The sheer stupidity of closing Gitmo

[waskillywabbit]

I have no problem with them closing Gitmo and releasing all those terrorists...



...as long as they take them all out in body bags.

[Bob98SR5]

Two points we should keep in mind:

1. As pointed out above they are not going to just open the doors to Gitmo and let everybody free, the detainees there will be moved to other facilities.

2. The majority of the detainees have never been tried and convicted of being terrorists or enemies of the US, most have never even had a day in any kind of court. They were all picked up based on a suspicion of their involvement, or because somebody else in their home country claimed they could have been involved, but there is little or no evidence in most cases. Some of the detainees are definitely terrorists who wish to harm the US and they must be prevented from doing so, no question there. But we need to keep in mind that some of the people there are innocent and we can't just treat them all as convicted terrorists.

- Matt

Matt,

Good points to chew on, though I am quite sure these people were picked up and sent there for good cause. It is quite feasible as in our current judicial/penal system that there are truly innocents and that "due process" as we understand it, is not being afforded to these prisoners. By introducing them into our legal system is my issue. They don't deserve it.

If we were to trust Wikipedia and the recent announcement from the Pentagon, the return to kill us again ratio to released from gitmo ration is 14.5 percent. That's pretty bad in my book. From Wikipedia:

Since 7 October 2001, when the current war in Afghanistan began, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantnamo. Of these, approximately 420 have been released without charge. As of May 2008, approximately 420 detainees remain.[11] More than a fifth are cleared for release but must nevertheless remain indefinitely because countries are reluctant to accept them.

61 / 420 = 14.5% (61 from my first posted story, 270 from above).

[Dramarama]

Life without Gitmo

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20016

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of
the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.

Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinion was
heard loud and clear here in Washington.

You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like
yourself, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining
Program, to be called the 'Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers'
program, or LARK for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided
to place one terrorist under your personal care.

Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for
transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be
cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your
letter of complaint. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some
assistant caretakers.

We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care
for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in
your letter.

Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your
sensitivity to what you described as his 'attitudinal problem' will help
him overcome these character flaws.

Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural
differences. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home
schooling.

Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat
and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail
clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills
at your next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety of
explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to
keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (except
sexually), since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This
is a particularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to
show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new
dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire.

I'm sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the Burka --
over time.

Just remember that it is all part of 'respecting his culture and his
religious beliefs' -- wasn't that how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you
keep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care of
Ahmed - and remember, we'll be watching.

Good luck!

[DHC6twinotter]

If only...

[fustercluck]

I remember in the after months of 9/11, the shock we felt upon learning how our pillars of national and civic security had been castrated by laws designed to obstruct. We learned that not only had the dots not been connected, but to our disbelief, the dots were concealed from one agency by the other by law. The dots could not be connected and 3000 americans paid for it in the most horrific ways.

Those legislators who were either treasonous or miopic enough to have constructed such obstacles were never exposed and never made to pay for such irresponsibility and misguided priorities. When the light of scrutiny was shone upon the squalor of a festering legislative body resolute in their designs to champion the guilty, they scrambled for the shadows at the hem of govt like the cucarachas they are.

Now we see the incremental restoration of those legal and policy obstacles. Sadly most of us will not notice, some of us will not recognoize it and some of us won't care. The rest of us who sound the clarion trumpet of warning will again be categorized as mildly insane.

Elections have consequences.

[slomatt]

Matt,

Good points to chew on, though I am quite sure these people were picked up and sent there for good cause. It is quite feasible as in our current judicial/penal system that there are truly innocents and that "due process" as we understand it, is not being afforded to these prisoners. By introducing them into our legal system is my issue. They don't deserve it.

If we were to trust Wikipedia and the recent announcement from the Pentagon, the return to kill us again ratio to released from gitmo ration is 14.5 percent. That's pretty bad in my book. From Wikipedia:

Since 7 October 2001, when the current war in Afghanistan began, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantnamo. Of these, approximately 420 have been released without charge. As of May 2008, approximately 420 detainees remain.[11] More than a fifth are cleared for release but must nevertheless remain indefinitely because countries are reluctant to accept them.

61 / 420 = 14.5% (61 from my first posted story, 270 from above).

Bob, thank you for the reply. I really wish we could be sure that all of them had been picked up and jailed for "good cause" because then we wouldn't have any issue. The problem is that some of the people there are extremely dangerous and evil individuals who should never be freed, but there are also people there who deserve their fair day in court. Separating the two is difficult and determining what to do with the guilty and where to send the innocents (since most cannot be returned to their country of origin) is even harder. I do feel we should error on the side of caution, but at the same time we need to let our legal system do its job.

- Matt

[DHC6twinotter]

I was watching the news yesterday, and they said somebody (don't remember who-congressman maybe?) suggested reopening Alcatraz and moving all the Gitmo prisoners there. Nancy Peloski shot down the idea quickly since she didn't want the suspected terrorist held in her district.

What about the rest of us Americans? Some of us don't want them in our districts either.

[oly884]

I was watching the news yesterday, and they said somebody (don't remember who-congressman maybe?) suggested reopening Alcatraz and moving all the Gitmo prisoners there. Nancy Peloski shot down the idea quickly since she didn't want the suspected terrorist held in her district.

What about the rest of us Americans? Some of us don't want them in our districts either.

Mrs Pelosi is a terrible human being.

Ok, now that I have that off my chest I'll elaborate my feelings.

It's one thing to say that as a nation that believes in freedom to the fullest extent we should offer these people fair trials. Fine, if you feel that way, great, but YOU have to take the responsibility for your feelings. If Alcatraz is deemed the safest place, then she needs to take responsibility for HER actions.

If we say that as a nation that is fighting to spread freedom against an enemy that plays by no rules and is merciless, and that we need to have the ability to intelligently and systematically detain these individuals and retrieve information from them, then so be it. However with that comes the necessity to not only be open and honest with the citizens, but to apply a moral/ethical view from far more than just a handful of people. If it is deemed that immoral/unethical practices were used, then own up to the consequences.

It comes down to standing by what you believe. Mrs. Pelosi won't because, like I said, she's a terrible person. But if I had the option to torture a terrorist to save 1,000 innocent lives, but it would mean I would face criminal charges, then so be it, I'll take my punishment knowing I saved lives instead of sitting idly by and letting bad things happen because I was concerned for only myself.

[fustercluck]

Before any terrorist is brought within our borders, every adult american and every child whose opinion it is that terrorists be allowed in, should be forced to watch the many beheading videos the terrorists made starting with the Daniel Pearl video. Let them watch it in unison and in public. We'll see how sympathetic they are after that.

[Ric]

Before any terrorist is brought within our borders, every adult american and every child whose opinion it is that terrorists be allowed in, should be forced to watch the many beheading videos the terrorists made starting with the Daniel Pearl video. Let them watch it in unison and in public. We'll see how sympathetic they are after that.

if it was only that easy...