Salim Hamdan
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/magazine/08yemen.html
Interesting article on Salim Hamdan by Jonathan Mahler, in the Sunday New York Times magazine, Jan 8, 2006. Hamdan was Osama Bin Laden’s driver from 1996 until 2001, when he was picked up by Afghan war lords and turned over to the Americans.
The author weaves all the different elements in Hamdan’s life to bring his story alive to the readers. Mahler describes Hamdan’s early upbringing in the oasis of Wadi Hadhramaut in southeastern Yemen, his arrival in Afghanistan for Jihad and a job in 1996, his detention in Guantanamo, in 2001. Also included are in-depth sections on the U.S. governments efforts to maintain special military tribunals, its war on terror and insight into Yemeni culture, politics and history.
This spring the lawyers representing Salim Hamdan will make their case in the Supreme Court, when it hears Hamdan vs Rumsfeld. The significance of this case is immense since it will have implications for Hamdan’s detention and the extent the President will go, overriding the power and authority of the Congress and the Judiciary.
The War Crimes Tribunal, is the nations first, since World War 2, placing the war against Islamic fundamentalism on the same level as Nazism. The U.S. congress was kept out while the war crimes tribunal was being created, which is a breach of the Constitution since the Congress is empowered to convene military tribunals. The Bush administration’s lawyers wrote up all the rules from the composition to the standards for evidence to the definition of a war crime. The judicial branch was also not part of the decision making, verdicts that were contested would be viewed by a 3 member panel picked by secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, and not federal court of appeals.
Mahler states that right now in Guantanamo, the more than 500 detainees are all classified as enemy combatants. The questions this raises is are all Muslims who answered the call to jihad equally guilty? Which detainees posses a threat? Which ones do not? Is a driver on the same level of leadership as a military planner in Al Qaeda? How long can these detainees be held? How long will the war of terror last? Can the detainees be sent back to their own countries and tried their?
The formal charges being brought by the government on Hamdan, are those of conspiracy. According to Neil Katyal a lawyer representing Hamdan, Conspiracy is a no-no when it comes to war crimes, he clarifies even the U.S. Congress did not include conspiracy when it defined war crimes in statutes in 1996 and 1997. Terrorism is also not codified in international law as a war crime yet.
The current situation in Yemen is a gathering of a few Islamic extremists, that are asking the people, to confront Islam’s enemies. The detention and abuse of over 100 Yemeni men in Guantanamo is adding more converts to this coalition and possessing a threat the current president, Ali Abdallah Saleh.
Interesting article on Salim Hamdan by Jonathan Mahler, in the Sunday New York Times magazine, Jan 8, 2006. Hamdan was Osama Bin Laden’s driver from 1996 until 2001, when he was picked up by Afghan war lords and turned over to the Americans.
The author weaves all the different elements in Hamdan’s life to bring his story alive to the readers. Mahler describes Hamdan’s early upbringing in the oasis of Wadi Hadhramaut in southeastern Yemen, his arrival in Afghanistan for Jihad and a job in 1996, his detention in Guantanamo, in 2001. Also included are in-depth sections on the U.S. governments efforts to maintain special military tribunals, its war on terror and insight into Yemeni culture, politics and history.
This spring the lawyers representing Salim Hamdan will make their case in the Supreme Court, when it hears Hamdan vs Rumsfeld. The significance of this case is immense since it will have implications for Hamdan’s detention and the extent the President will go, overriding the power and authority of the Congress and the Judiciary.
The War Crimes Tribunal, is the nations first, since World War 2, placing the war against Islamic fundamentalism on the same level as Nazism. The U.S. congress was kept out while the war crimes tribunal was being created, which is a breach of the Constitution since the Congress is empowered to convene military tribunals. The Bush administration’s lawyers wrote up all the rules from the composition to the standards for evidence to the definition of a war crime. The judicial branch was also not part of the decision making, verdicts that were contested would be viewed by a 3 member panel picked by secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, and not federal court of appeals.
Mahler states that right now in Guantanamo, the more than 500 detainees are all classified as enemy combatants. The questions this raises is are all Muslims who answered the call to jihad equally guilty? Which detainees posses a threat? Which ones do not? Is a driver on the same level of leadership as a military planner in Al Qaeda? How long can these detainees be held? How long will the war of terror last? Can the detainees be sent back to their own countries and tried their?
The formal charges being brought by the government on Hamdan, are those of conspiracy. According to Neil Katyal a lawyer representing Hamdan, Conspiracy is a no-no when it comes to war crimes, he clarifies even the U.S. Congress did not include conspiracy when it defined war crimes in statutes in 1996 and 1997. Terrorism is also not codified in international law as a war crime yet.
The current situation in Yemen is a gathering of a few Islamic extremists, that are asking the people, to confront Islam’s enemies. The detention and abuse of over 100 Yemeni men in Guantanamo is adding more converts to this coalition and possessing a threat the current president, Ali Abdallah Saleh.
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