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From the archives: Remember, remember 11 September; Murderous monsters in flight; Reject their dark game; And let Liberty's flame; Burn prouder and ever more bright - Geoffrey Barto "Bjørn Stærks hyklerske dobbeltmoral er til å spy av. Under det syltynne fernisset av redelighet sitter han klar med en vulkan av diagnoser han kan klistre på annerledes tenkende mennesker når han etter beste evne har spilt sine kort. Jeg tror han har forregnet seg. Det blir ikke noe hyggelig under sharia selv om han har slikket de nye herskernes støvlesnuter."
2005: 12 | 11 | 10 | 09 | 08 | 07 | 06 | 05 | 04 | 03 | 02 | 01
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The Gulag distraction
It was dumb of Amnesty to compare Guantanamo to the Gulag. Dumb in the way it was dumb of Bush to call the war on terror a crusade. In a friendly interpretation, both metaphors clumsily summarize more intelligent ideas, but to people who know the full weight of the terms, and / or is outside the circle of good faith, they sound callous and stupid, at worst a confirmation of the evil intentions and moral degradation of their political opponents. Amnesty wanted to put focus on prisoner abuse and torture, and they botched it. Unlike Bush, they're not smart enough to withdraw the offensive word. In many ways, Amnesty has become a threat to their own cause. But that doesn't excuse the way a shrill presentation has been used to distract from the actual content of Amnesty's criticism. For those of you who heard Irene Kahn say "Gulag", and closed your ears at that point, here's what Amnesty is actually saying about human rights abuse by the US in their annual report: By the end of the year, more than 500 detainees of around 35 nationalities continued to be held without charge or trial at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay on grounds of possible links to al-Qa’ida or the former Taleban government of Afghanistan. While at least 10 more detainees were transferred to the base from Afghanistan during the year, more than 100 others were transferred to their home countries for continued detention or release. .. Indefinite detention without trial, abuse and torture, these charges are not made lightly, and deserve to be faced. Is this how you want to fight terrorism, by ignoring everything we've learned about justice? By using methods that were abandoned long ago because they lead to power abuse and injustice? Fine, vent off about some idiotic statements at a press conference, but the first 500 expressions of indignation made your point very well - the next 50000 were superflous. Meanwhile, the actual content of the report went ignored. Among Bush-friendly bloggers, healthy media skepticism and appeals to a higher standard than diplomatic relations seems to have degenerated into little more than a need to deflect and minimize criticism of the Bush administration. The rhetorics is now on autopilot, and it's as shallow as that of those once so ominous Chomskyites. The war on terror has spawned a whole gallery of fallacies and rhetorical tricks: 1. Don't defend, counterattack. "That's the left for you, what do you expect? They hate America because they're transnational progressives whose failed deconstructionist utopian thingamabobs have turned them into moral degenerates." Remember to pile on with the buzzwords - the more of them there are, the smarter you look. 2. Always choose the most favorable interpretation compatible with undeniable facts. When there is no hard evidence of torture, assume it doesn't happen. When photographic evidence is presented, call it an "isolated incidence". Never admit to the possibility of any abuse that hasn't been photographed or admitted by the perpetrator. 3. When morality fails, go for legality. Show how this sort of thing is perfectly legal, so you have no idea what people are getting so worked up about. 4. Finally, if you can't deny abuse, and you can't defend it, accept it as a "deeply unfortunate" side effect of war. Act tough and adult-like, bow your head solemnly as you contemplate the horrible things war forces us to do, but protest wildly any suggestions that we should just stop doing them. How can we fix this? We should start by not using the flaws of human rights organizations as an excuse to ignore everything they say that we don't like. If Amnesty makes 1 idiotic claim about the US in their annual report, and 10 well-founded ones, don't forget the 10 in all the excitement over the 1. There's no reason to be defensive about criticism, even when some of it is unfair. We won, remember? It's also time to accept that the war on terror has a war part and a judicial part. Invading an al-Qaeda stronghold is war, and should be judged by the standards of war. Arresting suspects, interrogating and imprisoning them is a form of police work, and should be carried out by the standards of the justice system. When a civilian is accidentally shot on a battlefield, that's a deeply unfortunate side effect of war. When a civilian is arrested and held for years without trial, or sent to another country to be tortured, that's not "deeply unfortunate", it's injustice. Governments are inherently abusive, they will abuse any unchecked, unobserved power we give to them. Agreeing with some politician about foreign policy should not mean throwing centuries of democratic experience overboard. By looking for any excuse to ignore legitimate criticism of the war on terror, that's exactly what many Bush supporters are doing.
KEE skien, Norway | 2005-06-05 22:31 |
Link
Seems the abuse of force will lead to stronger reactions than the use of force. Fighting barbarians by turning to barbarian ways lead nowhere. Øyvind Larssen | 2005-06-05 23:20 | Link I recommend Weekly Standards article on this topic. They argue that these comments, which are not founded in the report, are not gaffes, but rather part of the PR-strategy of Amnesty: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/686hyaeq.asp By the way: Amnesty mentions North Korea once in their report, the USA 39 times. Something seems to be not right, even if some critisism of the US is not out of place. The reason we should accept critisism of the US is because we expect a higher standard of superpowerdemocracies, but even so this seems a bit much. (Automatic count by MS Word BTW) KEE skien, Norway | 2005-06-05 23:44 | Link Maybe it simply is easier to get some insight into the dark abysses in USA than in the worlds tyrranies? I think the international red cross may be a more worldwide supplier of humanitarian information George Gooding, Bergen | 2005-06-06 00:05 | Link I see some problems with #2. If you find evidence of one incident, should you assume there are more? Should you assume that there is torture and abuse happening? Maybe we shouldn't assume anything at all? Amnesty's frontal assault on the White House, in my opinion, is about them not being given the respect they think they deserve in that they aren't allowed to go to Guantanamo to investigate all the claims they make. The Red Cross gets to do this, but Amnesty doesn't. I bet that pisses Amnesty off, and I think that is a big reason for this PR-shuffle they are conducting. We have more credible and neutral organizations looking into things in Guantanamo, we don't need transparent partisan hacks doing so as well. Amnesty has reaped what they sowed, and rightly so. I can't imagine they thought they'd get access to Guantanamo by acting in this way. All this ends up with is them looking foolish by frivolously using emotional phrases and preaching to the choir that already loves them. In other words, a complete failure by Amnesty to accomplish anything. JD, Oslo | 2005-06-06 00:49 | Link To show how preposterous AIs statement is, take a look at some comparisons between Gitmo and the Gulag — the network of Soviet prison camps set up by Stalin in the 1920s. mika. | 2005-06-06 01:30 | Link The only abuse taking place at Gitmo is the abuse of American taxpayers. These Jihadi criminals should have been lined up and shot a long time ago. I fail to see any reason in keeping them alive. Any useful intelligence they might have provided would have been extracted already. They're not POW's. Get rid of them. They're just just an unnecessary expense. Or get Saudia to pony up for their indefinite upkeep in a Kuwaiti zoo or something.
Oddvar | 2005-06-06 01:38 | Link
Bjørn, you disappoint me. You have grown soft on the war on terror. Maybe the Anti-American media coverage in Norway has finally gotten to you... I will not be back. Sylvia, Denver | 2005-06-06 02:29 | Link Until AI starts to do anything but give lip service to Darfur, North Korea, Saudi persecution of Christians, distruction of Jewish archeological sites, desecration of Christian churches,persecution of Hindus in Pakistan, mass graves in Iraq, Mad Mullah Iranian prisons, real Castro gulags in Cuba, Chinese prisons, Turkish prisons, Robert Mugabe and Arab hate literature, just to name a few, I can only assume their fixation on Gitmo is moonbat politically motivated. I agree with Mika. The only crime here is that these monsters are still with us, fed, watered and given their precious Korans that they themselves seem to rip up and piss on with relish. George also has a good point. In order to politically inflate themselves, AI is trying out the bogus argument that the US has to be held to an impossible standard in war time, and then set up to be castigated, or more importantly hobbled. Well, at least I know what side AI would have been on in 1945. Those poor Nazis! Being all brutalized by those occupiers! Some of them were even shot, bring the Americans down to the level of the Nazi! I am so sick of this nonsense. Basically these are the same poeple who want us to have a standard of moral *perfection* - where the poor (terrorist) perp is the *victiiiiim*. Quite frankly, I think that path will much more likely lead to fascism. Gitmo is a military prison camp. So sorry that the delicate prisoners and their sniveling enablers believe that only Club Gitmo is good enough for their precious head-chopping "freedom fighters". Personally, after their kid glove treatment, I hope they are all buried in pigskin sacks.
mika. | 2005-06-06 03:48 | Link George Gooding, you might be interested in this little tid bit: "The top leadership of Amnesty International USA, which unleashed a blistering attack last week on the Bush administration's handling of war detainees, contributed the maximum $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign. Sandy P | 2005-06-06 04:28 | Link Wm. Schultz is or was a member of People for the American Way - a Norman Lear group. Lefty. Also had something to do in the Clinton admin. All those horrors of "desecrating" the koran. Any mention how many muslims desecrated it by blowing up mosques? If they wanted to see a gulag, why not look over the fence at Cuba? Sandy P | 2005-06-06 04:30 | Link Watch who gives donations. Always follow the money trail. Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-06 06:30 | Link Amnesty: By the way: Amnesty mentions North Korea once in their report, the USA 39 times. I'm not sure what you mean by that: [North Korea] continued to fail in its duty to uphold and protect the right to food, exacerbating the effects of the long-standing food crisis. Chronic malnutrition among children and urban populations, especially in the northern provinces, was widespread. Fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, association and movement, continued to be denied. Access by independent monitors continued to be severely restricted. There were reports of widespread political imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment, and of executions. But you're right that Amnesty's criticism is without perspective, literally. They focus on the worst behavior of each country, whether their "worst" is really bad or something minor. That's intentional, I think - keep everyone aiming for a high standard, don't let anyone ever feel that they're safe from criticism. Of course, that strategy depends on everyone trusting Amnesty, which their recent behavior jeopardizes. George Gooding: I see some problems with #2. If you find evidence of one incident, should you assume there are more? Depends. Say you have a row of symbol cards face down on a table before you. You flip the first, it's an X. The second, X. The third card, another X. Is it more reasonable at this point to say "I suspect there are more X'es here" or "I think we've found the X'es there are to find, I'll go along acting as if there aren't any more left"? Amnesty's frontal assault on the White House, in my opinion, is about them not being given the respect they think they deserve in that they aren't allowed to go to Guantanamo to investigate all the claims they make. That's another from the bag of rhetorical tricks: Pseudo psychoanalysis. Present your political enemies as being driven by some weird and perverse motivation, (hatred of success, envy, revenge, etc.) But very well, if you don't trust Amnesty to be fair, who do you trust? Me, I'd trust the American justice system to give the prisoners at Guantanamo what they deserve. So why isn't that happening? JD: To show how preposterous AIs statement is, take a look at some comparisons between Gitmo and the Gulag — the network of Soviet prison camps set up by Stalin in the 1920s. Okay. Fifty thousand .. and one. (I still think everyone got the point at 500, though.) Mika: These Jihadi criminals should have been lined up and shot a long time ago. How do you know they're "Jihadi criminals" when they've never been put on trial? Oddvar: The detainees at Gitmo are given far better treatment at Guantanamo than they deserve. Remember, these are Enemy Combatants, not suspects or prisoners of war. Ah yes, the legality argument. I'm sure you're correct. I'll put it differently: You have a person who is suspected of doing something wrong. If he's guilty, we want him to be imprisoned, if he's innocent, we want him to walk free. What is our best strategy for determining which it is? 1) Interrogate the prisoner without torture, give him a lawyer, build a case, then have it evaluated in an independent court. 2) Torture the prisoner. 3) Hold the prisoner indefinitely in a camp. I'm not talking about what they deserve, I'm talking about what's smart. Imagine we really care about whether these people are guilty or not. What is the best way to feel confident that we know? If you selected 2 or 3, you've just chucked five hundred years of judicial experience out the window. If you selected 1, you've selected an expensive, slow, flawed but successful method that incorporates centuries of accumulated experience in dealing with suspected criminals. Bjørn, you disappoint me. You have grown soft on the war on terror. Oh no! But try saying that again with a straight face. Maybe the Anti-American media coverage in Norway has finally gotten to you... Yeah, that must be why I still think it was right to invade Iraq. Seriously, though, I stopped paying attention to Norwegian foreign coverage long ago. It's actually all pro-American coverage in pro-Bush blogs that has gotten to me. I recognize the rhetorical pattern, and it's one I don't like: Desperate apologism. I don't care if they're "more" in the right than that mythical "leftist" army they're fighting against. I just don't like it when people are dishonest with themselves and each other. dick | 2005-06-06 07:40 | Link I would think that therefore you would be just as against the rhetorical pattern of the LLL blogs and the MSM reporting that hypes up anything anti-Bush and anti-US forces while claiming that they support the troops. Even when their statements are proven wrong they still report the same statements and do it on the front page of the major newspapers. Yet for some reason you take it against the pro-Bush blogs. Seems to me that the leftist blogs and MSM are at least as dishonest with themselves as the pro-Bush blogs and with less reason. KEE, Skien, Norway | 2005-06-06 09:38 | Link There should really be no reason for dishonesty. KEE Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-06 09:51 | Link dick: I would think that therefore you would be just as against the rhetorical pattern of the LLL blogs and the MSM reporting that hypes up anything anti-Bush and anti-US forces while claiming that they support the troops. I am. You're either a new reader or have a bad memory. Unlike you, I think most Americans, including those in the media and the leftist blogs, "support the troops", (unless you by that mean "support whatever the president tells the troops to do"). But as one of the original "warbloggers" I have criticized leftists, anti-war protesters, and the media (particularly in Norway) for all kinds of rhetorical tricks and shameful behavior since September 11. The problem of many Bush supporters is that they think that as long as the "other side" is worse, that gives their side a free pass, for whatever can be said about their side can be said even stronger about the other. They get away with this tactic because, usually, opinions about Bush's foreign policy falls neatly into two camps, both of which have enough dirt on the other to dismiss whatever they say without even pretending to listen. Since noone is perfect, and all camps have their raving mad idiots, you never have to take an opposing viewpoint seriously. Well I'm not letting you get away with that. If the only kind of criticism people will listen to is the kind that comes from "their" side, then that's my task. There are a million right-wing bloggers who scrutinize those evil lefties, what's wrong with one who's against fighting terror with torture and injustice? Raging Bee, DC, USA | 2005-06-06 15:19 | Link "Desperate apologism" is right -- the pro-Bush dittosphere have gone completely overboard trying to distract attention from Bush's callous incompetence. Have you noticed how blissfully hysterical they're getting over the "Deep Throat" revelations? Before that it was trashing Newsweek for "causing" riots in Afghanistan. And before that it was Tom DeLay and others hiding under the bed of a brain-dead woman and calling the rest of America a "culture of death." It's all in the tradition of Newt Gingrich, who blamed the "60s counterculture" for one mother's murder of her two kids, even though that mother grew up in a family and community that were solidly Republican. I want our operations in Iraq to succeed -- what other option is there? -- and we won't succeed as long as we're "led" by a bunch of shortsighted shambling charlatans hiding behind a firewall of mindless emotion and disinformation. Raging Bee, DC, USA | 2005-06-06 15:27 | Link PS: I notice that some people are now trying to blame Nixon's enemies for "enabling" just about every atrocity that took place in Southeast Asia after the withdrawal of US troops. Like the incompetence and naivete that led to our failure in the first place had nothing to do with the result. How much lower can they go? Jeff Dege | 2005-06-06 17:29 | Link You have a person who is suspected of doing something wrong. If he's guilty, we want him to be imprisoned, if he's innocent, we want him to walk free. We're dealing with war, not crime.
Jeff Dege | 2005-06-06 17:32 | Link I notice that some people are now trying to blame Nixon's enemies for "enabling" just about every atrocity that took place in Southeast Asia after the withdrawal of US troops.They supported the communists, and worked for a communist victory. They should not be considered partly responsible for the actions of the communists after that victory? mika. | 2005-06-06 17:39 | Link "How do you know they're "Jihadi criminals" when they've never been put on trial?" Follow the Hague Convention and get these military tribunals done with already. Why the wait? In the future, have these military tribunals in the field, so justice can be done on the spot. (And save taxpayers money). Allow a stay of execution for a maximum of 60 days. At which time use REAL torture to extract intelligence information. This way these Jihadi SOBs can "die with dignity". The rules simple. Even the nuanced Liberal bolts can follow.
Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-06 18:04 | Link Jeff Dege: We're dealing with war, not crime. Huh? No, we're dealing with a group of people who, if they have done something, we want to know, so we can learn more from them and lock them up, and if they haven't done something, we want to know that too, so we can set them free. Agreed? This is an old problem, and its closest relative in daily life is .. solving crime. It's an old problem, with a tried and tested solution: Justice. So either it's not important if those people are really terrorists, or it is, in which case we need justice. Which is it? Mika: Allow a stay of execution for a maximum of 60 days. At which time use REAL torture to extract intelligence information. Yes yes, I've gotten your point. Your war on terror is a very macho war on terror. Must be frustrating to have it run by those Republican whimps, then. jef | 2005-06-06 18:57 | Link No, we're dealing with a group of people who, if they have done something, we want to know, so we can learn more from them and lock them up, and if they haven't done something, we want to know that too, so we can set them free. Agreed?No, not agreed. The jihadis consider this a war, why should we treat them as if it wasn't?
Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-06 19:03 | Link jef: The jihadis consider this a war, why should we treat them as if it wasn't? But how do you know the people you've got locked up are jihadis? Your argument is circular. ch | 2005-06-06 19:34 | Link BS:But how do you know the people you've got locked up are jihadis? Your argument is circular. That's where the torture comes in to play isn't it? Basically, it seems BS is afraid that the US government/military/intelligence agencies are abusing or will abuse todays imprisoment procedures to hurt innocent people, that happend to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If BS could get assurance that only jihadist were in fact targeted, then he would be a happy camper and have nothing against keeping these terrorists locked up without trial with their que?rans in toilets, or? HH, Trondheim | 2005-06-06 19:52 | Link "If BS could get assurance that only jihadist were in fact targeted, then he would be a happy camper and have nothing against keeping these terrorists locked up" uhm, isn't that the point of the trial? mika. | 2005-06-06 20:38 | Link "Yes yes, I've gotten your point. Your war on terror is a very macho war on terror. Must be frustrating to have it run by those Republican whimps, then." There's nothing macho about wanting to dispense justice swiftly, and not have drag on for years or decades. Or preferring the life of our soldiers and citizens, over some Jihadi war criminal's fingers before he's executed anyway. What I don't like is this state of legal limbo, where these jihadi savages enjoy a 4 star hotel treatment in sunny Cuba. It's enough to make me want to become a Jihadi, just so I can go work on my tan. >: Jeff Dege | 2005-06-06 21:35 | Link keeping these terrorists locked up without trial Prisoners of war are held until a repatriation agreement is reached with the enemy government - which usually isn't until after the end of the war. True, the detainees at Guantanamo aren't Prisoners of War, but they're being treated pretty much as if they were. And true, some of the detainees are not combatants, but terrorists. The terrorists should be tried, then shot. The non-terrorists should be held for the duration, then turned over to the Afghan, Iraqi, or Pakistani governments, as appropriate. Raging Bee, USA | 2005-06-06 22:17 | Link Jeff Dege: "They supported the communists, and worked for a communist victory." Wrong - most liberals just wanted the US to end a military action that seemed counterproductive and unjust. Actual Communist-supporters were a loud and overblown minority within a movement that got a lot of attention but little public support. "They should not be considered partly responsible for the actions of the communists after that victory?" No, because they had no control over the Communist governments' actions. More responsibility lies with the US leaders who planned and executed a flawed military campaign, failed, lost the public trust, and thus enabled a Communist victory. Blame the mistake, not the people who point it out and criticise it. kjell | 2005-06-07 01:18 | Link What is remarkable about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so far, is the lack of atrocities. Of course there has been some, but not in the scale of for instance French warfare in Algeria. And back to French warfare in Algeria. The worst massacre in Europe in recent times took place in Paris. In 1961. Against unarmed civilian, arab, demonstrators. About 2-300 of them. ch | 2005-06-07 08:24 | Link HH:"uhm, isn't that the point of the trial?" I do no see how the trails could change BS's opinion. He evidently does not trust US institutions. BS's arguments could also be used even if there were trials: how are we to know that the trails are just, that the juries are not rigged, that the judges are not bought, that the evidence is not faked etc.. Even if the gitmo prisoners where sent to trial, BS could still choose not to trust the US institutions, and we would be right back having this discussion.. I am willing to stake money on Amnesty International still making claims that the US abuses prisoners, if trails where in fact started tomorrow, and they would also claim the US was running gulagish trails.. Not to mention the twisted media coverage we would experience. Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-07 10:28 | Link ch: I do no see how the trails could change BS's opinion. He evidently does not trust US institutions. But I do - what gave you any other idea? I trust the American justice system to give suspected terrorists a fair trial. I don't trust it to perfectly discern ultimate Truth, but I trust it to approximate truth as well as any other Western justice system, using a heuristic that has been painstakingly developed over centuries. Your alternative seems to be to throw all that experience out the window, and start relying on the gut feeling of military commanders and government officials. Back to square 1, in other words. kjell: What is remarkable about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so far, is the lack of atrocities. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Others have done far worse, and the French massacred Algerians in 1961, which means .. that we should accept abuse and injustice? Or fight it? If we want to fight it, we should begin by listening to organizations like Amnesty, (while of course criticizing their hyperbole), not use any pretext to ignore them and paint them as evil anti-Americans. Øystein Sjølie, Oslo | 2005-06-07 15:44 | Link I just dont get how violation of individual rights can be justified by pointing at Stalin, indicating he was even worse. The US has a tremendous history in defending invidual rights, and a standard far above the Saudis, the Soviets, the French, the North Koreans, the Pakistanis, Saddam, Castro to name a few of the examples in the comments so far. I was in favour of the American invasion in Iraq. Not because of oil, WMD or al-Qaida, but because I believed the invasion would lead to a better protection of individual rights to the iraqi people, and in the really long run: the growth of democracy and market economies in the Middle East, with higher living standards for Arabs and possibly lower terrorist recruitment possibilities. The AI is criticizing the US, not because the human rights in the US are poor, they are maybe still the best in the world. However: they are deteriorating in the planets most important democracy. That is why AI mentions the US 39 times in their report, and N. Korea only once. To the world, the US practice and standards are very important. The Korean are not. They are just not comparable. Totoro, U.S. | 2005-06-07 17:05 | Link Apparently the head of Amnesty International has admitted that his reason for charging "gulag" was to get AI in the press and on TV so that AI could raise funds. Suckers.............(who, me?).............. Here's a new topic for discussion. What's Robert Mugabe doing in Zimbabwe and what should or can be done about it, if anything. ch | 2005-06-07 17:09 | Link BS:But I do - what gave you any other idea? I trust the American justice system to give suspected terrorists a fair trial. I am not so sure it would be fair. First of all, admitting the rights of the citizens of the US to the enemies of US and all it stands for, seems unfair to the US citizens. It will deteriorate the importance of those rights in the eyes of the citizens, and ultimatly not be worth fighting for. Fair trails does not apply to foreigners waging war against the US. Secondly, a normal trail is dependent on the police being able to collect evidence, they can even order people to witness, arrest people for witholding evidence or helping the criminal. How do you propose they do that in these cases, BS? Not trusting that the US military and intelligence service are doing their job of protecting the US against foreign threats as specified by their charters, should be taken up at election time by the people, not during a war, as it will surely decrease the moral of the fighting units. Congress of course has other options... I can't imagine the feelings of the troops that risked their lives to get the detainees to the gitmo, if they have to see the detainees go through media-circus trails, then be released for lack of evidence, since they probably didn't have time to do much forensics at the scene of the "crime". Treating this as crime is wrong. This is war. Jan Haugland, Bergen | 2005-06-07 18:23 | Link There is s distinct difference between a war zone and civil society. In civil society, everybody is innocent until proved guilty. A soldier on a battlefield cannot survive if he presumes everybody he sees innocent. When fighters are caught on the battlefield, the troops cannot be expected to secure admissible evidence of their guilt that would stand up in a civil court. If that course of action were pursued, the vast majority of terrorists would be sent back to kill and bomb again. In civil society we can afford the luxury of allowing almost-certainly criminals to walk free. In a war we can't. On the other hand, irregular fighters cannot and should not be awarded all rights under the Geneva convention, which would mean they could not be interrogated. Intelligence is vital to the war, and those who fight without any respect for the laws of war should not be rewarded by this status. It's unfortunate that like innocents are sometimes killed in war, some innocents may well be held prisoners indefinitely. But I don't see a perfect solution to the dilemma, either. Civil courts is certainly not a good solution, for the reasons I outlined above. Jeff Dege | 2005-06-07 19:00 | Link Wrong - most liberals just wanted the US to end a military action that seemed counterproductive and unjust. Actual Communist-supporters were a loud and overblown minority within a movement that got a lot of attention but little public support. You need to do a bit of time looking into what has been revealed about the "peace" movement, since the collapse of the USSR. Yes, most liberals were "useful idiots", but they were parroting propaganda written by the KGB, and accepting as legitimate organizations that were funded and staffed by the KGB. Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-07 20:12 | Link Jan: First of all, there is no such thing as "unlawful combatants" mentioned in the Geneva conventions. Prisoners of war receive full protection of the Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War; and can for instance not be tried for the mere act of being combatants. They may of course be prosecuted for common crimes unrelated to the conflict, for war crimes or for crimes against humanity. Captured combatants who are not entitled to POW status are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. According to the 1958 International Red Cross commentary to the Conventions (and this interpretation has been confirmed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia as late as in 1998): Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law. In short; if you are not a prisoner of war; you are a civilian criminal. It might be worth pointing out what this understanding has been repeated by US officials, as well. The very idea of "unlawful combatants" is in breech with the Geneva conventions. This leaves us with the essential question here: Do you think it is okay to break the conventions, or do you not? Prisoners of war can, by the way, be interrogated, but are only required to provide their surname, first names, rank, date of birth, and their army, regimental, personal or serial number under interrogation. They can be interrogated further, but can not be "threatened, insulted or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind". Of course, things are even more complicated. The Geneva Convention and the Geneva Convention is not the same. In fact, one should use the name conventions, which is much more accurate. In addition a central document like protocol two - were non-governmental forces (guerillas, etc) are given protection, that is - they are "entitled to respect for their person, honour and convictions and religious practices. They shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction", "collective punishments" are not acceptable and neither is "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, rape, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault". Protocol two is, however, not ratified by the United States, while it is ratified by for instance the United Kingdom. Raging Bee, DC, USA | 2005-06-07 20:22 | Link Sorry, Jeff, that "KGB puppets" angle doesn't work. (And yes, I read the Mitrokhin Archive.) The US didn't pull out of the war because a bunch of KGB-inspired radicals made a convincing case to the general public; we pulled out of the war because body-bags started coming back to small-town America, and the ordinary bedrock silent-majority types, who never listened to the far left anyway, started wondering what their country was getting for their sacrifice. Also, don't forget that the government we were propping up was too corrupt and incompetent to stand up to a determined rebel force backed by North Vietnam, and as a result, we were never able to hold onto what we took on the battlefield. This is not to say that the VC were "better" than our guys; only that they were able to fight and govern, and our guys were not. The US was neither equipped nor prepared for the kind of war we had to win in Vietnam; thus we lost, as fair and square as these things go. Quit blaming "useful idiots" and "KGB puppets" and face reality already. You're starting to sound like those bitter Germans who swore to their graves that Germany coulda-shoulda-woulda won WWI if only they hadn't been betrayed by weaklings who didn't think like them. The very least I can say for Jimmy Carter, is that he never tried to blame his military failure in Iran on his critics, the media, or the Republicans. Raging Bee, DC, USA | 2005-06-07 20:27 | Link Getting back to the torture question: do we have any meaningful evidence that this or that sort of torture is actually effective in getting useful information? And do the prisoners in our custody actually HAVE useful information? Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-07 20:43 | Link Jan Haugland: There is s distinct difference between a war zone and civil society. In civil society, everybody is innocent until proved guilty. A soldier on a battlefield cannot survive if he presumes everybody he sees innocent. Naturally. On the battlefield, you need quick life or death judgements. If you spend too much time thinking you die. That kind of situation, where there are people all around you who potentially wants to kill you, requires a very special kind of heuristic, one that makes the most out of the little time you have to think. It's a flawed heuristic, but it's the best one available for those circumstances. And then there's another kind of situation, where time is not a problem, where you're not under fire, where you have a prisoner who you suspect of having done something, and you want to find out if he really did it, so that you can either get more information out of him and punish him, or set him free. This situation requires a different kind of heuristic, one that makes the most out of its particular circumstances. It's called the justice system. Two different situations, two solutions. You can argue that the people at Guantanamo don't have the "right" to be tried in a real court, but that's entirely irrelevant. I can't believe how ignorant a lot of people are here about what the purpose of the justice system really is. The purpose is not to be nice to criminals. The justice system is not something we invented because someone thought "hey, maybe we shouldn't be so harsh on those murderers and rapists". It's something we invented because it's the best way of finding out whether a suspect is guilty or not. So the question is: Is it important to know whether the people held on Guantanamo are really guilty? Everything else follows from that. Jan Haugland, Bergen | 2005-06-07 22:23 | Link Bjørn, It is, in civil society, where we can afford to let 10 people go free rather than allow one innocent men to go to prison. In a war, we cannot allow nine out of ten (or whatever) of the suspected terrorists captured go free. Also, in many cases the captured terrorists may not have violated domestic US laws. They were fighters of al-Qaeda, hell-bent on killing every infidel on the planet, but it still not may be illegal. Should we wait until they break a law, killing thousands of innocents?
Isn't there a ban on this blog from copy & pasting large sections of text from, say, HRWs website? Why not even a link? The Geneva Conventions are, I think, valid, but they are not a suicide pact. Sometimes the law didn't foresee some facts we have to face up to, like a war waged entirely by people that would be "civilians" by a literalistic reading of the documents. Real-life militaries have very different interpretations than "human rights" organisations. Two examples: 1) Say a aircraft spotted Osama Bin Laden. The pilots fired, and Osama was wounded. According to the Conventions as interpreted by human rights groups, it would be illegal to shoot him again, since he now couldn't resist. You think they should not violate the convention, and thus let him slip away? 2) A small special forces group is on its way to do a very crucial mission (e.g. see above). They encounter an ememy, who propmtly surrenders. If they take him prisoner, they cannot complete the mission (and may endanger their lives); if they let him go, they would be betrayed. In real life, the special forces will execute the prisoner. This is true whether it be US, British or Norwegian special forces. This is not theoretical; it happens all the time. A violation of the Geneva conventions? You bet. But otherwise, special forces operations would hardly be possible. I think the compromise found by the US in the war on terror, where prisoners are awarded some rights similar to, but not exactly like, prisoner of war status, is very reasonable. Totoro, U.S. | 2005-06-07 23:06 | Link Jan Haugland, Bergen . . . "Reasonable." Ah, that's a concept that more people who argue this and that should bring into play. The treatment of prisoners at Gitmo is a compromise--similar to prisoner of war status, but not the same. And, from what I understand, some of these prisoners give the military important information. Sometimes it takes time to get that information, however. That's where the civilian laws don't help the military, and other laws have to apply. Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-08 06:15 | Link Jan: I return again to my question; is it okay to break the Geneva conventions or is it not? If you think it is that has more wide-reaching implications than shooting bin Laden from planes, I am afraid. So; yes - or no? Øyvind Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-08 06:24 | Link And oh, by the way - not that it is relevant to the discussion - but I have not copied large amounts of text from HRWs website. Their report on this is one of several sources I had available when writing my post. Since this is not an academic work, but a debate on a blog I allowed myself to take a few sentences out, rewrite some other sentences, etc. I might be accused of plagiarizing them, but I do not think I care; and I doubt that they care either. As you will notice not everything I write is something they write. If that makes me break the rules of this blog, Bjørn should point out it out, not you. And to play your trick; it is certainly worse breaking the Geneva conventions than breaking the Law of Beorn. Øyvind Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-08 06:25 | Link And to summarize your last post, Jan, you write: The Geneva Conventions is valid, I think, but it is reasonable to break them, of course. Make up your mind; are they valid - or are they not? Jan Haugland, Bergen | 2005-06-08 12:41 | Link I have answered your question, Øyvind. Now you answer mine! Soren, Copenhagen | 2005-06-08 13:50 | Link Øyvind, I think you are setting up a bit of a strawman. In order to set up your question "In short; if you are not a prisoner of war; you are a civilian criminal." you cite the 1958 International Red Cross commentary to the Conventions. While this is interesting, commentaries by the International Red Cross are not binding, and hence the binary distinction you are making is a false one. Whether the term "unlawful combatant" appears anywhere in any Geneva Convention text is also irrelevant. In each case, the Geneva text describe who is covered by the convention. I have not been able to find any catch-all phrase saying "this covers everyone not covered elsewhere" (but I am sure you will correct me, if one exists) and that the Red Cross thinks this is so does not make it so. Besides, the conventions DO specify what is meant by a "lawful combatant" and the contention therefore is that a combatant who does not qualify as a lawful combatant (and is therefore entitled to a certain set of rights) is ipso facto an "unlawful combatant (and is not). The Third Geneva Convention deals with POWs. The Americans are arguing that the Gitmo detainees do not qualify for POW status, by a strict reading of the definition thereof. The Fourth Convention deals with the protection of civilians in time of war. Now, before getting into a discussion of whether detainee X originally hailing from country Y, but caught fighting in Afghanistan, can still be said to be a National of country X, if he is now a de-facto member of a trans-national terror organization like al-Qaeda, it is interesting to ponder why this sentence is present. Could it possibly be because the intention of the Conventions is to confer certain rights upon those who agree to confer the same rights to others? And deny same to those so disinclined? Could it be that the whole point of the conventions is to reward humane behavior, and not inhumane? If you accord these rights to everyone, regardless of their behavior, you are in effect rewarding inhumane behavior, since there will no longer be any incentive to sign onto the conventions. The Geneva conventions are not there for us to feel good about ourselves but a carrot to mitigate the unmitigateable (is that a word?). And no carrot without a stick, with the stick obviously being the non-protection of the conventions. Article 5 lists a number of cases where in effect the rights under the convention or the status of a person may be withheld or delayed until "the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power." Now, I think it is fairly certain that the US Government does not feel that the Conventions as listed are wholly applicable or sufficient to the situation and times we live in, and they fully intend to use any ambiguity in the wording of the conventions to prosecute the war. Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-08 14:19 | Link Jan Haugland: In a war, we cannot allow nine out of ten (or whatever) of the suspected terrorists captured go free. You can call this war as much as you like, but the fact remains that the problem of Guantanamo is more like a judicial problem than a battlefield problem. There are no bullets flying. There is no army surrounding you. Just some people you want to know whether are terrorists or not. The war on terror is abstract, only a part of it is actual warfare. This has nothing to do with whether one should invade countries that protect terrorists or talk sternly to them, it's a factual description of the challenges we're faced with. Guantanamo is a judicial problem, but of course you may say that locking up terrorists is so important that the balance of evidence must be shifted so that very few guilty terrorists are ever set free, at the cost of imprisoning innocent people. But why apply this only to terrorism? Some crimes are more serious than others, and some of them I would rank as just as bad as being a member of terrorist organization. By your logic, the more serious the crime, the less important it is to protect the innocently accused. Justice becomes a privilege we grant to lesser criminals, it comes a way of being nice. But that's upside down. The legal process is a way to acquire knowledge. And the alternative to knowledge is ignorance. Your "nine out of ten" number is imaginary, we don't have a way of observing the false positive/negative balance. There's no dialog box where you can tweak the settings. All we have is a process that has been finetuned over centuries to convict criminals and let the innocent go free. And we have an alternative: Just let the government grab who they like and say they're terrorists. There's only one reason to choose that method, and that's if you don't care that innocent people are being held imprisoned indefinitely. There's no "nine out of ten" number to hold on to, just the knowledge that you're not making an effort to ensure that innocent people are set free. You seem to be able to live with that. But then, you're in no danger. Neither are most Americans. So I guess it doesn't matter. They were fighters of al-Qaeda, hell-bent on killing every infidel on the planet, but it still not may be illegal. So make it illegal. Or give them a fair trial in a military court. That's not a problem, it's an excuse, and a poor one. It's the method that matters, more than the legal context it is applied in. ch | 2005-06-08 15:22 | Link BS:The justice system is not something we invented because someone thought "hey, maybe we shouldn't be so harsh on those murderers and rapists". It's something we invented because it's the best way of finding out whether a suspect is guilty or not. No, it is something we invented to keep from giving the judical power to the legislative power. If you remember that old story about spliting the power three ways and so on, to ensure minimal power abuse... It is an institution which sole purpose is to ensure that the rights of the citizens are respected, both by other citizens and the government. A court case with a jury is a civilized way of determining if a citizen's rights should be revoked, in the case were he has not respected the rights of another or other citizens in a civilized society. The best way to find out if a suspect is guilty or not is probably lie-detector tests combined with drugs and/or torture.
Øyvind, Bergen | 2005-06-08 17:08 | Link The answer is simple, Jan Haugland. In my opinion the present rules - that is the Geneva conventions and other international law, in addition to US Law (in this case), are good. Breaking the conventions, international law or US Law is not good, regardless of who or what the criminals are. Osama bin Laden can hardly be seen as taking part in armed forces as of the Geneva conventions (and one would have to stretch Protocol II to the extreme to say that he would be given a POW status under it). In other words - he is a criminal. Like other criminals, he should be apprehended, put on trial and - I dare believe - convicted. Even for a dreamy socialist like me it somehow seems likely force will have to be a part of that apprehension. In cases where police forces, or those doing police functions, meet force, they are - according to International Law and US Law, perfectly justified in using force themselves. They are however not perfectly justified in willingly killing defenseless people. There is nothing making special forces special in that connection. To walk away from the Geneva conventions because you feel morally superior means that others can also do the same because they feel morally superior. To walk away from the Geneva conventions because something is "crucial", means that others can also do the same because they think something is "crucial". They can employ the same arguments as you, Jan Haugland, and they will. That is a gate I do not wish to open. You do. Then at least you should have the guts to say it out loud, clearly and with conviction: "I believe it is justifiable to break the Geneva conventions". Instead you wrap it in all kinds of weird claims, like the one saying that "real-life militaries" understand that the Geneva conventions do not say what they are saying. In my eyes, Jan Haugland, that is a show of cowardice in your otherwise macho war on terror. Øyvind Jeff Dege | 2005-06-08 17:11 | Link The US didn't pull out of the war because a bunch of KGB-inspired radicals made a convincing case to the general public; we pulled out of the war because body-bags started coming back to small-town America, and the ordinary bedrock silent-majority types, who never listened to the far left anyway, started wondering what their country was getting for their sacrifice. You are, as is usual, glossing over about three years of very important history. We pulled out in 1971 and 1972 - South Vietnam fell in 1975. The Communists didn't win because the US had withdrawn ground troops. They won because in 1974 the US Congress cut off all support, funding, and equipment. In 1972, South Vietnam defeated a massive ground invasion by the North, with the US providing air support only. In 1975, South Vietnam was defeated by a much smaller and more poorly organized ground invasion by the North - they were short of supplies, spare parts, replacement equipment, had no air support, and they knew that the Democrat-controlled Congress had tossed them to the wolves. If the US had provided the support it had pledged to, by treaty, the 1975 invasion would have failed. But the leftists who'd taken over the Democratic Party didn't want it to fail. They wanted the Communists to win.
Øyvind, Bergen | 2005-06-08 17:22 | Link Soren: Sorry, mac, but there is no strawman. As it is stated in my post above: "This interpretation has been confirmed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia as late as in 1998. [It has also] been repeated by US officials". The interpretation of the American government might have changed; since they like Jan Haugland seem somewhat unwilling to admit that they have abandoned parts of the Conventions. But the interpretation quoted above is the most widely accepted one, with both judicial precedent and political support. If you are not a lawful combatant according to the Geneva conventions you are a criminal. In that case you are subject to criminal law. This is the case for many of the people in Guantanamo; and they are therefore, according to International and US Law, entitled to a fair trial. Prisoners of war have another set of rights, but to take both set of rights away and pretend like you are still following the Geneva conventions is nothing but dishonest. "Now, I think it is fairly certain that the US Government does not feel that the Conventions as listed are wholly applicable or sufficient to the situation and times we live in" Agreed. And that is why they are occasionally breaking it. Because that is what they are doing. Breaking it, not interpreting it differently. Øyvind kim sook-im | 2005-06-08 17:30 | Link Geneva convention is nice , fancy and schmanzy and appropriate for 'conventional ' warfare....terrorists are another breed...this post by adamyoshida says it all.....his opinion: terrorists are malevolent creature and need to be wiped out - geneva convention nothwithstanding. ----> www.adamyoshida.com/2004/12/ terrorists-are-enemies-of-human-race.html I am sure dreamy socialists in perpetual state of stupor can even appreciate that ? hmmmm???? Sister Aisha Nyanyaponika Kim Sandy P | 2005-06-08 17:30 | Link Via Instapundit, Kurtz works for the Washington Post as media critic, I think. Howard Kurtz: "Excuse me, but did Schulz say that it's okay to unleash words like 'gulag,' even if it's not an 'exact or literal analogy,' because it gets him booked on Fox News? Is that the new standard? Yes, Chris, I called the president a war criminal because it was the only way I could get on Hardball?" Sandy P | 2005-06-08 17:32 | Link And thank you John Kerry and Viet Nam Vets Against the War. General Piap wrote about it in his book. VVAW were voting on whether or not to assassinate senators to start the Revolution. norvegia, norvegia | 2005-06-08 17:39 | Link By God! Next thing you know, he'll be admitting that the top brass Neocon assholes were in on the 9/11 mass slaughter of Americans, and that they should hang for this. Raging Bee | 2005-06-08 19:21 | Link Jeff: In 1972, South Vietnam defeated a massive ground invasion by the North, with the US providing air support only. In 1975, South Vietnam was defeated by a much smaller and more poorly organized ground invasion by the North... That kinda seems to prove my point: if the North came back to win, after being defeated in 1972, then that '72 "victory" doesn't count for much, does it? If you have to keep "winning" the same battles over and over again, are you really winning anything? One North vietnamese officer put it best with this question: if our side was "winning," as we so feverishly insist we were, why did we have to keep sending more troops and capital to keep up the fight year after year? Jan Haugland, Bergen | 2005-06-08 19:47 | Link Bjørn, I accept that you now believe that the war on terror should be fought through law enforcement and civil courts. I, however, strongly disagree. On a battlefield, there are different rules than in civil society.
Even though you appeare to have dodged the question, you seem to say that if a pilot had a shot at a wounded Bin Laden, he should not open fire since it would be a violation of the Geneva conventions (for a pilot, I had hoped it needless to say, capturing a person on the ground is hardly an option). As I said, laws and conventions are not suicide pacts. I am no scholar of int'l law (neither are you!), but for the sake of argument we can assume that we may have come to a situation where a very literalistic reading of the Geneva convention would force the US to free almost all prisoners in the WoT. Instead of doing such an insane thing, I will argue we should think "this is something the drafters hadn't ever considered. Let us apply the principles of the law as reasonable as we can in the circumstances." Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-08 20:47 | Link Norvegia: Looks like Bjørn has learned quite a bit from reading the slightly more US-Skeptic blog «norvegia». Nah, I stopped reading your blog when you started lying to your readers. But that's another discussion. Jan Haugland: I accept that you now believe that the war on terror should be fought through law enforcement and civil courts. Oh come on. My position on this is not difficult to explain. The war on terror has many fronts, a few of them are real wars, where battlefield justice applies. But to apply battlefield justice outside the battlefield, where there's a so much smarter system available to us, is lazy and wrong. The only reason to do so is if you don't value the innocent victims very highly, if you think that, on the margin, getting a few more terrorists locked up are worth a few civilians being imprisoned and tortured. I don't think it does, and that has nothing to do with whether terror should be primarily fought in court. Neither of us believe Guantanamo is a battlefield. The difference is merely that you want to apply battlefield justice to it, and I don't. norvegia, norvegia | 2005-06-08 21:22 | Link Bjørn: Nah, I stopped reading your blog when you started lying to your readers. But that's another discussion. Oh, come on, Bjørn. You know as well as I that «lying» and who lies is extremely dependent on one's perspective. You are of course referring to a group that uses fear and terror to increase their power in society, namely the ESAG front group, that refuses to say who really funds all the TV and newspaper ads. All we did at «norvegia» at the time was to quote other people, every day we quoted other people from around the web, and this very day we quoted some thoughts about ESAG and its money men from a post at the Norwegian anti-new-NATO mailinglist. These thoughts are still thoughts, and will always be thoughts, even if proven wrong, which they haven't been as of yet. You cannot remove another blogger's right to cite other people, no matter how mad you are or how much you listen to US rightwing talk radio. ch | 2005-06-08 21:29 | Link BS:"Neither of us believe Guantanamo is a battlefield. The difference is merely that you want to apply battlefield justice to it, and I don't." The battle does not end because you remove people from the battlefield to interrogate them, the terrorists do not suddenly recieve any new rights by removing them from the battlefield. If the guantanmo interregation center was located in falluja, it would be ok? Soren, Copenhagen | 2005-06-08 23:06 | Link Øyvind, "This interpretation has been confirmed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia as late as in 1998. [It has also] been repeated by US officials". The Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia had a strictly defined mandate to deal with the situation in - wait for it - Former Yugoslavia. Whatever their pronouncements, they are valid and binding only so far as it relates to Former Yugoslavia. In the same fashion we do not cite legal arguments at Nuremberg except where they are incorporated into the Geneva Conventions, and thereby made universal. I am unaware of which US officals you are referring to, but unless they happen to include the President, Attorney General or Defense Secretary of the United States, I don't see how statements by US officials are all that interesting given that the official policy is at odds with this interpretation. If they DO happen to include one of the three, I will grant you that it is quite interesting and would be a prime example of hypocrisy in action. Your case is still based on the opinion on the International Red Cross and some jurists. Interesting, maybe even reasonable, but hardly binding. The loophole, if one may call it that is that the text of the conventions leaves the status of the detainees in legal limbo until their exact status has been determined. The US government is taking its own sweet time in making that determination. You can say that this is at odds wiht the spirit of the conventions, but not the letter. Now, Bjørn is obviously of the opinion that what we want is to determine whether or not the detainees are guilty of something (of what I am uncertain) or innocent. I disagree. While it is of course necessary to find out if any of them have taken part in any of the terror attacks, that is no longer the prime motivator. What is really interesting is whether or not these people are going to continue to fight or not. Taking their word for it is clearly not an option since everyone (possibly except the truly stupid) will proclaim that they are quite peaceful. But letting someone go who might very well return to (or go on to participate in) terrorism would be criminally irresponsible. And there you have it. Bjørn seems content to release everyone not clearly indictable and wait until some of them turn up in some horrific attack. The argument seems to be that since the (major) fighting in Afghanistan is over, we should return to our peacetime law enforcement paradigm. But the people we are worried about are not people who consider themselves or their cause defeated, and they are not likely to alter their actions just because the Taliban are no longer in control in Kabul. They are still at war. I don't think there is a happy resolution, but my thinking is that incarceration for the duration is the better option. We cannot read minds. We cannot know for sure. Some people have been released and it turns out that a few of these DID go back to their old ways. Oops. My guess is that the risk of avoiding more of these incidents is more important to the administration than keeping some former enemy combatants incarcerated for a few more years. Bjørn keeps talking about determining guilt or innocence. These are concepts entirely within the law enforcement paradigm. Guilty of what? Innocent of what (to paraphrase Stalin)? The people in Guantanamo did not magically appear in Cuba. They were captured in Afghanistan, and the ones deemed to be the most hardcore, the most dangerous were sent to Gitmo. While it is possible for someone to be there who had nothing whatsoever to do with anything, I think it is fairly safe to say that the detainees were at one time combatants. As for the incidents of abuse these are deeply troubling, and I very much doubt that the detainees have a whole lot of valuable information left after being locked up for a couple of years, so I fail to see the point of continuing to interrogate these people. Still, on the whole I am fairly satisfied that the US military is taking action to curb the worst excesses, and what I perceive as an unhealthy fixation on (mostly) minor cases of abuse by the media is probably influencing me to be more lenient in my views than I would otherwise be. Abdaka, Algeria | 2005-06-09 00:08 | Link Hello, norvegia, norvegia | 2005-06-09 00:29 | Link Soren: Guilty of what? Innocent of what (to paraphrase Stalin)? «Innocent of what?» That's a good one! The fascinating thing about this whole militaristic adventure called «The War of Terror» (WOT?!) is that it remains totally faith-based. You either believe in all the Pentagon and their parrots tell you, or you dismiss it all as rumors, Hörensagen and «secret evidence». If you're not a True Believer of bushism, you pay attention to what Amnesty International has to say, what the Red Cross International Committee points out, and so on. And you maintain that a crime that killed 2800 Americans should somehow be investigated like any mass murder case, and investigated by someone who's not among the main suspects (the neocons and the intelligence apparatus). Insofar as there hasn't been a real investigation of the crimes of New York City and Virginia, there was no reason to invade Afghanistan. And Iraq we all know had none of the WMDs the liars told us and the UN Security Council about. And following that thread, it can be argued that the miserable prisoners at Gitmo Fun Camp are all totally innocent and there just to flesh up the «muslim terrorist» bone, and that they would never think of committing a terrorist act if it wasn't for all the torture and mistreatment and yank camp guards pissing on their wholy books. And when all of this starts breaking through in the disgusting US media, and in the increasingly disgusting European and Western media, all the mass murderers have to do is have Israel launch a nuke attack on Iran, «for fear that Iran may have the nuke in a decade or so». It's utterly laughable, if it wasn't for the fact that it's so incredibly dangerous and real. Sandy P | 2005-06-09 02:20 | Link norvegia, what are you talking about? Besides, have you been paying attention to UNMOVIC lately? The dual-use WMD components which were never there at 109 sites -- because Saddam never had WMD -- might have actually left Iraq before the war. Which is a "duh" statement cos a lot of stuff showed up in European and other scrap yards. They've been analyzing satellite photos. Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-09 06:39 | Link Jan: "very literalistic reading of the Geneva convention would force the US to free almost all prisoners in the WoT". Bullshit. They would have to treat them like criminals, because that is what most of them are (with the exception of genuine prisoners of war from the armies of Afghanistan and Iraq, that is). That means a lot of things. Amongst other things it means giving them the right to a fair trial. That means you will have to put trust in the judicial system, as Bjørn points out the best system we have got for these cases. Putting trust in the judicial system is not the same as "having to free most of the prisoners". If that was the case; then something would be seriously wrong about how easy you can become a prisoner in the War on Terror. Of course, we have heard about Afghan cab drivers and peaceful Iraqian family fathers, but I would like to think those are the exception and not the rule. It seems like you prefer to break the Geneva conventions and US Law and keep innocents prisoned, because it is somehow fair to imprison innocents in the war on Terror, and somehow a mistake to give suspected criminals the right to a fair trial. You seem to think there is something new to this situation allowing us to not only purposefully kill defenseless people, but also to imprison innocent people and refusing criminals a fair trial. To quote a novel by H.P.Lovecraft, Jan, "do not call upon what you can not put down". Øyvind Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-09 09:07 | Link Norvegia: You cannot remove another blogger's right to cite other people, no matter how mad you are or how much you listen to US rightwing talk radio. Of course you have the right to be silent about your own mistakes, even one as large as quoting a fake news story. But why then should anyone read you? ch: The battle does not end because you remove people from the battlefield to interrogate them, the terrorists do not suddenly recieve any new rights by removing them from the battlefield. When you leave the battlefield and wait three years, I think it is safe to say the battle has ended. Not the overall war, but the battle. No bullets flying on Guantanamo, last I heard. Of course you meant "battle" metaphorically, but the battlefield justice you want to use is very much not metaphorical. And by the way, I haven't said a word about the legal rights of these prisoners. They could have no more legal rights than a mosquito but they'd still be humans, and battlefield justice would still be a lousy way of determining whether they really are terrorists. If the guantanmo interregation center was located in falluja, it would be ok? During and right after a battle, sure. Three years later, no. Herbie, NY NY | 2005-06-09 14:35 | Link Oyvind Your idea that terrorists are criminals and should have a fair trial effectively makes this a law and order issue. Under your view it would appear that anyone wearing a uniform or not is subject to the judicial process. At some point I would guess that you would favor giving Miranda warnings to terrorists. The fact is that terrorists, by their own definition are at war with the US and secular society. The rules as originally promulgated dealt with conflict between nations. If you want to change the rules, then have the rules changed, but now terrorists do not have criminal rights. In my view that is correct. Indeed I would go further and take the position that they are outside of “society” and should be treated like a plague bacterium. They and their families are fair game. Indeed, it was once the story that when a white flag was put forth so people could talk and the envoys were murdered, the Romans responded by killing every soldier and their women and children. The result is now a white flag is respected world wide. Attacks on civilians should result in the same response. kim sook-im | 2005-06-09 15:07 | Link Herbie, Excellent observation. This is exactly what AdamYoshida has been opining all along: www.adamyoshida.com/2004/12/ terrorists-are-enemies-of-human-race.html to quote him: ".....By worrying about “abuse” and the “human rights” of terrorists we are, to a great extent, treating them like they’re ordinary criminals. By housing them in clean cells at Guantanamo and taking care to abide by the absurd standards of various international human rights conventions, we are according them a status that they do not deserve and we are twisting our own perceptions. To be ultimately successful the Global War on Terrorism must be a war of extermination...." "....We need to breach the artificial wall that now seems to separate the military and “civilian” side of Islamism, for it is the civil side: the radical Imams, the shops which sell Islamist propaganda and the web sites which store Islamist videos which feed the military side. The shelf-life of people in the military wing of Islamism is short......"
and further----- ".....Remember: cash goes a long way in the Moslem world. It wouldn’t be at all hard for a few dozen operatives, with access to hundreds of millions of dollars in clean American $20 bills, to do a lot of damage. I don’t imagine it would be at all hard to find a gang of Pakistani thugs willing to burn down Madrassas in the dead of the night in exchange for a few hundred dollars each. I don’t know what the going rate is: but I’ll bet that a million dollars will buy at least twenty-five murders in most of the Moslem world......."
Sister Ayesha Nyanaponika Kim
Bjørn Stærk | 2005-06-09 15:26 | Link Herbie: Indeed I would go further and take the position that they are outside of “society” and should be treated like a plague bacterium. So you want to treat terrorists bad. Fine. But how do you know they're terrorists? Jan Haugland, Bergen | 2005-06-09 16:16 | Link I don't think it does, and that has nothing to do with whether terror should be primarily fought in court. Neither of us believe Guantanamo is a battlefield. The difference is merely that you want to apply battlefield justice to it, and I don't. Bjørn, Guantanamo is a prison for illegal combattants, equivalent to but not exactly the same as a prisoner of war prison. If the prisoners were awarded POW status, they could not be interrogated. That is, they could be asked questions, but had no obligation to answer them. The US would be precluded from awarding those who cooperated and punishing those who did not. And, no, I am absolutely not talking about torture. I am talking about incentives and rewards, as used all over the world in the legal system. That Guantanamo Bay is not a battlefield is irrelevant. POW camps are designated outside battlefields to protect prisoners, according to the laws of war. A POW remains imprisoned for the duration of the war, not only the battle. Illegal combattants, like legal ones, of course should not be released while there is still a strong risk they would go back to fight. If they were considered criminal prisoners, all but a handful would have to be released immediately. You obviously don't realise that the domestic laws of the US are created for the US, and not intended for warriors in a faraway country. And, I have to remind you, writing new laws to use against past crimes is unconstitutional. We deal with the real, imperfect world here, for which existing, imperfect laws didn't fit. What you propose is a recipe for a disaster, effectively arguing the immediate release of hundreds of the most dangerous people in the world. And, as I have repeated countless times, I am absolutely opposed to torture, and you implying otherwise is unbecoming of you. I believe these monsters should be treated humanely, and I hope and believe that the military tribunals will be able to release anyone that may be innocent yet are imprisoned at Guantanamo (if such people exist). norvegia, norvegia | 2005-06-09 17:56 | Link This is a couple of weeks old, but still highly relevant to this discussion... Amnesty International Wants U.S. Officials Arrested and Investigated Governments should arrest any official who enters By Bob Dart Amnesty International USA urged foreign governments Wednesday to use international law to investigate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other alleged American "architects of torture" at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other prisons where detainees suspected of ties to terrorist groups have been interrogated. Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-09 19:26 | Link Jan Haugland: You are wrong. Prisoners of war can be interrogated. In fact they have also been interrogated in a number of wars the United States have taken part in, without that being in violation with the Geneva accords. They are obligated to give a certain amount of information, stated above, but are not to be threatened, tortured or pressured to give information. That does not mean they can not be interrogated. This is for instance pointed out quite clearly by Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute for Military Justice in the United States and a former Coast Guard lawyer: The prisoners can be interrogated, but the prisoner only has to respond to four questions: It's the familiar name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. Beyond that, you cannot bring undue pressure on a prisoner of war by means of withholding food or other requirements of living. Prisoners of war can be interrogated, they can be charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity or other crimes, they can be cajoled, they can be questioned. As this this article points out: The Geneva Convention does allow POWs to limit their responses to name, rank, and serial number. Yet over the years many POWs, questioned under the framework of the convention, have provided much more information. Thus, it was no breech of the Geneva conventions when Iraqi forces interrogated American POWs under the first Gulf War, but it was a violations when they were beaten as a part of interrogations. However, this is not even relevant for most of the prisoners on Guantanamo, except for instance Taliban fighters that may or may not be considered legal combatants, depending on interpretation of the Afghan situation pre-invasion. Since the United States has not ratified Protocol II they are not obliged to treat guerilla forces in the same manner as national forces (the Brits, however, are). That is not the issue at hand, Jan. The issue at hand is what rights the people imprisoned at Guantanamo who are not prisoners of war, in my opinion most of them, have. These people are in fact suspected criminals, there simply is no such group as "unlawful combatant" that are not also "suspected criminals"; that is even the very meaning of "unlawful". According to international and United States law they are entitled to a fair trial. In addition they are not to be put under undue pressure, not to be tortured, et cetera. To walk away from that is a violation of the Geneva conventions and, more importantly, of both US law and international law in general. Herbie: Fine, Herbie, at least you have the guts to admit that you want to treat people as something less than people. Now, will you admit that this includes people that are possibly innocent? Or will you go on pretending that everyone internated by US forces anywhere are in fact guilty of criminal acts and can be imprisoned indefinitely without law and without verdict? Actually you do say that the families of terrorists, who definitely may be one hundred percent innocent, are "fair game", so I guess you have stated your opinion clearly enough. Seemingly, you think it is okay to imprison, torture and kill possible innocents. In addition you support collective punishment. When Søren paraphrased Stalin above I thought to myself, "now - isn't that ironic?". Apparently I was wrong. It is not ironic at all. The ideas you state above are not American, not patriotic, not democratic. They are - in lack of a better name - fascist. Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-09 19:47 | Link Kim Sook-Im: Yeah, I mean, to read something as "intelligent" as that from a man who blames W. Mark Felt for basically every thing bad in the world really pisses me off. Apparently, W. Mark Felt is to blame not only for 911, but also for the invasion of Afghanistan, the fact that South Vietnam is not free (was it free before the Vietnam war?), for Pol Pot, Iran-Contra and the Clinton Impeachment, and this impressive political analysis leaves me nothing but baffled and humiliated. Hail to Yoshida! He must be the Eleventh of the Gurus! Øyvind Soren, Copenhagen | 2005-06-09 20:21 | Link Norvegia: Well, that is just lovely. I guess I missed the part where similar action was urged against Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe, and their ilk? Oh, you mean AI does not consider them to be sufficiently evil to warrant disregarding the established rules of diplomatic immunity? This is, if possible, even more stupid than calling Gitmo a gulag. This is stupidity so dense it warps time and space. But it sure is going to be popular with a certain unmentionable subset of people, that's for sure. Jan Haugland, Bergen | 2005-06-09 20:45 | Link Øyvind, No, you are wrong. You must think everybody here is unable to read the text for themselves. Article 17: "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." Of course, you are also wrong on substance. These terrorists are not combattants under the Geneva conventions. They don't meet the criteria in Article 4 by any stretch of the imagination. Giving these monsters POW status is a reward that would set a dangerous precendent. Herbie, NY NY | 2005-06-09 22:27 | Link Oyvind. Yes, I believe that it may be appropriate to kill innocent people, just as the Romans did to establish the sanctity of a flag of truce. You don’t. You are prepared to give t4erroists the right to act as they will, homicide bombings, beheadings using children and yur response is what try them. No my response is the Roman response a response so hard and cruel and potentially devastating that the terrorist will understand tht in committing those acts that he put his family and tribe in danger of annihilation. Do you have any doubt that if terrorists were strong enough that they would not annihilate the US or Great Britain. I don’t. You do. Herbie, NY NY | 2005-06-09 22:42 | Link Oyvind a lot of mispellings so I corected them and added a few thoughts: Yes, I believe that it may be appropriate to kill innocent people, just as the Romans did to establish the sanctity of a flag of truce. You don’t. You are prepared to give terroists the right to act as they will: homicide bombings, beheadings, using children; your response is what: try them. No, my response is the Roman response a response so hard and cruel and potentially devastating that the terrorist will understand that in committing those acts that he put his family and tribe in danger of annihilation. Do you have any doubt that if terrorists were strong enough that they would not annihilate the US or Great Britain. I don’t. You do. You live in a nice and clam world . I would surmise you have never been in combat. If you had been you would never forget it. In a hand to hand fight you do anything to survive: gouge eyes, tear noses open with your fingers, bit ears -- throw an “wounded” enemy in front of you to avoid a bullet -- there is only one person that will leave alive. That apparently is OK since it is one on one. It is not OK if there is not a trial according to you. Your rights exist because of people who did gouge out eyes. I would be just as happy if you hung out a sign: " I will only fight back if I am convinced the terrorist is guilty and then only to bring him or her to trial." I will in turn hang out a sign “Fuck with me and I kill you and your family.” Now take a vote and see who wants to stand behin d each sign -- not as a theoretical exercise, but as a matter of reality. This is not a police or law and order issue this really is a war PeerG, Oslo | 2005-06-10 01:48 | Link The jihadist who are fighting us in this war firmly believe that it's their holy duty to kill infidels, and if they themselves are killed, they will go straight to Heaven where 72 virgins are waiting for them. For me, this sound like madness, and I think it's overdue for the psychiatry to examine these people's sick minds. May be they will find that these people are suffering from some kind of psychosis, or may be they find that their mental decease don't fit into any of psychiatry's present diagnosis, and they have to come up with a new one. May I suggest Jihadiosis. Anyhow, I am sure they will find that the people who are suffering from this disease, are the very most dangerous people on earth, and should be locked up until cured. A cure might be hard to find so indefinite confinement might be the only solution. This would solve the Guantanamo problem. After being examined by a psychiatrist, and found suffering from jihadiosis, a court would have no options but to sentence them to compulsory treatment in a mental hospital. And is it possible to find a better place to treat this very ill people than Guantanamo mental hospital? Sandy P | 2005-06-10 04:35 | Link Peer, instead of floridated water, they need prozac water. --Amnesty International Wants U.S. Officials Arrested and Investigated Governments should arrest any official who enters --- AI has jumped the shark. BTW, you guys do know they used "gulag" deliberately to get noticed, don't you? Magnus Itland, Kristiansand | 2005-06-10 16:45 | Link ch, I voice no opinon on whether it is worse to lock up people forever than to shoot them forever. I just think history should be remembered correctly, lest we repeat it needlessly. kim sook-im | 2005-06-10 18:09 | Link Herrro Oeyvind, YO(shi)DA's opinion is indeed very sane and reasonable when you are engaging an enemy who does not play by the rules of civilization. If a rabid animal were to lunge at you, would you consider all the niceties of 'convention' before deciding to take action , or would you do the necessary thing to ensure self - preservation??? hmmmmm? As you so aptly indicated his is the enlightened opinion of a Maha Guru - Guru Nanak's mayhaps? ;) May the Force be with HIM :) Sister Ayesha NyahNyahPonika Kim Big Ben | 2005-06-10 21:21 | Link Some hard cases on this site. Herbie, have you experienced combat? Gunnar, MD | 2005-06-11 03:00 | Link But very well, if you don't trust Amnesty to be fair, who do you trust? Me, I'd trust the American justice system to give the prisoners at Guantanamo what they deserve. So why isn't that happening? Bjorn, You have really come a long way from your outrage after 9/11. You also seem unusually ignorant in this case. No insult intended. The normal result in this situation is military trials. Bush wants this to proceed but: (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/4/7/110446.shtml). The USMJ system IS part of the american justice system. By all evidence, it's extraordinarily fair. The USMJ is held in really high esteem here. The idea that enemy combatants are entitled to the protections that US citizens receive inside the US is ludicrous. No US citizens could possibly be sent to Gitmo. These enemy combatants are not POWs, since they don't qualify, but they are treated well, while my children are spared the fate that they would surely inflict on us. Sandy P | 2005-06-11 04:03 | Link Ahhh, here it comes, Herbie. If we only knew, we wouldn't. Wait for awhile, BigBen, it could be coming to a movie theatre or supermarket near you. What are you willing to give up to get along? What's you line in the sand before you say enough? Or are you willing to give up all your beliefs and rights? Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-11 13:49 | Link Jan: First of all; the quote from the convention says precisely the same thing as I have said above, and precisely the same thing as I have quoted Eugene Fidell on. The rules are quite clear, you can not deny people food, you can not torture them, you can not beat them, you can not threathen them. You can however interrogate them. They are obliged to give a certain amount of information, but can not be forced to give more. That is, if they are prisoners of war. Of course, I have never claimed that most Guantanamo prisoners are POWs. Apparently you were not able to read for yourself what I write, or actually - that is probably just what you did. You made up your mind of what my opinion had to be, and then you stopped reading. I have repeatedly stated that most of them are not POWs. One possible exception is Taliban fighters, who might or might no be considered as POWs, depending on interpretation (the U.S. State Department interpretation being that Afghanistan as a "failed state" could not be considered a high contracting party of the Geneva conventions). Another exception would be guerilla fighters, but that is not valid for the US, since they have not ratified Protocol II. Most of the prisoners on Guantanamo are suspected criminals. There is a number of crimes they are suspected of; murder, conspiracy of murder and terrorism being amongst them. These are, if I am not mistaken, illegal acts in both the United States and pretty much the rest of the world. Now, here is the thing with suspected criminals, Jan - they might be what you refer to as monsters. But then on the other hand; there is a risk that they are not. There is a risk that they are innocent. That is up to the court system to decide. Just as any other suspected criminal these suspected criminals are entitled to be charged with recognazible crimes and to a fair trial. Why? Because that is how a civilized, democratic society does it. Imprisoning people in camps for an indefinite amount of time with neither law nor trial is not. Why should civilized societies act like this? If you think long and hard, you might come up with some ideas yourself, Jan. Bjørn has already pointed out one central thing. Although this system is flawed, it is simply the best way we've got. Herbie: That's right, Herbie. People did gouge out eyes to defend us. Amongst the things they fought against where ideas like yours; ideas that innocent people can be willfully killed to reach some higher purpose, ideas about collective punishment being a fair method. Terrorists are criminals. They should be apprehended, charged and convicted. To do that I am quite convinced that battlefields must be entered; and on the battlefield the rules are different. But when the battle is over, the smoke is gone and the prisoners taken are flown thousands of miles away - the terrorists are still criminals; who should be charged and convicted. Your idea is to kill the family members of terrorists. After the battle is over and the body of Abu Badass is found you want to send of combat helicopters to bomb the village where Abu Badass lived. You are the one who wants to kill children and innocent people, because it is supposedly a good tactics. In Norway, we have experienced your kind of tactics. It was used by the Germans during the Second World War, for instance in a little village not far from where I come from, the little village of Telavåg. In the early stages of the war some of the villagers where engaged in the resistance movement, helping to smuggle fugitives over to the Shetland Isles. In April 1942 the Germans caught wind that Martha and Lauritz Telle were hiding two men from the Linge resistance company, Arne Værum and Emil Hvaal. The Germans raided the Telle farmhouse and a gunbattle took place. Værum and two high-ranking SS-men got killed. People are not that different around the world, Herbie. What you have forgotten is what Colin Powell so excellently pointed out in his memoirs that Americans (and I am sure, Europeans), so often forget: McFarlane, now in Beirut, persuaded the President to have the battleship U.S.S. New Jersey start hurling 16-inch shells into the mountains above Beirut, in World War II style, as if we were softening up the beaches on some Pacific atoll prior to an invasion. What we tend to overlook in such situations is that other people will react much as we would... And since they could not reach the battleship, they found a more vulnerable target, the exposed Marines at the airport. Terrorists are of course perfectly aware of this, Herbie. They gain support through using stories about the atrocities of their enemy - that is the United States. Osama bin Laden: The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced. I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy... And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children. Do you want to give that man Telavågs to talk about, Herbie? Really? Øyvind Herbie, NY NY | 2005-06-11 14:20 | Link Oyvind, I stand by my position. Terrorists killed over 3,000 innocent Americans in 9/11 and hundrerds in Indonesia. Those acts, in my view, were outside the bounds of civilized society and teeorosits must be forced to face the fact that the response will be that their own are at risk. The response should be equal and overwhelming. I am not prepared to participate in a situation where my enemy is free to use both hands and I must fight with one tied behind my back. We are not dealing with an attack on an organized military force by insurgents/terrorists, if we were my response would be different. We are dealing with an attack on women and children by terrorists. Your response is that we should capture them and try them. Lebanon is relevant but not for the reason yo propose. When the US did stand off and shell the Bka valley it was over the objection of Sec. of State George Shultz who was of the view that we should have flatted the valley. At that time the response of Hamas to the shelling was that Americans were cowards, terrorism worked and Americans had no stomach to respond as Hanmas would have -- which would have been to annihilate the enemy. You may wish a police force; I wish it to stop and am prepared to make it as horribly painful as possible until it does or there are no more left to kill. Your response, in some ways, is admirable in its “morality”. My response is that I don’t wish it written on my tombstone that I sacrificed my family for the sake of a “higher value”. You wish to accept that risk, I will not. Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-11 15:52 | Link Herbie: "Terrorists killed over 3,000 innocent Americans in 9/11 and hundreds in Indonesia. [They] must be forced to face the fact that the response will be that their own are at risk". Osama bin Laden: "We should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children". Øyvind, Mechelen | 2005-06-11 16:05 | Link To have "both hands free" to you apparently means to become a terrorist yourself. Becoming a terrorist is of course a quite brilliant way to win the war on terror. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. By the way, Hamas is a Palestinian group, not founded before 1987. The Lebanese group called Party of God, Hezb Allah, was founded five years earlier. The two groups have a few similarities, like their common hatred for Israel and their theocratic ideas, but they should not be confused; as they are in fact quite different on a long number of areas. Øyvind Herbie, NY NY | 2005-06-11 16:09 | Link Oyvind, Herbie, NY NY | 2005-06-11 17:23 | Link Quite right I mis typed it should have been Hizzbollah Jan Haugland, Bergen | 2005-06-11 18:22 |
