowed the Soviets to establish a baseline of experience that could be useful in case of a general war with the U.S. So must have been the thinking?

According to Senja, this sort of thing occurred in Vietnam and Laos also? I know that many POW from Laos [the undeclared bombing that went on all during the Vietnam War] WERE NEVER ACCOUNTED FOR IN ANY MANNER!! These persons too were subjected to experimentation of a hideous nature!!??

coolbert.

This is NEWS??!!

This is coolbert:

From the Chicago Tribune yesterday:

"Expert reveals origins of Gitmo tactics."

"Washington - - The military trainers who came to Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of 'Coercive Management Techniques' for possible use on prisoners, including 'Sleep Deprivation,' 'Prolonged Constraint' and 'Exposure'."

"What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force [U.S.] study of Chinese communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners."

"The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was titled 'Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From the Air Force [U.S. ] Prisoners of War'"

As made public during:

"A Senate Armed services Committee hearing on June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed [at Gitmo on the unlawful combatants confined there] . . . a connection pointed out to the New York Times by an independent expert . . . who spoke on condition of anonymity."

It has long been pointed out that the various methods used in SERE training for U.S military personnel are almost identical to those having been used at Gitmo on the jihadi villains. NOT as severe, however, as even what American military personnel endure in training?

SERE training in all it's manifestations is a creation of the U.S. Air Force [USAF]. Captured USAF pilots were most likely to be put through an exhaustive regimen of coercive techniques by a brutal and cruel enemy that has captured them?

"It was created [originally] by the Air Force [U.S.] at the end of the Korean War but was expanded to the Army and the Navy during the Vietnam War. The majority of students are aircrew members."

These use of "coercive techniques?" is of course not confined merely to the U.S. military. The communists in various wars, French in Algeria, British in Northern Ireland, and the Germans in World War Two [WW2] used the "methods".

[and used by police forces too. The infamous Chicago police commander Burge was familiar with "coercive methods" and did employ? Restraints and confined position, the typewriter cover over the head, etc.]

The U.S. Senate is ONLY NOW coming to grips where these "techniques and methods" have come from?

My intuitive reaction to hearing about Gitmo and Abu Ghraib is that Israeli interrogators were perhaps on the scene advising or giving recommendations. Having an intimate understanding of what works on the Islamic mind-set [fear and loathing of dogs, fear of sexual humiliation] is a speciality of the Israeli? I would have to think so!!

coolbert.