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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

#251

Post by shapefrog »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #202
shapefrog wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess I didnt have 'its not a crime if it wasnt ordered by he commander in chief' on your list of potential excuses. lol at 'war crimes are inevitable'

I make no excuses. Those who commit war crimes should be held to account- and they almost always are. This thread seems to want senior US leadership held to account for war crimes when they never ordered anything illegal. War crimes are inevitable- war is waged by humans and humans make mistakes or do bad things to one another. Humans are not perfect. It's about what you do about them when you discover them. We have…

> and they almost always are

I would suggest that While the investigator, judge, and jury of these potential crimes are the people perpetrating them themselves we have absolutely no idea of what proportion are or are not investigated let alone punished. Certainly, the evidence of cases that have received public attention (see the collateral murder video and 'investigation' as just one such example) shows a pattern of lies and coverups to justify gross incompetence or outright psychopathic behavior.

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

#252

Post by bayesian_horse »

ryneandal wrote: post #185
zozbot234 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC, historically, the tribal settlements in the country never had a ton of interaction with each other due to the terrain. I think it's a great example of modern borders not making much sense given the interactions of the population.

There have often been buddhist, muslim and other kingdoms or larger military organizations in power in Afghanistan.

It's not that the borders don't make sense, it's that the area as a whole is hard to rule and it's hard to pay for that ruling. Currently one could argue that the medieval kind of "political technology" used by the Taliban is superior to the democratic political technology, for this very reason.

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

#253

Post by blunte »

rayiner wrote: post #179
blunte wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the full report of the investigation is released to the public, it's pointless to speculate on the decisions made after 9/11. There certainly appears to be indication that the real people behind it were not targeted for retribution. These days, unless the money trail is followed to its source, you never really know the full story. Yes I'm intionally not naming names/groups/countries, but we probably know who I'…

After 20 years of the US getting jack shit from Afghanistan, you’d think the “we did it for the oil” people would have moved on. But no.

It's not about oil from Afghanistan, it's about a more solid presence in the region (and in some cases, about preventing an enemy/competitor from having that presence).

Most countries around Afghanistan have oil. If Afghanistan could have been managed (as in, exploited without difficulty or consequence), then the US would have probably been financially wise to attempt what they attempted. But it turns out, after observing two major powers attempt to dominate Afghanistan, that it is just too messy to manage.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23608077

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

#255

Post by blunte »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #202
shapefrog wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess I didnt have 'its not a crime if it wasnt ordered by he commander in chief' on your list of potential excuses. lol at 'war crimes are inevitable'

I make no excuses. Those who commit war crimes should be held to account- and they almost always are. This thread seems to want senior US leadership held to account for war crimes when they never ordered anything illegal. War crimes are inevitable- war is waged by humans and humans make mistakes or do bad things to one another. Humans are not perfect. It's about what you do about them when you discover them. We have…

> they never ordered anything illegal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos

You can't have it both ways. You are either responsible for the management and oversight of your organization (corporation, country, etc.), and thus accountable, or you are negligent.

So criminal intent, or criminal negligence.

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

#256

Post by danielschonfeld »

There seems to be a general case of amnesia about the way the Iraq war was sold and I'm not quite sure why.

While the fairy tale of WMDs was a multiyear effort the US has undertaken, first and foremost as a response to 9/11, Saddam was painted as the leader harboring terrorists and aiding public enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden and his then suddenly sprung into public attention group called Al Qaeda.

It's only later on that Powell was sent on a mission by Bush/Chaney/Rumsfeld to tug on the world's and American's heart strings by producing laughable evidence of WMDs. Not dissimilar to how they sold the original Iraq War with babies in incubators being thrown.

During that first year and all the way to March 2003, endlessly bush has used 9/11, and anybody who is 'harboring terrorists' cough cough Saddam Hussain cough cough to justify anything and everything America wanted to do. And Americans stood behind him, blind and proud with our American flag.

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

#257

Post by Chris2048 »

sofixa wrote: post #86
Chris2048 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, Trump pardoned a notorious war criminal Eddie Gallagher? I've yet to see conclusive evidence of that either way.

The fact he was actually convicted of war crimes, one of very few people in the US in that "club", isn't enough?

He was convicted of "wrongfully posing for an unofficial picture with a human casualty" and was demoted; what other war crime(s) was he convicted of?

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

#258

Post by kodah »

croes wrote: post #153
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…

The US even sanctions investigators of the International Criminal Court if they try to investigate US war crimes. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/14/us-sanctions-internation... *Correction ICC not ICJ

US troops are held accountable for "war crimes" if that's what you're wondering. https://www.rt.com/usa/180692-marine-taliban-urinating-video...

In that specific incident, such a degree of accountability was desired to be held that the Commandant of the Marine Corps is said to have attempted an influencing campaign around their trial: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2017...

I'm sure there are things the military does that go untracked, however, deploying troops are heavily trained on the Law of Land and Warfare, the Geneva Convention (which only applies to how they treat citizens of a nation and the terrorists they're fighting, not to how they will be treated.), and various others.

So, what war crimes are you wanting them to investigate that their own governing bodies have not chased?

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

#260

Post by [deleted] »

queuebert wrote: post #214
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #194

I'm amazed at how many people still see the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions as correct moves. Just last week I was having a friendly mostly non-political conversation with two of my coworkers and then the topic verged to the military and then to the Iraq wars. (For context, I'm Canadian and they're both US ex-pats in Canada.) Both had the opinion, still, that the Iraq war was the correct move at the time. But coul…

The initial Iraq invasion was to enforce Kuwaiti sovereignty and stop Saddam's unilateral aggression which was destabilizing the region. We tried bribing him with aid, but he still invaded, so the U.S. kept true to their promise to enforce agreements. The U.S. helped a small country and protected its image. The second Iraq war may or may not have been WMD based, but Saddam slaughtered hundreds of thousands of mostly…

[deleted]
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