Word: guantanamo
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...Europe: Guantanamo alarm...
...Call 'em squeamish if you like, but America's European partners in the war on terrorism are increasingly alarmed over those Al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. All across the continent newspapers challenged the U.S. view that the captives fall outside of the Geneva Convention. Britain's Guardian contests the U.S. contention that the men are "unlawful combatants" with a careful reading of the Geneva Convention. And the point is echoed by Richard Goldstone, the respected international jurist and former chief prosecutor of the Hague tribunal. "Either they're prisoners of war, in which case they are entitled...
...Guardian commentator Hugo Young was even more forthright, warning that "Guantanamo could be where America and Europe part company." He writes: "Secret hearings in military tribunals, of EU citizens who might face execution, will offend every European instinct. If that's what happens, even short of the execution factor, America can expect its own long drawn-out vengeance on al-Qaeda to be matched by a European public opinion increasingly roused against it. For, contrary to the myth of Anglo-America's unique respect for individual liberties, the continental ethic of human rights is even stronger...
...Even the conservative Daily Telegraph has qualms over Guantanamo. Columnist Alice Thomson agrees with shackling and even hooding and drugging the prisoners en route - "al Qaeda doesn't have a great reputation when it comes to aircraft. But I mind the shark cages, with their concrete floors open to the elements and the 24-hour halogen flood lights, left near mosquito-infested swamps, so the prisoners can catch malaria when some already have tuberculosis." She argues that this "vindictive" prison regime undermines the morality of what has been achieved in Afghanistan...
...Economist notes that "the unique attraction of Guantanamo Bay? is not its remote location or shark-infested waters, but that it seems to lie beyond the jurisdiction of America's federal courts, or any other court system for that matter." And like much of the European media, it finds Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's comments that "I do not feel the slightest concern at their treatment; they are being treated vastly better than they treated anybody else" as an unacceptable legal standard. The British magazine offers a thoughtful assessment of the various legal options open to the U.S. and concludes with...