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mandragorasmug, sanctimonious git!
Just caught his performance regarding the detainees at Guantanimo Bay on the BBC News at Ten. I found him to be deeply repellent. It's rare that I react with such hostility to a politician (they have a job to do and I recognise that even if I don't like what they're saying). But to see that bastion of privilege and wealth crap on about how the detainees are not 'common criminals' but are terrorists who will stop at nothing to attack 'us' if they're released made my blood boil.
Where's your proof? Why haven't these people had access to legal advice and been tried in an impartial and properly appointed court of law? As a lawyer I can't begin to express how much the denial of these people's basic rights offends me.
Some of them may well be terrorists, who should be locked up in punishment for their crimes for a substantial period of time and to protect the public from their actions. But the point is that we don't know that they are because they have been denied all access to justice.
It stinks.
To quote TH White "Might does not make right". Pity that the present US administration seems to be unaware of this.
Just caught his performance regarding the detainees at Guantanimo Bay on the BBC News at Ten. I found him to be deeply repellent. It's rare that I react with such hostility to a politician (they have a job to do and I recognise that even if I don't like what they're saying). But to see that bastion of privilege and wealth crap on about how the detainees are not 'common criminals' but are terrorists who will stop at nothing to attack 'us' if they're released made my blood boil.
Where's your proof? Why haven't these people had access to legal advice and been tried in an impartial and properly appointed court of law? As a lawyer I can't begin to express how much the denial of these people's basic rights offends me.
Some of them may well be terrorists, who should be locked up in punishment for their crimes for a substantial period of time and to protect the public from their actions. But the point is that we don't know that they are because they have been denied all access to justice.
It stinks.
To quote TH White "Might does not make right". Pity that the present US administration seems to be unaware of this.
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no subject
Date: 13 February 2004 16:20 (UTC)I don't much care for conspiracy theories, but some days, I just can't help but wonder.
I continue to be amused that the last result that the government wanted is now going to happen -- a formal inquiry into the WMD that the Hutton report was suppposed to quash.
Re:
Date: 14 February 2004 01:35 (UTC)I suspect it's a case of the US authorities knowing that if the detainees were tried in a court of law it would become immediately apparent that far from being terrorists many of them weren't even 'illegal combatants' AKA people who fought the US army. Some of them may have been Taliban members, some not. And it appears that some of them didn't fire a single bullet or raise a single gun. The longer that the people in this latter category are held the more embarrassing it is for the US. So, they're thinking better just to bottle them all up and let the rumours continue. I can't say how much this attitude horrifies me. If they were prisoners of war they'd have been repatriated by now, if 'common criminals' would be undergoing the judicial process. As it is they're in indefinite limbo. Alas, habeas corpus, we knew ye well.
a formal inquiry into the WMD that the Hutton report was suppposed to quash.
Oh yes, should be very interesting. And did you see that Tony B was squashed by the rest of the Cabinet over allowing in workers from the enlarged EU? I think the Cabinet is absolutely right, so cheers to them (for once).