Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : World Affairs Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2820)	11/26/2003 7:49:14 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 3959

Guantanamo: two views of justice After almost two years in legal limbo in the cages of Guantanamo Bay, David Hicks is about to have his fate determined - by a United States military tribunal appointed by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. So too, in time, might his fellow Australian prisoner, Mamdouh Habib. Movement towards a resolution of these cases is, however, scant cause for satisfaction. It has come not so much because of Australian Government representations as on the coat-tails of British pressure on behalf of British citizens. As well, the hearing now in prospect for Mr Hicks lacks the basic requirements for fairness. The contrast in attitudes in Britain and Australia to the fate of Guantanamo Bay prisoners is stark, and not in Australia's favour. On Tuesday the federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, said Mr Hicks - and Mr Habib, if "listed as eligible for trial"- may talk to their families by telephone and have two family members attend their trials. Mr Ruddock speaks as if there is nothing unusual in a prisoner being "eligible for trial". He seems comfortable with the idea that if a prisoner is not put on trial he will continue to be held until what the US calls war on terror is over. Yet it is not always clear what the war on terror is, much less when it might end. Half a world away, a senior British judge, Lord Steyn, has described the US military tribunal as a "kangaroo court", that is, "a pre-ordained arbitrary rush to judgement by an irregular tribunal which makes a mockery of justice". Lord Steyn says it was "a monstrous failure of justice" that so far the US courts had decided they could not even consider credible evidence of torture of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. And, he says, the purpose of holding them there "was and is to put them beyond the rule of law, beyond the protection of any courts, and at the mercy of the victors". Most telling of all are Lord Steyn's remarks on the fact that the British detainees - and now the Australians, too - will not face the death penalty. It is "morally indefensible", he says, to discriminate in this way between prisoners. He is right. It is a pity that in Australia, all too few jurists are speaking out in this way, and that so many politicians speak as though Mr Hicks and Mr Habib are guilty without trial, or are not worth considering. smh.com.au

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2820)	1/17/2004 1:59:09 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3959

An Interview with Benny Morris Survival of the Fittest? counterpunch.com "But in an astonishing recent Ha'aretz interview, after summarizing his new research, Morris proceeds to argue for the necessity of ethnic cleansing in 1948. He faults David Ben-Gurion for failing to expel all Arab Israelis, and hints that it may be necessary to finish the job in the future. Though he calls himself a left-wing Zionist, he invokes and praises the fascist Vladimir Jabotinsky in calling for an "iron wall" solution to the current crisis. Referring to Sharon's Security Wall, he says, "Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another." He calls the conflict between Israelis and Arabs a struggle between civilization and barbarism, and suggests an analogy frequently drawn by Palestinians, though from the other side of the Winchester: "Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians."