Guantanamo Bay: Shame on you, United States

[questor]

Religion is not poison, it's the misinterpretation and misuse of religion that has

led to a great many of man's atrocities toward other men. If you take the life and teachings of Christ as a model for societal behavior, it could be a utopian

society. It is those who use the name of religion to create excuses to commit mayhem that cause a great deal of the world's miseries. Put the blame where it belongs. As far as the Muslims, why make excuses for them? If Muslims wanted to act as a unified group against the radical Islamists, we wouldn't be in Iraq. Which major Islamic leaders have acted to quell the teaching of jihad or to have a worldwide summit condemning the barbarism being visited upon the world? Which Muslim leaders preach for peace, education, and gender equality? The people who want peace should be agitating for the Muslims to get their act together and join the civilized world instead of being the major

obstacle to world peace.

[InfiniteNow]

Religion is not poison, it's the misinterpretation and misuse of religion that has

led to a great many of man's atrocities toward other men. If you take the life and teachings of Christ as a model for societal behavior, it could be a utopian

society. It is those who use the name of religion to create excuses to commit mayhem that cause a great deal of the world's miseries. Put the blame where it belongs. As far as the Muslims, why make excuses for them? If Muslims wanted to act as a unified group against the radical Islamists, we wouldn't be in Iraq. Which major Islamic leaders have acted to quell the teaching of jihad or to have a worldwide summit condemning the barbarism being visited upon the world? Which Muslim leaders preach for peace, education, and gender equality? The people who want peace should be agitating for the Muslims to get their act together and join the civilized world instead of being the major

obstacle to world peace.

 

That's got to be one of the best examples of Knight's Move thinking that this site has seen in quite some time. Thanks for the chuckle, questor. :)

[CraigD]

To those who would close Gitmo, what do we do with the prisoners, release them all? Perhaps we could send them to the countries that are crying out against their treatment.

I think this clear and obvious question was answered by President G. W. Bush fairly clearly in this 6/16/2006 press conference

I'd like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we're holding some people that are darn dangerous, and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts. And the best way to handle -- in my judgment, handle these types of people is through our military courts. And that's why we're waiting on the Supreme Court to make a decision.

Part of closing Guantanamo is to send some folks back home, like we've been doing. And the State Department is in the process of encouraging countries to take the folks back. Of course, sometimes we get criticized for sending some people out of Guantanamo back to their home country because of the nature of the home country. It's a little bit of a Catch-22. But we're working through this.

No question, Guantanamo sends a signal to some of our friends -- provides an excuse, for example, to say the United States is not upholding the values that they're trying to encourage other countries to adhere to. And my answer to them is, is that we are a nation of laws and rule of law. These people have been picked up off the battlefield and they're very dangerous. And so we have that balance between customary justice, the typical system, and one that will be done in the military courts. And that's what we're waiting for.

Eventually, these people will have trials, and they will have counsel and they will be represented in a court of law. I say, "these people," those who are not sent back to their mother countries. You know, we've sent a lot of people home already. I don't think the American people know that, nor do the citizens of some of the countries that are concerned about Guantanamo.

I see no evidence of a significant change in this opinion since then, as evidenced by 1/14/2008 statements by Joint Chief’s chairman Adm. Mike Mullen.

 

From these and other statements, I believe that, if Gitmo were closed, some of its current total of 200-300 prisioners would be released, but most would be transferred to military prisons in the continental US, others to prisons in the countries of their home countries – provided the US government is confident that those countries will not release them without following some legal process to determine if they are guilty of crimes, or likely to attack the US or her allies in the future.

[Michaelangelica]

Religion is not poison, it's the misinterpretation and misuse of religion that has

led to a great many of man's atrocities toward other men. If you take the life and teachings of Christ as a model for societal behavior, it could be a utopian

society.

Yes agreed, Christ was quite the Communist except for his belief- almost to the end- in his Father.

It is those who use the name of religion to create excuses to commit mayhem that cause a great deal of the world's miseries. Put the blame where it belongs.

Agreed again Christianity, Judaism and Islam must be the three most intolerant sects we have.

As far as the Muslims, why make excuses for them? If Muslims wanted to act as a unified group against the radical Islamists, we wouldn't be in Iraq.

No don't agree. I'm not sure why the USA and Oz are in Iraq.

Someone said it was about WMDs;- others say Oil.

Others say Bush had to look as if he was doing something after 9/11 and attacking Iraq seemed a good idea at the time (after Daddy had chickened out).

Some say it is just a typo and the Bush was meant to attack Iran, which does, almost, have WMDs

Which major Islamic leaders have acted to quell the teaching of jihad or to have a worldwide summit condemning the barbarism being visited upon the world? Which Muslim leaders preach for peace, education, and gender equality? The people who want peace should be agitating for the Muslims to get their act together and join the civilized world

Quite a few. Did you read the post I made about Indonesia's approach to stopping terrorism? Admittedly, some are bog-stupid hillbillies like some Christians.

instead of being the major

obstacle to world peace.

I would put that to the vote.

Should we judge on arms expenditure and military production?

Or how about propping up dictatorial regimes like Pakistan?

or how many troops are involved shooting other people?

or You choose a criteria.

[Boerseun]

No question, Guantanamo sends a signal to some of our friends -- provides an excuse, for example, to say the United States is not upholding the values that they're trying to encourage other countries to adhere to...

Yep.

And my answer to them is, is that we are a nation of laws and rule of law. These people have been picked up off the battlefield and they're very dangerous.

In order to pick people "off the battlefield", you have to be engaged in a war first. Wars are between countries. You can't, however much you want to, declare war on "terrorism". That's like declaring war on unhappiness. Its an idea, a philosophy. It might be harmful to others, sure - but the thing is, according to all internationally understood rules and laws of engagement, both diplomatic and militarily, the United States' unilateral "War on Terror" is a "War on Flying Elephants", and your country's presence in places like Afghanistan etc. in the prosecution of this was is totally and completely illegal, because you're not at war with those countries - you're at war with an idea.

 

Hence, the alleged "militants" hosted in Gitmo is simply citizens abducted from their respective countries' sovereign territories. They are innocent until proven guilty, but for some reason you can't charge them. You can't charge them, because a legal precedent for what you've done doesn't exist: You cannot charge and prosecute citizens of another country (sovereign, I might add) without being at war with that particular country.

 

You have absolutely no jurisdiction over those "combatants". If these people are "combatants", have they been abducted whilst carrying guns, shooting, in a firefight? No. Most have been abducted from home, with the US Marines or whoever does the abducting these days jacking them in the middle of the night from their homes, based on intel gathered in some non-descript way. The allegation that they are "militants", "enemy combatants", or even "terrorists" have to be solidly proven by the Americans that so dearly want to toast their asses. The rest of the world does the same thing: We identify people in other countries that have done us harm. Through spying or whatever, intel gathering is done, and then an extradition case is presented to the hosting country. The hosting country will then extradite the individual for prosecuting in the other country, but once again the US can't play with: The US says "We have to go after the terrorists in their host countries ourselves, because they won't extradite to the US. They hate us, we have to go in and catch them ourselves". Quite true. Nobody will extradite any terrorist to the US. No country in the world. And not because we hate the US and want to protect the terrorists, but simply because you've got the death penalty and will insist on the terrorists ridin' old sparky. This has nothing to do with our individual attitudes against the States, so don't take it so personally, dammit! We (the rest of the civilized world) simply don't extradite capital cases to countries where the death penalty applies. We'll extradite to Britain any time, though. So, to get past that particular dilemma, you'll invade and break heap, reams and stacks of international treaties along the way.

You (your gov) have no respect for sovereignty, are you beginning to understand why the rest of the world is getting rather fed up with your bullyish attitude, and getting rather suspect of your goverment, military, and your motives in general? Nothing against Americans - I believe they are very good and friendly people. My gripe is with your government. And you can sort it by voting for the other guy next time.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Nothing against Americans - I believe they are very good and friendly people. My gripe is with your government. <-the wise and nobel Boerseun

Interesting....I've heard numerous others from nations we been f###in' with say nearlly the exact same thing in interviews with corespondents.

[Boerseun]

Wise and noble Boerseun...

A bit of a juvenile comment, I'd say.

Interesting....I've heard numerous others from nations we been f###in' with say nearlly the exact same thing in interviews with corespondents.

Yeah.

 

Kinda like the USSR of old. Their government sucked big time, though I won't hold it against the average Russian. They are good and kind people.

 

Or Nazi Germany, for instance. The Germans are good, kind, hardworking people. The fact that their government caused the biggest calamity in the history of civilization and exterminated most European Jews is not necessarily their fault.

 

I really don't think we should hold Hitler's excesses against your average Kraut.

 

Same again with the US. I don't think that it's the average Yank's fault that their commander-in-chief is a total nitwit sitting on the world's biggest nuclear arsenal, and has absolutely no respect for international rules and laws, and the concept of sovereignty as understood by the rest of the world.

 

So if you've heard many other people from many other countries say the exact same thing in interviews, don't you maybe think that there's some truth in it?

[InfiniteNow]

Same again with the US. I don't think that it's the average Yank's fault that their commander-in-chief is a total nitwit sitting on the world's biggest nuclear arsenal, and has absolutely no respect for international rules and laws, and the concept of sovereignty as understood by the rest of the world.

 

So if you've heard many other people from many other countries say the exact same thing in interviews, don't you maybe think that there's some truth in it?

 

No way! Those people just hate us for our freedom and our power, and they clearly hate the American people because we are so much more prosperous and happy. It's obvious. All of these other countries have simply banded together to fight us because we're so much better than they are. If they keep up this blasphemy, we'll prove that we're better by attacking them too. :)

 

 

:ebomb:

[Michaelangelica]

No way! Those people just hate us for our freedom and our power, and they clearly hate the American people because we are so much more prosperous and happy. It's obvious. All of these other countries have simply banded together to fight us because we're so much better than they are. If they keep up this blasphemy, we'll prove that we're better by attacking them too. :)

 

 

:hyper:

Can I have some of what you are smoking? Stirrer:)

 

Boerseun amazing posts.:ebomb:

 

How come there is all this talk of "giving back" the prisoners all of a sudden?

 

It took us years to get our nationals out of GB and then only with conditions.

 

Has the USA suddenly realised they have made a cluster-time-bomb?

[CraigD]

I believe there’s a tendency, both within and without the US, to assign blame and credit for all of the US’s post 9/11/2001 actions on its Executive, and to varying extents, its Legislature. This may well be a correct conclusion: Had Al Gore been elected in 2000, rather than George W. Bush, it’s very likely that the reaction to 9/11/2001 would not have resulted in the invasion and current occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the creation of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. However, I think it obscures a more important, “structural” cause for the US reaction which is unrelated to the personalities, abilities, and beliefs of individual US leaders and policy makers.

 

The following excerpt from US President John Quincy Adams’s 7/4/1821 end-of-term remarks to Congress is often quoted as a lead-in to the ideas I’m about to present (I’ve done so at least twice before at hypography):

"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own... even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty."

Although many students of it are frequently unrealistically idealistic (myself incuded), American government has from the founding of the Republic been, like that of every other long-lasting government of which I’m aware, realistically pragmatic. In general, neither leaders nor private citizens trust the government not to lie, conceal, ignore, suspend, “creatively interpret”, or rewrite law, and, as Boerseun eloquently puts it “break heap, reams and stacks of international treaties along the way.” Thus, government functions as much or more because of the powerlessness of its officials as by their effectiveness.

 

I personally subscribe to the following fairly common interpretation of history:

 

To reduce “adventuring abroad” (a polite 19th century euphemism for invading other countries, an activity with which even the early Republic of Adams’s time was familiar), the authors of the US Constitution intentionally crafted the law to make it politically and economically complicated and difficult for the US to mount a military campaign of any kind. Key to this was the idea, implied but not explicitly stated in the law, that the US should not have a large, permanently standing army, but should rather have to “forth the militia” – that is, call for volunteers, and, failing that, draft private citizens into military service. Except for a small professional officer corp, military service should not offer, as it did in many 18-19th century European nations, careers, nor provide an “employer of last resort” for the unskilled or economically displaced. Money appropriations to support armies are limited to a term of use of no more than 2 years, making the pay of soldiers, weapon and other equipment and supply providers subject to political whim, and thus unreliable risky business.

 

In addition, prior to the 16th amendment to the Constitution in 1913, Congress had very limited available sources of revenue, requiring most of the monies used to raise and support armies to be raised by taxes enacted by the individual states, which lack such limitations. This further complicated and made uncertain the ability of the US to support a large army for a long time.

 

Following ratification of the 16th amendment, and the subsequent raising of a large US army (4 million) ca its 1917 entry into WW I, this prescription effectively failed, and the US has ever since had a large standing army (currently about 1.5 million), and a large reserve (about 2 million, including the state’s National Guards), both continuously funded entirely by the Federal government.

 

Prior to the dissolution of the former USSR in 1991, US military activities abroad were limited by threatened and perceived fear of reaction by the USSR, a period and condition known as the Cold War.

 

The major effect of a US with a large standing army, coupled with the real or perceived absence of rival opposing military, is to make it easier for the US Legislature, and to some extent, its Executive alone, to “adventure abroad”. Another is that a majority of US soldiers plan to be employed by the military, actively or in the reserve, until retirement, or at least enjoy substantial post-enlistment benefits.

 

With the safeguard of the political and practical difficulty of raising an army, and reprisals by a rival military eliminate, I see little hope that the US will not continue, regardless of its leaders, to invade and occupy other countries, and consequentially create prison camps like Gitmo, for reasons limited only by the imagination of leaders and provocateurs such as Osama Bin Laden. We may elect future Executives and Legislatures that don’t do so, the conditions that make such actions “easy”, and thus arguably likely, will persist.

 

How to make this less likely is, IMHO, a very complicated question, one that goes far beyond voting out any particular gang of opportunistic (or worse, ideological) politicians. :eek_big:

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

So if you've heard many other people from many other countries say the exact same thing in interviews, don't you maybe think that there's some truth in it?

I believe it and I agree...our govt. is $#!+!!!!

 

A bit of a juvenile comment, I'd say.

Say what you wish I still highly respect you.

[questor]

The USA has had nuclear weapons since around 1945, yet we have attacked

no one after WW2 with them.

We have had wars with North Korea and Vietnam, yet we do not occupy their countries or take their land for our own aggrandisement. We have fought no wars in the last century to subjugate or exploit another country. If we are able to achieve our objective in Iraq, it will become a civilized member of the modern world without barbaric attacks on its neigbors.

We supplied thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars to help defeat Fascism

and rebuild a devastated Europe. We are now trying to defeat a barbaric enemy who is intent upon imposing his will and Sharia law upon the whole world, who has killed innocent men, women and children of several Western as well Eastern countries without any display of conscience or mercy. Our own ill-educated and unaware citizens do not understand this effort and continually criticise our efforts. The countries that we saved from Nazi

domination criticise our efforts. What will be our reward for spending billions of dollars and losing thousands of soldiers? I am afraid it will be nothing, and the ingrates will just continue to demand our foreign aid and our protection when attacked. Why would it not be to our advantage to let others take over our position in the front lines to see how their methods will work?

[Zythryn]

...What will be our reward for spending billions of dollars and losing thousands of soldiers? I am afraid it will be nothing, ...

[sarcasm]

No, Halliburton amoung many other contractors who have 'friends' in the government have reaped huge rewards.

We also have the satisfaction of swelling the ranks of Al-Qada(sp?) so that we can continue to make money wage war on terrorism.

We have also taken the huge swell of goodwill and sympathy we had from most of the world immediately after 9/11 and have turned it into garbage.

I would say we have accomplished quite a bit. I am amazed a single administration could take us so far downhill in less than 7 years. [/sarcasm]

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

[sarcasm]

No, Halliburton amoung many other contractors who have 'friends' in the government have reaped huge rewards.

We also have the satisfaction of swelling the ranks of Al-Qada(sp?) so that we can continue to make money wage war on terrorism.

We have also taken the huge swell of goodwill and sympathy we had from most of the world immediately after 9/11 and have turned it into garbage.

I would say we have accomplished quite a bit. I am amazed a single administration could take us so far downhill in less than 7 years. [/sarcasm]

Sarcasm???

 

Well put...even if it is. Though the only people gettin fat off this mess are those that own the companies that build the machines, the polititions and those that sell the oil at highly inflated prices! The rest of us just get the bill and to sleep less easily at night.

[Racoon]

I'm sure the US is the Only country this century to violate some suspected terrorist's rights. By trying to extract info.:eek_big:

 

Russia,China,SouthAfrica,Europe...They're all perfect UN compliants...

 

Spain just probably asked their patsy's real nice and direct; this last little scare. And If they didn't give up the info, Then out came the feather duster for a nice harmless tickle... :D

[Boerseun]

Of course the US is not the only country to have done this. South Africa, as you've mentioned, certainly transgressed international rules and violated human rights and trampled on other countries' sovereignty during the 70's and 80's in the Angolan Bush War. So have Russia for the biggest part of the 20th century.

 

That is not what this thread is about, though.

 

It is interesting, however, to note that both the above countries have had a severe change of government because of exactly these and other practices.

 

That might be just what the doctor will have to order for the USA. Something to shake, rattle and roll you out of your dogma.

 

Viva le revolucion! :eek_big:

[Buffy]

It is interesting, however, to note that both the above countries have had a severe change of government because of exactly these and other practices.

 

That might be just what the doctor will have to order for the USA. Something to shake, rattle and roll you out of your dogma.

 

Viva le revolucion!

Well if things go as the polls indicate, we'll have a Democrat who is a member of an oppressed minority as President in 12 months. For some folks here, that's about as revolutionary as the end of Apartheid!

 

Why should Blacks be heard? They're 12% of the population. Who the hell cares? :eek_big:

Buffy