Lifetime detention without court trial

Terrorism suspects may be detained forever

By Dana Priest in Washington
January 3, 2005 Washington Post *SMH

Bush Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the US or other countries.

Oh Oh.

The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the Government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts.

Yeek. Lifetime detentions? Not enough evidence to charge in courts? Once apon a time in a land long ago, where people were innocent until proven guilty...

The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counter-terrorism operations.

Future operations?

A senior Administration official involved in the discussions said the current detention system has strained US relations with other countries. "Now we can take a breath. We have the ability and need to look at long-term solutions."

Long term solutions?

One proposal under review is the transfer of large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the military's prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into new US-built jails in their home countries. These would be operated by those countries but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognised human rights standards and would monitor compliance.

Nech.

Exporting POW's from country to country in a bid to avoid responsibility for violations under the Geneva Convention is unconscionable.

"Since the global war on terror is a long-term effort, it makes sense for us to be looking at solutions for long-term problems," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. "We are at a point in time where we have to say, 'How do you deal with them in the long term?"'

"How do you deal with them in the long term?" No doubt every dictator asks himself the same thing.

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