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Gitmo Is Killing Me

nytimes.com

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Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#381

Post by randallsquared »

rayiner wrote: post #360
randallsquared wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Held by who? Held by the citizens of the sovereign states, not every human.

The Constitution doesn't say who they're held by; the only reference to "right" in there is actually a place that calls out my error: it does grant one right, which is copyright/patent. Oddly.

A document that might indicate who rights were considered to be held by is the Declaration of Independence, but it says "all men", which I would take to mean every human. Obviously not all the signers viewed it that way, given that slavery was still permitted. Since the US didn't exist at the time when these rights were already viewed as being operative, though, I think we can safely exclude that they were intended to apply only to US citizens.

Edit: spelling.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#382

Post by comrade_ogilvy »

pinwale wrote: post #333
at-fates-hands wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>>>>>>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…

A 25% recidivism rate is pretty good considering that many might have gone to the "battlefield" as payback for their improper imprisonment. Also, it is disingenuous to conflate terrorism with insurgency as both have different motivations and "scope of battlefield." So-called insurgents were only a threat to local presence of Americans and not interested in sticking overseas or be a part of a broader movement against…

A 25% recidivism rate is miniscule considering we have been told for forever that these prisoners, all of them, were the "worst of the worst".

But your general point is a good one: Is someone who joins a not-very-nice local militia really a terrorist just because US troops or lackeys happen to be nearby? The US gov't is playing too many words games IMO.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#383

Post by berntb »

rmc wrote: post #370
ucee054 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better way? Easy: what Norway did after Breivik. If a country is aping the Israelis, it's failed as a democracy.

That was one lone crazy person. Are there other members of Breivik's gang out there? Totally different from an organisation of many people (possibly growing).

ucee054 made the same claim re Breivik a year ago when I posted the same argument -- he didn't answer that same point then either.

ucee054 earlier also argued for jewish conpiracy theories, etc.

Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059752

Edit: Brevity, spelling error, link.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#384

Post by asveikau »

jebblue wrote: post #300
asveikau wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember those times as well. I remember how they convinced so many people that the biggest issue facing the United States was Saddam Hussein ... Even liberals were buying it, or prefacing their statements with "I know he's a bad guy who has to go right away, but..." It was pretty crazy. Or, how about that they successfully convinced the American voter to elect more Republicans in 2002 because ... Saddam. Makes no…

Iraq span multiple presidents: http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcript... "The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them."

Yep, I remember that. I don't think that action, or even what Bush the elder did, was anywhere near the colossal fuckup and misinformation of the 2000s decade, though.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#385

Post by at-fates-hands »

mebassett wrote: post #324
at-fates-hands wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>>>>>>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? C…

Here you go: http://gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov/data/fast-facts.html

"The United States remained the world's largest bilateral donor, obligating approximately $49.6 billion—$31.7 billion in economic assistance and $17.9 billion in military assistance. By comparison, the United States obligated $37.4 billion and $14.5 billion, respectively, in FY2010."

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#386

Post by rayiner »

randallsquared wrote: post #381
rayiner wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Held by who? Held by the citizens of the sovereign states, not every human.

The Constitution doesn't say who they're held by; the only reference to "right" in there is actually a place that calls out my error: it does grant one right, which is copyright/patent. Oddly. A document that might indicate who rights were considered to be held by is the Declaration of Independence, but it says "all men", which I would take to mean every human. Obviously not all the signers viewed it that way, given…

The Declaration of Independence has no legal significance. It is just a letter, and the prose is intended to be poetic (to justify violent revolution) rather than functional.

Your comment about the U.S. not existing shows a misunderstanding of the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution is essentially a contract outlining the delegation of powers to the federal government from the sovereign state governments. The rights therein were viewed as already operative, but not because they were viewed as rights intrinsic to humanity, but because they were rights already enjoyed by citizens of the several states. When the Constitution talks about "people" it is not talking about "people in general." It is talking about "the people"--the body politic of the several states which combined to form the union. Those are the people who have rights under the Constitution.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#387

Post by gamblor956 »

smokinjoe wrote: post #306
gitmothrow wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's funny that you vote for Obama because you think he's a good guy with a good vision for America, then when he gets into power and makes a decision you think is morally contemptuous, your first though is that 'he wasn't who I thought he was'. What the fuck do you know about national security, SoftwareMaven? You're a programmer on Hacker News. You're not privy to the shit that Obama is privy to. How do you…

> Also, throwaway so I don't get called a fascist nazi or whatever. Don't worry, I just consider you a coward for that. If you seriously want to call someone out, do it from your account and stand by your words.

(I'm not gitmothrow.) I did that back during the Scwartz debates on HN, right after he died, using my primary account, which had thousands of karma at the time. Within a week after the incident, most of HN had calmed down and was saying the same things I had been saying.

But by that point my account had been super-ultra-hellbanned. I couldn't even post. It wasn't until another user's complaint about being hellbanned made the front page that my primary account was promoted to merely being dead.

The point is: people use throwaway accounts because the HN community has demonstrated that it is simply not safe to use your primary account to say something controversial unless you have tens of thousands of karma.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#388

Post by yebyen »

pavanky wrote: post #278
vxNsr wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! Gandhi also preached and practiced something called "Peaceful Protest" this guy is accused of "associating with"/guarding UBL.

Firstly, Osama (not Usama) Bil Laden. Secondly, 11 years without trial or even a concrete charge against "an accused terrorist" would be something USA and its citizens would be appalled about if Russia or China did so to their "terrorists". Thirdly, I am against hunger strikes when they can be avoided. Simply because they can turn political and in turn can be abused. Gandhi did abuse it a bit. Indian politicians and…

There are three vowel sounds in Arabic

A, E/I, O/U

(fatha, kasra, dhamma)

I don't understand why one would insist that he lives (prohibit hunger strike) and at the same time refuse him a trial. If he is guilty of some crime, then let him stand trial and suffer the consequences. If there is really no evidence against him then he should be freed. If the feeding tube is in your hand and you don't try for one of these options, you are not human.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#389

Post by enraged_camel »

parfe wrote: post #364
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…

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana... Obama's second full day in office. How is that a reversal? Congress then blocked any and all money which the administration would need to take action to close the base. http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/senate/1/196

I never understood why people got mad at Obama for not closing Gitmo. The president is not the king. He/she still needs approval from Congress to get most shit done. In the case of Gitmo, his initiative got blocked by politicians who were too worried about what voting yes would mean for their own political careers.

For anyone who actually understands politics, the failure to close Gitmo was not Obama's fault.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#390

Post by peterwwillis »

atsaloli wrote: post #43
pixelcort wrote: post #8

With this story of Guantanamo Bay and the story of children born into prison camps in North Korea, as a mere software engineer, it makes me feel hopeless as to how to help.

If you're in the US, pixelcort, may I invite you to consider the Downsize DC effort? ( http://www.downsizedc.org/ ) Here is a quick summary of what DownsizeDC.org is about: We believe the federal government has grown too centralized, too intrusive, and too expensive. We believe in constitutional limits, smaller government, civil liberties, federalism, and low taxes. We want to end laws and programs that don't work, c…

make it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law

Not only is this the stupidest solution to a complex problem i've ever heard, it's depressing that some people take it seriously.

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