Thursday, May 7, 2015

Should Guantanamo Bay Detainees Be Awarded Reparations?

(Reuters: Joe Skipper )


Washington Post: John Paul Stevens says some Guantanamo Bay detainees should be given reparations

Retired Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens said this week that the government should compensate detainees still being held at Guantanamo Bay even after authorities determined that they did not pose a threat to the United States.

Stevens’s call to give reparations to dozens of detainees at the U.S. military detention center in Cuba comes as the Pentagon is racing to move these inmates ahead of possible congressional action that could restrict transfers.

In a speech Monday, Stevens pointed to the detainees who have already been approved for a transfer out of Guantanamo Bay, saying that some or all of them “are entitled to some sort of reparation.”

There are 57 inmates in Guantanamo who have been approved for transfer out of the 122 detainees still being held.

Update: Retired Justice Stevens says some Guantánamo captives may deserve reparations -- Miami Herald

WNU Editor: John Paul Stevens is a retired Supreme Court justice and he is entitled to his own opinion .... but any politician who agrees with this will probably be destroyed when he or she runs for re-election. Bottom line .... because of the unbelievably horrific crimes that some of these detainees have done (even though some have been released i.e. the Taliban 5) ....  the U.S. public is not interested in giving money to these individuals even though a "moral case" could be done that some of them may deserve some compensation for being unjustly imprisoned.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree.

It is a different story when an innocent man, or a man who committed a minor crime, is abused by his detainees. That man is entitled to reparations.

But a Taliban commander who commits war crimes on the daily? No such thing.

Jay Farquharson said...

WNU Editor,

The "deal" with "reparations" is they are an out of Court settlement, with the provisions that those who take them, can't sue or disclose their treatment.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/guantanamo-detaineestalibanbergdahlswap.html

"Compare those five men to the 78 detainees remaining in Guantánamo Bay who have been held there for 12 years or more and yet have been cleared for release for half that time. With the Taliban five headed for freedom, the cleared prisoners now make up more than 52 percent of the 149 detainees left there. Has there ever existed another prison where more than half the prisoners were told they had been cleared to leave but they could not go?"


Instead, because like you noted, no US Politician can sign off on this, for decades Gitmo will be the "gift" that keeps on giving, just like Au Grahib.

Unknown said...

ISIS executions of Yazidis and Anbar tribes by the hundreds is a gift that does not give.

3 or 4 of the detainees sent to Uruguay were trained at Tora Bora.

Jay Farquharson said...

So?