Insight: At Guantanamo tribunals, don't mention the "T" word

[cory777]

Source: Reuters

MIAMI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA agents have written books about it. Former President George W. Bush has explained why he thought it was necessary and legal. Yet the al Qaeda suspects who were subjected to so-called harsh interrogation techniques, and the lawyers charged with defending them at the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals, are not allowed to talk about the treatment they consider torture.

Defense attorneys say that and other Kafkaesque legal restrictions on what they can discuss with their clients and raise in the courtroom undermine their ability to mount a proper defense on charges that could lead to the death penalty.

Those restrictions will be the focus of a pretrial hearing that convenes this week.

Prosecutors say every utterance of the alleged al Qaeda murderers, and what their lawyers in turn pass on to the court, must be strictly monitored precisely because of the defendants' intimate personal knowledge of highly classified CIA interrogation methods they endured in the agency's clandestine overseas prisons.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-guantanamo-tribunals-dont-mention-t-word-050844950.html

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[Solly Mack]

1. ...

"...so-called harsh interrogation techniques" "the treatment they consider torture"

Waterboarding IS torture. There is nothing "so-called" about it and it is not a matter of someone's opinion as the word "consider" implies.


"Prosecutors say every utterance of the alleged al Qaeda murderers, and what their lawyers in turn pass on to the court, must be strictly monitored precisely because of the defendants' intimate personal knowledge of highly classified CIA interrogation methods they endured in the agency's clandestine overseas prisons."

Snort. Damn.

America...still pretending.

[1monster]

2. Every day that this kind of behavior is allowed to go on, the United States adds to the account

that has already been run up beyond the max for us, its citizens. Make no mistake, we will pay for it in full someday and we are already paying for it in respect and othe intagibles now.

[leveymg]

3. Sure. That might give away the high-tech Top Secret of water torture. We might lose a city

Bullshit. What they don't want is for these prisoners to discuss anything about their prior relationship with the CIA and other "friendly" intelligence services before 9/11.

[pscot]

4. Kangaroo Courts

I really believed and Obama adminitration would stop this perverion of justice, him being a "Constitutional Scholar" and all.

[librechik]

5. it's scary because this is a microcosm of the entire US Justice system

every day I pray that I never fall into it's Bush-appointed clutches. Something like 80% of all sitting judges are conservatives.