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Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

theguardian.com

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Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#41

Post by Chris2048 »

sofixa wrote: post #26
blunte wrote: post #2

Key figures in US military and US leadership need to be held accountable. Same as with CEOs, if you only punish the organization and not specifically the leaders, there is no disincentive to doing it again. Clearly the US is exempt from the war crimes laws, and that needs to change. But it would require leaders of other major powers/countries to push for this. But… this will never happen because almost no leader want…

> Clearly the US is exempt from the war crimes laws, and that needs to change. But it would require leaders of other major powers/countries to push for this I don't see this happening any time soon, without a popular movement that drastically alters the American political landscape. Whichever party a president and legislators are from, they have war criminals among their ranks, so they couldn't accept their friends,…

> Heck, Trump pardoned a notorious war criminal

Eddie Gallagher? I've yet to see conclusive evidence of that either way.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#42

Post by trhway »

bwilli123 wrote: post #9
throw13579 wrote: post #6

they could have won the war in 2 years instead of losing the war in 20. all they had to do was target the taliban leadership in pakistan instead of their foot soldiers in the vast mountains of afghanistan.

"The Taliban has fought against the US and the Kabul state for two decades in the face of casualties that would have shattered the morale and recruitment of almost any other army. The Vietnamese communists are the only parallel I can think of – and indeed, the Taliban may have learned the importance of discipline and organisation indirectly from communism. There are provinces in Afghanistan where five Taliban governo…

interesting that even the North - ethnically different, ie. Uzbeks, led by General Doustum, and which has been anti-Taliban for decades - fell without fight, and Doustum had to run into Uzbekistan. According to Nur, the [former] Governor of Balkh, (translation of translation) "it was a deep and widespread treason as all the government objects and forces were just simply transferred to Taliban".

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#43

Post by mtgx »

sofixa wrote: post #26
blunte wrote: post #2

Key figures in US military and US leadership need to be held accountable. Same as with CEOs, if you only punish the organization and not specifically the leaders, there is no disincentive to doing it again. Clearly the US is exempt from the war crimes laws, and that needs to change. But it would require leaders of other major powers/countries to push for this. But… this will never happen because almost no leader want…

> Clearly the US is exempt from the war crimes laws, and that needs to change. But it would require leaders of other major powers/countries to push for this I don't see this happening any time soon, without a popular movement that drastically alters the American political landscape. Whichever party a president and legislators are from, they have war criminals among their ranks, so they couldn't accept their friends,…

The US needs an independent (read: NOT "bi-partisan") institution formed of prosecutors that can go after government officials and apply the full extent of the law.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#44

Post by md_ »

sofixa wrote: post #33
md_ wrote: post #32

Among the key figures in the design of American torture programs during the War on Terror were American psychologists James Elmer Mitchell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Elmer_Mitchell ) and Bruce Jessen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Jessen ), who were paid $81m for their work. Irony upon ironies: "Mitchell, who is retired and lives in Land o' Lakes, Florida, spends his free time kayaking, rafting and…

> He describes himself as an atheist and a supporter of Amnesty International That's a funny one. Someone should interview him and see how he sees himself and his role, and does he consider himself to be a war criminal.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/18/james-mitchell...

This also contains this amusing aside: "He also criticized Obama’s healthcare policy – a 'shit sandwich' – and his administration’s approach to global warming. Mitchell believes it’s a myth."

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#45

Post by cutemonster »

sofixa wrote: post #33
md_ wrote: post #32

Among the key figures in the design of American torture programs during the War on Terror were American psychologists James Elmer Mitchell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Elmer_Mitchell ) and Bruce Jessen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Jessen ), who were paid $81m for their work. Irony upon ironies: "Mitchell, who is retired and lives in Land o' Lakes, Florida, spends his free time kayaking, rafting and…

> He describes himself as an atheist and a supporter of Amnesty International That's a funny one. Someone should interview him and see how he sees himself and his role, and does he consider himself to be a war criminal.

Not impossible that he describes himself in ways he thinks make better impressions of him in the media, and that it's unrelated to his actual opinions

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#46

Post by BLKNSLVR »

md_ wrote: post #30
sschueller wrote: post #24

What the US is doing to Assange at the moment is a war crime in itself.

These kinds of comments detract from the horror of the crimes in Guantanamo. It reminds me a bit of when Americans opposed to mask mandates liken them to having to wear yellow Stars of David. Guantanamo detainees were tortured with stress positions, sexual abuse (including simulated rape), simulated executions (including being taken out to sea and told they would be thrown overboard), held in cold rooms, and told the…

I think it provides a worthwhile perspective as to the motivations of the US and what actions it considers to be important enough to put non-trivial effort and resources towards the pursuit and punishment of.

ie. Not the doing of the things, but the public revelation of the doing of the things.

I think it's entirely pertinent to the discussion.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#47

Post by md_ »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #46
md_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These kinds of comments detract from the horror of the crimes in Guantanamo. It reminds me a bit of when Americans opposed to mask mandates liken them to having to wear yellow Stars of David. Guantanamo detainees were tortured with stress positions, sexual abuse (including simulated rape), simulated executions (including being taken out to sea and told they would be thrown overboard), held in cold rooms, and told the…

I think it provides a worthwhile perspective as to the motivations of the US and what actions it considers to be important enough to put non-trivial effort and resources towards the pursuit and punishment of. ie. Not the doing of the things, but the public revelation of the doing of the things. I think it's entirely pertinent to the discussion.

> I think it provides a worthwhile perspective as to the motivations of the US and what actions it considers to be important enough to put non-trivial effort and resources towards the pursuit and punishment of.

"The US" is not a monolith. Guantanamo--both the rapid expansion and ingestion of likely-innocent bystanders and the torture program--was an effort of the Bush-era Defense Department, specifically with high-level support from Donald Rumsfeld and legal cover from the Office of Legal Counsel (John Yoo).

The Assange extradition was a project of the Obama-era Justice Department. It's hard to see any commonalities (in terms of goals or decision-making) at the implementation level, and whatever else you think of Assange, the US's extradition requests have, essentially, followed both international norms and American and international law.

You can try to see some sort of historical through-line here about American imperialism (and you might be right), but, as with my above analogy, that's like saying "the Star of David analogy is pertinent because it relates to the abuse of government power." At a sufficient abstraction that's true, but it still doesn't shed a lot of light.

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#48

Post by FeepingCreature »

md_ wrote: post #30
sschueller wrote: post #24

What the US is doing to Assange at the moment is a war crime in itself.

These kinds of comments detract from the horror of the crimes in Guantanamo. It reminds me a bit of when Americans opposed to mask mandates liken them to having to wear yellow Stars of David. Guantanamo detainees were tortured with stress positions, sexual abuse (including simulated rape), simulated executions (including being taken out to sea and told they would be thrown overboard), held in cold rooms, and told the…

yo not disagreeing, I just want to add, there's a term for "simulated rape"

it's called "rape"

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#49

Post by beckman466 »

thejackgoode wrote: post #20
beckman466 wrote: post #3

Abby Martin from Empire Files made a beautiful video about the war in Afghanistan: https://youtube.com/watch?v=C3LFbOSPfrE

Google wants me to submit my passport (“age check”) to watch this video (despite being registered there since 2008). Any other links to it?

Yes I use https://yt1s.com to download and watch videos that are blocked with this "age check" ridiculousness

Re: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

#50

Post by beckman466 »

La1n wrote: post #21
thejackgoode wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google wants me to submit my passport (“age check”) to watch this video (despite being registered there since 2008). Any other links to it?

I don't have a link, but I've noticed that quite a few videos in the similar corner of topics need an "age check" (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2khAmMTAjI , the creator of which was (according to them) visited by DHS for "anti-american sentiments" [1] ) [1] https://twitter.com/_secondthought/status/133274615894763520...

So glad you mentioned this, I've also noticed this. Agreed, it's scary and crazy what happened to JT Chapman/Second Thought. This 'age check' is also a pretty convenient way for Google to 'passively' create a list of people who watch "anti-american sentiment" videos.
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