Every day this piece of shit prison is open is a god damn disgrace for the entire human race.
The problem with Guantanamo isn't the conditions. Its the legal limbo the prisoners are caught in.
The person needs to be detained under section of the mental health act, and to lack capacity to make the decision.
And the U.S. does not recognize a "right to death" for anyone in the U.S. You can argue about that policy, but the Guantanamo detainees are not being treated inconsistently there. Our policies are strongly anti-suicide across the board. See: http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/guantanamo-is-not-an-an....
Wow, that is incredibly misinformed. And even if it were true (it is not), it does not justify torture. Torture is always despicable, and there's a permanent moral stain on the nation that perpetrates torture, no matter who is being tortured. There is no excuse. No excuse.
Is this like the debate on climate change? Where 99.99% of the scientists agree it's man made, yet a few others think it's natural.
> It's not a settled issue like you're making it out to be.
Yeah, I think it's pretty much settled by everyone but the US government.
He wanted to show us the degree to which it is or isn't torture.
These prisoners were tortured and deprived of habeas corpus. Without a fair trial it's fair to question anything regarding their detention. Seeing it as kidnapping seems quite reasonable.
And Guantanamo prisoners are getting habeas petitions heard: http://ccrjustice.org/GTMOscorecard. It's not happening fast enough, and partly for logistical reasons (no U.S. state wants to host trials for them and foreign countries don't want them back), but it is happening.
In a world historical sense, such treatment is a mercy; in total war, the only alternative, of course, is to kill the detainees.
GTMO represents a great moral failing of the United States, but let's also not forget that the USG is the lesser of two culpable parties; the greater responsibility lies with an irregular army that deliberately exploits its civilian host population to conceal itself, relying on the fact that retaliation will inevitably harm more innocents than fighters. The Taliban isn't the Viet Cong. The cause of the Taliban and "Al Qaeda" (whatever that means) is a lost one, fueled entirely by an obscene willingness to see thousands of innocent people murdered solely prolong the inevitable.
1) Many (most) weren't "caught" doing anything, other than going about their business. The majority were kidnapped from airports.
2) "Allied forces"? We white. Them black. Therefore them bad. Try to see the world from a perspective other than your own.
3) "War zone" - no it wasn't. It became a warzone after most of those in Gitmo were disappeared. That's like saying that what happened to jewish people before WWII was fine because it became a war zone.
4) It's not a characterisation, it's exactly what it is, if you interpret the situation through the Geneva convention, which the US is inexplicably a party to.
2. By "allied" he meant "NATO". There are plenty of "black" people in NATO.
3. Afghanistan was in fact a war zone long before 2001. At its most orderly, under the brutal control of the Taliban, it was a loosely organized state embroiled in a civil war destined to produce a breakaway non-Pashto state. Also: the word "disappeared" means something specific, and you dilute that meaning by using it here. The "disappeared" of Central and South America are so named because they're never heard from again; they're often murdered by death squads.
4. Nothing in the Geneva Conventions speaks to the definition of "kidnapping".
I think few things would want to make me take up arms more against an invader than the false imprisonment of myself or my family at GTMO for said act.
So kidnapping people and torturing them makes you enemies? Who would have thought...
One needn't support GTMO, or even tolerate it, to acknowledge the fact that our adversaries in this conflict are both real and despicable.
Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?
If you want to pursue a line of argument that leaves you sticking up for the Taliban, that's your prerogative, but I don't think doing so will strengthen any case you have to make about the US.
None of these things are black and white.
2. I meant black and white from the polar point of view. Germany and Italy were allies.
3. Yup, but plenty of these guys ain't from the 'stans, and Afghanistan was self contained. The history of conflict in Afghanistan is long and bloody, and rarely bought about by Afghanis - usually empires looking for resources and an enviable bit of geography.
4. No, but it talks about the lawful taking and holding of POWs, which, operating outside of such, makes Guantanamo a criminal enterprise in international law, and it's actions therefore being nothing more than kidnapping.
QED.
The US government has a tremendous credibility problem.
Its representatives make many claims, trying to spin the narrative in their favor. Some people seem to buy much of this narrative. They apparently believe the stories that governments, spy agencies, police, torturers, and PR hacks spin.
It is impossible to know whether such a position of credulity is genuine or merely apologetic. But it should be noted that many others in the world don't believe the spin. They've witnessed the government, spy agencies, police, torturers, and PR hacks caught in too many self-serving lies.
Some people apparently choose to believe alleged testimony given by helpless people who've been tortured in a prison they may never leave, or testimony given by secret sources before a kangaroo court, or the testimony of spies who are essentially professional liars. These people have zero credibility for the rest of us. Yet their narrative is swallowed by others and then presented as uncontrovertable fact: "Many of them were in fact armed combatants" Oh yeah? Says who? Says who who has a shred of credibilty? Prove it. Prove it without resorting to a witch trial before a rubber-stamping kangaroo court that brings shame to the United States and the world.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/former-s...
You, on the other hand, are guilty of providing moral support for this travesty.
It upsets me a little to see discussions about things like GTMO distracting themselves from the core issue. The problem isn't detention at GTMO, or drone strikes, or the citizenship status of targets. To engage yourself fully with any of those problems is to nibble around the edges of the real issue.
The problem is that in 2001, Congress issued a declaration of war (that's what the AUMF was) against an ideology. At the time, that might have seemed sensible; a way to take the threat of armed terrorism more seriously than we had. But the problem with it is obvious and it's something Obama is facing down now: you can't eradicate an ideology, which leaves us in a permanent state of war.
If we'd declared war against Afghanistan, the status of prisoners at GTMO would be clearer; we'd at some point declare the conflict over (we'd have to, because contra the Daily Kos left, the USG does not actually want to station hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan) and the prisoners would be released.
"(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
The AUMF refers to prevention of "future acts of international terrorism" but specifically authorizes force only against those who were involved with the 9/11 attacks.
The problematic word is "organizations". The most important lesson we should learn from the 2000s is "never allow the word 'organizations' (or any of its synonyms) to appear in an AUMF again". You can invade a nation, you can kill a person, but there's simply no clear definition of what it means to eradicate an organization.
There is a range of choices - people die much sooner than they need to because they refuse blood, or people die a little quicker than they need to because they refuse painful cancer treatment.
When someone refuses to eat they'll eventually need the medical treatment - force feeding - to keep them alive. Some of those people have capacity to make that decision. Others (people with anorexia) don't.
But there is still the difference between torturing people in your prisons for things they allegedly did in your country, with charges and sometimes (rarely though) a trial even -- and just kidnapping them from all over the world, and then treating them so badly that just this bad treatment is argument enough for some people to accept that Guantanamo needs to stay open.
Also:
http://www.google.de/search?q=guantanamo+detainees&tbm=isch vs. http://www.google.de/search?q=prison+inmates&tbm=isch
http://www.loonwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/prisoner...
^ You're not going to tell me that's just because the fashion sense that developed in Guantanamo is quirky that way? That this doesn't make your stomach turn?
> The problem with Guantanamo isn't the conditions. Its the legal limbo the prisoners are caught in.
Why can't it both be a problem? If Guantamo was a luxury hotel, we would envy the legal limbo. This is like saying something isn't torture, because "the" torture is happening elsewhere.
But then I read this: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/
PS - am I alone in confusing Mos Def with MOSFET for about a decade and completely mispronouncing (and misunderstanding) the guy's stage name?
Most Definitely.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana...
If they weren't "terrorists" before, they most likely are now. Think about it, that's the real problem.
I'm not defending it, I think it should be closed too.
These humans have been subjected to complete hell.
Allowing the detainees to kill themselves turns them into martyrs, and becomes even more effective at turning people to violence.
Don't forget that this behaviour just shifts the curve of moderateness towards extremism a little bit, but that makes extremism easier. People are more likely to donate money to organisations that promote violence; people turn a blind eye when they find out someone is planning something; people share information even if they're not going to use it themself, "Anti-West" sentiment is more acceptable, and so on. This means that the small number of actual terrorists find it easier to work.
There were 40,000 people in the buildings when the planes crashed.
Your point of view isn't normal. Please stop acting as if it is, and please stop acting as if that level of enmity represents something good and noble about the people of Brazil. You make your country look like a bunch of psychopaths.
Several of those who did, were shocked, and sad, specially those that had relatives there.
But several were VERY HAPPY, usually those that got screwed during the cold war.
My point is: people forget, that when you make yourself a hated enemy, people WILL hate you, in irrational ways, it is easy to create terrorist and a vicious cycle of violence.
Brazil up to WWII liked the US, bought craploads of US stuff, and even joined WWII for the US side despite the president being fascist and having connections to the Italian fascists (of course, the fact US offered a steel mill in bribe when Brazil had none, was a huge factor).
During cold war, US backed the military coup here, and quickly things turned into "we vs them", we had during the cold war a US embassador kidnapped, citibank branches bombed or torched, english speaking soldiers killed (the most famous was two UK navy sailors that were here on vacation) and so on.
What make you think, that after you make people believe you are their enemy, that you are at war with them, they will stop believing that after situation change?
There are lots of people here that has a grudge not only with US, but with all of its citizens as well, injust as that might be, the destruction of the World Trade Center, a economic symbol of the US, and the attack on Pentagon, is something that several people around the world cheered (obviously more on middle east, where people threw wild parties in the street and shot upwards) because those people viewed it as the invincible bully being hurt for the first time, people saw it, horrible as the actual event was in numbers of civilians killed, as a successful war attack, revenge, justice, david hurting goliath, etc...
People are NOT psychopaths, they are normal people, hurt by US government so deeply, that any chance they have to see it hurting back will make them happy, even if it means the deaths of thousands of innocents.
This is what fuel wars...
United States huge military is a deterrent for countries attacking it, but don't mistake that peace for the world agreeing with the US, I am very sure few countries would side with the US in a hypotetical world war with a level amount of military (ie: not US having alone half of the world military power, as current it is).
I am very sure that if you leave a US citizen (any citizen, the most adorable citizen even) near one of the territories were PCC is popular (PCC is a huge organized crime thing here, created during the cold war with purpose of fighting US-backed government), people (normal people, civilians, not members of PCC) will be happy to do things to that citizen that is best not describe here...
> I am very sure that if you leave a US citizen (any citizen, the most adorable citizen even) near one of the territories were PCC is popular (PCC is a huge organized crime thing here, created during the cold war with purpose of fighting US-backed government), people (normal people, civilians, not members of PCC) will be happy to do things to that citizen that is best not describe here...
You're describing antisocial behavior and a diminished capacity for remorse, which are defining characteristics of psycopathy.
People are unfortunately capable of great evil, and feeling good about it, when they think they are on the right side.
People can do evil things, and think they are doing good, it is obvious they won't feel remorse, you cannot feel remorse for something that makes you feel like a hero of sorts.
Holy shit, what an disgusting attitude. I may not like some US politics but cheering for 9/11... That is insane. I would love to see sources on Brazilians celebrating 9/11.
This strikes me as intellectual arrogance. How do you know what "US people" do or do not realize?
"Oh I have this guy in my basement I've been torturing for four years, I can't let him go now because he's going to want to kill me".
Are you serious?
Setting them free and closing the illegal prison is the right thing to do. If I was calling the shots I would close it and release them.
BUT:
I just see why they haven't done it yet. It's a quagmire, with extreme consequences. Sure, let a prison full of "suspected terrorists" out into the world, what could go wrong?
How nice would it be to live in a world where we all trust each other and enjoy peace and harmony?
Everyone knows that they will be monitored up the wazoo by the NSA. Any smart terrorist operative will not associate with the released prisoners. And the ones that do will provide a nice honeypot for the NSA.
The real quagmire will be when the NSA picks up intel about the released prisoners and fails to pass it along to any other intelligence agencies.
Then we'll be blinded by our own incompetence and go back to the media blame you mentioned in your comment.
You speak as if the rest of the world isn't noticing wtf is happening there, including the families of the detainees. As if these people being kept there wouldn't motivate a lot more people to become terrorists, than freeing them would.
This isn't even burning the village to save the village. This is nuking a whole hemisphere to turn off an alarm clock.
Maybe many of these people just want to go home and try to forget the last 10 years of their life?
All that said I understand that it's a terrible position to be in, having imprisoned these people for such a long time. The thing is, it just keeps getting worse and worse...