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Gitmo Is Killing Me

nytimes.com

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Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#321

Post by rayiner »

zamryok wrote: post #254
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…

> The double standard of what human rights mean if you are a US citizen and if you aren't makes me physically ill. I also think that is profoundly unjust, and unfortunately it is not simply a question of being a US citizen or not: US citizens who are arab or muslim are more likely to be suspected of acts that could be considered to lie within the vague legal category of Terrorism. So it seems that non-muslim and non-…

It is absolutely not a racial/ethnic thing. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld.

They found a Saudi who was a U.S. Citizen (born in Louisiana), fighting in Afghanistan, and took him to Guantanamo. The Supreme Court ordered him released, and the government complied.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#322

Post by randallsquared »

rayiner wrote: post #304
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…

The double standard is Constitutional. The Constitution was never contemplated to give rights to foreigners not on U.S. soil. Indeed, every society has different rules for "its people" versus "other people." It's one of the things that makes war possible.

> The Constitution was never contemplated to give rights to foreigners not on U.S. soil.

Or to anyone. The Constitution is supposed to limit what the federal government can do, not grant any rights at all. When it was written, the assumption was that those rights were already held.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#323

Post by anuraj »

rule of law, right to fair trial, upholding dignity of human kind and the farce of democracy. Feed the rabble with trivia they need to know and all is well.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#324

Post by mebassett »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #320
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…

>>>>>>>>I appreciate that there may be anger outs people in Gitmo, but they have every right to a trial I have. It's really not that easy considering most people say these people should be covered under the Geneva Convention and given a military tribunal to determine their guilt. Unfortunately, the convention was really adopted for conventional warfare, not the sort of loosely organized terrorists we're currently fig…

>>No, not really. Considering when something bad happens anywhere in the world, nobody calls Canada, nobody calls Turkey, nobody calls Sweden. They call us to fix it. They call us to send billions in aid. They call us to take care of their crazy saber rattling neighbors. You think we deserve the disdain, but can you imagine the world without the billions in aid, without all the military aid we give other countries?

Citation needed, please. There's a lot of countries and a lot of people outside the US, and the idea that they are all calling on the US to solve their political and international relations problems sounds a bit silly to me. Did you know France has had military operations Mali since 2012 without the advice, consent, or involvement of the US, for instance? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mali_conflict_%282012%...)

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#325

Post by DannyBee »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #320
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…

>>>>>>>>I appreciate that there may be anger outs people in Gitmo, but they have every right to a trial I have. It's really not that easy considering most people say these people should be covered under the Geneva Convention and given a military tribunal to determine their guilt. Unfortunately, the convention was really adopted for conventional warfare, not the sort of loosely organized terrorists we're currently fig…

1. I would "return to the battlefield" too after being treated like they are, even if i had done nothing before. What makes you think Gitmo is not the cause?

2. If the convention is outdated, update it. It's not like the US is pushing the Hague and others to convene treaty proceedings to get this done. Until the US actually takes any steps to try to fix this "problem", i take it as just a BS excuse.

3. You have a very strange view of what happens, one I can only imagine is contributed to mainly by local media. They do in fact, call Canada, Turkey, Sweden, and others. These are rarely, if ever, unilateral actions. Due to some folks i'm friends with, i've actually occasionally traveled with some of these kinds of delegations, and I assure you, none of this is "better call big brother US to beat these guys up".

4. They would never declassify a document that shows them having been wrong until at least 20-25 years after the fact.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#326

Post by gyardley »

Nursie wrote: post #174
rmc wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$MY_COUNTRY Exceptionalism

I don't know of another country that has it quite so bad. I know of nowhere else in the western world where people fly flags or drape themselves in the flag with anything like the regularity of the US. It really sticks out compared to everywhere else I've been, and I've travelled to/in 30+ countries now.

In my experience, we Canadians fly our national flag and wear flag-themed garb much, much more than Americans. Even more than in Texas, where people usually fly the American flag because they think it'd be rude to fly the Texas flag solo.

I suspect this Canadian flag-waving has more to do with our insecurities than it does with our comparative level of patriotism - we're not all that different from Americans, so we go out of our way to emphasize what differences we do have.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#327

Post by DannyBee »

dhimes wrote: post #309
acjohnson55 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you will have no chance of accomplishing your other policy goals if you do.

Interesting- I hadn't thought of that. It then begs the question: why would his opponents not want to close it down?

Because it makes them look weak.

If the US president can close Guantanamo over the objections of sabre rattling congressmen who keep doing local town halls where they tell their constituents "we lock the bad guys up forever", then it makes clear to those local folks that their congressman are actually pretty impotent.

There are plenty of "he wanted to close Guantanamo bay and let terrorists go, like Obama" commercials that aired during the election.

As the parent said, doing this to congressman, be they republican or blue dog democrat, would make him completely and totally ineffective in getting bills passed.

There is usually a broad difference between the posturing you hear about on TV, and the actual way they act in closed door meetings. In one case, they have to appear that way to keep their constituents happy. By and large, congressmen are not stupid (or at least, not egregiously so), they are just good at acting.

If you do something that is going to seriously threaten their apparent power position, however, it will no longer be acting.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#328

Post by dash2 »

hobolobo wrote: post #203
rmc wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and some countries had their own Gitmos. The UK had hunger strikes and imprisonment without trial during their own civil war in Northern Ireland. It's not as black and white as "USA bad, EU good".

Whilst internment was a pretty nasty thing, I don't think that what went on in British prisons is comparable to what goes on in Guatanamo Bay. The point was that whilst nowhere is perfectly just and or free, there is the perception that the USA promotes itself as being so.

Not sure you are right there, speaking as a Brit. Torture was used on internees, as detailed in the book Cruel Britannia by Ian Cobain. I believe that torture also took place in Guantanamo, but I don't know whether it was worse. (Black prisons in other places like Baghram are another matter.)

In any case, in Guantanamo, the detention without trial is almost worse and more disgraceful than the torture. How can the democracies hold our heads up if this is how we behave?

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#329

Post by DannyBee »

dhimes wrote: post #307
utunga wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great idea. Here's some ideas to toss around. Maybe.. - We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but should we turn them loose now we would lose a huge amount of face (but whose face would be lost under an incoming president?) - We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but now we have turned them into such dangerous killers, that, given the…

For me, I think your third point would do it if (and only if) I had been shown that the workings at Gitmo saved tens of thousands of lives. It would also be a secret worth keeping (from your enemies) that Gitmo was working to that extent.

I think you strongly misunderstand what drives the political system. You are nowhere near cynical enough ;)

There is no real good and bad anymore. Doing good and stopping bad is not what drives folks in DC.

I was once like this. I thought people in DC were, by and large, doing things for the right reasons, and they mostly just had better info than I did.

After living in DC for 13 years, and being privy to a lot of the inner workings of some of this stuff, I no longer believe that. I've seen how too much sausage is made. I believe what you think would have been true once, but simply isn't anymore.

That isn't to say there aren't young, idealistic folks in government. There are plenty. There just aren't any old, idealistic folks in power anymore ;)

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#330

Post by tibbon »

I make no apologies for Obama- he should have closed Gitmo.

Yet, there's one tiny tiny possibility that I have considered for why he hasn't. Before becoming president, you make promises, have goals, and overall think you know what you're going to do on day one.

However, after inauguration you go for your first big debriefing with the CIA, FBI, etc... The things you learn there completely change the course what you want to do, or can do. You find that we were constantly in significantly more danger than any citizen could have anticipated.

Now, I don't find this to be likely, but just something I've considered. Why in the world would have Obama gone from wanting to close Gitmo, to being pretty much against it? Politics alone don't seem to cover it, since pretty much everyone wants it closed. Logistics? It doesn't seem that hard...

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