The C-17A landed at Northolt at around 1700Hrs i think, with the four onboard who were of course immediately taken into custody at probably Paddington Green.

If the parents of such souls wanted them back so badly, they should of paid for a flight for them but then i don't think BA would like the idea of having Al Qaeda terror suspects on the aircraft.

So by trying to protect our way of life, we get rid of our hard-won freedoms, right to a fair trial, presumption of innocence, manipulation of media, creating an atmosphere of fear where only the government can protect us, overlook other countries human rights abuses as long as its in the name of "The War against Terror", introduction of laws to "control" the way we lead our daily lives, etc etc. Seems to me that our government are doing the terrorists job for them...

It no longer looks like "our way of life" - it looks like theirs....

Anyway, how is a terrorist going to destroy our way of life? Did Sept 11th destroy America and its way of life? Or is that what the US government is doing in the name of "anti-terrorist measures"?

I see Gareth Peirce and Corin Redgrave are involved... makes me think they're guilty already!

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4047585

Are there certain lawyers on this thread who are touchy about reaping a vast swath of legal aid by being involved in the defence of the accused?

I'll bet there are!

...toot,toot....the legal aid gravy boat is on its way....(like a gravy train, but it moves slower so lawyers can take bigger helpings)....

If the Americans had hard evidence that these guys were terrorists do you think they would have let them go?

SASless: Revenge is a dish best served cold, and its very cold at 40,000ft

Pr00ne: I'm not going to waste any more words on you.

hyd3failure: There's no smoke without fire.

I heard that they had a 3 hour wait at Northolt when they landed because MT didn't turn up for them.

FatBaldChief....sorry to burst yer bubble....the war was on for years before the concentration camps became an issue of any discussion. The troops never did fight to the death because of that....except for very limited individual cases.


Sasless,

I was merely stating that we fought against a regime that employed such incarceration without trial tactics in the broader sense. Was that not obvious?
Maybe I should draw pictures next time. With a big fat crayon.
:8

Jacko

From your threads, I suspect you are an ambulance chaser - I also suspect you would argue that if a cat had her kittens in the oven, they would be called cakes!

Love many, Trust a few, Always paddle your own canoe!

>Nice one son, any more religious bigotry and zenophobic trash in your banter box?<

Proone my old PC matey, the locker is well stocked with antidotes for Prating Ninnies like you.

On the same sort of subject, the newspapers reported 2 weeks ago that a Mr Adair recently released loyalist terrorist was flown from NI to the Bolton area by RAF Helo to be with his family. What was wrong with the Ferry or BA.

The difference is that Mr Adair was a released prisoner who had been legally arrested, who had been properly and fairly tried, judicially sentanced and legally imprisoned by the independent judicial apparatus of his own State. Mr Adair had been charged with specific offences, and had been legally represented. He was not kidnapped from one country to face summary punishment for what he had supposedly done in a second, by agents of a third, without the protection of his own (fourth) country. He was not subject to extended solitary confinement, or torture, nor did he have the threat of capital punishment hanging over him.

In the UK, our legal system is not based on the concept that "there's no smoke without fire." Nor do we work on the basis that membership of a particular religious or ethnic group (with or without untried circumstantial evidence) is sufficient justification to lock someone up. We don't lock up people without trial on a 'better safe than sorry' basis.

People keep referring to 'these people'. "These People" are UK citizens who have been illegally detained by the USA without proper legal representation and without trial, and who have now been released without charge.

Until some evidence against them is offered, then they are legally innocent.

We have no proof that any of terrorist suspects were tortured at Gitmo. I would not call military interrogation techniques torture. These are unsubstantiated claims aimed at stirring up trouble and extracting compensation. For the record, did Mr Blair not state recently that the bunch that were released a while back have been up to no good again?

But who - except pr00ne - believes a word Bliar says?

I fully believe that they have been tortured in there. You say would not call military interrogation techniques torture, I certainly would!
Tom Ridge, from the US Dept of Homeland security said it was "human nature" that torture might be employed in certain exceptional cases, he admitted there was "a real question" whether using torture on terrorists would actually gain the information required "given the nature of the enemy".

Allegations from Guantanamo include:
Prisoners were repeatedly punched, kicked, slapped, forcibly injected with drugs, deprived of sleep, hooded, photographed naked and subjected to body cavity searches and sexual and religious humiliations

One American guard told the inmates: "The world does not know you're here - we would kill you and no-one would know"

One of the soldiers told an inmate: "You killed my family in the towers and now it's time to get you back.

MI5 officer had told prisoners during interrogations that they would be detained in Guantanamo for life

Men said they saw the beating of mentally ill inmates

Another man was left brain damaged after a beating by soldiers as punishment for attempting suicide

A Briton said an inmate told them he was shown a video of hooded men - apparently inmates - being forced to sodomise one another

Guards threw prisoners' Korans into toilets and tried to force them to give up their religion

The men allege that when a new camp commander, Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, took charge, new practices began, including the shaving of beards, playing loud music, shackling detainees in squatting positions and locking them naked in cells.

The report says: "It was very clear to all three that MI5 was content to benefit from the effect of the isolation, sleep deprivation and other forms of acutely painful and degrading treatment, including short shackling.
"There was never any suggestion on the part of the British interrogators that this treatment was wrong."
“ All the time I was kneeling with a guy standing on the backs of my legs and another holding a gun to my head” Ruhal Ahmed
The trio said they had eventually wrongfully confessed to appearing in a video with al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, one of the 11 September hijackers.
In the report, it is understood Mr Ahmed says shortly after his capture in northern Afghanistan in 2001 he was questioned by a British interrogator, who identified himself as an SAS officer, while an American soldier held a gun to his head, threatening to shoot him.
The UK Ministry of Defence acknowledged that such behaviour is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and has promised to investigate any such allegation.
Lawyer Gareth Pierce told BBC News: "There was not a single method that was not used to break their will to make them confess to something they were not guilty of, and all three did."

Most of that is from the BBC and although they are still allegations even the MOD has admitted that this is against the Geneva Convention so technically it is torture.

How the hell are they supposed to get proof of what went on in there??

Simple answer,

Get intell out of them in theatre, then bullet in back of head.

WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE.

Thus no-one can kick up a stink about "illegal detention" and treatment of prisoners, cos there aren't any.

Points, questions.

And btw. What prey tell do you think those so called British citizens were doing over there? Do you honestly believe they were tourists/aid workers? Come on. Are you really that naive.

Anyone who takes up arms, or plots to, against their own country reliquishes his/her rights as a citizen and should be thown to whichever wolves want to deal with them.

Oh, sorry. Lets give them a hug and some nice compensation.

Yours cynically

TTH

Bloody Hell TTH.
You will be bidding for the contract to install the new 'Showers' in the Cuban camp next.
Austrian by birth are you?

Fatbaldandbewildered:8:(

PileUp Officer
I have some sympathy for the Afghan Nationals held in Guantanamo who were fighting for their "cause". But what were the "British" group doing in that part of the world - playing cricket? Once released I'm not surprised they will say anything to further their case for compensation, and shed a bad light on the USA. Terrorism is a dirty game with no rules. Sometimes dirty tactics are needed to combat it.

Just suggesting solutions.


I would like to point out that I am not a Bush/Rumsfeld apologist. I think they have handled the "War on Terror" terribly.

I also believe that if we are seen to lose the moral highground then we risk becoming as bad as those we are fighting against.

I do believe that sometimes action which is fairly unpallettable for the general populus, and frankly scandalous to the media, is necessary.

We face a very different threat than we have every faced before. Terrorists with no regard for their own lives, let alone anyone elses.

So far bloody good intelligence has saved us from attacks, but for how long? Where has this come from? I'd suggest that some would have come from suspects held without trial both here and in the US, maybe not Gitmo (they've been in there a bit long for current activities).

The justice suggested by some of our more liberal posters would rely on action after an event, rather than prevention of that action. Even with only circumstantial evidence, I would gladly take one step down from the highest of moral grounds if it meant protecting the lives of my fellow countrymen.

Or are the lives of a few treacherous passport holders more important?

TTH.

Good question. But surely the camp staff are entitled to the same presumption of innocence as terrorist suspects. You can't have double standards. They will have to prove their allegations and even if they did, I suspect Uncle Sam will tell them to take a hike.

Its a shame we'll never know the intel on them that led to their arrest in the first place.

TTH, Brakedwell,

I suspect that Feroz Abbasi may have been up to no good, since he was captured on the battlefield. That's enough for me to have little sympathy for him, though obviously you need proof BEFORE punishing him, and any punishment we mete out must be as civilised as that we'd mete out to any other criminal. Torture and capital punishment have no place in a civilised society, though I think that we go a bit too easy on terrorists (IRA or Al Qaeda alike).

"What prey tell do you think those so called British citizens were doing over there? Do you honestly believe they were tourists/aid workers? Come on. Are you really that naive." and "what were the "British" group doing in that part of the world - playing cricket?"

Over where? In what part of the world?

Begg had set up a school for blind children, and had taken his wife and children with him. He was arrested in Pakistan. Belmar was also taken in Pakistan. Whatever they were doing, they weren't taking up arms against us on the battlefield, and in any case, the kneejerk prejudice of racist bigots is not sufficient grounds for criminal sanction against these people. However convinced you are that these ragheads (as you'd doubtless label them) are guilty, there needs to be evidence that stands up in court.

"Are the lives of a few treacherous passport holders more important?"

Don't you have to prove such alleged treachery, or is Mr Blair's say so (do you remember: "Yeah yeah, the Iraqi's have WMD within 45 minutes readiness, there and ready to go") sufficient proof? And have you forgotten that "these people" are your "fellow countrymen".

Navaleye,

The difference is that there is mounting evidence of US torture of detainees, at Guantanamo, at Bagram, and in third countries (Egypt, Jordan, etc.). Since much of this is based on the testimony of prisoners, it naturally has a 'caution' rating attached, though there is also some independent evidence. Whereas no evidence as to what Mr Begg (for example) is supposed to have done has been released.

Jackonicko
>the kneejerk prejudice of racist bigots is not sufficient grounds for criminal sanction against these people. <
These people were held as a result of murderous terrorist attack on innocent civilians. The real racist bigots are the fundamentalist Imams who preach hatred and incite gullible young Muslims to take up arms against their fellow countrymen. Try saying that in public and you will be accused of racism by the PC brigade. Terrorism is a dirty business. Fighting it means that no holds are barred.

Braked,

"These people were held as a result of murderous terrorist attack on innocent civilians."

Yes, perhaps. But if they had nothing to do with these murderous attacks (and there is no evidence to suggest that they did) then to imprison them without trial and to torture them makes us no better than those you condemn.

If I just happened to decide that I thought you were guilty of supporting a plot to assassinate Dubya, would the CIA be right to come and lock you up, without trial, and to break the tedium of your existence in a Cuban cage with a nice trip to the Yemen for some testicular electro convulsive therapy?

You need to prove that they have anything to do with "fundamentalist Imams who preach hatred" or that they are "gullible young Muslims to take up arms against their fellow countrymen."

You say that: "Terrorism is a dirty business. Fighting it means that no holds are barred." Actually, some holds - those that involve taking action against innocent people - are barred.

Those who preach the sanctity of the Law and Human Rights and point to Magna Carta as the source of liberty in the Western World, have much history on their side, and hold (at the moment) the moral high ground. If, (God forbid), there were another terrorist outrage - this time in the UK and costing hundreds of thousands of lives - the legalists and civil libertarians would have molto eggonfacia.

If they were wise they would start shifting their stance a little. There were no WMD at Runnymede in the 13th Century, and international terrorism of the fanatical, suicidal kind, was not an issue when the Great and the Good drafted and signed the European Convention on Human Rights.

It is true to say that some of the uses to which that convention have been put in recent years were not envisaged by its progenitors, and it is long past high time that it were revised.

Regrettably, it seems that some of the rocks on which the British legal stystem is founded may cause it to founder unless they are blasted out of the way. Eg, the rules of evidence on electronic intercepts, and hearsay in terrorist-related cases. Jury trials may be impracticable in such cases; perhaps technically-qualified assessors should aid the judge - as in Courts Martial. And most trials based on evidence from sensitive intelligence sources will clearly have to be "in camera" with press and public excluded. And the standard of proof may have to be reduced from "beyond all reasonable doubt" to "balance of probability".

Otherwise the system will remain loaded in favour of the terrorists and against the security of the people.

Flatus and Brakedwell are spot on. The values on which our legal process works are used against by those that would do us harm. It has to evolve and adapt to meet the threat. If that upsets anyone so be it, I want my family protected. The people we are deling with have the same mindset that murdered Margaret Hassan and should be dealt with accordingly. The looney left apologists for them should remember that.

Naval/Flatus/Braked,

I think you may have gotten yourselves confused on this issue.

Let me clear a few things up for you.

1) "But surely the camp staff are entitled to the same presumption of innocence as terrorist suspects. You can't have double standards."
Naval, it is you that is imposing the double standards. You are demanding different treatment for the camp staff than for those who have been interred there.

2)"These people were held as a result of murderous terrorist attack on innocent civilians."
Braked, no they were not. There has been nothing released to link the Britons held at Gitmo with either the 911, Madrid or Bali attacks.

3)"If, (God forbid), there were another terrorist outrage - this time in the UK and costing hundreds of thousands of lives - the legalists and civil libertarians would have molto eggonfacia."
Flatus, those who will have to explain themselves will be those like Bush and Blair. Those who say that we need to sacrifice our laws and our freedoms to prevent further atrocities.

I ask you all this one question.Can none of you see the similarities between what is happening here and in the US with the changes that took place in Germany in the 1930's

Some imagined enemy that was both hell bent on and capable of destroying our way of life. Such an enemy is as much a fallacy now as it was then.

I will not disagree with you that there are those out there who wish to cause harm to us in the western democracies. However, that has always been the case.

We beat them by being better than them not worse.

Naval, as for lumping everyone that disagrees with you as "looney left apologists" for those who murdered Margaret Hassan. This does you a disservice. Furthermore it is immensely offensive. Just because I do not feel that US should not be allowed to imprison and torture anyone it feels like does not mean I am not filled with revulsion and disgust for those who carried out the brutal murder of Mrs Hassan ( or Ken Bigley or any of the others who have been taken before their time).


Cheers

BHR

Bill Hicks Rules Billhicksrules! Nice to see the genius is not forgotten!

Thank you for stating
'I ask you all this one question.Can none of you see the similarities between what is happening here and in the US with the changes that took place in Germany in the 1930's'

I could not agree more. History cannot be repeated. No matter who does the repeating. If you are human you deserve human rights. If you are proven guilty you will be punished.



:8

While the TV and papers are full of coverage of the anniversary of Auschwitz, it seems ironic that people are seriously advocating the suspension of the human rights of those they perceive to be a threat, based entirely on their religious and ethnic background.

All 4 have been released without having been charged......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4210815.stm

billy boy...

How would you deal with the killers of Maggie and those who so brutallly hack the heads off of innocent people and video tape the horrific crime for broadcast to the world?

Invite them down to cooperate with the investigation?

Or track the garbage down and drop 2000 pound precision bombs on top of their noggins?

Vigilante Justice League of America???
 

First I'd find the right people.

Now one way of doing that might well be to sweep through an area and grab everyone. But the key point is that in any such search you will undoubtedly get a mix of innocent-but-in-the-wrong-place, innocent-but-associated-with-the-bad-guys, abd them-wot-dunnit. You'll also probably miss a few of them-wot-dunnit, because the guilty, not being stupid, will have buggered off sharpish once the deed has been done.

You then process the people you have grabbed and separate the sheep from the goats in a timely manner, so you can concentrate your efforts on the ones most likely to have been them-wot-dunnit. Those you bring to public trial as an example for the others. Justice (not revenge) should be seen to work quickly and publicly.

Conversely, dropping a big :mad: bomb on the "garbage" (assuming it isn't an arbitrary civilian house, Chinese embassy, Canadian Troop Exercise or the forces of a Coalition "partner" -- I recall various issues with target recognition) doesn't do much to further the cause. Especially when you claim that any innocent casualties are either not innocent or "collateral damage".

Darth,

I think the connotation of "track the garbage down" would mean those wot dunnit don't you agree. In order to "track" something one would have to have something to track....and thus after you follow the trail such as it is....and find hoof in dirt at the end of it....you have then found said "garbage". At that time....knowing where the hoof meets the dirt....you free their spirit and send them off to the Great Virgin Bonking in the sky.

I have no argument about ensuring only the garbage gets collected....that is as it should be. Done spot on target...no mercy, no quarter, no mistake, no statute of limitations and no drawn out trial.

Those we seek do not respect law, morality, ethics....and they shall not be converted by any argument....but with enough cordite on their turbaned heads....they will immediately understand the error of their ways. It will come to them in a flash. They will not hang around to hear the boom however!

"How would you deal with the killers of Maggie and those who so brutallly hack the heads off of innocent people and video tape the horrific crime for broadcast to the world?

Invite them down to cooperate with the investigation?"

Presumably your answer is simply to lock up and torture as many people as you can who fit broadly the same ethnic and religious profile, on the basis that: "Vey're all vuh fackin same, innit?"

As a very young lad, I was given some advice (although I didn't appreciate it at the time)

A labourer is always worthy of his hire

Do to others as they would do to you

All is fair in love and war

Seemed to have got by on that

Love many, Trust a few, Always paddle you own canoe!

For those that have been to Staff College: Do you wait for your enemy to pre-empt on you or do you pre-empt on them?

Jacko....

How do you arrive at ethnicity and religion being the only criteria used? Can you state with precision the exact circumstances these four came into American hands? If those are the criteria used for detemining whether we snatch people from their homes....how come we have not scooped up millions and placed them into concentration camps in this country?

Does it strike you as odd....the very same government you accuse of such gross behaviour is the same government that investigates any kind of assault on those same kinds of people as being "Hate Crimes" which carry severe penalites?


Is it racial profiling for us to look for Arab/ Middle Eastern men from the ages of 17-42 as being potential hijackers?

Why are we body searching 70 year old white women and 5 year old blonde headed blue eyed children.....if the vast preponderance of hijackers that have attacked us in the past umpteen years have been Arab/Middle Eastern men in that age range?

We see the results of the Liberal dumbing down of our society in the amount of attacks that we have had in the past.

You and I have argued this before....if you and I stand in the park and I slap you in the face over and over a over....at what point do you reach up and grab my arm and stop me from striking you again? At some time you will...even the Liberal awakes to this at some point.

What is different here....they bomb us...they cut people's heads off....and it ain't Scandanavians doing it.

SASless,

Why only two choices?

Why also do those two choices have to be at the extremes of the spectrum?

It is that kind of "you are either with us or against us" limited thinking that is the biggest problem here. On both sides of the equation.

It is fundamentalism on both sides that is causing such grief for the normal people in the middle.

Murderous fundamentalists blow up WTC, Pentagon, Madrid trains, Bali nightclub etc.

The response is that murderous fundamentalists on the opposing side bomb, shoot, maim, torture their way through two soveriegn countries and counting.

This is not a conflict about who is right and who is wrong. It is turning into the same old story. Kill all those who either look, think or talk different to you.

Cheers

BHR

P.S. Sasless, If the 911 attacks were funded by Saudi money, carried out by Saudi nationals and ordered by a member of a wealthy and influential Saudi family, why has Afghanistan and Iraq been the targets?

"Is it racial profiling for us to look for Arab/ Middle Eastern men from the ages of 17-42 as being potential hijackers?"

Yes, it's racial profiling. And I'm all for it in that context. Look at them far more closely at airports than you'd look at anyone else. Give their bags extra scrutiny.

And I'm all for arresting people and questioning them.

What I'm against is keeping people detained without trial and without legal representation for extended periods, and with no evidence (beyond that extracted by torture). And I'm against torture.

And we have to see and recognise that it's a tiny minority of extremist Moslems who are guilty of even supporting Al Qaeda's war against the West, and that we cannot declare war on the whole of Moslem society because of them, any more than we'd have been right to imprison any catholic on the basis that most IRA members happened to be mackerel slappers too, or to imprison religious nutcases just because that description applied to McVeigh and Koresh. You and those on your side of the argument keep referring to the freed detainees as 'the enemy' and yet there is no proof that they are. Your suspicion of them, your miustrust of Muslims, does not make it true.

Some Jews in Germany in the 1920s probably had profiteered during the war. Some had probably been among the political groups that caused the collapse on the home front (thereby 'stabbing the brave soldiers in the back') just as Hitler claimed. A handful of people. But their actions were used to justify discrimination, imprisonment without trial, torture and eventually genocide.

If they're PoWs then extend them the protection of the Geneva convention and hold them for the duration, and then prosecute them for war crimes if you have the evidence.

If they're criminals then prosecute them and punish them.

But if they're not PoWs and you can't build a criminal case against them, then
you have to let them go.

We're supposed to be a civilised society. The ends don't justify the means.

Jacko

Quote

"Yes, it's racial profiling. And I'm all for it in that context. Look at them far more closely at airports than you'd look at anyone else. Give their bags extra scrutiny. And I'm all for arresting people and questioning them. "

Enoch Powell was right - despite what you say - had we heeded his advice, we would probably not be in the situation we are in now.

Moreover, had he become Prime Minister, this country would have become Great again

Youngest General ever in the Army, spoke about 12 languages, fluent in 5 - translated Homer - never done before - MP for most of his life - made an honest statement (Rivers of blood speech) which has now proved correct and he was banished to the wilderness (Northern Ireland)

I think his Brummy accent let him down

As Jacko suggests, a good day out if you are bored

Walk around a London airport and try to spot the terrorist

You will not be spoilt for choice

Well hopefully the event has now closed. The 4 British citizens have been released and are free to come and go as they please. Hurray for that. Justice has prevailed.