Also, it’s not torturing innocent people to death, 'cause if we put them in Gitmo they must be guilty of something or another.
This patriot is no more! Its expired and met its maker! It has ceased to be! This is a late patriot! Its a stiff, bereft of life! This is an ex-patriot!
Read the article and pay attention to the parafraphs where the author cites a source, cites multiple unnamed sources, and doesn’t cite any sources. The actual evidence presented in the article doesn’t fully prove up the opinion paragraphs.
Do you believe the reporter is making it up? Do you believe all those multiple, unnamed sources are invented and that the reporter is just lying?
Not quite sure what you’re saying here, Rand. You could be saying that these reports are exaggerated, at least somewhat. Be on pretty safe ground there, if you parse the words carefully enough.
But are you suggesting that you have some confidence that the evidential situation is in tip-top, apple-pie order? Are you suggesting that the vast majority of detainees are, in fact, terrorists? Or, at the every least, genuine unlawful combatants?
Because, you know, they let an awful lot of them go. Just quietly shuffled them out the door, nothing to see here, you looky-loos, move along, move along.
Now, we can take it as a given, can we not, that they didn’t release anyone they were pretty sure was a Bad Guy, right? But, at one point, they were sure enough about it to treat them as such, in most cases for several years. So what happened? If they thought they were guilty then, what changed their minds?
Hence, the unavoidable conclusion is that we have unjustly imprisoned a lot of people. Are we to believe, then, that those days are behind us now, that we have rock-solid evidence proving that the* remaining *detainees are just as bad as can be? We could take them to trial tomorrow and prove it in a fully open and transparent court of law? With all the protections afforded John Wayne Gacey or Timothy McVey?
Well, then, why haven’t they? Are they waiting for a Harmonic Convergence? Some alignment of the planets? Certainly would shut up us DFH, wouldn’t it? Go a long way to proving our case to a suspicious world, no? A fully transparent trial, with all the rules of evidence scrupulously observed, and with a clearly supported verdict of guilty, wouldn’t that be a marvelous bit of news, given the state of our reputation?
I think its because they can’t. I think they can’t even prove the guilty ones are guilty. What we got so far, Bin Laden’s driver, convicted of…being a driver? That’s it? After six years, that’s all we got to show for this?
You don’t see anything odd about that? All this rock-solid evidence we got against hundreds of heinous malefactors, and the guy we bring to trial is a chauffeur? Huh? Wha?
If you have some confidence that justice is being served, then you have ample reason to take pride. Share that with us, if you will, we are so starved to have pride in our country. Tell us from whence this confidence arises.
Or are you just disagreeing with us out of reflex?
“Making it up” and “lying” are too strong a word for what I mean. I think that the reporter has a particular view on how the world works and how the bush administration worked, especially regarding subjects such as Gitmo. So, the reporter gathers some info from people (i.e., the quotes in the article) and then uses that info to suppor the reporter’s opinion that “many” detainees do not have “comprehensive case files.”
To me, any claim that “many” detainees do not have “comprehensive case files” would at least (i) define a case file, (ii) give some clue as to when that case file is considered comprehensive, (iii) give an estimate of how many detainees do not have comprehensive case files, and (iv) as a bonus, describe the quality and quantity of the deficiencies in the non-comprehensive case files (i.e., how bad are they?).
Also, this article is just one of the many artiles you see in every paper nowadays that is really an opinion piece in the front part of the paper. It doesn’t support the main claim it makes, and then it leaves it up to the reader to infer a negative impact from it. If a detainee is not up for trial right this second, why must there be a “comprehensive case file” against him right this second? These articles are really obnoxious and I see them more and more.
Christ, elucidator, how could you be not quite sure what I’m saying after reading the whole goddamn thread? The article is an opinion piece in the front of the newspaper. Please read the article again and categorize each paragraph as discussed above.
For purposes of this thread, I have no idea about any of that, and I don’t give a shit about it. All I’m saying is what I’m saying.
This is all irrelevant to the issue of whether or not “many” detainees have “comprehensive case files.”
I think I see what you are doing. You think that if a detainee does not have a “comprehensive case file,” then that means there is no “rock-solid evidence” proving that that detainee did anything bad. This is a false dichotomy. As Sinaijon said upthread, the article is complaining that all of the evidence is not in a three-ring binder that Obama can read at the dinner table, not that there’s no evidence at all.
This is all irrelevant to the issue of whether or not “many” detainees have “comprehensive case files.”
Maybe you should actually read and think about (i) the actual words in this article and (ii) the actual words in my posts in this thread instead of extrapolating everything out to what it must mean for every possible related issue. Don’t you realize that I could agree with everything you said above and still be making the argument I am?
Of course I do, its why I asked the question. The issue of what defines “comprehensive case files” and what does not being rather small beer. I wouldn’t expect that an intellect of your magnitude would bother with it, unless out of a urgent desire to be right about something. For once.
Clearly, you believe something, and believe it most strenuously. So, what might it be?
Small beer? Take that issue up with Dio, he’s the one that started this thread.
The something I believe is that how discourse on the SDMB about politicians (mostly conservative ones since the board leans left) is conducted is completely fucked up. On Day X there will be a thread about how some pol lied about something, and the OP will not even assert (much less provide evidence for) the proposition that the pol made a statement he knew to be false (or with reckless disregard of its falsity) with the intent to deceive. Then, on Day X+Y, someone starts a thread jumping all over the pol and citing the mountain of lies they’ve spewed, including the lie discussed in the thread on Day X. It’s a feedback loop built on bullshit. If particular news articles and arguments and words don’t mean anything, then why don’t we just all post “Bush bad” or “Bush good” and attach a picture of our dicks next to a ruler?
My other bugaboo touched on in this OP is news articles that are really opinion pieces (and the idiots that can’t tell the difference).
Finally, it also pissed me off that people not only were willing to accept the proposition actually stated in the article but then extrapolated that into “there is no evidence against any detainee.”
And yes, if anyone uses the above type of bad arguments against Obamab, I do call them on it in the same way I did in this thread. However, that doesn’t happen much here because conservatives typically don’t do the “he lied” thing and this board skews left.
Someone’s gotten to logical arguments in his Philosophy 101 class this semester.
Ad hominem. 
I’m surprised you’re not used to it by now.
Tell you what, if your thumb is all wrinkled, you can suck on this for a while.
So, then, the crux of the biscuit is your strident assertion that your views are not given a fair hearing, and nothing so trivial as justice for the innocent?
So long as you confine your intellectual targets to your available ammunition, you should do quite well.
So I’m being childish? How’s that?
Comment directed to Cervaise. I thought that obvious, and regret any personal offense you may have taken.
Probably explains why he’s dropping ‘false dichotomy’ over in the Obama impeachment thread as well. (Very Lame R.O. re: Obama Impeachment Merchandise & Sites - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board, #17)
Perhaps when the prof gets to explaining what the terms on the list actually mean, he’ll even start using them correctly.
Rand, for the most part it’s not worth trying to discuss things with you, because there’s little chance anything that I say will crack a little daylight into (or out of) your world.
Do you not think it hypocritical to say “don’t blame Bush!” when we just got through with eight years of “everything from the WTC attacks, to the economy, to the housing bubble, to the stock market crash, to Katrina, was all Clinton’s fault”? At some point the President we elect is responsible for what happens on his watch. Why is Bush responsible for nothing? Do you not see a logical disconnect here?
I voted for Obama, but I can also be a pragmatist. I want somebody who’s going to look at the situation, figure out what’s wrong, and fix it. I don’t care who’s wrong or who’s right. I’m willing to call anybody on their illogical shit no matter whose side they’re on.
Here we have a situation: prisoners that were incarcerated under the orders of the Bush administration (and nobody else’s; this buck cannot be passed to Clinton or Obama) cannot be released because we allege that they’re too dangerous, but cannot be tried because we cannot prove they’re dangerous; cannot provide much useful information because they’ve been in prison too long, but cannot be allowed to communicate with anybody because they know too much. We’re Americans with a foundation based in English law, claiming to be fighting for democracy and freedom, but we’re holding these prisoners on foreign soil so we can bypass freedom and democracy and the Geneva convention and that persnickety Constitution with that “right to a trial” thing.
Don’t you think it’s possible that this is a little fucked up? Can’t you admit that this situation is a Gordian Knot of paranoia and secrecy? It’s okay if you do. The world will not all apart if you admit that Bush isn’t perfect, believe me.
Well, Bush couldn’t possibly have done that much - he was always napping or gardening at the Ranch 
Againn I think it’s ridiculous to believe that every argument that implicates an issue must be decided based on one’s feelings about the ultimate issue. For example, I think Hitler was bad, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to believe that he was a child molestor without any evidence to that effect.