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Gitmo Is Killing Me

nytimes.com

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Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#111

Post by pyre »

taproot wrote: post #102
pyre wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rescinding that executive order doesn't make magic happen. There is the process of closing down and what to do with the prisoners that matters. It's sounding like Congress is tying the President's hands by restricting his ability to use funds (funds that Congress authorizes) towards those goals. If you're in the US and you want this to happen, I would look towards your representatives in Congress, and research these…

Yet leaving it illegal is the problem we face on both counts. I dont see why youre bothering to state this nonsense in the form of an argument against doing the right thing. It would have been easier to do nothing in the first place yet here we bloody well are.

I would support you if you want to go after the people that made this happen, that said if you want to clean up the mess as it currently is, then you'll have to work out how to get it done. Complaining about how it shouldn't have happened in the first place doesn't translate into action now to remedy the situation.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#112

Post by techsupporter »

ck2 wrote: post #10

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.

January 22nd, 2009:

"EXECUTIVE ORDER -- REVIEW AND DISPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT THE GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE AND CLOSURE OF DETENTION FACILITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Guantánamo) and promptly to close detention facilities at Guantánamo..."

- http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana...

"The bill also prohibits any spending on detention facilities in the U.S. for present-day Guantanamo detainees."

- http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=741&sid=2226350

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#113

Post by aaronbrethorst »

ThrowawyAcctLOL wrote: post #75
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #17

Gitmo was the first thing that clued me that I had made a mistake voting for Obama's promises (not that McCain would have ever gotten it instead!). It was such a complete reversal that I immediately knew his promises were completely worthless. 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 an…

> not that McCain would have ever gotten it instead! How are you so sure of that? McCain's neither a saint nor a philosopher-king: his personal narcissism seems to rival Obama's, and he often seems to be successfully flattered and managed by those around him. But he erratically takes stands on principle, and he also has personal experience of both torture and prolonged imprisonment. And in fact he took an anti-tortur…

This would be the same McCain who, just in December, shot down the idea that Gitmo prisoners could be transferred to the United States, right?

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/11/84379.html

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#114

Post by patrickaljord »

> When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.

Sorry but this account is troubling. He went to Afghanistan during the Taliban extremely insane cruel anti-woman Islamist totalitarian regime and expected a better life? That's like someone saying he traveled to Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime and expected a better pay as he didn't know anything about Cambodia at the time. This alone takes the credibility away from this story for me.

The rest is an account about how they are force feeding him because of is voluntary hunger strike. Anyone knows how hunger strikes are handled in other penitentiaries? Not sure they can just let the prisoners die.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#115

Post by justin »

Locke1689 wrote: post #56
iconjack wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolute nonsense. The US president, wrapping himself in the role of commander in chief, does just about anything he wants if it's even loosely connected to war or security, with or without congressional approval. Surveillance. Torture. Black sites. Assassination. Drone murders. Infinite detention. If he wanted Gitmo closed, he could close it. Congress won't give him the budget? Fine, he could order the closi…

Alas, naïveté in the political system. How I knew you.

I don't see how his answer was naive. I think we've reached a low point as a people if believing an elected official will actually attempt to keep his campaign promises is naive.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#116

Post by lignuist »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #11
ck2 wrote: post #10

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.

If there is no clean accusation: let them go where ever they want to go and compensate them for the time in jail. That would be the normal way democracies should deal with such things. If there is a clean accusation, they can be brought to any other jail in the US.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#117

Post by davedx »

jacquesm wrote: post #93
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #17

Gitmo was the first thing that clued me that I had made a mistake voting for Obama's promises (not that McCain would have ever gotten it instead!). It was such a complete reversal that I immediately knew his promises were completely worthless. 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 an…

> That said, we are not only Gitmo, and we actually do a lot of good things for the world. Indeed, it is not just Gitmo, if only, and it's not just the US. Lots of EU governments are complicit in the whole rendition (what a word, kidnapping would be the appropriate term) program as well and there are/were more places in the world where people are being held without any sort of process, to be tortured and disposed of,…

But those other countries do not claim moral high ground in the same way the US does on so many other issues, or claim to lead the world with respect to values such as freedom and democracy (of which the right to a fair trial can be considered a part).

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#118

Post by Robin_Message »

MartinCron wrote: post #81
md224 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution is supposed to protect the rights of Americans from the tyranny of "the people." Alas.

I don't buy that. It seems that the notion of rights endowed by the creator should apply broadly to all humans whenever possible.

Given slavery was not abolished at the time of independence, it seems likely that the writers of the constitution did in fact not intend to apply rights to all humans as broadly as possible.

What it means now? Who knows.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#119

Post by ncallaway »

richardjordan wrote: post #3

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…

A) It is not hypocritical to change ones opinions given time and new information. Hypocrisy is doing something you advocate against while you are an advocate against it. Believing otherwise is to argue against the scientific method itself.

B) Is it even a conflicting opinion to think a certain war may be just, but some actions taken as part of that war are unjust? One example of such a situation may be the Japanese internment camps in WWII. Many people argue that the war itself was just, and worth fighting, while the Japanese internment camps were a grave mistake.

Perhaps they thought the Iraq war was righteous thing, while thinking the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay far from just.

C) To be Orwellian is to deny the past. Has the NYT ever claimed they didn't take a stance that they did? Have they denied printing those words that supported the war? If they haven't rewritten history they haven't been Orwellian.

Please don't cry wolf on things like this, because we need to credibly make these arguments when something really is Orwellian.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#120

Post by david927 »

lukifer wrote: post #90
dantheman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president can pardon them, the president can use private money to move them. The president can be on the news every night making this an issue.

> The president can be on the news every night making this an issue. This is why the legal technicalities are irrelevant. The President has the ultimate bully pulpit, and it sure ain't getting used on Gitmo.

If the prisoners are ever released without being charged or tried (which won't happen because there's no evidence), they can each file a civil suit against the U.S. Government, each worth potentially hundreds of millions. I think this plays a role as well.
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