Free Republic

A former CIA officer tells Fox News its ridiculous that the Bush administration didn't execute numerous prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, regardless of whether they have had a trial, when it had the chance.

Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents detainees. Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike. The Pentagon said on Monday that it had received renewed reports of prisoner abuse during a recent review of conditions...

It never ceases to amaze me how our own home-grown enemies within constantly harp on the sins of the United States in regards to the Geneva Conventions. I would be willing to wager that most of them don’t even know that there are four, one more than three and one less than five, Geneva Conventions. The most recent is “GENEVA CONVENTION (IV) RELATIVE TO THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIAN PERSONS IN WAR (GENEVA CONVENTION IV)”. What amazes me further is the griping of the basic American Leftinistra when they grovel and whine about “when will the experts remember the Geneva Conventions?”...

It's from our own military which will probably discredit it with the loons on the left but a report requested by President Obama about conditions at Guantanamo prison shows that they meet the requirements set down by the Geneva convention - just as President Bush requested: Defense attorneys for the detainees have complained bitterly about the isolation of some prisoners. They allege that over several years, it has led to mental problems for some detainees. The lawyers also have criticized the force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike. About 40 prisoners are now on hunger strike, according to Pentagon officials. Walsh...

Friday, February 20, 2009 Posted By:Catherine MoyPermalinkObama’s Government Report: Guantanamo is Humane and Abides by Geneva Conventions President Obama in one of his first actions in office ordered the closure of the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. He also ordered an in-depth study of the prison camps to decipher whether the terrorists and alleged terrorists at Gitmo are properly treated and that U.S. troops are abiding by the Geneva Conventions. The report, part of which was leaked today, shows that Gitmo “complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions” and that the prisoners are treated with dignity. A Pentagon...

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas - and not Israel - was the reason ambulances could not reach victims, a Gaza ambulance driver told the Sydney Morning Herald. He said that Hamas terrorists tried to hijack an entire fleet of Al-Quds ambulances during Operation Cast Lead. Foreign media quoted Hamas officials and Gaza Arabs several times during the war that Israel blocked ambulances from reaching dying victims, but Mohammed Shriteh, a 30-year-old driver for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, told the Australian newspaper Monday that the Israel Defense Forces actually worked with the Red Crescent. "We would co-ordinate with the Israelis before we pick...

Video evidence of Hamas using UN Ambulances as troop carriers when the Israelis shoot. Now we will see Israel having to blow up ambulances, but Hamas weaponized and militarized them! Expect the MSM to ignore this footage entirely, but come out criticizing Israel for blowing up an ambulance! Caught red-handed. Click on image to see video Go forward to 0:48 to see the armed terrorists being let into the ambulance.Save this video as I expect it to disappear from the web quickly and forever.

The Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba houses some very dangerous combatants, most of whom have declared a hostile intent toward the United States. Is it smart to bring the detainees here? And under what auspices?

President-Elect Obama’s choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder, had a 2002 interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn, (partial transcripts and stories have appeared on several sites recently including: National Review, Salon, Israpundit, and Democrats.com) where he cited a stance on terrorist detainees and their rights which were very different from not only Vice President-elect Joe Biden but also Obama himself (my emphasis throughout:)

The Democrats have bleated for years about the detention of illegal combatants at Guantanamo, while the Left and the "international community" have demanded that captured terrorists be treated as prisoners of war. We read in the November 22-23 Wall Street Journal (page A13) that Barack Obama's selected Attorney General, Eric Holder, agrees with us that terrorists are not uniformed combatants who are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. Per an interview on CNN in January 2002, One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find...

A map of President Bush's motorcade to Camp David was found last week in the possession of a teenager accused of stockpiling weapons and bomb-making materials, according to prosecutors. With the possibility that the motorcade was a target, federal authorities have joined police in investigating Collin Matthew McKenzie-Gude, 18, who allegedly was storing the weapons and materials just outside Washington, D.C., at the Bethesda, Md., home where he lives with his parents. MyFOXDC.com reports that Assistant State's Attorney Peter Feeney disclosed the discovery of the map of Camp David during a court hearing on Tuesday in Rockville, Md. The map...

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe says one Red Cross symbol was used in a daring and successful hostage rescue mission that took place two weeks ago. What seems to be part of a red cross is seen on a bib worn by a man involved in the rescue in this official image. One of the rescuers was wearing the symbol on a bib, Uribe said Wednesday in a nationally televised announcement that was also carried on radio. He described the wearing of the symbol as a slip-up. Such a use of the Red Cross emblem could constitute...

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian military intelligence used the Red Cross emblem in a rescue operation in which leftist guerrillas were duped into handing over 15 hostages, according to unpublished photographs and video viewed by CNN. Photographs of the Colombian military intelligence-led team that spearheaded the rescue, shown to CNN by a confidential military source, show one man wearing a bib with the Red Cross symbol. The military source said the three photos were taken moments before the mission took off to persuade the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels to release the hostages to a supposed international aid group...

The manner in which free societies lose their moral compass is always incremental. Step by step by step, certain core values are whittled away. There is rarely a moment at which a government stands up, and asks its people if they wish to abandon such "quaint" notions as the Geneva Conventions, the rule of law, humane interrogation or habeas corpus. These things are abandoned incrementally or secretly, slice by slice, euphemism by euphemism, the chronology always clearer in retrospect than at the time. And each incremental step is always portrayed as a small but essential temporary sacrifice for the sake...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, under fire over the treatment of CIA detainees, on Friday ordered that agency interrogators comply with the Geneva Conventions against torture. Five years after he exempted al Qaeda and Taliban members from the Geneva provisions, Bush signed an executive order requiring the CIA to comply with prohibitions against "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" as set down in the conventions' Common Article 3. Human rights activists criticized Bush's action, saying it did not go far enough to eliminate dangerous interrogation techniques.

Procedures Exceed the Requirements of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Law, and Customary International Law Human rights activists, liberal media outlets, and Bush Administration critics have derisively characterized the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the "gulag of our times,"[1] a "legal black hole,"[2] and a "stain on our nation's character."[3] One need not dig too deeply into the facts, however, to discover that the detainees held at Guantanamo receive the most systematic and extensive procedural protections afforded to foreign enemy combatants in the history of armed conflict, including unprecedented access to legal representation and U.S. courts. In...

In response to the news blurb about the Marine who put two rounds ("double tap") in a wounded insurgent's head in Fallujah, here's a response from a Marine: "It's a safety issue, pure and simple. After assaulting through a target, we put a security round in everybody's head. Sorry al- Reuters, there's no paddy wagon rolling around Fallujah picking up "prisoners" and offering them a hot cup a Joe, falafel, and a blanket. There's no time to dick around on the target. You clear the space, dump the chumps, and move on. Are Corpsman expected to treat wounded terrorists? Negative....

Torture, Al-Qaeda StyleDrawings, tools seized from Iraq safe house in U.S. military raid MAY 24--In a recent raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like "blowtorch to the skin" and "eye removal." Along with the images, which you'll find on the following pages, soldiers seized various torture implements, like meat cleavers, whips, and wire cutters. Photos of those items can be seen here. The images, which were just declassified by the Department of Defense, also include a picture of a ramshackle Baghdad safe house described as an...

Shame on the Liberals for their Afghan policy By PETER WORTHINGTON Regardless of what they say for public consumption, the federal Liberals really do not like the military, especially the soldiers. This is apparent in their efforts to mortify the Harper government over claims of torture and abuse of Taliban prisoners captured by the Canadians in Kandahar and turned over to the Afghans. There's even the suggestion that our soldiers could be nailed for war crimes if abuses are committed against these prisoners by Afghans -- a concern echoed by Liberal allies in the private sector. The ludicrous alternative is...

The FReeper Canteen looks at The Geneva Convention   International Humanitarian Law   Until the middle of the 19th century all of the treaties concerning war victims' protection were circumstantial and binding only for the signing parties. These agreements were purely military-designed, based on strictly binding mutual obligations; and they were in force only during specific armed conflict.The 1864 Geneva Convention laid the foundations for the contemporary humanitarian law. It was in a whole characterized by: standing written rules of universal scope to protect the victims of conflicts;its multilateral nature, open to all States; the obligation to extend care...