Salim Ahmed Hamdan is the first Guantanamo 'detainee' to be tried by military commission. He's alledged to have ferried weapons and ammunition for Al-Qaida while working as Osama bin-Laden's driver. It was his case that led to the Supreme Court's decision regarding a detainee's right of habeus corpus and the various political/legal machinations that ultimately led to the 2006 Military Commissions Act.

Is Hamdan a terrorist or is he a 38yr old Yemeni, father of 2 children, with a 4th grade education whose job was to be bin-Laden's driver?

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 architect, in a written statement to the Commission maintains he "was a "primitive" chauffeur and mechanic who "was not fit to plan or execute" terrorist attacks."

Who is he, really?

Hamden is a just a simple man who was doing the best he could with an abbreviated education to provide a better life for his family. He was a quiet boy who, the neighbors say, kept to himself and was always polite. But like many a young lad, he fell in with the wrong crowd and was led astray by those who kept their actual agenda hidden from this simple, trusting soul.

Rather than our condemnation, this man deserves our pity, our comfort, and a chance to make good on a life that was so full of promise before it was interrupted by the corrupt illegal machinations of the evil Americans.


signed,
ACLU legal team.

The two are not mutually exclusive. If Hamdan facilitated the terrorist activities of bin Laden and the al Qaeda in general then he was indeed a terrorist. His lack of education does not change that.

Law, I know you've had drivers in the past. Ray, I'm sure you've not.

So, Law, do you honestly believe that bin Laden's driver would be privy to the inner workings of an organization such as al Qaida?

This is an important case, no matter what its outcome. And, no matter what its outcome, the US still doesn't know what it'll do with Hamdan.

Ray, your sarcasm was so broad, even I understood it.

I don't think the driver was privy to many details but he couldn't have been totally oblivious to who he worked for. That is like driving for the leader of the Mafia and then trying to say you didn't know the Mafia was up to no good. Not even remotely believable.

I cannot categorically say whether or not the driver was privy to the most secret inner workings of al Qaeda or not as I have not seen the evidence against him. On the other hand, I can say that a driver is typically in the position to be privy to a great deal more than you think. Drivers often serve as a sort of bat man, one running errands for their senior. They typically keep the schedule for that person. They know where and with whom the person met. They often know the agenda of such meetings.

I wonder what sentence of Hitler's driver received in the Nurenberg trials?

Oh, you say he wasn't tried? Why do suppose that might be?

Probably because he was an enlisted man and not an officer, or at most a lower ranking officer, and did not have the command status to be considered a war criminal.

We don't know about bin Laden's driver, how involved he was or was not in his boss' business.

You can find the charge sheet at...

But why should I do your homework for you?

I'd think, as a military man with leanings toward law, you'd be interested enough to find it all out yourself. After all, this is as much Hamdan's trial as it is the 'proving' of the Military Commission Act.

Salim Hamdan was sentenced today to 5 1/2 years in prison. His sentence took into account the 5yrs 1mo. he's already served in Guantanamo which leaves him with a 5 month sentence to serve.

There are no provisions made for his detention during those 5 months and no plans made for him after his sentence is completed. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bush has already said that he'll be held indefinitely, leaving his disposition up to the next administration.

What will happen to what the Bush administration calls, 'unlawful enemy combatants?' There are still 200 of them left in Gitmo.

Will Mr. Bush's entire legal 'house of cards' come tumbling down?

I thought I heard he was to be kept at Gitmo but be housed separately from the other detainees. However, I'm sure you know more about that than I do.


Wait a minute! Still 200 of them left? ONLY 200? Where are all the other detainees? There were a lot more than 200 at Gitmo. What happened to them?


Really? What "house of cards" is that?

The ones who didn't die there were tortured and released.

And it's likely you never will, what with the secrecy and all.

WOW! And how many of them DIED there????

Seems to be around five, so far... with more to come, since there are some detainees with grave illnesses that (according to doctors and attornies) are being held in solitary confinement without medical treatment for their illnesses.

68 year old detainee died of cancer a month or so ago in detention... never had any charges brought against him. In prison for the last 7 years of his life without anyone ever daying exactly why, and then dead from cancer without medical treatment. Others dead from "apparent suicides" (official cause of death according to the military), and one death after a torure session.

There's a guy in solitary about to die from liver disease... so it'll be six any minute. He was found innocent by two tribunals so far and still not released or charged. No doctors are being allowed to treat him.

Is that a good answer?

Three, as far as we know. And they were suicides.

I am going to predict that when the whole story of Gitmo is revealled, we will find "secret" prisons within prison, and more deaths than the three mentioned above.

But that's just opinion based on some knowledge of how this administration works, and I have no hard evidence to support it.

I'm highly skeptical of anything lawyers (and the doctors hired by those lawyers) have to say about the health of those whom they see as clients or potential clients.

As for your figures, I'm perfectly willing to accept them. So in 7 years there have been 5 or maybe about to be 6 deaths within a population of hundreds. I wonder what the numbers would be in a regular prison population. Hell, I wonder how you figures would compare with Madison, Connecticut. How many people in Madison have died in the past 7 years?

As for any statements revolving around how detainees are being denied all medical treatment, this simple is too incredulous to believe. I would expect such statements out of CassielA, not you.

As for Dax's revelation that some detainees have been "released", I only asked that question because of Lizbeth accidentally (the only conclusion you can come to) revealed that there are only about 200 detainees left at Gitmo. I don't know if that's the truth, but if it is, that's quite a come down from the hundreds there have been held there. Where are they? Well, if we concede that 3 or 5 or 6 (depending up whose figures we want to use) have died, that would seem to mean that HUNDREDS have already been released.

Naturally this is hard to believe because the tenor of the postings at Fool Moon would seem to indicate that those at Gitmo are in an eternal limbo with no chance of getting out except that they be saved by their guardian angels in the Democratic party. Oddly enough, Gitmo detainees are being released all along, but of course you don't hear much about that in the MSM just like you rarely hear about those detainees who have been released and later recaptured while once again trying to kill Americans.

You really think that 6% of all prison inmates die while incarcerated...?


Really?

You really think the total Gitmo detainee population over 7 years has totaled 100?


Really?

You beat me to it, Ray...stunning is the stupidity of the Left. Or to be fair, stunning is the stupidity to which the Left will resort in its unceasing effort to condemn the Administration and all its efforts.

I'm torn. I can quote facts and end the thread, since Ray and Law don't accept facts and will simply stop posting in the thread. Or I can keep quiet and let this descend into the usual crap among all of you.

I think I'll stick with facts, if the internet is factual, dispite all.

Taken from discoverthenetworks.org



From globalsecurity.org



So, who's left in Guantanamo? Most of them are insignificant--except for a small group recently released to Gitmo by the CIA, including 5 alleged 9/11 plotters.

And where did the released detainees go? Supposedly to their countries of origin.

LOL...your grandstanding attempt is pathetic, Liz. Lets assume for a moment your numbers are correct. 420 prisoners released plus 265 prisoners remaining plus six prisoners "killed" in custody equals 671 prisoners total. Helice suggested the death rate among GITMO detainees was 6%. Now, I know you leftists in general have trouble with math as demonstrated by Stone in another thread but 6% of 671 is just a fraction over forty, not six.

Incidently, Liz, did you actually have a point you were trying to make in this thread? Salim was convicted of providing aid to terrorists, specificly knowingly providing transportation for personnel and weapons to be used in terrorist activities. He recieved a five and a half year sentence. Do you mean to suggest you have a problem with that sentence? Is it not stern enough for you?

In fact, some of them were rendered to countries where torture is permitted with less trouble than here in the US.

LOL! Oh my dear. We don't have problems with facts; we have problems with opinion masquerading as fact. But thanks to your excellent research you and I are now in agreement that the Gitmo detainee population has steadily dwindled as the U.S. has continued to release the prisoners along the way. Amazingly, this has been going on despite Democrats NOT being in the White House, despite Gitmo NOT being closed down; despite the left's contention that George W. Bush wants to keep the detainees behind bars forever and ever. Amazing, huh? They have been released on a continuing basis over the past 7 years.

As for those deaths that have sparked the latest indignant accusations against the effort to keep those who would kill us from killing us, I'd just like to point out that 6 deaths over a 7-year period within a population numbering around 700 is rather minor. In my town of Mountain Home we have at least 7 people a week who die of various causes. Granted, many of deaths are from old age. But if you count deaths only from within the young male population we still get at least 1 death every other week. Hell, just this past week two you men died; one in his 20s from a car crash and one 18-year-old drowned in the lake. Very tragic.

However, back to the figures, taking into account that Mountain Home's entire population is 17 times as large as Gitmo's population, a death rate of one young person every other week over a period of 7 years comes out to be double the death rate at Gitmo. One can only conclude that if you're under 20 you're twice as safe living at the Guantanamo Bay detention center than you are living in Mountain Home, Arkansas.


It's refreshing to hear that torture is "trouble" here in the U.S. To hear some folks describe it, torture is the norm. As I recall the Congressional Testimony, exactly THREE of the Guantanamo prisoners have been "waterboarded." And all of the waterboardees ended up none the worse for wear.

As for using "rendition" as a tactic, I'd be curious to know what the real figures are.

So would I, but I don't think we'll ever know the actual figures. We'll know what they want us to believe.

Or perhaps what you, Dax, want us to believe...Interesting how Dax does not mind making all sorts of wild claims in the absence of facts but seems really offended when the available facts do not comport with his vision of reality. Incidently, I am still waiting to hear what Liz's point in the OP might have been.

There were two, Law. The first was stated, "Who is he?"-- Hamdan. This was because of the thread you'd started about the making of a terrorist. In that thread, you and other posters gave examples of what could turn an otherwise innocent peasant into a religious zealot and hard-core terrorist. Does a Yemeni chauffeur = terrorist?

The second 'point' was that Hamdan's 'trial' would test the efficacy of the Military Commission Act. I thought you'd pick up on that, but I was apparently too abstruse.

I suppose it could, under the right conditions. Does an Egyptian Technical University Student = Terrorist? That's what Mohammad Atta's "occupation" was before he decided he'd rather fly a plane into the World Trade Center.

Now you're bringing education into it, which I believe either you or Law said had nothing to do with anything. How does an Egyptian Technical University student compare with a man with no better than a fourth grade education?

Pardon me. You said: "Does a Yemeni chauffeur = terrorist?" I must have misunderstood the focus of the question. If you'll please explain the point your question was designed to illuminate, I'll give it another go.

Salim Hamdan was found guilty of transporting bin Laden from place to place. In doing so, he was found guilty of aiding and abetting a terrorist not of being a terrorist himself. He was, in effect, sentenced to five months of continued confinement in Gitmo. In other words, that was the best the US could 'hang on him.'