11–20 of 539 posts
Obama could order it closed tomorrow. Congress could refuse to fund that action but it would still be ordered closed and his hands would be a tiny bit cleaner. But he likes his drones and gitmo now, so that's pretty much it until Hillary becomes president and I think she likes the idea of gitmo too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope that the defenders of the legal theories that allow people to be held without trial for many years get their fair share of the blame. Gitmo itself is bad, but the legal theories that let almost anyone be held there without due process are worse. I understand that it looks bad if people released from custody in Gitmo return to action in 'violent non-state actor' groups. But is looking bad in the media worth hum…
I hope so, but it doesn't seem to be happening: after John Yoo finished his work at the Bush DoJ, he got a cushy position at Berkeley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo
Reading things like I can't help but understand why some groups of people can hate America. (I am Australian)
But it's not just the US (or just Gitmo) -- read about the treatment of refugees in Australia (tl;dr: it's better than Gitmo, but not good by a long shot -- http://mitahungerstrike.wordpress.com). And I don't mean to pick on Australia, because the Australian government is no more (or less) guilty than the governments of much of the developed world, I just want to make a point that we all are having terrible things done to other human beings in our names.
It's a damn sad state of affairs.
Obama could order it closed tomorrow. Congress could refuse to fund that action but it would still be ordered closed and his hands would be a tiny bit cleaner. But he likes his drones and gitmo now, so that's pretty much it until Hillary becomes president and I think she likes the idea of gitmo too.
Closing it would mean having the prisoners moved elsewhere, but not a change to how they are being dealt with. That's the real issue; the location isn't what matters.
Maybe there are a few issues with sending people back to their countries, but certainly not in all cases.
The defenders of Gitmo in this era will be remembered by our descendants with the same shame and disgust we feel when remembering the slave holders and segregationists of the previous eras.
The hypocrisy of the New York Times in printing this is shocking. The newspaper which did so much to whip up hysteria during the years of the Bush administration now trying to raise concerns about the inmates of Guantanamo is shockingly cynical. It's a shameful state of affairs that our political process is so broken we cannot deal with this situation in a civilized fashion, with investigations, trials and an end res…
In this case I think the hypocrisy is positive; I would much rather NYT be hypocritical by speaking out against Guantanamo rather than holding their old position.
I appreciate that there may be anger outs people in Gitmo, but they have every right to a trial I have. The double standard of what human rights mean if you are a US citizen and if you aren't makes me physically ill.
As a country, in many ways we deserve the disdain directed at us.
That said, we are not only Gitmo, and we actually do a lot of good things for the world. We just need to get our government to respect our borders.
The hypocrisy of the New York Times in printing this is shocking. The newspaper which did so much to whip up hysteria during the years of the Bush administration now trying to raise concerns about the inmates of Guantanamo is shockingly cynical. It's a shameful state of affairs that our political process is so broken we cannot deal with this situation in a civilized fashion, with investigations, trials and an end res…
Reading things like I can't help but understand why some groups of people can hate America. (I am Australian)