http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Judges_cite_nonsense_poem_in_Guantanamo_0630.html
Judges cite nonsense poem in Guantanamo case By MATT APUZZO
WA****NGTON -- A federal appeals court reviewing evidence at Guantanamo
Bay compared a Bush administration legal argument to one made by a
hapless, dimwitted character in a 19th century nonsense poem by Lewis
Carroll.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cited
the 1876 poem, "The Hunting of the Snark," in ruling that the military
improperly labeled a Chinese Muslim as an enemy combatant. The ruling
was issued last week but an unclassified version of the opinion was
released only Monday.
It was the first time a court has reviewed the military's
decision-making and considered whether a detainee should be held.
The court said military review panels were unable to *****s much of
the evidence against the detainee, Huzaifa Parhat, and at times
treated accusations as evidence.
Parhat is one of a group of Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, being
held at Guantanamo Bay. Their case has become a diplomatic and legal
headache for the U.S., which has tried to find a country willing to
accept the Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) even as it defended its
decision to hold them as enemy combatants.
The Justice Department concedes that Parhat never fought against the
U.S. and says it has no evidence he was planning to do so. The case
hinges on Parhat's connection to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement,
a militant group that demands separation from China. Parhat says he
considers China, not the United States, the enemy.
The Justice Department says the U.S. has classified intelligence that
ETIM is affiliated with al-Qaida, though officials did not identify
the source of that intelligence either to the judges or to the
military reviewers. The judges said there's credible evidence the
source of that intelligence is the Chinese government, "which may be
less than objective with respect to the Uighurs."
The three-member court, which was made up of two Republican judges and
one Democrat, was particularly pointed in its criticism of the logic
that evidence is reliable because it appears on multiple do***ents.
"The government insists that the statements made in the do***ents are
reliable because the State and Defense Departments would not have put
them in intelligence do***ents were that not the case," the court
wrote. "This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the
government says must be treated as true."
The judges compared the argument to the logic in Carroll's nonsense
poem. The Bellman lead his crew across the ocean, guided by a map that
was just a blank piece of paper. He rallied and reassured his crew
simply by repeat himself.
"I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true," the
Bellman says in the poem.
"Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact that the government has 'said
it thrice' does not make an allegation true," the court wrote.
The court said Parhat deserved a new hearing or should be released -
though it didn't say to where. The U.S. does not want to send him to
China for fear he will be tortured.
"I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that
said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'"
- G.W. Bush, 9/17/01, UPI
"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care.
It's not that im****tant. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
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