I used effectively because the prohibition can be waived. From your link:
I’m speaking of the detainees cleared for release. No one in the administration is working to get the waivers - not on any meaningful level at least.
Ah – for some reason I thought you were talking about transferring prisoners to the US for trial. Section 1027 completely prohibits the transfer of detainees to the US, with no waivers, no exceptions. That was my main point.
I see what you’re saying that for those cleared for release to other countries can still be released if enough hoops are jumped through. I don’t deny that, but I do maintain that (a) the hoops are pretty significant and (b) countries don’t seem to have very much interest in taking these detainees. Sure, one can say that we need to be more convincing to get other countries to take these people, but I would add that Obama should also be more convincing to Republicans in order to get them to vote for closing tax loopholes for the rich. It’s very easy to say, but not easy to pull off.
Agreed.
I agree with this, but my point is Obama quite trying to convince anyone. He’s not trying and losing, he’s just not trying.
Guantanamo says these guys can be released. Republicans (and Obama signed it) said the DoD, Sec of State, DNI (Obama appointees) have to sign off on it before released…then nothing. I don’t see any convincing or working with those departments to get these guys released. I see effort with closing tax loopholes - I don’t see anything with getting detainees released other than blanket statemetns of “we’re committed to releasing the detainees.” The State Dept office tasked with this job has been shut down. I’m sure it’s going on on some level, but just a few low level guys, no power broker type guys to coordinate with all the departments; no one to bear any weight. That’s my frustration anyways, what I see as a lack of effort.
In fairness, I would assume that most countries who might be potential hosts to the detainees probably don’t want that fact advertised in the press. “Freedonia in talks with US to host Guantanamo detainees!” might not be the most welcome headline.
From back up the thread a ways-
" Presidents, regardless of whether their name is followed by an R or a D, find it convenient to have a place where they can keep certain people without having to bother with a trial. It’s flagrantly unconstitutional and a human rights abuse, but the last two Presidents have cared very little about things like that."
Seems like for more than the last
two presidencies, citizens ain’t gave
a shit either.
Fuckin tsk, y’know?
citizens.
Pfffft
while ‘citizans, pfft’ is a thing the implications
of which reflect badly on u, I don’t
want to convey the idear that I’m singling
out my fellow u.s. citizens, cuzziss goes
clear round the globe, its not peculiar
to the usa. it misses no nation, and its
not peculiar, this discussed abuse of
representative power, to the federal level.
Nor is it peculiar to what we sillilly call
democracy, nor is it peculiar to governments
but afflicts religions, splinter religions, churches,
splinter churches, corps of the profit and
non types, unions of the all types, associations,
organizations and guilds, towns, colleges and high schools
, neighborhoods, hoods n blocks, this ‘citizens, pfft’ thing, its a killer,
and its so ubiquitous, if that’s not
redundant, and if it wasn’t once, it won’t
b again, its so ubiquitous, its a common
Thread running through all these things,
,such a primary devil it could very well b
The big daddy main devil, (cuz commonality
indicates primacy in some things,) and its good to put a name
to it and citizens, pfft is a good one.
Another good name, little harsh- sounding
but extremely apt, taking only a modicum
of thought and a minute or two to arrive
at, is ‘you just don’t give a fuck. you’re
literally too ignorant and misguided and
misdirected to.’
I know, right?, it sux.
Hadda smile this morning, cuzz of a realization
Of possibilities. Occurred to me might b some,
Tryin to care about these guys in gitmo.
Hohoho, grow the Fuck up, who cares, they’re guys
Wearin robes and no matter what dude, they ain’t
As good as Americans, right?
No, the reason u care is because some Fuck
And some other fux have agreed to representatively
Wield a good portion of your personal power, and they
Have weaponized that power, isay I say abrogated biggern shit, biggern anthrax
Powder in an envelope dropped off at a nursery,
You see what I’m saying.
It’s basically powerstructure insanely perp etuating
Itself, and this latest asswipe in office, hereinafter aio, is just the latest
Perpetrator of mayhem in your, yes
Your, name.
Been goin on a while. A weapon created, even
Just your collective power weaponized, can
And will b pointed in any ol direction.
Yucky shit, y’know? Just a matter of time though.
There are many ways of viewing the world.
An interesting one to play with sometimes, is
The worldview of the very, very top predators, a viewpoint
Which sez, ruffly, there are three people in the world
, and everybody else.
Chances are reeeeeel good you’re ‘everybody else’.
This stuff might b something u wanna check into,
But yeah, that’s y its good to give a shit bout
These guys. I mean technically, like u brush yer teeth.
Just something gotta b looked after unless u want
Consequences, and the rapidly steepening slipperry
Slope of any govt official just tossin fuckers in
Prison, torture, all that shit, thems consequences
U don’t want, everybodyelse, fuckin trust me there.
But warm n fuzzy care about these guys?
All kindza good reasons to but cmon, pffft.
As poetry, it’s awful.
But if you set it to an acoustic guitar and a tambourine, I bet it would kill at the Che Guava Juice Bar open mic night.
Yeh, small screen.
So, is it the tone or the content you find contemptible? I mean
Cuz granted on the tone, my bad there.
Not contemptible, perhaps, but…difficult to make sense of? Slow down, and use a format we can comprehend. Grok, wysiwyg, e pleurabelle noonan?
Grok.
Thanks.
In San Jose a noted Vietnamese activist went on a hunger strike so that the city would name a area “Little Saigon”. I suppose you could call this " an abuse", but if so it’s pretty damn minor.
So, indeed dudes go on hunger strikes for petty reasons.
Would you have us let them starve?
Out of curiosity, which nation is particularly superior to us? Are you applying there?
There is no solution for Gitmo. It is neither travesty nor tragedy. The guilty and the innocent there are casualties of the reality that no system which simultaneously advances justice and self protection can do so without collateral inequity.
If nothing else, at least it helped Mr Obama learn a valuable lesson about being too idealistic in advance of being the one who actually has to make decisions. It does not appear that his more liberal supporters have learned the same lessons, but then those of us interested in self-preservation for our general approach to justice and equality as a nation are not likely to help elect the truly naive liberals. It’s probably helpful to have a few really naive babblers on the far left to keep the rest of us honest, as long as they don’t actually get to make any decisions. 
We’d be outta business as a nation if we elected too many idealists, and the world left would not pleasantly evolve into Shangri La. The terrorists would then actually win.
There isn’t a good or fair or due-process way to fight terrorists and pirates and the like who operate outside of any reasonable structure. You just have to plink them when you find them and hope the folks you put in charge of executing them unilaterally are basically good guys. Mr Bush’s stupid alternative of prosecuting wars against entire nations creates even more collateral damage.
The strategy of killing instead of capturing has been the best way to quiet concerns about due process.
Garbage, it’s both. It demonstrates the malice, stupidity and amorality of America.
Gitmo has nothing to do with either justice or self protection. It’s about greed, stupidity and cruelty.
They have won. If for no other reason than we are terrorists just as much as the people we label terrorists; we just have better weapons and more troops.
Gitmo isn’t about fighting terrorists. It’s about American terrorism, not fighting terrorism.
It takes a special talent to actually exaggerate how wrong we have been.
Okay. But the Guantanamo hunger strikes are not based on petty reasoning.
I would have our government free those individuals that are not convicted of crimes, and try those that are, before they starve to death. As for hunger-striking in general: I would respect the strikers’ right to protest, and not torture them with forced feedings.
ETA: The number of prisoners on hunger strike now number 100.
How do you know?
So, other than releasing them, your solution is let them die?:dubious:
So the only option they have besides a lifetime of imprisonment and abuse at our hands is death? That makes death by starvation actually look like a reasonable choice.
Yes.
These are the living collateral damages of trying to bring order to large societies, and no amount of your idealistic hand-wringing will change that.
Guys like Willie Horton wreck it for everybody, and in the political arena guys like Michael Dukakis stand as examples of what happens when idealists get their legacies ruined by the Willie Hortons. There’s no chance President Obama is going to risk besmirching his legacy by trying to decide which of these guys were just looking for honest work in the wrong place and which are going to be the next Islamic nutcase to plot an attack.
It’s not fair, but there isn’t a better system at a large scale; indeed most nations with power anywhere near as great as ours are even crappier at some of these messy details.