Whithouse Fisks UN Gitmo report

BBC:

The White House has savaged a UN report demanding the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp calling it "a discredit to the UN".

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said investigators failed to examine the facts and that their time would be better spent studying other cases.

The report says the US should try all approximately 500 inmates, or free them "without further delay".

Aspects of the treatment at the camp amount to torture, the UN team alleges.

One of the five investigators responsible for the report, UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak, said the detention of inmates for years without charge amounted to arbitrary detention.

"Those persons either have to be released immediately or they should be brought to a proper and competent court and tried for the offences they are charged with," he told the BBC.

...

Since when has an enemy combatant had a right to a trial? It has never been arbitrary to hold enemy combatants until the ened of the conflict unless there is some negotiation for an earlier release. If al Qaeda gives up its war against the US and the prisoners renounce their war against the US then there release could be arranged. Until then, itis a long war and they get to sit it out at a resort in the Carribean. How cruel is that?

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