# Guantanemo Bay Revisited **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 15, 2006, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618 "2006-02-15T12:14:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/1 "2006-02-15T12:14:57Z")
> [@](#): > > “You can receive millions of dollars for helping the Anti-Taliban Force catch Al-Qaida and Taliban murderers. > This is enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people.” > […] > “Dear countrymen: The al-Qaida terrorists are our enemy. They are the enemy of your independence and freedom. Come on. Let us find their most secret hiding places. Search them out and inform the intelligence service of the province > and get the big prize.” > > _Text from leaflets distributed around Afghanistan post US invasion in 2002._ …this started out in my head as a Great Debate, but after a few minutes of typing, I realized there wasn’t much to debate. I first posted about Guantanemo Bay back in [2004.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243819&highlight=banquet+bear) I followed that up a few weeks ago with this great debate [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=356398) that argued the way the US was conducting its War on Terror was hurting, not helping the global fight against terrorism. Central to my arguement was the amount of “intelligence noise” that would be generated by innocent or low-priority detainees. I have always argued that the methods used to arrest, assess then send the prisoners sent to Guantanemo were flawed at practically every stage. Professor Mark Denbeaux, of Seton Hall University School of Law (and Counsel to two Guantanamo detainees) along with several colleagues have realeased a report that has analysed the publicly available data, including all of the unclassified Combatant Status Review Tribunals for all of the remaining 517 detainees. Before cry’s of bias ring out, the raw data is out there on the net, and if you would like to dispute the findings, feel free to do your own [analysis.](http://wid.ap.org/documents/detainees/list.html) Some of the conclusions from the report: > [@](#): > > Among the data revealed by this Report: > 1.\*\* Fifty-five percent (55%)\*\* of the detainees are **not determined to have committed any hostile acts** against the United States or its coalition allies. > 2. \*\*Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. \*\*Of the remaining detainees, **40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban.** > 3. The Government has detained numerous persons based on mere affiliations with a large number of groups that in fact, are not on the Department of Homeland Security terrorist watchlist. Moreover, the nexus between such a detainee and such organizations varies considerably. > Eight percent are detained because they are deemed “fighters for;” 30% considered “members of;” a large majority – 60% – are detained merely because they are “associated with” a group or groups the Government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2% of the prisoners their nexus to any terrorist > group is unidentified. > 4. **Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the > detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United StatesThis 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.** > 5. Finally, the population of persons deemed not to be enemy combatants – mostlyUighers – are in fact accused of more serious allegations than a great many persons still deemed to be enemy combatants. > custody. I remember the many debates, like in [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=263819&page=2&highlight=banquet+bear) thread, where the old arguements over whether or not the Geneva Conventions applied or not. I remember President Bush calling those locked up as “the baddest of the bad.” The documents show that some detainees are there on evidence as flimsy as the type of watch they wear. People that were forced into service for the Taliban are treated the same way as the worst Al-Quaeda suspects… > [@](#): > > Just as strong evidence proves much, weak evidence suggests more. Examples of evidence > that the Government cited as proof that the detainees were enemy combatants includes the following: > ¾ > Associations with unnamed and unidentified individuals and/or organizations; > ¾ Associations with organizations, the members of which would be allowed into the United States by the Department of Homeland Security; > ¾ Possession of rifles; > ¾ Use of a guest house; > ¾ Possession of Casio watches; and > ¾ Wearing of olive drab clothing. Here is the **complete** record for a Taliban conscript: > [@](#): > > a. Detainee is associated with the Taliban > i. The detainee indicates that he was conscripted into the > Taliban. > b. Detainee engaged in hostilities against the US or its coalition > partners. > i. The detainee admits he was a cook’s assistant for Taliban > forces in Narim, Afghanistan under the command of Haji > Mullah Baki. > ii. Detainee fled from Narim to Kabul during the Northern > Alliance attack and surrendered to the Northern Alliance.26 > All declassified information supports the conclusion that this detainee remains at > Guantanamo Bay to this date. > Other detainees have been classified as enemy combatants because of their association with > unnamed individuals. A typical example of such evidence is the following: > The detainee is associated with forces that are engaged in hostilities > against the United States and its coalition partners: > > 1. The detainee voluntarily traveled from Saudi Arabia to > Afghanistan in November 2001. > 2. The detainee traveled and shared hotel rooms with an > Afghani. > 3. The Afghani the detainee traveled with is a member of the > Taliban Government. > 4. The detainee was captured on 10 December 2001 on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. …a cook’s assistant who was forced into the Taliban Army and fled from a Taliban Camp is deemed to be an illegal combatant who took up arms against US troops. The mind boggles. The reports authors conclude that the majority of Taliban at Guantanemo were forced conscripts. “There was a Health Minister, Governor of the State Bank, an Attorney General, an Education Minister, and an Anti-Drug Control Force. Each city had a mayor, chief of police, and senior administrators. None of these individuals are at Guantanamo Bay.” …other gems from the report: > [@](#): > > The evidence satisfactory to the Government for some of the detainees is formidable. For this group, the Government’s evidence portrays a detainee as a powerful, dangerous and knowledgeable man who enjoyed positions of considerable power within the prohibited organizations. The evidence against them is concrete and plausible. The evidence provided for most of the detainees, however, is far less impressive. > […] > The Government treats the presence at a “guest house” as e evidence of being an enemy combatant. The evidence against 27% of the detainees included their residences while traveling through Afghanistan and Pakistan. > […] > At least two dozen Uighurs found in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Government originally determined that these men were enemy combatants, just as the Government so determined for all of the other detainees. The Government has now decided that many of the Uighur detainees in Guantanamo Bay are not enemy combatants and should no longer be detained. They have not yet been released. > …] > Comparing the Combatant Status Review Board=s list of 72 organizations that evidence the detainee’s link to al Qaeda and/or the Taliban, only 22% of those organizations are included in the Terrorist Organization Reference Guide. Further, the Reference Guide describes each organization, quantifies its strength, locations or areas of operation, and sources of external aid. Based on these descriptions of the organizations, only 11% of all organizations listed by the Combatant Status > Review Board as proof of links to al Qaeda or the Taliban are identified as having any links to Qaeda or the Taliban in the Terrorist Organization Reference Guide. > […] > According to the Government, fewer than half of the detainees engaged in 3(b) hostile acts against the United States or any members of its coalition. As figure 7 depicts, the Government has concluded that no more than 45% of the detainees have committed some 3(b) hostile act. > > This is true even though the Government’s definition of a 3(b) hostile act is not demanding. As an example, the following was the evidence that the Government determined was sufficient to constitute a 3(b) hostile act: > The detainee participated in military operations against the United States and > its coalition partners. > > 1. \*\*The detainee fled, \*\*along with others, when the United States forces bombed their camp. > 2. The detainee was captured in Pakistan, along with other Uigher fighters. law.shu.edu/news/guantanamo\_report\_final\_2\_08\_06.pdf [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle\_east/4708946.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4708946.stm) > **[Top 10 Signs You Might Not Get a Fair Trial at Gitmo](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3916623)** > > The U.S. military admitted for the first time last week that one of the prisoners held without charges for more than two years at the base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (also known as Gitmo), was never an al Qaeda or Taliban fighter and should be... …I’ve read many of the individual cases, and the lack of evidence is disturbing, but not surprising. Guantanemo Bay was a stupid idea concieved by stupid people, that has done absolutely nothing but hurt the global war on terrorism. There is no doubt there are some bad people locked up there, and the report concludes that for those people (About 11%) the evidence is pretty overwhelming. For the rest? Well, over 80% of them weren’t captured on the battlefields fighting US troops. That’s over 30% more than I had estimated in previous threads. They were handed over by Pakistani or Northern Alliance Troops for a myriad of reasons, including large bounty payments. The evidence against them is weak. And while the Bush Administration is in place, don’t expect much change to happen at Guantanemo Bay. I’m not a big ranter, so my BBQ rant does need a little bit of help from fellow dopers…I’m loathe to throw in the obligatory “@# Bush!” that it seems this thread requires, so I hope someone throws in the nessecery invectives. The real scarey thing for me is that Guantanemo Bay is the prison run by the US for TWAT detainees that we know the **most** about. We have little information about Bagram. Next to nothing on Abu Gharib or Baghadad Airport. Tens of thousands of people detained in Iraq using the same methodoloy as Guantanemo and worse. And somehow, this “shotgun” approach is supposed to make the world a safer place. I think that it makes many Americans “feel” safer, as evidenced by some of the postings on this very board. But the long term effect? Less co-operation, more bounty hunting, more anger, poor intelligence, and a less safe world. And I’ve been typing a rant about Guantanemo Bay for the last couple of hours and I haven’t even mentioned the alleged abuses going on there, but thats another thread… ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/2 "2006-02-15T20:13:18Z")
I strongly believe that Guantanamo Bay is a huge mistake, not in that it exists, but in how it’s being run. The people there should be tried and be either released if acquitted or further imprisoned or shot if found guilty. And I don’t really buy the “it’s making terrorism worse” argument either, the U.S. (and the entire west as well, although most of the west has a huge capacity to deny it) is at WAR with militant branches of a religion that murders innocents, burns embassies and riots in the streets simply because someone publishes a couple of cartoons they don’t like, there’s no shortage of people for terrorist cells to recruit no matter what the U.S. does or doesn’t do. I do wonder, however, what makes you so sure the guy claiming to be a cook’s assistant was actually a cook’s assistant? If I was a terrorist, and I got caught by coalition forces, especially in an area of the world where identities are a lot more fluid than they are here, I’d be screaming “No! Not me! I’m just a cook, you got the wrong man!” too. A lot of people seem to have the tendency to take any accused terrorist at their word, yet at the same time disbelieve anything that the U.S. says, no matter what evidence they have. That always puzzled me.\* \*The above is not meant to dismiss legitimate problems at GB, those should be dealt with, and as I said the people there should be tried rather than detained indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/3 "2006-02-15T22:02:59Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I strongly believe that Guantanamo Bay is a huge mistake, not in that it exists, but in how it’s being run. Well, if we didn’t want Guantanamo Bay to exist, we’d have to move a lot of earth to fill the bay in. > [@](#): > > The people there should be tried and be either released if acquitted or further imprisoned or shot if found guilty. I’ll give you props for acknowledging this much. > [@](#): > > I do wonder, however, what makes you so sure the guy claiming to be a cook’s assistant was actually a cook’s assistant? If I was a terrorist, and I got caught by coalition forces, especially in an area of the world where identities are a lot more fluid than they are here, I’d be screaming “No! Not me! I’m just a cook, you got the wrong man!” too. A lot of people seem to have the tendency to take any accused terrorist at their word, yet at the same time disbelieve anything that the U.S. says, no matter what evidence they have. That always puzzled me.\* The thing is, as I understand it, this _is_ the U.S. evidence. This is what we’ve got on the guy. But let’s suppose he was a soldier in the Taliban army, rather than a cook. So what? We may not have recognized them as the legit government of Afghanistan, thank goodness, but they WERE such government as the country had. They had the power to conscript. Taliban =/= al-Qaeda. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2006, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/4 "2006-02-15T22:35:50Z")
**Weirddave** Please explain how the detention without trial for an inderterminate period of time, based on evidence that the US itself finds weak and flimsy is making anyone in the world safer from terrorism. Those 11% have been replaced a thousandfold by the relatives of those held who are detained under false or extremely shaky grounds. The US says it has declared war on terrorism, in fact it has declared war on human rights, your rights included. You can argue that the rights of victims of terrorism count as much and more thant the terrorists, but, the prblem is that the overwhelming majority of those detained and tortured are not terrorists. If you think it is not making the war on terrorism worse, please explain how it is being effective at reducing it, and if it is broadly neutral, neither making it worse, nor making it better, then how can it be justified at all ? As for believing what the US says, why the hell should we ? The list of lies for war in Iraq is long, the obvious cover ups about the Abu-ghraif torture are apparent, why have no coomaders or senior officers been taken to task, and why has the US government kept so much material that proves the abuse covered up for so long ? This is the torture that we know about, how about themurder of an Iraqi genreal under torture, his tormentor recieved a punishment that was simply and insult to humanity. Could it be that the person was part of an interrogation section(which he was) and he was employing procedures and tortures that had become common practice ? There is absolutely no pressing reason to believe the US at all, and verymany reasons to discard the words of its leaders. In many parts of the world, the US administration has become a byword for inhumanity, duplicity, deception, torture and murder. I seriously doubt that most of the non US Western world thinks that the US is snowy white, quite frankly the way the US has behaved in Iraq and elswhere is an embarrassment to the word Democracy. How do you imagine the US is viewed in Pakistan, Indonesia, Algeria, Palestine, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and virtuallt every other Arabic nation ? If I seem dissappointed in the falling standards of the US, think how much moreso these nations are, and what a fertile ground for recruitment they have become. Think about how disaffected Moslems in the US and Europe feel, because those latter are possibly the most dangerous threat to our society there is, since they know our society and its ways all too well. …and then, after all that, tell me how Guantanamo Bay has helped to improve your personal security. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/5 "2006-02-16T00:08:00Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > And I don’t really buy the “it’s making terrorism worse” argument either, the U.S. (and the entire west as well, although most of the west has a huge capacity to deny it) is at WAR with militant branches of a religion that murders innocents, burns embassies and riots in the streets simply because someone publishes a couple of cartoons they don’t like, there’s no shortage of people for terrorist cells to recruit no matter what the U.S. does or doesn’t do. …sure. And you have evidence that the riots and the burning down of the embassies would have happened without the US led war on terror, don’t you? But the “hearts and minds” arguement isn’t really one that I advance as primary in my case that the US War on Terror has made things worse. I advance my case in this thread: > **[...how America's War has hurt the global fight against terrorism...](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=356398)** > > …it has been argued by some that The War Against Terror that the United States is currently persuing is the best option for America, and that unfortunate incidents like the Pakistani bombing, while sad for those involved, is an unfortunate... …which argues that the “shotgun” approach to gathering detainees has led to a massive commitment in resources into follies like Guantanemo Bay for little to no reward. In the meantime the 9/11 Commission has determined that many of its reccomendations have not been carried out. Katrina showed that there is still massive need to get different agencies and government bodies to talk to each other. How did these people end up in custody? Only about 25 of the 517 detainees were captured directly by US forces. That figure would include the five that were taken from Bosnia and the two Brit’s taken from Gambia. So as few as 20 people were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in battle against US forces. For the last three years the administration has been dishing out the same rhetoric: “the badest of the bad, captured on the battlefields, terrorists, etc…” Yet 7% of detainees are listed as **either** Taliban or Al-Quaeda. 10% have an “unidentified” affiliation. 32% are determined by the CSRT to be Al-Quada, and the report disputes that determination. Our “cook” was determined to be Taliban, yet as the report also points out, there is no Taliban Mayors, no police chiefs, and no senior administration officials at Guantanemo. Top suspects, like Omar al-Faruq (alleged head of Al-Quada operations in Southeast Asia) were held in Afghanistan, where he gained the opportunity to escape. What was Camp X-ray built for again? > [@](#): > > I do wonder, however, what makes you so sure the guy claiming to be a cook’s assistant was actually a cook’s assistant? I never made that determination. That was made by the Combatant Status Tribunal. I posted the total of the unclassified evidence against him. For your benefit, I will post it again: > [@from the report](#): > > a. Detainee is associated with the Taliban > **i. The detainee indicates that he was conscripted into the > Taliban. > b. Detainee engaged in hostilities against the US or its coalition > partners. > i. The detainee admits he was a cook’s assistant for Taliban > forces in Narim, Afghanistan under the command of Haji > Mullah Baki. > ii. Detainee fled from Narim to Kabul during the Northern > Alliance attack and surrendered to the Northern Alliance.26** > All declassified information supports the conclusion that this detainee remains at > Guantanamo Bay to this date. > Other detainees have been classified as enemy combatants because of their association with > unnamed individuals. A typical example of such evidence is the following: > The detainee is associated with forces that are engaged in hostilities > against the United States and its coalition partners: > > 1. The detainee voluntarily traveled from Saudi Arabia to > Afghanistan in November 2001. > 2. The detainee traveled and shared hotel rooms with an > Afghani. > 3. The Afghani the detainee traveled with is a member of the > Taliban Government. > 4. The detainee was captured on 10 December 2001 on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Note the bolded parts. After three years in captivity, that is the strongest evidence that they had on this prisoner. No evidence he picked up a gun. No evidence he "conspired with anyone else. No, the evidence that he “engaged in hostilities” was that the detainee fled from Narim and then surrendered to the Northern Alliance. Surely you can see how weak that is? Are you surprised the determinations of U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green, who detemined a couple of weeks ago: > [@Washington Post](#): > > But, she said, the reviews designed to determine that are so stacked against them that their findings cannot be trusted. Because of the imbalance, she said, she cannot dismiss the detainees’ claims, as the government had asked. > > “Although this nation unquestionably must take strong action under the leadership of the commander in chief to protect itself against enormous and unprecedented threats, that necessity cannot negate the existence of the most basic fundamental rights for which the people of this country have fought and died for well over two hundred years,” Green wrote. > > Green found that the military relied heavily on reported confessions of detainees to determine whether they are enemy combatants. But she expressed some skepticism about the reliability of such confessions because of widespread allegations and some evidence of abuse of detainees during interrogations [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51007-2005Jan31.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51007-2005Jan31.html) > [@](#): > > If I was a terrorist, and I got caught by coalition forces, especially in an area of the world where identities are a lot more fluid than they are here, I’d be screaming “No! Not me! I’m just a cook, you got the wrong man!” too. Sure. And if you were a cook, and you were the wrong man, you would be sceaming **exactly** the same thing as the terrorist. And as the CSRT points out, he was a cook. Which makes your arguement, with all due respect, kind of old. We’ve had this debate before-many times. We haven’t had the analysis before. Have you read the report? Did you look at the raw data? > [@](#): > > A lot of people seem to have the tendency to take any accused terrorist at their word, yet at the same time disbelieve anything that the U.S. says, no matter what evidence they have. That always puzzled me.\* …which is why I went to the trouble of linking to the first ever report to make an indepth analysis of the evidence for the 517 detainees still held at Guantanemo. Did you bother to read it? I made no “knee jerk” reaction, I followed the evidence. Please don’t throw down arguements that I never made and expect me to debate them with you. What are your thoughts on the report? ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/6 "2006-02-16T00:18:20Z")
I need some help to wrap my mind about the concept of throwing a person in prison for the brand of watch it uses, anyone?; no really, what gives? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/7 "2006-02-16T00:22:26Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > . . . the U.S. (and the entire west as well, although most of the west has a huge capacity to deny it) is at WAR with militant branches of a religion that murders innocents . . . :rolleyes: **It ain’t a war.** It’s a criminal problem, not a military problem. Al-Qaeda can no more declare or make war on the U.S. than could the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Weathermen, or the Montana Militia. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/8 "2006-02-16T00:32:51Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > And I don’t really buy the “it’s making terrorism worse” argument either, the U.S. (and the entire west as well, although most of the west has a huge capacity to deny it) is at WAR with militant branches of a religion that murders innocents, burns embassies and riots in the streets simply because someone publishes a couple of cartoons they don’t like, there’s no shortage of people for terrorist cells to recruit no matter what the U.S. does or doesn’t do. You may be at war with them but the fact of the matter is the people you are fighting do not go back to barracks at night. They go back to communities and hide within them. While falsely imprisoning people will not create many actual frontline fighters it does help to reinforce the propaganda of the insurgents, fighting a cruel and oppressive super power etc. Here in Ireland the UK government learnt a hard lesson when they interned people without charge or trial. It helped convinced the nationalist people in the north that there was a need to fight perceived injustices. The IRA and others gained a huge foothold in areas and the people of NI and Britain paid a high price for their reactionary leaders’ mistakes. The many actions of the IRA and the mayhem and death they caused didn’t really effect their popularity BTW. An angry public can rationalise all types of horrors. A terrorist organisation needs some public support to keep going. If you help the public turn against you by actions that are clearly unjust you are helping the terrorists in a very real way. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/9 "2006-02-16T00:43:34Z")
I don’t understand how I could have stated it any more clearly. > [@me](#): > > I strongly believe that Guantanamo Bay is a huge mistake, not in that it exists, but in how it’s being run. The people there should be tried and be either released if acquitted or further imprisoned or shot if found guilty. And yet some of you are arguing with me that detaining people indefinitely in Camp X-Ray is wrong. I started my post with that premise, yet you’re still arguing about it. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/10 "2006-02-16T00:47:10Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > And yet some of you are arguing with me that detaining people indefinitely in Camp X-Ray is wrong. I started my post with that premise, yet you’re still arguing about it. Weird. But the whole reason Camp X-Ray exists is because it allows them to detain people indefinitely. If you want to actually give them legal rights, you can detain them on US soil. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/11 "2006-02-16T01:01:20Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I don’t understand how I could have stated it any more clearly. > > And yet some of you are arguing with me that detaining people indefinitely in Camp X-Ray is wrong. I started my post with that premise, yet you’re still arguing about it. Weird. …you indeed made that initial statement. I agreed with that one, and chose not to comment on it. I disagreed strongly with your other statements, and feel I quite fairly rebutted them. Whats your problem with that? ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/12 "2006-02-16T01:02:57Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > But the whole reason Camp X-Ray exists is because it allows them to detain people indefinitely. If you want to actually give them legal rights, you can detain them on US soil. You mean something like “The people there should be tried and be either released if acquitted or further imprisoned or shot if found guilty.”? ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/13 "2006-02-16T01:07:24Z")
> [@Banquet Bear](#): > > …you indeed made that initial statement. I agreed with that one, and chose not to comment on it. I disagreed strongly with your other statements, and feel I quite fairly rebutted them. Whats your problem with that? I don’t understand how my statement fails to address the problem. I advocate putting the detainees on trial. At a trial, they would either be proven guilty or shown to be innocent. I thought it went without saying that the innocent would be set free. Doesn’t that solve everything you brought up? ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/14 "2006-02-16T01:25:13Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > You mean something like “The people there should be tried and be either released if acquitted or further imprisoned or shot if found guilty.”? No, I meant the part where you said “I strongly believe that Guantanamo Bay is a huge mistake, _not in that it exists_ …” (italics mine). You can’t seperate the indefinite detentions and lack of legal status from Guantanamo Bay. It’s an essential part of it–it’s _why_ it exists. Guantanamo Bay was chosen as the location because they knew it was a place where they could get away with the shit they’ve gotten away with. It’s sort of like saying ‘I think the Gulags were a huge mistake, not in that they existed, but in that they were used to brutally squash political dissent.’ ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/15 "2006-02-16T01:49:34Z")
Not at all. There is a need for a place to imprison suspected terrorists before trial and convicted terrorists afterwards. I’m quite happy with that place being 90 miles off our shores rather than in suburban Los Angeles. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/16 "2006-02-16T01:59:31Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Not at all. There is a need for a place to imprison suspected terrorists before trial and convicted terrorists afterwards. I’m quite happy with that place being 90 miles off our shores rather than in suburban Los Angeles. Would you rather a new facility be constructed 90 miles off shore, where legal representation and civilian oversight is impossible, or would you rather an existing supermax prison be used, which would be cheaper, just as secure, and would allow easier access to the inmates? ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/17 "2006-02-16T02:00:32Z")
s/impossible/dificult or impossible/ ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/18 "2006-02-16T03:12:01Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > I don’t understand how my statement fails to address the problem. I advocate putting the detainees on trial. At a trial, they would either be proven guilty or shown to be innocent. I thought it went without saying that the innocent would be set free. Doesn’t that solve everything you brought up? …sure. But how about a clarification on your position. Since Camp X-Ray and Camp-Delta have been around, the US have detained over 700 people at Guantanemo Bay. There are 517 there now. According to the report, only about twenty of them have hard evidence against them. Which means that the US has detained without charge 700 people, put them in stress positions, threatened their execution, allegedly beat them, threatened them with dogs, left people tied up for over 24 hours in stifling hot conditions to soil themselves, and put them through hundreds of interogations. In June of 2004 the US Department of Defense issued the statement: > [@DOD](#): > > Hill said the operation, with about 595 detainees — at least one-third of which he calls “very high-value targets” — continues to provide “actionable intelligence” that supports the war on terror. [http://www.dod.gov/news/Jun2004/n06032004\_200406038.html](http://www.dod.gov/news/Jun2004/n06032004_200406038.html) Now you tell me. You’ve read the report, you’ve seen the raw data that the reports were based on. Your stated conclusion? **" And I don’t really buy the “it’s making terrorism worse” argument either"** You stand by that? You don’t see how the actionable intelligence gained from non-high value targets, from people who may very well be innocent, from the greater than 80% of people locked up at Camp X-ray or Camp Delta, has harmed the alleged war? You talk about the recent cartoon riots, and point out that " there’s no shortage of people for terrorist cells to recruit no matter what the U.S. does or doesn’t do." That wasn’t my point I was addressing, which I clarified with my next post, which you then ignored. You then talk about the “baker”, making a point that has been made in every thread on this topic since TWAT started. You then admitted you were puzzled by people who **“have the tendency to take any accused terrorist at their word, yet at the same time disbelieve anything that the U.S. says, no matter what evidence they have.”** That statement puzzled me, because my OP was **all** about the evidence. There has **never** been any hard evidence supporting the US’s position on the detainee’s at Guantanemo. If you want to back up your comments, show it to me. It also has never been the general consensus that people **believe “the terrorist” before the US.** The “terrorist’s” are lying, murderous scum, and if we know who they are, then there is no way we would accept their word for it. The evidence does **not support** the President Bush’s contention that Guantanemo Bay is populated by the “baddest of the bad”. Sure, you dropped a nice disclaimer onto your post that you could point to when people started to argue the points you made. You may have well have posted “I’m not racist, but…” for all the relevance your disclaimer had with the rest of your post… ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/19 "2006-02-16T16:54:16Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > I need some help to wrap my mind about the concept of throwing a person in prison for the brand of watch it uses, anyone?; no really, what gives? :dubious: Ummm…Timex is a big contributor to the GOP? ;j -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618/20 "2006-02-17T00:40:00Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Ummm…Timex is a big contributor to the GOP? ;j > > -Joe Fair enough, I guess it defies any rational explanation. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guantanemo-bay-revisited/344618.md?page=2)