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Gitmo Is Killing Me

nytimes.com

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Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#181

Post by goggles99 »

What did you expect him to say? I am guilty of contributing to terrorism and the purposeful killing of innocent woman and children civilians?

I like how everyone here takes this guys word for everything. It is all a government conspiracy that has put him in there. After all, the US government likes to round up random people around the world and put them in max security detainment as kind of a boredom fighting game right? Go on death row in any detention center in the world and you'll get the same story from about 95% of the inmates there. The government set them up. They are all innocent.

I think that it is always wise to look at everything that your government does with a certain level of suspicion and cynicism, but I also wouldn't bet money on a Gitmo prisoner's "honest" word either.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#182

Post by tripzilch »

twoodfin wrote: post #37
skyraider wrote: post #5

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 understand that it looks bad if people released from custody in Gitmo return to action in 'violent non-state actor' groups. Just for the record, if you're a victim of one of these released prisoners, it would be more serious for you than simply bad press.

How can you judge? "On the record", even!! Isn't one of the major problems that it's unknown whether these people are even guilty of anything or not? No trial, remember? So how can you suddenly know and decide "for the record" what any one of these prisoners will do if they get out?

Is the man in the article lying then? He says he's innocent. Of course he would. But who are you to decide one or the other?

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#183

Post by Amadou »

david927 wrote: post #171
PeterisP wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they are never released, then it can't happen? Please don't tell me that it's a reasonable (legally or ethically) argument for keeping them imprisoned for decades.

It's the equivalent of keeping the neighbor's daughter in your basement because letting her out would get you into so much trouble . Gitmo is already shockingly illegal or dangerously unethical; I don't see any interest by the US government to end it and take some of the heat for that.

As an American I've come the same conclusion. But it is a cowardly conclusion. We need to take our medicine and correct the wrong-doings of Gitmo. I don't really care if it costs a couple of hundred million dollars, that's chump change compared to the federal budget.

If a guy like Nixon can get a pardon so that the country can move forward, then we can certainly do the same for whatever ahats are culpable for setting up Gitmo in the first place. Pardon the military and politicians responsible for their misguided patriotism and then start treating these unfortunate souls like humans again as one small step towards making the US live up to its lofty ideals again.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#184

Post by StavrosK »

rmc wrote: post #146
davedx wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes they do. All countries claim to be the best.

That is patently false. I'm Greek, and I don't know any Greek (except maybe some right-wing fascists) who believes that their country was the best. Mindsets range from "it's shit" to "it might not be great, but it's my country".

Seeing Americans in movies go "best country in the world!" sounds absurd to us, and "you can't do this to me, I'm an American" sounds ludicrous.

The fact that everyone considers their country to be the best really seems to me like an American generalization. I've lived in the UK and I've had friends from a multitude of countries, and not one of them considers their country to be the best, unlike my American friends.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#185

Post by StavrosK »

onli wrote: post #172
rmc wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the UK claims to be the "Mother of all Parliaments" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament#Origins , and has songs calling itself "Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Hope_and_Glory ). I know more about UK & Ireland than others, but it's not hard to find other countries similar. France's national anthem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marseillaise ) is a song ab…

Honestly, no. Every country has people in it believing that, and songs accordingly. It is called nationalism, which is more common in some countries then others. If you would say those thinks over here, people would suspect you being a nazi. This "America is the greatest country on earth"-slogan is pretty specific for the USA. It is so typical that it became a klischee, we call it "american pathos". It is the same ca…

This is congruent with my observations as well. In my experience, Europeans do see the whole "God bless America" thing as ridiculously nationalistic, the same way many Americans do (cf Parker and Stone's Team America (is that the name?)).

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#187

Post by tinco »

onli wrote: post #172
rmc wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the UK claims to be the "Mother of all Parliaments" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament#Origins , and has songs calling itself "Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Hope_and_Glory ). I know more about UK & Ireland than others, but it's not hard to find other countries similar. France's national anthem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marseillaise ) is a song ab…

Honestly, no. Every country has people in it believing that, and songs accordingly. It is called nationalism, which is more common in some countries then others. If you would say those thinks over here, people would suspect you being a nazi. This "America is the greatest country on earth"-slogan is pretty specific for the USA. It is so typical that it became a klischee, we call it "american pathos". It is the same ca…

(As a Dutch person I believe The Netherlands is the greatest country of the world)

You say this is hubris, but you fail to mention that in many if not more objective ways America is the greatest country in the world. It has the largest amount of wealthy people, the largest amount of educated people, it has freed an entire continent of war, its justice system covers and protects an enormous amount of people, it holds individual rights to a very high standard, it is the largest true democracy in the world.

Then we haven't even mentioned the results of that great economy it has. It presents the world with a dazzling amount of technological progress, from computers to medicine. The fruits of american science have increased the quality of life and longetivity of a vast majority of people on this planet.

There's some subjective stuff too. It has in my opinion the greatest cultural industry, it produces the most impressive books, movies, music, paintings, whatever you like you're bound to find an expert in the US.

Yes guantanamo bay is a black mark on the US's grey slate, but it doesn't immediately disqualify it as a great state of this world.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#188

Post by fakeer »

berntb wrote: post #167
PeterisP wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In EU, a number of ministers have been disgraced enough to be thrown out of politics when their cooperation with USA "extraordinary rendition" came known. Where is the outrage in USA about Gitmo - which high-ranking officials have resigned in shame (or been thrown out for being shameless) about keeping these torture centers?

Here is an obvious analysis: The idea with terrorism against democracies is to scare the living daylight out of voters in a country. The politicians in those democracies want to win the next election do everything to stop the terror. Afaik, most every democracy that had a serious terrorist problem over years threw out the law book -- UK, Germany, Israel, Spain, USA, etc. It is a reaction built into democracy, if you…

No, I really don't know any better way but this way that you are supposedly telling others to accept as 'al right' is not a a way at all. It's not even democracy.

And if you keep doing[1] this - detaining innocents and keeping them in the vacuum for years without a trial and without letting them know what is their crime, if tall; and killing hundreds of children in one drone strike(even though your country's Sec.OS was against it) then you have got two clear choices -

(1). Either wipe out all those innocents, their supporters, family and non-innocents who get another reason(or show it to innocents) to hit you back. This is already happening in my own country on the northern/top tip - for decades.

(2). Or be ready for more aggressive attacks when you are no longer in a position to drone the shit out of entire villages of children and women at your whims(very soon). Well, in this case you might as well be looking for the collective wipe out. you and me together get perished in the shit that we let grow and multiply.

On a more gory(violence ahead) note I'll give a very far fetched but possible example - you might find your, on pre-college RTW trip, teenage son's neck slit by some disgruntled, frustrated, suicidal, lost kid who had lost his father or maybe entire family just the way above mentioned - only because he was born in the wrong geography. Of course your RTW kid was innocent too; as innocent as the kid who struck the blade!

It's a lot worse than the time of colonization, damn it!

Here this you can be me, you, your CIA top boss or just anyone.

[1]. By keep doing I want to say keep on accepting as a world citizen.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#189

Post by sfjailbird »

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…

No, Obama is cool! He plays basketball and does reddit AMAs! And he's black, too!

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#190

Post by ThrowawyAcctLOL »

gruseom wrote: post #91
ThrowawyAcctLOL wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

his personal narcissism seems to rival Obama's I realize that the view of Obama as a tremendous narcissist has become a right-wing meme, but it seems so odd (kind of like the related view that he's a know-nothing who can't speak without a teleprompter, though that one seems to have died down since the election). I'm curious: how did the narcissism meme get started, and what evidence is cited for it, other than that m…

Seriously? Obama's ego really does give appear to be at the upper, Blair/Sarkozy end of the big-politician scale. I could consider an argument that appearances are deceiving here; but no-one with two eyes could look at Obama's personal background and career to date and fail to see how it might, at least, leave someone else with the impression that Obama's unusually prone to feel the world as revolving around him.

> (p.s. I think you may have misread the GP, who meant that McCain would not have gotten their vote instead of Obama.)

Yes, I did misread it, thank you.

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