Harper and Obama

[Topaz]

The US wants Canada to help close Guantanamo Bay prison and take some prisoners but Harper has said no, if they aren't Canadian citizens were aren't taking them. The Tories don't even want Khadr, so what did they expect? Of course, the US isn't pleased with the Canadian government, so it will be interesting to watch down the road when one wants something from the other. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=240_1255270302

[Guest American Woman]

The US wants Canada to help close Guantanamo Bay prison and take some prisoners but Harper has said no, if they aren't Canadian citizens were aren't taking them. The Tories don't even want Khadr, so what did they expect? Of course, the US isn't pleased with the Canadian government, so it will be interesting to watch down the road when one wants something from the other. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=240_1255270302

The U.S. doesn't want them, so why should Canada? I don't blame Harper for refusing them.

[bush_cheney2004]

The U.S. doesn't want them, so why should Canada? I don't blame Harper for refusing them.

Agreed...the US is quietly reducing the flow of prisoners by not taking as many in the field...just terminate in situ. The loss in possible intelligence from interrogations is outweighed by the political baggage of keeping and prosecuting prisoners.

[Topaz]

The U.S. doesn't want them, so why should Canada? I don't blame Harper for refusing them.

I also agree and Bush should never have gather this guys in the first place. Maybe send down to Bush as ranch hands.

[PocketRocket]

Has anyone found any other links to this story? The link OP provided (thank you for that) was mighty short on detail.

As to the issue itself......I'm sorry to say but USA took it upon herself to imprison them, USA can see to re-settling them.

[Mr.Canada]

I also agree and Bush should never have gather this guys in the first place. Maybe send down to Bush as ranch hands.

They are POW's. It's either we capture them or execute them on the spot where we find them. Letting them go isn't an option.

[PocketRocket]

They are POW's. It's either we capture them or execute them on the spot where we find them. Letting them go isn't an option.

A POW is a captured enemy soldier. Many at Gitmo were non-combatants. Many were ordinary civilians with the wrong appearance who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Of course without being able to take their case to trial they had no legal way to prove this.

But then, in that other thread where you and I met, we have already found that in your case, being charged brings with it the automatic assumption of guilt. However......

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.html

But because the Bush administration set up Guantanamo under special rules that allowed indefinite detention without charges or federal court challenge, it's impossible to know how many of the 770 men who've been held there were terrorists.

....we have people here who not only have NOT been found guilty in a trial, they've not even been CHARGED with anything..

Furthermore....

This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

.....investigations have found that many had no affiliation with the enemy which the USA was fighting.

In fact.......

http://detainees.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/49

Nusrat Khan is disabled.

He's barely able to move without a cane and one of his sons holding him on either side. He's more than 75 years old. He might be 76; he might be 80. He's not sure.

The American military held Khan, a member of the first U.S.-backed Afghan congress after the fall of the Taliban, for more than three years at Guantanamo on charges that the elderly, illiterate and near-physically incapacitated man was an insurgent leader.

.....at least one of the so-called "POW's" was a crippled old man who could barely walk, and was, in fact, a member of the US-backed congress.

So, your term "POW" cannot be held as a valid description of all the people in Gitmo.

Some, yes. All??? Absolutely not.

In view of the way many of these people who later turned out to be innocent were treated, "Kidnap victim" sound like as good a description as any.

But wait, Bush passed a law making it all legal, so I guess we can't use that word "kidnap".