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| White House Gains Concessions in Senate Measure on Tribunals | |
| 2006-09-13 | |
| The Bush administration has won concessions from key Senate Republicans in proposed legislation on standards for detainee treatment and the rules for military trials of terrorism suspects, although some disagreements persist between the lawmakers and the White House, Senate sources said yesterday. The disagreements that remain involve whether suspects can be convicted with evidence they are never allowed to see, an approach favored by the administration but opposed by the Republican senators. The two sides also still differ over the terms of a related amendment to the U.S. War Crimes Act that would limit the exposure of CIA officials and other civilian personnel to prosecution for abusive treatment of detainees, the sources said. In a sign that Congress is nonetheless preparing to act quickly to establish "military commissions," as the trials are known, and provide other legal relief sought by the administration, the Senate trio at odds with the White House circulated a revised bill yesterday containing their concessions. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) last week had circulated a draft that diverged more sharply from the White House's version. But President Bush's speech on the plan Wednesday, when he announced his intention to put 14 key terrorism suspects on trial, has made Senate Republicans more wary of bucking the White House. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), meanwhile, announced yesterday that he has drafted a competing bill that closely tracks the administration's preferences. He said it would be marked up by his committee on Wednesday. Lawmakers thus will be considering three bills -- the Senate and House bills plus the administration's own bill -- that contain many provisions the administration has sought. This prospect has raised concerns among human rights groups and defense attorneys who say the plans offer inadequate protections for defendants and would set a precedent for the use of similarly worrisome rules at foreign trials of captured U.S. personnel.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #8 Or the way Pfc. Thomas Lowell Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca were barbarically tortured and slaughtered and and the video released for muslims to masturbate to. Our laws are for the civilized. Fuck the barbarians. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-09-13 15:17 |
| #7 And I'm sure SPC Matt Maupin is enjoying his protection under the Geneva Convention as well. /sarcasm off |
| Posted by: Omuling Throluper6095 2006-09-13 14:42 |
| #6 You just have to google - "Inspired by a documentary film by World War II veteran Charles Guggenheim, "Berga: Soldiers of Another War," (PBS, 2003), Cohen's carefully researched, fully documented and elegantly written book should be read by everybody who thinks the war crimes of the Germans were limited to fellow Europeans. In "Soldiers and Slaves," he tells the story of 350 American POWs captured in the final days of 1944 and the first few days of 1945 during the Battle of the Bulge and how they were transported to a slave labor camp near the city of Berga on the Elster River in eastern Germany to construct underground facilities to produce and store synthetic fuel. The POWs arrived in February 1945 to find themselves working in appalling conditions alongside European slave laborers, many of them from nearby concentration and death camps. Cohen, a foreign affairs correspondent for The New York Times, incorporates into the story of the Americans the parallel tale of Mordecai Hauer, a young Hungarian Jew transported to Berga from Auschwitz, where his mother was murdered. Hauer, blond and blue-eyed, could be played by actor Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller's sidekick in so many movies. As a young man, he looked just like Wilson. What makes the 350 prisoners unusual is that they were chosen because they were Jewish, or looked Jewish to their German captors, or were "troublemakers." The non-Jews among the POWs included Johann "Hans" Kasten, an Hawaiian-born private of German descent who was repeatedly beaten by his captors because he refused to distinguish between Jews and non-Jews among the POWs. To Kasten, a loyal American soldier who contributed to Cohen's account of Berga, his captors were the ones dishonoring German culture and tradition and he finally managed to escape along with two other prisoners. The Kasten family is prominent in Milwaukee financial circles. Kasten, born in 1916, told Cohen that he was raised a Lutheran but really was a devout atheist. He was a self-described hell raiser. After the war he moved to Manila, vowing after his ordeal in Berga to "never live in a place where it snows." He is a retired manufacturing executive. He sounds like a guy I'd like to meet! The rest, including about 80 American Jews selected at Stalag IX-B near the spa city of Bad Orb before being shipped off to Berga, were worked to exhaustion digging tunnels. At least 73 of the 350 died or were killed by the Germans led by an exceptionally brutal German National Guard sergeant, Erwin Metz. Metz was imprisoned by for less than 10 years by the Americans; by way of contrast, SS Lt. Willy Hack, another brutal slave-driver, was captured by the Russians in 1951, tried and hanged in 1952. When Kasten was liberated by American soldiers, he went on a fruitless but vividly described quest in a commandeered Mercedes to find and kill Hack. Despite a thorough investigation by a U.S. Army major named Vowell, the very existence of American POW's at Berga was hushed up by high-ranking American officials. Cohen says the American powers that be decided we needed the Germans - even the worst war criminals among them - in our cold war against the Soviets. This was also the case with another beneficiary of slave labor named Werner Von Braun, as well as Albert Speer, who was spared hanging at Nuremberg. All the survivors of Berga had to sign a document ensuring secrecy about the German slave labor camp. Despite Major Vowell's comprehensive report, bureaucrats denied the existence of the camp to inquiring relatives of those who died. None of the survivors received U.S. Army compensation or disability benefits based on their mistreatment at the camp. It wasn't until a few years ago that the Germans themselves finally paid compensation to the surviving POWs under slave labor legislation enacted under pressure from death camp survivors and nations, including Russia and Israel. Metz was released from prison in the mid 1950s. The author presents convincing evidence that he murdered in cold blood Morton Goldstein, a German-speaking Jewish soldier, "while attempting to escape." The dispute over Goldstein and the cover-up by American forces was deplored by Kasten and all the other survivors of Berga. The methodical Germans closed down Berga as Allied forces neared and led the POWs and the concentration camp workers on separate death marches, following a pattern described by author Daniel J. Goldhagen, Max Hastings and other historians. The senseless forced march resulted in the deaths of at least 50 of the estimated 73 among the POWs. The European prisoners fared even worse-including being shot for stealing apples along the march route. To the "law-abiding" Germans, this constituted "theft of German property"! " |
| Posted by: Omuling Throluper6095 2006-09-13 14:40 |
| #5 Malmedy. |
| Posted by: ST 2006-09-13 12:30 |
| #4 Germany by and large did respect our prisoners, as did the Italians. It wasn't a good life as a prisoner, of course, but the Int'l Red Thingy was allowed in, parcels did arrive, and our prisoners were treated much better than the Russkies. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-09-13 11:09 |
| #3 Why "since the end of" WWII? It's not like Japan and Germany treated POWs humanely. Name a country that has ever respected the rights of US prisoners. Our only hope of that is to go to war with Britain, Australia, or Canada (before they're overrun by Muslims, that is). |
| Posted by: ST 2006-09-13 08:50 |
| #2 But-t-t, US Laws do not apply, or is not suppos to apply, to non-US citizens andor non-legal US aliens or residents, to include armed members of any group or faction not internationally recognized as being employed by, or an entity of, another sovereign Gummermint. And while a Fed Judge has ruled that portions of Geneva apply to terrorists, to my knowledge the US Congress has not formally legislated any changes in the laws, which basically means nothing will change for Islamist Detainees until the Congress does. ERGO, CAN BE "TORTURED" WID GLAZED CHICKEN AND CHRISTINA VIDEOS FOREVER - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-09-13 02:32 |
| #1 Bush has got to take them on when confronting the big issues. He's ceded far too much ground with regard to Executive powers. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-09-13 00:40 |