Springtime for Hitler
Feb 4th, 2006 at 11:02 pm by Susie
So now we’ll be executing people who haven’t even been charged in the first place?
The US military is clearing the way for executions of condemned terror suspects to take place at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
The army has just changed the rules governing the location of military executions.
The new regulations are primarily aimed at service personnel sentenced to death at a military court martial.
Previously executions could only take place at a military jail in Kansas but now death sentences can be carried out anywhere, including the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
The army has confirmed the new rules will also apply to any Guantanamo detainee sentenced to death at a specially convened military tribunal.
UPDATE: The Army is, shall we say, pulling back on the first story. We await clarification.
Closer and closer to some South Americam Satrap, with Rove and Cheney playing Emperor.
Makes sense. Efficient and orderly approach.
But do they have the ovens in place, for burning the bodies?
In the old country, we had the ovens ready Before we killed them.
Cheney’s getting on in years and has a bad heart, but Bush is a relatively young man. They’ll be plenty of time to try him for War Crimes in a decade or two when all this crap goes public.
The story seems to have died in the afternoon on Tuesday, January 24. The Army does not appear to have made any fuller clarification.
Yahoo/AFP
http://au.news.yahoo.com/060125/19/xpmc.html
WASHINGTON (AFP) – New US Army rules for executions of military prisoners do not apply to “war on terror� detainees at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, an army spokesman said.
Paul Boyce corrected an earlier statement by another army spokesman, Sheldon Smith, who said the revision of the army regulations on procedures for military executions could affect enemy combatants at Guantanamo.
“It’s speculation. Secondly, the manual deals with soldiers,� Boyce said. “I’m correcting it…It’s wrong.�
Boyce said army lawyers were looking into the issue, but a fuller clarification was not expected until Wednesday.
The AFP/Yahoo story does a good job summarizing the source document, AR190-55 in PDF format.
http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/r190_55.pdf
My take: Actual executions of detainees under this regulation would require more transparency than the current administration can stomach.