They are the “collateral damage” of American greed, malice, xenophobia, egomania, and religious fanaticism.
In other words, the people who say America is evil are right. You are arguing that America is selfishly predatory, the enemy of everyone. You’re arguing that the biggest mistake of the innocent people we have locked up is that they weren’t terrorists, because we don’t care that they aren’t and we were their enemy all along.
Oh, nonsense. This is not necessary or useful in any way, nor is our insane, amoral behavior some kind of ineradicable human norm.
Well, you see- pretty much every world power then is "evil’. Thus, Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR then are the same as the USA. Thereby you have made the word ‘evil’ meaningless. :rolleyes:
Now, if you make keeping someone alive= “torture’ and thus the same as impalement, flaying, boiling in oil, etc, then again, you have made the word 'torture” meaningless, so it now is =to “this newfangled kids music is torture to my ears”. :rolleyes:
Moral assertions, but not divorced from the real world. In the real world, Gitmo is an evil place. What we are doing at Gitmo is evil. Nothing unreal about that. I’ll grant you that solving the issues created there is difficult and kind of a mess, but that does not change the stark clarity of the evil that is Gitmo.
Also, the title of this thread is misleading and a pernicious bit of framing. It is BUSH’S Gitmo, not Obama’s. Bush created it, it’s his baby. Obama inherited it, his performance has been less than stellar, but he did at one point make a serious effort to shut it down. I have all sort of issues with Obama, but call Gitmo “Obama’s” is all kinds of misleading, inaccurate, wrong, and indicative of a conservative framing attempt.
Are* you* willing to volunteer to be the consequence you fell we so richly deserve? or your family? Friends? Can we house them with you? Will you feed them and clothe them and give them jobs? Are willing to take on the full responsibility that you are asking of the rest of us?
France may want to have some input on that…
Except that leaves out the part where Yemen doesn’t want them back, unless they are paid for it.
I think the detainee (i.e., his lawyer) is referring to Obama in 2009 halting sending Yemen detainees back to Yemen (because the Christmas bomber plot was hatched in Yemen, ect.). So that country is not an option Obama is considering to send the Yemen detainees to right now. I anticipate that will soon change, however. But that won’t get them there. What will is laying the groundwork that the Yemen Gov’t is very anti-al qaeda - sell it to the DoD, SoS, everyone that needs to sign off on a detainees release, paying for a nice rehab center to send them to and lots of guns and money to protect it. Get it done, and that’s 50 or so detainees that can walk out of Guantanamo. It’s tough, but that’s doable. You have to do that.
But as I said earlier in the thread, Obama is not trying to do that.
A 2006 investigation by the UN Commission on Human Rights stated that, at Guantanamo, “forced-feeding of detainees on hunger strike must be assessed as amounting to torture.” There are plenty of first-hand accounts of force-feeding, told by current and ex-detainees, that seem torturous to me.
Obama is doing literally nothing to shut down Gitmo. The ACLU has issued a statementtelling the President to tell other people to start doing things to shut down the prison:
It is hilariously absurd that he has to be told to do these things. It’s even more absurd that the things he’s done in the past regarding Gitmo have mostly been to make it harder to release detainees and shut down the prison, or to keep the status quo of indefinite detention by moving the apparatus stateside. That’s why I called it “Obama’s Guantanamo”. I’m left-wing, and I recognize that Bush started the whole mess, but it’s Obama’s now, and he shares responsibility.
The UN Commission on Human Rights has zero credibility:
wiki:
*None of these measures, however, were able to make the Commission as effective as desired, mainly because of the presence of human rights violators and the politicization of the body. During the following years until its extinction, the UNCHR became increasingly discredited among activists and governments alike.
*
And here’s the point- letting them starve to death would be also a “human rights violation” and “torture”.
So fucking WHAT? It’s STILL Bush’s Gitmo, George W. Fucking Idiot Bush CREATED it. It’s HIS baby. Calling it Obama’s Gitmo is wrong and a lie. Obama just inherited it along with all the other clusterfucks the Republicans under Dubya created. And Obama DID make an effort to clear out Gitmo early one, which was blocked by a flurry of NIMBYness from various Senators. No right-wing framing allowed here, it’s BUSH’S Gitmo.
The investigation I referred to was carried out by five independent human rights experts.
There’s a third option: take meaningful steps to try or release them, while improving conditions at the prison, so that they’ll agree to stop striking.
I’m so sick of hearing this excuse. Congress is part of the problem, but the Obama administration is alsopartof theproblem. Having said that, the president just made another statement of support for closing Guantanamo. Hopefully this one sticks.
Bush started it. Obama is continuing it. Gitmo belongs to both of them. This thread focuses on the prison as it is, right now, under the current administration. Thus the title.
Yes, Obama made an effort to close Gitmo… by hoping to relocate it to the United States. You do realize it’s not the zip code people are angry about? We’re angry about indefinite detention and other human rights violations. It doesn’t matter if the prison is in Cuba or the US or Canada or the South Pole – the apparatus is unethical regardless of location. Obama has done things to make it seem like he supports the apparatus. Thus the title.
Now, people on the left often defend this decision as a political measure (Obama was being pilloried by Congress for suggesting these prisoners be brought to US soil) or a practical one (e.g. releasing angry Yemeni prisoners from Gitmo back to a terrorist-friendly Yemen might not be so smart).
But regardless, the justification used by Obama is that the president has the right to hold people in custody they cannot charge, try or convict. He said that in his executive order. I take his statements today to be a phony hand-wringing until he spends some political capital undoing his stated policy.
You think Obama, as CnC can’t end a war? That would make the AUMF moot which is the entire legal basis for holding Gitmo detainees. But yea, six years later that genius Bush is still pulling the strings on Gitmo. No way the head of the military has any control over his prisoners. Jesus fuck.
Obama can’t be blamed for the status quo he inherited, but he has been President for quite some time now and where to hold POWs, or whether to hold them at all, is entirely within his purview. There are no easy answers to what to do about them, but choosing the path of least resistance is a choice, and one he makes often.
As a non-American, I can see where you’re coming from.
But I’m still glad that you US idiots didn’t elect Romney as your President in 2012, or McCain in 2008. The way that those two assholes were banging on about war with Iran was truly scary. Obama isn’t what I hoped for, but he’s still a damned sight better than the alternatives.
I don’t expect to see a GOP that isn’t a warmongering piece of unadulterated shit in my lifetime.
So you’ll have to excuse me as I laugh at your crocodile tears.
Either of you guys ever read the constitution? Congress shares a huge degree of control over the military with the President. In the current case, Congress has put restrictions on the release of detainees, limiting the President’s ability.
Congress has said no money can be used by DoD to bring Gitmo detainees into the US. The President can still release them. He can still try them at Gitmo.
They are being detained as combatants w/o charge under the laws of war/LOAC/IHL. Once there is an end to hostilities, they can no longer be held under the laws of war and are not combatants. Constitutionally, Congress could not likely prevent them from coming to the US for a criminal trial.
