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View Full Version : Constitution Project - fascinating discussion on the future of Guantanamo on C-SPAN




purplechoe
02-16-2010, 02:33 AM
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/218499


Future of Guantanamo Prison

Jan 22, 2010

Constitution Project

Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker Stephen Abraham, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), US Army Intelligence Corps (Reserves) Honorable John Coughenour, Federal District Court, Seattle, WA, who presided over the 2005 trial of Millennium Bomber Ahmed Ressam Talat Hamdani, member, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows Shane Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney, Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative, Center for Constitutional Rights Celeste Koeleveld, Chief of the Criminal Division, Chief Appellate Attorney, and Assistant United States Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York (1991-2008) Brad Wiegmann, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division, U.S. Department of Justice

here's the official site of the Constitution Project:

http://www.constitutionproject.org/


January 22, 2010 marked the passing of President Obama's self-declared deadline to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. To take note of the missed deadline, the Constitution Project joined with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Open Society Institute to cosponsor a panel discussion examining what prevented the administration from reaching its goal and what obstacles remain to closing the detention facility. Titled "One Year and Counting: When and How Will Guantanamo Close?," the program featured an array of voices, including current and former government and military officials, a sitting federal judge, a former federal prosecutor in New York City, advocates, and litigators

to me the most fascinating part of the discussion came at the end when the last gentleman makes this comment about just how ridiculous the Bush administration was with it's legal arguments:

"...these people are prisoners of war so no court anywhere can adjudicate the status of prisoners of war. The problem with that is that under the principals of international law prisoners of war may not be interrogated and the purpose of inventing this category was to permit interrogation and sometimes forceful interrogation. So the government is taking a position that they're the prisoners of war therefore the courts can't intervene and we can interrogate and we can disregard international law with respect to that interrogation."

oh, and the lady Celeste Koeleveld - a total psychopath, if you ever wondered what one looks like, there is your chance.