guatanamo bay

[bushidomartialarts]

did anybody else here catch that show on npr tonight about the prisoners at gitmo?

npr is pretty liberal, but to hear them tell the story we're really off base holding those guys this long without charging them. anybody out there have a second opinion on this? i'll admit personal ignorance (i was a little surprised to hear we're actually still holding a large number of people), and like i say i don't exactly take npr at their word...

 

[Hand Sword]

I say **** those people! They are terrorists, and in my opinion have no rights at all! We shouldn't even capture tham, just kill them! If you hold them, eventually you have to let them go, where they'll go back to fighting us.

 

[michaeledward]

According to the more than 5,000 reports recently released under a Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent lawsuit, it would appear that some of those being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by the United States Military are farmers and merchants.

They have no connections to Al Qaeda, nor the Taliban. They were turned in by social enemies for a cash bounty.

Many were not 'captured'; which would imply the Americans took custody of them on a field of battle, but instead were detained by their neighbors and brought to either the local warlord, or to the American military in Afghanistan, and were paid $10,000.00 for the service.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

that's what i'd heard too on this npr thing. but, as i said, npr is pretty liberal and doesn't always present the other side.

anybody have any hard stats on the side of holding those guys?

and hand sword, isn't the fact that we'd respect a terrorist's rights one of the things that makes us different from them?

 

[michaeledward]

The reports are available here.

http://www.npr.org/documents/2006/mar/guantanamo/set_1_0001-0097.pdf

http://www.npr.org/documents/2006/mar/guantanamo/set_2_0098-0204.pdf

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/index.html


Also, I find the accusation that NPR is liberal and doesn't present 'the other side', pretty repugnant. I wonder what the 'Other Side' of being pulled out of your home in the middle of the night, flown around the world, interrogated, tortured and humiliated would look like? Especially if you are a farmer.

If you want to accuse NPR of lying or making stuff up, please do that. That is an opinion, to which you are entitled, and can readily be refuted. Couching your prejudices in the spin of 'liberal media', to attempt to appear reasonable, is unbecoming.

 

[Flying Crane]

and hand sword, isn't the fact that we'd respect a terrorist's rights one of the things that makes us different from them?

I agree with you here. If these people are being held, then charges need to be brought against them. If there are no charges to be brought and no accusations that can be made and no evidence supplied to support any accusations, then they need to be let go. But to take a position that anybody detained during the conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq is an automatic terrorist and has no rights and should just be killed, is pretty ignorant.

What makes us different from them is that we (supposedly) do respect the rights of others, including accused enemies. They have a right to defend their case, and it must be proven they are guilty of wrong doing before they are punished. If we ignore these rights, then we are savages and are no better than those we profess to battle against.

 

[Don Roley]

that's what i'd heard too on this npr thing. but, as i said, npr is pretty liberal and doesn't always present the other side.

anybody have any hard stats on the side of holding those guys?

and hand sword, isn't the fact that we'd respect a terrorist's rights one of the things that makes us different from them?

The International Heral Tribune had an article in their paper a few days ago. It was pretty interesting.

There are some that claim that they have no ties to terrorism. And some of them obviously are not. A lot of them have already been released over the years as the military goes through and checks their stories.

But IHT revealed that at least one person released, Feroz Abbasai, made no secret of his militant status. They quoted his transcripts. There are evidently a lot of folks there who make no secret of what they are. And trying to differentiate between those that say that they were innocent from those that actually are innocent is a huge task.

And of course, there is the story from Iraq about how the number 1 guy for Bin Laden was picked up and released. Information that would have led to his arrest came after he was released. The guys in Gitmo have a lot more folks to go through.

And then there are the folks they just don't know what to do with. 15 Ethnic Uighurs were in Afghanistan to train for a war back in China. They supposably have no beef with the west, but if we are to release them, can you imagine what the Chinese would do to them? And that is putting aside the fact that the stuff they learned in these camps probably is not the type of thing we want happening to anyone- like targetting schools. They are listed as non-combatants, but are still being held.

Actually, were you aware that there are hundreds of people in American jails in the same boat as these guys? If a goverment will not take back one of its citizens after he does his time in an American prison they are obviously not let back into American society. There have been people who have spent decades behind bars because of this problem.

 

[michaeledward]

An important, factual point, is that many of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were not apprehended in Afghanistan, at all. Nor were they captured on a battelfield fighting American soldiers and their surragates.

Rather, they were taken from Pakistan.

 

[Cryozombie]

Many were not 'captured'; which would imply the Americans took custody of them on a field of battle, but instead were detained by their neighbors and brought to either the local warlord, or to the American military in Afghanistan, and were paid $10,000.00 for the service.

I am not liberal by any strech of the word... but I can totaly believe this to be the case.

I don't think its beyond personal greed to see this happen, nor do I find it beyond the scope of our government to do this as well... they might be well intentioned in their minds... but I can see them imprisoning people on false accusations and not really addressing the issue.

 

[Cryozombie]

Rather, they were taken from Pakistan.

Lets not forget that the Pakistani Border is prolly more rotten with terrorists than all of afghanistan tho... so WHERE they came from is largely irrelevant in my mind... we should focus on "what is their real crime" which in many cases may only have been to live near a greedy neighbor.

 

[Don Roley]

Lets not forget that the Pakistani Border is prolly more rotten with terrorists than all of afghanistan tho... so WHERE they came from is largely irrelevant in my mind... we should focus on "what is their real crime" which in many cases may only have been to live near a greedy neighbor.

Agreed. The badlands of Pakistan is where the remnents of the Taliban and Al Queada seem to be thickest.

And there has always been cases of people turning in people they dislike to the police on false charges. There does not even have to be a financial incentive.

But once you get a report that someone is a Al Queda member, can you really ignore it? And the problems in getting people in certain parts of the world to give honest answers about these matters to the goverment is obvioulsy pretty daunting. If we caught Bin Laden himself, you can bet there would be people in the area who would come forward to say that he was really their cousin and it was a case of mistaken identity.

The problems are huge. There really is no easy answer.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/index.html Also, I find the accusation that NPR is liberal and doesn't present 'the other side', pretty repugnant. I wonder what the 'Other Side' of being pulled out of your home in the middle of the night, flown around the world, interrogated, tortured and humiliated would look like? Especially if you are a farmer.

If you want to accuse NPR of lying or making stuff up, please do that. That is an opinion, to which you are entitled, and can readily be refuted. Couching your prejudices in the spin of 'liberal media', to attempt to appear reasonable, is unbecoming.

All media has bias. NPR skews liberal, Fox skews conservative. USA Today prints what makes money, regardless of relevance or validity. Papers in the Pacific Northwest tend to be more reactionary than papers in Los Angeles. Intelligent media consumption includes having a reasonable understanding of the biases of who reports what you hear.

The radio program in question was just this side of activist journalism. I'm actually fairly libertarian in my politics and am appalled by the situation described in the program. I'm checking here and other places because I didn't want to go off half-cocked.

There's nothing that makes someone look like an idiot faster than throwing a fit when they don't have the whole story.

 

[Hand Sword]

First off, I appreciate the negative I got from a coward that didn't leave a name, or response!

As for the talk going on, There's always some alibi that can be used, everyone knows that all prisoners are innocent. You don't think Pakastanis are linked. Where has Osama been hiding? Who's been blocking our access to go in that region and look? Who hasn't got off their backsides to go up, in their own country, and get him? I'm sure these poor merchants haven't funded theese terrorists. I'm sure that theese poor farmers don't feed them when their hiding either.

As for their rights, they don't have any because they are not "citizens" of a particular nation officially. They are designated terrorists, which have no origin, therefore no rights, geneva convention, or otherwise. If their stories check, they''ll be, and have been released.

 

[Jonathan Randall]

And there has always been cases of people turning in people they dislike to the police on false charges. There does not even have to be a financial incentive.

The problems are huge. There really is no easy answer.

There are many historians who believe that that is what happened during the Salem Witch Trials - as much opportunism and score settling as hysteria.

Agreed. However, if there is evidence that a person was falsely accused and imprisoned for four years than there should be some compensation. How to sort it out is another matter...

 

[bushidomartialarts]

There are many historians who believe that that is what happened during the Salem Witch Trials - as much opportunism and score settling as hysteria.

the report on npr that started this threat touched on some historical precedents for what's going on down in gitmo. they made a big point of how a british lord did similar about 200 years back, and was thrown out of power for doing it.

while i understand hand sword's anger at the cowards who bombed the WTC, i believe our country is in danger of becoming what we behold. reasonable, intelligent, honorable people allow our government to do things we never would have tolerated 6 years ago. the tsa, the patriot act, laws regarding personal mobility and privacy, treatment of prisoners in gitmo and elsewhere.

it's frankly alarming what we're willing to tolerate, and even defend.

 

[Hand Sword]

As it was said "How does democracy die? With thunderous applause!"

 

[michaeledward]

First off, I appreciate the negative I got from a coward that didn't leave a name, or response!

As for the talk going on, There's always some alibi that can be used, everyone knows that all prisoners are innocent. You don't think Pakastanis are linked. Where has Osama been hiding? Who's been blocking our access to go in that region and look? Who hasn't got off their backsides to go up, in their own country, and get him? I'm sure these poor merchants haven't funded theese terrorists. I'm sure that theese poor farmers don't feed them when their hiding either.

As for their rights, they don't have any because they are not "citizens" of a particular nation officially. They are designated terrorists, which have no origin, therefore no rights, geneva convention, or otherwise. If their stories check, they''ll be, and have been released.

Are you suggesting that internationally recognized borders are to be ignored by American's in their pursuit of bogeymen?

Do other countries have the similiar authority to disreguard the territorial boundaries of the United States to search for those whom they deem unsavory?

And, assuming for the moment that the peope detained lack have no rights .... (I disagree with the premise) ... how exactly does that remove the obligations of the United States to abide by the laws it has written and accepted via international conventions and treaties?

 

[Don Roley]

the report on npr that started this threat touched on some historical precedents for what's going on down in gitmo. they made a big point of how a british lord did similar about 200 years back, and was thrown out of power for doing it.

while i understand hand sword's anger at the cowards who bombed the WTC, i believe our country is in danger of becoming what we behold. reasonable, intelligent, honorable people allow our government to do things we never would have tolerated 6 years ago. the tsa, the patriot act, laws regarding personal mobility and privacy, treatment of prisoners in gitmo and elsewhere.

it's frankly alarming what we're willing to tolerate, and even defend.

There is always the danger of those that hunt dragons becoming dragons themselves. Take a look at the way we treated the nissei Americans during WWII.

But, at the same time, how do you treat someone that has been accused of being a member of Al-Queda? In an area where there are not much assests and little chance of getting evidence, do you throw away any lead you get because you can't get the same level of evidence you could in an American city?

And you have to realize that the rights we Americans hold important are not generally given to non-Americans overseas during times of war. That is why we have rules against the military helping the police, or letting the CIA do the same things to Americans that they do to people in other countries.

Imagine if we applied the rights we expect from the goverment to a case where a predator drone identified a senior terrorist in a car and launches a missle, killing him. That would be unthinkable in a domestic situation. No matter how terrible a crime you have to try to capture him and just can't shoot on sight. But we do that type of thing in way. We have done this exact situation in Yeman and people screamed.

I live in Japan. Have you ever heard of the damage to people here and in Germany whose only crime was to be born in a country at war with America and maybe live too close to a ball-bearing factory? The early bombers took out square kilometers to get a single factory. The people that died by the thousands during each attempt to take out a single factory may never even have voted for their goverment, but they died horrible deaths all the same.

Americans have rules about the way the goverment can treat its citizens because to the possibility of govermenal abuse of its powers. In my lifetime two presidents, Nixon and Clinton aquired from the FBI things on their political enemies. The idea was that in America the goverment had the upper hand and restraints were placed on that power to prevent an abuse of power. But in international relationships and wars, the US goverment did not have all the power, and so the restraints are less. In an equal match, those with the less restraints on their actions has the edge.

I am not saying that we should do whatever we want. We could turn the entire area that we think Bin Laden is hiding in into a lifeless wasteland. We don't. But you can't expect the same exact rules for the domestic US where the goverment runs things to places overseas. I would like the innocent to be found to be innocent and released as soon as possible. But compared to the way the US has killed hundreds of thousands of people in places like Hamburg and Tokyo, it does not seem to be the most horrible thing the US has done.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

But compared to the way the US has killed hundreds of thousands of people in places like Hamburg and Tokyo, it does not seem to be the most horrible thing the US has done.

Agreed. I'm proud of America most of the time. I don't even necessarily have a huge beef with what's happening now. I'm mostly afraid of the direction we appear to be heading.

Whereabouts in Japan are you? I spend several years in Nagasaki. The H-bomb commemoration was eerie, beautiful and tragic on multiple levels.

 

[Don Roley]

Whereabouts in Japan are you? I spend several years in Nagasaki. The H-bomb commemoration was eerie, beautiful and tragic on multiple levels.

Small world. I am not in Nagasaki now, but I was in Isahaya just outside of the city proper for a year. Now I am just north of Tokyo.