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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

#101

Post by boudin »

platz wrote: post #93
stephen_g wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It mentions that 86% of prisoners there were handed over by locals as being “suspicious” when offered very large bounties by the US Government (apparently up to millions of dollars). The article also links to this report of an ex-Bush era official saying most detainees were innocent [1] and the ALCU has some more info and numbers [2]. 1. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/most-guantanamo-detainees-are-... 2. https://www.a…

What I'm critiquing is the article itself, which rather conspicuously leaves out key details, independent of his actual guilt or innocence.

Maybe because that's all there is to it. He happened to there at the wrong time. It's really similar to what happened to Mohammed al Gharani https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_el_Gharani

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

#102

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

sofixa wrote: post #95
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which war crimes were committed? Be specific.

Drone strikes of innocents, including US citizens, are an easy one. Illegal kidnapping, detention, and torture, of mostly innocent people at that, is another easy one.

>Drone strikes of innocents

They knew the target was innocent civilians?

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

#103

Post by Tepix »

Murat Kurnaz was also held and tortured for four more years at Guantanamo, even after it was clear that he was innocent.

The person responsible(²), Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is now Germany's president.

There is a repeating pattern here: Governments, officials and people in power are not held accountable.

--

(²) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank-Walter_Steinmeier#Murat_...

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

#104

Post by dgellow »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #81

Strongly against gitmo on every level, but good luck getting anyone accountable on the matter. Within the US , the corresponding laws have been passed prior to action, so it's "legal". For other countries, all they can do is issue an arrest warrant, which will never be respected by the US government, unless someone radically different assumes POTUS position some day. Interesting that the guardian is reporting on this…

> Interesting that the guardian is reporting on this as if their very own government consists of angels and saints on these matters.

It's The Guardian US reporting about the United States. The Guardian UK is also generally very critical of the UK government, so I don't get your point. You don't need your government to be made of saints to criticize war crimes.

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

#105

Post by bayesian_horse »

zozbot234 wrote: post #79
bayesian_horse wrote: post #76

You also shouldn't forget to hold the other powers to account that made it impossible to have peace in Afghanistan. Russia put out bounties on US soldiers, Iran armed the Taliban, Pakistan sheltered them and I'm sure China had their fingers in there just as well. The Taliban have never been the legitimate, much less the benevolent government of the Afghan people. If you've seen "The Handmaid's Tale" you have a genera…

Has there been any legitimate, benevolent government there in living memory? Perhaps they're simply better off with a king, much like the frogs in Aesop's tale.

I'm opinionated in the sense that the only "legitimate" government would be one that is chosen democratically and acts in a particular manner.

And I'm particularly not saying that there is or must ever have been some particular "legitimate government" for every piece of land. I'm just saying that when the US went in and kicked out the Taliban, they definitely weren't making things worse from a lot of perspectives. They ultimately weren't able to solve all the problems, but that is a different question. The 20 years have largely been better than the years under Taliban rule.

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

#106

Post by shapefrog »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #78
shapefrog wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes You cant be too shocked about stuff that has an actual wikipedia article ...

>Panjwai massacre,[1] occurred in the early hours of 11 March 2012, when United States Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales murdered sixteen civilians and wounded six others in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan He was sentenced to life without parole. >The Maywand District murders were the murders of at least three Afghan civilians perpetrated by a group of U.S. Army soldiers from June 2009 to June…

So we have gone from 'there were none' to 'we punished those' where next?

'Well that guy over there did worse' 'It was only 100 civilians' 'There could have been a bad guy amongst them' 'Oops I did it again'

That list was wikipedia, so pretty limited in scope and skewed to cases that have been charged and prosecuted.

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

#107

Post by koheripbal »

the-dude wrote: post #27
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…

Hague (NL) Invasion Act : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

Given that this thread is driven by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, I think it's important to remember that the invasion of Afghanistan was a NATO operation after NATO invoked Article 5 (Collective Defence) in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that Al-Quaeda launched, organized by their leadership based in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban.

There are a few additional facts folks forget since this is now 20 years later. Such as on Sept 10th, an assassination attack was launched against the Northern Alliance because they knew that the US would retaliate for the attacks coming the next day. There were also a number of Taliban leadership that directly aided in the planning and execution of 9/11.

IMO, "nation building" is always an impossible mission. The objective should have been to attack, destroy the enemy, and leave - immediately. Punishing the sponsors of the 9/11 attacks, not entrenching an ideological split.

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

#108

Post by shapefrog »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #102
sofixa wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drone strikes of innocents, including US citizens, are an easy one. Illegal kidnapping, detention, and torture, of mostly innocent people at that, is another easy one.

>Drone strikes of innocents They knew the target was innocent civilians?

They think children are legitimate targets?

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

#109

Post by hinoki »

sofixa wrote: post #91
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens with a lot of things in politics, the compromise is usually to just set a future date when you start doing the right thing and give amnesty to people before that. Some kind of gradual change is often buily in as well. I agree that proportional representation and greater democracy can fix a lot of current problems, but we don't need to put off everything until that arrives and indeed that will need to be…

> This happens with a lot of things in politics, the compromise is usually to just set a future date when you start doing the right thing and give amnesty to people before that I really don't think that's a great idea for war crimes . They're already illegal, and absolutely despicable. Some really terrible things were done, they should be punished - saying from 2030 we'll really punish war criminals doesn't inspire c…

This is what Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are supposed to do. If convicting all the horrible monster people would leave very few people free, sometimes it’s just better to make sure the future better. Restitution can be more important than punishment.

But, forgiveness is hard, and it means evil people walk free.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_commission

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

#110

Post by the-dude »

koheripbal wrote: post #107
the-dude wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hague (NL) Invasion Act : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

Given that this thread is driven by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, I think it's important to remember that the invasion of Afghanistan was a NATO operation after NATO invoked Article 5 (Collective Defence) in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that Al-Quaeda launched, organized by their leadership based in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. There are a few additional facts folks forget since this i…

Since you are bringing up NATO, I will just spell out the Hague Invasion Act ELI5 :

US Congress signed into law the a priori consent of invading the capitol of one of its NATO allies ( NL ).

Disclaimer : I am Dutch.

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