You obviously did not pay attention to what you quoted. The US is not at war. Of course its military is fighting an armed group; however, no war has been declared. It’s not an issue of “deciding what to go for”. The officer stated what the maximum penalty is for the charges laid; said penalty under current law is incarceration for life. Even if death were the maximum penalty under current law, that does not require the jury and judge to levy that penalty. There are, of course, certain factors which they may consider to hand down a lesser sentence, presumably “emotional reaction of the juror and the judge” not being one of those things considered.
Tu quoque, douche? I don’t recall your first point, and I’ve outgrown the second. Both are based on dated material.
You, on the other hand, appear to currently be a proponent of vigilante justice. So yeah, the OP is pretty gross.
This took an ugly(ier) turn.
Smapti
My problem is not so much the fact that we brought him back to the states as it is the fact that we negotiated with the people that were holding him and traded not one but five people for him, if it had been a 1 to 1 trade I would have still had a problem with it but we have traded 5 people who may rejoin terrorist groups for one guy that was a deserter when realistically we should not negotiate with these people at all, because it gives them the incentive in future events, not to mention the fact that President Obama did not involve Congress in that matter and while legally maybe he didn’t have to seek their approval I believe morally he should have involved them.
A few questions for you:
[ol]Do you have even one iota of a clue as to what an Article 32 investigation is?
[li]How about due process?[/li]
[li]Were you privy to all the material the investigating officer was required to examine?[/ol][/li]
But, hey, let’s howl for someone’s death before he’s tried. It’s so cathartic, isn’t it?
Hey pool, how many Guantanamo detainees that have been released in the last five years do you think have headed back to the battlefield? 90% of them? 75% 50%?
Just throw a percentage out there. I’m curious what you think.
We negotiated prisoner exchanges with the Nazis. Why would we not negotiate with a significantly smaller and less powerful organization?
- Berdahl was not a deserter when he was traded. He was a POW.
- Obama not involving congress means nothing because, as you point out, he didn’t need to. ISTR he also explained why he chose not to, and that had something to do with a narrow window of opportunity to bring a POW home.
You know, if you don’t like laws and civilized systems of justice it’s perfectly ok to say so. But you need to realize you’re living in the wrong country if you’ve got that mindset and you’ll run into a load of people who disagree with you. There’s a lot of uproar about that our civilized system of justice being unevenly applied–do you not see how your attitude is part of that problem?
Ravenman
Don’t need to guess:
[QUOTEAccording to a breakdown released with the latest raw figures, 92 of the 532 Guantanamo detainees released before January 22, 2009 - two days after Bush left office - were confirmed to have returned to the battlefield and 70 were suspected of having done so - an aggregate recidivism rate of 30.5 percent.Mar 5, 2012]
[/QUOTE]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/06/us-usa-guantanamo-recidivism-idUSTRE82501120120306
- Berdahl was not a deserter when he was traded. He was a POW.
- Obama not involving congress means nothing because, as you point out, he didn’t need to. ISTR he also explained why he chose not to, and that had something to do with a narrow window of opportunity to bring a POW home.
You know, if you don’t like laws and civilized systems of justice it’s perfectly ok to say so. But you need to realize you’re living in the wrong country if you’ve got that mindset and you’ll run into a load of people who disagree with you. There’s a lot of uproar that our civilized system of justice being unevenly applied–do you not see how your attitude is part of that problem?
The Great Sun Jester, I’m gonna go ahead and say I’m sorry about what I said earlier it was an ad hominem attack that you didn’t deserve and had no place in this thread.
So lets say theoretically one or two of these prisoners goes back to the fight and kills ten Americans, would you still consider this trade justified and these types of negotiations in the future? I would like to talk more about this but I have to go to work right now. :smack:
Perhaps you misread my question. In the last five years, there have been 115 people released from Guantanamo. Six of them are confirmed to have gone back to the battlefield, and one of them was killed. One additional person was suspected of returning. Overall, that’s a SIX percent recidivism rate. Link.
By way of comparison, the recidivism rate for U.S. criminals is two-thirds within three years, and three-quarters within five years. Link.
Interesting, huh? That Americans are 1,200 percent more likely to be recidivists as compared to recent Guantanamo detainees?
Absolutely.
we cool
Smapti
Per your own link:
Kidnapped civilians, doesn’t really sound comparable does it?
I understand that “look for Berdahl” was routinely appended to many operational orders during this time, so if anyone got killed on a mission that happened to have this as part of it, some people count them as having died looking for him.
Mr. Obama thought that one US citizen who had not been charged with anything was worth several Taliban. Funny how conservatives, who normally fan their faces and get the vapors whenever someone mentions the troops, think that Mr. Obama overvalued one of their heroes.
Not just Nazis; we did the same in Korea and Vietnam at ratios as high as 40:1.
And that was the lengths to which this country was willing to go in a time of war to ensure that no man be left behind.
Why do you find the exchange of one US citizen for six enemy combatants less palatable?
Don’t bring up other topics or history in threads not about them.
Don’t call posters names in this forum.
BOTH of you take it to the Pit if you want to duke it out with words.