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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

#131

Post by AmericanChopper »

sofixa wrote: post #125
AmericanChopper wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just demonstrably untrue. Most Asian countries are either non-signatories, or have withdrawn. China, Russia, Israel, KSA, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Qatar, Turkey… are all post-industrial nations. Also, of the fully ratified signatories, it’s only supported when politically convenient. No member of NATO is going to allow for their citizens to be prosecuted by some extraterritorial court that…

> It’s also why there’s so much popular anti-ICC sentiment in Africa, because a lot of people there think it only exists to prosecute Africans (which isn’t a very easy accusation to rebut) It is, there have been plenty of Serbs that have been convicted.

Consistent with my comment that the ICC only prosecutes Nazis, Serbs, and random Africans.

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

#132

Post by hef19898 »

sofixa wrote: post #113
Tepix wrote: post #103

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_...

I'm not sure I'd hold him responsible. He isn't the one that ordered the torture, and we don't know what he was told ( did he know the guy was getting tortured? did he know he wasn't any threat?)

He was foreign minister at that point and refused to take a German citizen back, instead he left him there. Until pressure was to high, and "public opinion" wasn't that much focused on islamist terrorism anymore. In a nutshell, a low point in Steinmeier's career, and in post-WW2 German foreign policy. Not that Germany was the only country doing this kind of shit, so.

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

#133

Post by rob74 »

Unfortunately the article is only about Guantanamo and the human rights abuses committed there on people who were largely innocent (which is bad enough, of course), but not about the wider failures of the "war on terror", the most current of which is the appalling way in which the so-called democratic administration and army of Afghanistan has failed after the NATO withdrawal. I suspect there were similar mechanisms at play there as with the way suspects were "recruited" for Guantanamo...

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

#134

Post by mrtksn »

mdp2021 wrote: post #115
mrtksn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Key figures must be held responsible" is the highest rated opinion right now. It's fascinating how nation denies responsibility for the actions of the freely and democratically elected officials, which are the very same key figures that "must be held responsible". For some reason, people with option to choose and change their representative claim that they cannot be held responsible for the actions of their represen…

> people with option to choose and change their representative > holding a population responsible for the choices they make > holding the electorate responsible That option does not exist for individuals, mrtksn. The "people" on an abstract level do, but the "people" does not exist. John exists. The population does not make any choice; it does not exist: Jane exists. The electorate is not a person. The irrational way…

Populations are often held responsible for the choices they make. That's how history books talk about Romans, Greeks, Ottomans etc.

It's true that individuals in specific populations don't face the consequences that a population faces but they do face the immediate outcomes. Sometimes those outcomes are good for them, sometimes bad. For example, Europeans are facing the consequences of the chice they made with their support for the interventionism in Africa and Middle east. For example, Richard from GB faced the consequences of his votes by loosing access to EU's market as a result of influx of refugees due to interventionist politics creating these refugees.

That doesn't mean that somebody held them responsible, they will be held responsible in the history. History is written quickly these days. This time, it might have actual consequences for being held responsible just like it had consequences for the Germans.

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

#135

Post by bserge »

JasonFruit wrote: post #129
sofixa wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I'd hold him responsible. He isn't the one that ordered the torture, and we don't know what he was told ( did he know the guy was getting tortured? did he know he wasn't any threat?)

That's part of the point of the system: it makes blame hard to assign.

That's the beauty of any complex system made by humans. The system decides, no human is responsible (except for the occasional scapegoats).

Society is built on systems and everyone submits to them. If it works for the majority, it's good enough.

The sad part is that it is possible to change the various ancient systems into something better, more dynamic, more responsive, that would work for more edge cases.

We just... don't. Few dare question the status quo and even fewer try to change it.

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

#136

Post by chopin »

woodpanel wrote: post #130
sofixa wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I'd hold him responsible. He isn't the one that ordered the torture, and we don't know what he was told ( did he know the guy was getting tortured? did he know he wasn't any threat?)

As much as I dislike Steinmeier, I agree. We also don't know how much pressure was exerted on him.

That does not exonerate him. He could have stepped back and make the pressure public.

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger did step back when she did not agree with a legislative proposal.

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

#137

Post by jannes »

zozbot234 wrote: post #87
AmericanChopper wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of an international criminal court itself is an affront to national sovereignty, and isn’t very widely supported. Among those who go along with it, they tend to stop once it creates an issue for them. The ICC primarily prosecutes the war crimes of war losers. They’ve convicted some Nazis, some Serbs, and a few African war lords here and there. But it’s silly to presume they have authority over any nation…

> But it’s silly to presume they have authority over any nation that exists with even a modicum of national security. That's because most nations do have an established practice of putting their own war criminals on trial. It's good for building trust, which is quite beneficial in the longer run. The U.S. have slipped somewhat, but then they make up for that by literally paying for much of the civilized world's secur…

> quite good on net

That’s a terrible way to justify immoral or illegal actions.

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

#138

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

shapefrog wrote: post #106
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Military service members committing crimes during war is not new but it's far different than war crimes being ordered from the top of the US govt. The closest thing is the prisoner mistreatment but even then, those soldiers did things that were definitely not authorized.

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

#139

Post by Mirioron »

md_ wrote: post #64
sschueller wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the UN Assange has undergone continuous phycological torture [1]. I know the US considers phycological torture as enhanced interrogation tactics but the UN sees it as torture. [1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

To paraphrase @popehat, this is just how federal prisons are. (OK, I don't know how such prisons are in the UK, but presumably they're bad.) That's a Bad Thing, for sure. But I suspect most of Assange's fans aren't upset about the treatment of Assange because they oppose the carceral state; it's because they're fans of Assange. In other words, if you say "I'm opposed to the conditions of Assange's detention", I suspe…

Prisons shouldn't be allowed to be that way to begin with.

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

#140

Post by heavenlyblue »

blunte wrote: post #119
the-dude wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps the first line of defense against such an invasion would be to agitate the farmers, causing them to drive all their tractors back into town. It's pretty difficult to get anything done with them ruining all transportation.

You could do that today using Facebook
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