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An American Black Site

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Re: An American Black Site

#41

Post by mirimir »

DuskStar wrote: post #23
roywiggins wrote: post #8

> family members and attorneys in touch with SAMs prisoners can be prosecuted and incarcerated for repeating anything the inmate told them This is interesting and I'd be very curious to know what the courts have made of this kind of prior restraint. I'm not skeptical that threats of this nature have been made, but I am skeptical that such a prosecution could actually be brought- under what statute? Lawyers may be gag…

I imagine that it isn't actually prior restraint in the classic sense, but instead in the form of an agreement that the lawyers and family members have to sign before talking to the prisoners in question.

Yes, I suspect that they're non-disclosure agreements. So violating them puts one in contempt of court. And punishments for contempt are whatever judges say they are.

Re: An American Black Site

#42

Post by qualitator »

jdietrich wrote: post #17
moose462 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's our moral high ground that stops us from killing the terrorist or letting him starve himself to death.

That's an extremely low bar, particularly when you consider the detention conditions of Anders Breivik. Norway imprisoned Breivik in the most comfortable conditions possible; in doing so, they neutered his message. They showed that he was weak and they were strong. They took someone who could have been a far-right martyr and turned him into a pathetic figure, slowly fading into irrelevance in a gilded cage. That's wh…

  compassionate
I think you mean dispassionate. By your own words, there is a calculated effect, decoupled from the emotional aspects of radical events. Additionally, it might just be that there is no rehabilitation in the cards, and only stalemate in the equation between the two players.

Re: An American Black Site

#43

Post by mirimir »

mikeash wrote: post #22
hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #7

Why are western nations retreating from any semblance of the moral high ground?

It’s just exposure and acceptance (or lack thereof). Fifty years ago we (the US) were carpet bombing neutral countries as part of a bloody war to prop up a brutal dictatorship. Around the same time, we were shooting protestors and systematically shutting minorities out of civic involvement. A couple of decades before that, we put a hundred thousand innocent civilians in concentration camps because of their ancestry.…

I don't know about "western nations" generally, but "American exceptionalism" is well known.

And about TFA, millions of prisoners, mostly male and mostly black, suffer in arguably worse conditions. Especially, I gather from a recently posted article, prisoners in county jails.

Re: An American Black Site

#44

Post by mikeash »

Fenrisulfr wrote: post #28
mikeash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should house these prisoners under conditions where they don’t become suicidal, then.

While I agree with humane treatment of prisoners, that's a very slippery argument. Every prison is technically inhumane enough to send some people to attempt suicide.

It’s not slippery at all. Life isn’t fair. Keeping prisoners means you’re responsible for them, and that means that sometimes you’re going to be responsible for problems. There doesn’t have to be a way out of this.

Re: An American Black Site

#45

Post by mikeash »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #38
danharaj wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Well, what's your alternative? The death penalty? Release them?

Make your prisons humane, don’t force-feed anyone, and accept the condemnation that occurs when one of your prisoners decides to starve himself to death anyway.

Re: An American Black Site

#46

Post by InterimNew »

nabla9 wrote: post #27
josefresco wrote: post #26

Setting aside this specific situation. Let's say you run a prison, and an inmate goes on a "hunger strike" for a reason that's important to them. What should the prison operators do? Force feed the inmate, negotiate, give into their demands, or let them die? Let's say you try to negotiate, but the inmate is making unreasonable demands or you are not willing to meet their demands, then what?

People should be able to control their bodies. If you don't want to eat. Nobody should force feed you.

I'm not trying to muddy the waters on this issue or take a consequentialist perspective, but how is this materially different from someone rejecting oxygen?

The moral response seems to be to intervene rather than let someone commit suicide, regardless of how long it takes.

Re: An American Black Site

#47

Post by module0000 »

This is mortifying and humiliating. It makes me ashamed to be associated(by being a citizen and armed services veteran) with the country. I suppose I could speak out and try to change things...but I fear that doing so would ensure a similar fate for myself; rotting away in a secret prison, while my family is threatened with prosecution if they talk about it.

It's all happy times here in the USA, anyone that will tell you otherwise has already been imprisoned and/or re-educated.

Re: An American Black Site

#48

Post by crooked-v »

T4NG wrote: post #18

Why isn't there more of a highlight on Salameh's actual charges. This is grossly glossed over especially when understanding what you have to do to land oneself in a blacksite to begin with.

> what you have to do to land oneself in a blacksite to begin with

Yes, like going on vacation to visit relatives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar

Re: An American Black Site

#49

Post by ilikehurdles »

moose462 wrote: post #9
hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #7

Why are western nations retreating from any semblance of the moral high ground?

It's our moral high ground that stops us from killing the terrorist or letting him starve himself to death.

The prisoners want to starve themselves to death because they are being tortured indefinitely by "moral high ground" people.

Re: An American Black Site

#50

Post by DanielBMarkham »

InterimNew wrote: post #46
nabla9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should be able to control their bodies. If you don't want to eat. Nobody should force feed you.

I'm not trying to muddy the waters on this issue or take a consequentialist perspective, but how is this materially different from someone rejecting oxygen? The moral response seems to be to intervene rather than let someone commit suicide, regardless of how long it takes.

I'm firmly in the "you own your body" camp.

But we have to admit that ok, hanging yourself in your cell should be fine, because of this logic.

The reason it's not is political: looks a lot better to have somebody run a story "those horrible prisons are making prisoners eat!" than it is "two-hundred inmates supposedly hung themselves last year because they had the right to"

This is a political battle the prisoner is having with the jail: I am unhappy and ready to die. Make my life just a tiny bit more bearable or I will die in a way that makes you look bad.

I could go into a long rant about all the problems of the American system of jurisprudence. There are tons. We've lost our way on the reasons for prisons and the purpose of incarceration, amongst a lot of other related matters. I still think these folks should have absolute control over their bodies. If it looks bad? Well, it looks bad for a very good reason.

Political systems exist for political reasons. People forget that and ascribe all sorts of things to these systems they never deserved even when they were working well. We need a lot of reform. I wish these folks the best of luck.

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