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Gitmo Is Killing Me

nytimes.com

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Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#341

Post by gregorymichael »

dspillett wrote: post #161
gilgoomesh wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need funding. Just send them home. They shouldn't be in any detention center – there is no legal reason to detain them.

> You don't need funding. Just send them home. They would immediately try take legal action against the American administration through any and every international court available. Having been detained without sufficient evidence there is a case to answer, the US and their cohorts (let us not forget that several governments including ours in the UK have been shown to be complicit in rendition actions that deliberatel…

Then we must stop pretending to be a country of justice, and admit we're only in it for our own self interest.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#342

Post by vansteen »

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…

"Afaik, most every democracy that had a serious terrorist problem over years threw out the law book -- UK, Germany, Israel, Spain, USA, etc." ...

Can you precise?

I can talk about something I know. I'm french. France got problem with islamic terrorism in the 90's. France is having problem with terrorism for the last 10 years. France has done two wars in the last 3 years (Lybia, Mali and still do stuff in Afganistan). My country is not the best country in the world but we did not end up with some terrible thing like Guantanamo ... I would say the same about many others european countries and it should be the same for USA. If you believe in human rights and dignity, what ever enemy you have to fight, you should not forget the values you are fighting for.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#343

Post by natmaster »

GHFigs wrote: post #95
natmaster wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does congress control how Gitmo is run? My understanding is that the President is in charge of the how (execution of the law), and congress only controls the what.

This is true in theory, but in practice, Congress can be as specific as it likes about how the money is allowed to be spent. For example (from the NDAA 2013, Section 1022)[1]: "(a) In General- No amounts authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2013 may be used to construct or modify any facility in the United States, its territories, or possessions to hou…

So as far as you know there's no provision requiring Gitmo prisoners to be tortured constantly?

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#344

Post by brown9-2 »

Locke1689 wrote: post #34
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 problem is that to close Guantanamo, you need funding to a least move the prisoners to another facility. Introducing them to the justice system would require the same. As every American should know, Congress holds the purse strings here and has denied said request. The President has no power here.

It's continually amazing how many people, especially Americans, think that the President is a king.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#345

Post by brown9-2 »

dantheman wrote: post #84
Locke1689 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that to close Guantanamo, you need funding to a least move the prisoners to another facility. Introducing them to the justice system would require the same. As every American should know, Congress holds the purse strings here and has denied said request. The President has no power here.

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.

Private money from where? Which account does that get drawn on?

Are you saying that the president should have authority to order spending of non-government money?

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#346

Post by dhimes »

DannyBee wrote: post #329
dhimes wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

This saddens me and I hope you are wrong. For 40 years DC was the center of my life. I was born there and raised in the suburbs (went away a couple of times for school). I worked in the defense industry a bit between degrees. I taught college there for a decade. I left the area ten years ago, and I found the political climate there nauseating when I left.

While I acknowledge that the population at large carries a spectrum of pathological traits, and perhaps DC tends to attract and keep those with certain types of pathologies, I still like to think that most people are trying to do the "right thing" but in situations that are enormously complex.

Back to my thought experiment: You are Obama. You truly believe that torture is horrible and wrong. Yet when you are briefed on our operations you learn that information obtained as allowed us to derail a few large scale terrorist attacks. Do you close it down? If you do and a bomb goes off at the World Series killing thousands, how would you feel?

Again, complex.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#347

Post by brown9-2 »

md224 wrote: post #70
jorgeortiz85 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

The Constitution details the authorities and powers that the government has. The government does not assume total power when it is dealing with non-citizens or operating overseas. The Supreme Court has ruled clearly on this in the past.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#348

Post by Zak »

rayiner wrote: post #312
MartinCron wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's in the Declaration of Independence not the Constitution. The former is high prose. The latter is a legal document. As a legal document, it cannot purport to give rights to people outside of its jurisdiction.

The Constitution does not purport to give rights to anybody. It declares that certain things are rights and prohibits the US government from violating them.

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#349

Post by ricardobeat »

rthomas6 wrote: post #305
gitmothrow wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear future generations, Clueless middle class Western programmers on Hacker News believed everything some guy in prion said and thought they understood national security realities better than the president of the US. And they made a bunch of brave comments. Much karma was exchanged. Love, 2013

"Dear 2013, Nostalgia tells me that your time was a simpler time, when people cared about politics/kids had morals/people were nicer. Also I learned in history class that Barack Obama was a great president who took the first steps toward universal healthcare. They talked about Guantanamo Bay for part of one day. The necessities of war are horrible sometimes; too bad they had to do that." Seriously though, this is jus…

Maybe in the US, but elsewhere the Latin American coups and Native American genocide are not, and will never be, "glossed over".

Re: Gitmo Is Killing Me

#350

Post by jpxxx »

gitmothrow wrote: post #273
jpxxx wrote: post #52

Hi, future generations! Political prisoners are being raped with food intubators to prevent themselves from committing suicide in America's secret torture prison, with the express consent and approval of President Obama, the American Congress, and the numerical majority of the American people. Love, 2013

Dear future generations, Clueless middle class Western programmers on Hacker News believed everything some guy in prion said and thought they understood national security realities better than the president of the US. And they made a bunch of brave comments. Much karma was exchanged. Love, 2013

I can put up with your smug, cowardly, evil war nerd horseshit, but not when it's from a throwaway.

Fuck you, fuck this encroaching Reddit-flavored nonsense, thank you HN, and goodbye HN.

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