Musicians Protest Use Of Songs By US Jailers 210
The guy who wrote the Barney "I love you" song, and other musicians are banding together to protest the US military using their songs as weapons. The campaign has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals, said Chloe Davies of the British law group Reprieve, which represents dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and is organizing the campaign.
Re:"Torture." Right. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sleep deprivation can kill. I certainly call that inhumane. Living a life that has no future except being locked in a prison for decades sounds like torture, too. When life is worse than simply being pointless and the mental cost of living another day outweighs the benefits, that's a tortured life. There's plenty of people who live lives like this, imprisoned or not, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing or that America can be proud of imposing this state of life on anyone.
Also keep in mind that these people have been there for years. What new information could they ever give to us?
Re:"Torture." Right. (Score:2, Interesting)
Should they be in jail? Let a judge decide. What should be the punishment? Let a judge decide. Or is "terrorism" such a serious crime that we can't allow judges to decide who is guilty of it? Is terrorism so bad that judges can't decide what the sentence should be? Is terrorism such a threat that only the President, the armed forces, and the Department of Homeland Security should decide who goes to jail and for how long?
If the people in Guantanamo Naval Base have done something wrong, charge them with some crimes, bring them before a proper court (like the US Supreme Court for example), and let a judge decide if they've done something wrong. Why not?
Re:Privitized Prison system... (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget about Dick Cheney. He's also an investor in privately run federal prisons. He's probably making out like a bandit over gitmo.
Re:Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, I have a friend who was imprisoned in Afghanistan during the 70's/80's. A "terrorist" nation.
He was never tortured or treated improperly EVER. When the soviets invaded and took over the prison, THEY never tortured nor harmed him, in fact treatment got even better. 20 years in a foreign prison and the only bad thing to happen to him was an opium addiction.
Its funny hearing his story, because he was a good american boy, afraid of the bad guys and especially of the soviets. When they marched through the prison he freaked out, only to find they were genuinely interested in his well being. The soviet general who toured the place stopped specifically at his cell and talked to him, because he was american. He received medical treatment, fresh clothing and good food, plus a promise that his sentencing would be looked at and he was released a few years later, from a life sentence (for smuggling hashish.) I've never seen somebody more changed by an experience, going from good ol' american boy to seeing the truth: the USA is the biggest fucking fascist state on earth. All from being locked up in a foreign country. You can tell a lot about a society by how they treat their prisoners. He never once saw anybody raped or tortured. Now, american prisons on the other hand...
Most people would be very very surprised to know the stats on prison violence and rape in the US versus the rest of the world. We have the most inhumane conditions for prisoners of almost anywhere on the planet. Not to mention the fact we have the highest per capita prison population on earth.
The America people believe exists from watching tv, does, in fact, not exist except on tv.
Not to mention nuclear weapons, oh yeah baby. We have used them. On innocent civilians. Twice. Nobody else can claim that prize.
Oh well. Just bomb more brown people. That will fix your life so you can buy more video games in which you kill brown people.
Re:Miranda rights, asshole (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a strange meme - the notion that to be an unlawful combatant, you have to have carried weapons on a battlefield. American government lawyers disagree [law.com].
Could a "little old lady in Switzerland" who sent a check to an orphanage in Afghanistan be taken into custody if unbeknownst to her some of her donation was passed to al-Qaida terrorists? asked U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green.
"She could," replied Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle. "Someone's intention is clearly not a factor that would disable detention." It would be up to a newly established military review panel to decide whether to believe her and release her.
So you don't need to carry a gun. You don't even need to have any intention of supporting terrorism. Team America will have you away to Cuba post haste anyway.
Now, how about this 'battlefield'? Where is it?
Noting the Supreme Court said detention was to keep combatants from returning to the battlefield, Green asked, "What and where is the battlefield the U.S.military is trying to detain the prisoners from returning to? Africa? London?"
Boyle: "The conflict with al-Qaida has a global reach."
So I suppose it's technically true that all the Guantanamo prisoners were captured on the battlefield. America defines the battlefield as the whole of Planet Earth.
Re:"Torture." Right. (Score:1, Interesting)
As I understand it, these are enemy combatants who were captured on the battlefield and are now being subjected to mild forms of torture.
We routinely and uncontroversially drop BOMBS on enemy combatants. Remember bombs? When someone is standing at ground zero and a bomb goes off, they are vaporized instantly. Most people are not at ground zero. They're 50 or 100 yards away. They don't die right away.
War is all about doing unpleasant things to enemy combatants (and whoever's standing near them). If you object to all war, or to this particular war, then fine, object to the war. Maybe what we're doing in Guantanamo and Abu Graib has no real intel value; in that case it's gratuitous and we should stop. I leave that to the soldiers and their commanders to decide. But to make moral claims about one particular tactic, against the backdrop of a war, seems like pissing in the wind. When wading in a cesspool, don't stop to sort the floaters. Just get out as fast as you can.