# ...on completly missing the point... (Guantanamo related, for Beagle...) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 8, 2004, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122 "2004-03-08T14:37:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **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:** [March 8, 2004, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/1 "2004-03-08T14:37:26Z")
…with respect Beagle, you seem to completely miss the point. From this thread… > **[Revisiting Gitmo (Cuba, detention) -- Nice Place](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243677)** > > I’m just wondering if I can make a reservation. Sounds like a great place to grow as a person. Those that alleged the US would keep these people forever, torture them, or kill them, summarized mainly with comparisons to Nazis and such, I await... > [@Beagle](#): > > [I’m just wondering if I can make a reservation.](http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1163435,00.html) Sounds like a great place to grow as a person. > Those that alleged the US would keep these people forever, torture them, or kill them, summarized mainly with comparisons to Nazis and such, I await apologies. > > I’ll keep waiting. One great thing about being a radical is never having to examine the facts to determine your outlook. Abassin Sayed was an inmate number 671 at Guantanamo Bay. He was released after thirteen months of captivity. According to Sayed, he was driving his Taxi in Gardez when he was stopped at an Afgani run roadblock. Although he protested his innocence at the time, he was turned over to American forces and transported to Cuba. Among other claims by Sayed, he says that those running the road block received “bounty payments” for everybody turned over to the American Forces. Lights were kept on for 24 hours a day at Guantanamo. When Sayed had problems with his knees, he was told to exercise them by the military doctor, when he did those exercises he was put into solitary confinement for five days. He was interrogated eleven times, for periods of six to seven hours at a time. Then, after thirteen months of captivity, was released. As a result of the incarceration, he has problems with his eyes, his skin, and his knees. He was unable to financially support his family for the time he was in captivity. He was never declared “innocent” by the American authorities, however he was made to sign papers promising that he would never to engage with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, or harm the United States. He was given no monetary compensation for his time in captivity. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/2968458.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/2968458.stm) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/panorama/transcripts/insideguantanamo.txt](http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/panorama/transcripts/insideguantanamo.txt) …Sayed’s case was one of the most publicised cases primarily because his father lobbyed for his release almost immediately on his inncarceration-a luxury many others didn’t have. In this older article (December 2002, since the article was written, many of those detained may have been released), we can see a profile of many of those that got shipped to Cuba: > **[Many Held at Guantanamo Not Likely Terrorists](https://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gitmo22dec22-story.html)** > > Dozens of detainees pose no real threat, but U.S. policies make it nearly impossible to get names off lists. Theres also fear of freeing "21st hijacker." (registration may be required… ) > [@](#): > > “There are a lot of guilty [people] in there,” said one officer, “but there’s a lot of farmers in there too.” > > …snip… > > One prisoner was transferred because he was Arab by birth and had once fought for the Taliban, thereby meeting two key screening criteria. But before the war he had sustained such a massive head injury that he could utter little more than his name and was known by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay as “half-head Bob.” > > “He had basically had a combat lobotomy,” the interrogator said. "Every [intelligence report] on him from Afghanistan said, ‘No value, no value, don’t send him.’ " > > Others were grabbed by Pakistani soldiers patrolling the Afghan border who **collected bounties for prisoners,** sources said. One such prisoner was captured at a restaurant near the border where he claimed to have lived and worked for 20 years. > > “He had the mental capacity to put flatbread in an oven and that was the extent of his intellect,” the interrogator said. “He never got trained on a rifle, never got pressed into service. But he was Arab by birth so he was picked up and sent away.” > [@](#): > > Other detainees seemed to get caught up in the military’s bureaucratic machinery. In many cases, low-value prisoners caught early in the war were placed at the bottom of prioritized lists. But as planeloads of prisoners were sent to Cuba, names at the bottoms of the lists drifted to the top, and some started showing up on flight manifests. > > \*\*Once they appeared on the manifests, sources said, removing them proved almost impossible. \*\* Doing so required senior intelligence officers in Kuwait or Afghanistan to work through thickets of military red tape. It also required them to trust the judgment of junior intelligence officers, something they were loath to do given the stakes. …so it appears that some people ended up at Guantanamo because of “clerical errors” that were too hard to fix. United States Senator Cornwyn said that “I’m satisfied that the 660 at Guantanamo Bay are among the baddest of the bad.” It appeared that at least some of those 660 were bakers, farmers, businessman, lower level militia, and taxi drivers. …and countary to popular belief, not all of the prisoners Guantanamo were captured in Afghanistan. Four British men were arrested in Gambia, questioned for 27 days with no access to lawyers or the British High Commission, before two of them were shipped off to Bagram. Another British detainee was taken from his bed in Pakistan. Five men in Bosnia, who were due to be released due to [BOLD] lack of evidence [/BOLD] over a plot to blow up British and American embassies, were instead released to American Forces and taken to Guantanamo, despite a ruling from the Bosnian Human Rights Commission. [cite](http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/panorama/transcripts/insideguantanamo.txt) …and then we have the rewards schemes, introduced early last year. [http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/12/guantanamo.rewards.ap/](http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/12/guantanamo.rewards.ap/) > [@](#): > > “It’s important for us to set the environment so they understand through cooperation and good behavior they can have the hope of eventually getting transferred back to their native countries,” Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller said in an interview Tuesday. > > …snip… > > “We believe the rewards and penalties program has helped us increase the amount and quality of the information,” Miller said. …how reliable can information be when it is the result of what is essentially, a bribe? How many innocent people, who refuse to co-operate because either they claim innocence, or they honestly don’t have any information to give up, fall into the “un-co-operative” category? …while I would love to ask these questions to the administration, the current adminsitration seek to only speak in rhetoric. A few choice quotes… “Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out,” he said. “Our interest is in — during this global war on terror — keeping them off the streets, and so that’s what’s taking place.” _Donald Rumsfield_ "Sgt KEEFER: These people are not considered prisoners, nor are they treated like prisoners as what we would treat a military prisoner as. WHITE: They’re not considered prisoners? St KEEFER: No sir. WHITE: What’s being kept for nearly a year and a half? Sgt KEEFER: Detained personnel sir. WHITE: That’s categorically different from being a prisoner, is it? Sgt KEEFER: Yes sir." \* extract from Panorama documentary, 5/10/03\* “the only thing we know for certain is that these are bad people and we look forward to working with the Blair government to deal with the issue”. “Let me just say, these were illegal combatants. They were picked up off the battlefield aiding and abetting the Taliban”. _President Bush, July 18 2003_ (I have also, unwittingly, proven this last statement to be untrue) So to sum up, people are detained, without trial for all manor of reasons, plucked from all manor of places, detained with no idea whether or not they will gain release, in an environment where the lights are on twenty four hours a day, where people are encouraged to “co-operate” through bribes, where the prisoners are under constant threat of the death penalty, and you want **me to apologise for questioning any of this?** …the police and the justice system follow a certain code of practice for very good reasons. Suspects are read their rights to ensure that they understand what their rights are. The process is as speedy as possible, so that the evidence is fresh, peoples memories are untainted, and if the suspect is innocent, their life would be disrupted as little as possible. Sleep deprivation and other techniques such as this are not allowed, because the reliability of the evidence produced at the end of the process would be laughed out of court. Yet this is what the United State administration had done to the prisoners at Guantanamo for the\*\* last three years.\*\* My own personal feelings are the administration are holding back on the military tribunals because even in the the controlled setting of a tribunal, any half-way decent army defence lawyer would be able to rip holes in the administrations case. …so some of the juvenile prisoners-kept seperate from the vast majority of detainees, enjoyed their stay. Good for them. The fact that this doesn’t excuse the massive abuse of human rights that is continuing to take place at Guantanamo seems to have completly gone over your head… ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/2 "2004-03-08T16:31:10Z")
Why isn’t this reply in the original GD thread? At least you should have told him to pull his head outta his ass or something to make it Pit-worthy. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2004, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/3 "2004-03-09T06:06:24Z")
I can’t speak for **Banquet Bear’s** reasoning, but I do know that SDMB is about fighting ignorance. That purpose is well-served by this OP. In our efforts to wipe out terrorism, the United States should be on constant guard against becoming the very thing we fight against. _Unjust_ imprisonment is evil no matter whether it is done by Saddam or by President Bush. How can we ignore human rights in order to fight for human rights? President Bush promised that the military commission trials in Guantanamo would be open to the public. Despite that “promise,” the Pentagon has refused to allow **Amnesty International, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and Human Rights Watch** access to these trials. [http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=10F6F4B0C477ACA485256E440057BA6C](http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=10F6F4B0C477ACA485256E440057BA6C) I would think that if conditions are as wonderful as **Beagle** thinks they are – or would have us believe – they the U.S. would be _proud_ to have human rights organizations looking over their shoulders. If he spoke out of ignorance, then maybe information in the original thread would have been sufficient. But if this is a pattern for **Beagle** , I can understand a new thread here. Pax ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2004, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/4 "2004-03-09T14:22:07Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > If he spoke out of ignorance, then maybe information in the original thread would have been sufficient. But if this is a pattern for **Beagle** , I can understand a new thread here. Oh I agree that the OP was an excellent post. It just seems on-point and better suited for the original Great Debate Thread. If **Banquet Bear** is going to Pit the eminently pittable **Beagle** , then it needs some vitriol. 😉 Okay, really, I just posted so **Banquet Bear** would have some feedback to validate the time spent on the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2004, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/5 "2004-03-09T14:44:45Z")
Naw, naw, naw. If we’d kidnapped people, denied their human rights, intentionally abused them, and then shot them and burned the bodies, THEN we’d be Nazis. Since we only kidnapped people, denied their human rights, UNintentionally abused them, and then either let them go or kept them longer, we’re… um… well, I dunno, but it ain’t Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/6 "2004-03-09T15:17:45Z")
> [@Master Wang-Ka](#): > > Since we only kidnapped people, denied their human rights, UNintentionally abused them, and then either let them go or kept them longer, we’re… um… well, I dunno, but it ain’t Nazis. But what word can be possibly use? Can we adapt something related to those making the decisions? Bushes? Nah, there’s lots of both bushes and Bushes in the world. Kind of unfair. Rumsfelds? Rumsfelders? Rumsfeldians? Nah, too long, could make it hard for some people to pronounce. Texans? Nope, too many of them aren’t that special combination of evil and batshit insane. Republicans? Hmmm…tempting, but I keep hearing rumors that there are some who aren’t evil and can think for themselves. Compassionate Conservatives perhaps? It’s too long, but we could short it to CCs, or just Cees. Otherwise, it’s perfect. “And when the Cees came for me, there was nobody to speak out in my behalf.” Hmm… -Joe, probably about to have an “accident” ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/7 "2004-03-09T21:16:29Z")
“Bushistas” works for me – the mindless supporters of George W. Bush, of which **Beagle** is a perfect example. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/8 "2004-03-09T23:00:53Z")
> [@Master Wang-Ka](#): > > Since we only kidnapped people, denied their human rights, UNintentionally abused them, and then either let them go or kept them longer, we’re… um… well, I dunno, but it ain’t Nazis. How about fascists? We could be fascists. Well not me personally because I sure didn’t vote for this asshole, but you know what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/9 "2004-03-09T23:26:01Z")
You know, Fascist could work. The text book I use in the 9th grade world studies class defines fascism as follows: “Any authoritarian government that is not communist” it then goes on to say " all forms of fascism however shared some basic featers. It was rooted in extreme nationalism. Fascists glorified action, violence, discipline, and above all, blind loyalty to the state." Ellis, Elisabeth & Esler, Anthony._World History Today_New Jersey: Prentis Hall. 1997 (Pg. 776) ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/10 "2004-03-10T02:13:57Z")
I suggest he name the **Beagle** , **Pretzel** , after the owner. 'cause that’s what he turns facts into in order to justify the unjustifiable. I really should have pitted him myself for this [insane post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4591014&postcount=7) and his departure from the referenced thread after rebuttal. Note that the link to blog in question is no longer active. Just as well – biggest pile of republican porn© I’ve seen in quite sometime. Probably a box of Kleenex’s worth or more. For exact figure contact **Beagle**. © **minty green** , IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-completly-missing-the-point-guantanamo-related-for-beagle/233122/11 "2004-03-10T02:21:53Z")
bah. Where it says featers the word I intended to write was features. I am not sure what a featers is.