# Ronald Reagan's Birthday **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948 "2010-02-06T20:49:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/181 "2010-02-19T03:20:48Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > The term “a lot” is rather non-specific. Since you appear to have the facts right at your fingertips, could you give us something a bit more quantified? How many were “captured on the battlefield”? How many were released without any action taken against them? May we presume that they were released because they presented no threat to America or her interests, or have you better information on this? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo\_Bay\_detention\_camp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp) > [@](#): > > U.S. officials have claimed that some of the released prisoners returned to the battlefield. According to Dick Cheney, these captives tricked their interrogators about their real identity and made them think they were harmless villagers, and thus they were able to “return to the battlefield”.[130] One released detainee, Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti, committed a successful suicide attack in Mosul, on March 25, 2008. Al-Ajmi had been repatriated from Guantanamo in 2005, and transferred to Kuwaiti custody. A Kuwaiti court later acquitted him of terrorism charges.[131][132][133] On January 13, 2009, the Pentagon said that it had evidence that 18 former detainees have had direct involvement in terrorist activities.[134] The Pentagon said that another 43 former detainees have “a plausible link with terrorist activities” according to its intelligence sources.[134] ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/182 "2010-02-19T03:24:30Z")
One sixth is a lot? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/183 "2010-02-19T03:43:05Z")
Not only is that a Wikipedia quote about what “US officials claim” - not exactly hard evidence - but it doesn’t even say that they were originally captured on the battlefield. After our treatment of prisoners, I expect the majority of them would happily see Americans slaughtered; just because they engage in attacks now doesn’t mean they were terrorists before we gave them an object lesson in just how monstrous we are. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/184 "2010-02-19T10:26:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Not only is that a Wikipedia quote about what “US officials claim” - not exactly hard evidence - but it doesn’t even say that they were originally captured on the battlefield. After our treatment of prisoners, I expect the majority of them would happily see Americans slaughtered; just because they engage in attacks now doesn’t mean they were terrorists before we gave them an object lesson in just how monstrous we are. Battlefield captures? [Five percent.](http://esl-bits.net/advanced-listening/Media/Habeas1/default.html) > [@](#): > > In a new study by Seton Hall’s law school, researchers simply went to the trouble of reading the 517 Guantanamo case files released by the Pentagon. Here’s what they found: > > Only 5% of our detainees at Guantanamo were “scooped up” by American troops, on the battlefield or anywhere else. Five percent. The rest? We never saw them fighting. > > And here’s something else: Only 8% of the detainees in Guantanamo are classified by the Pentagon as Al Qaeda fighters. In fact, Michael Donleavy, head of interrogations at Guantanamo, complained in 2002 that he was receiving too many “Mickey Mouse” prisoners. > > In 2004, the New York Times did a huge investigation, interviewing dozens of high level military intelligence and law enforcement officials in the US, Europe and the Middle East. There was a surprising consensus: that out of nearly 600 men at Guantanamo, the number who could give us useful information about Al Qaeda was “only a relative handful.” Some put the number at about a dozen. Others more than two dozen. > > The Seton Hall study might help explain that; it revealed that 86% of the detainees were handed over to us by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance. And some were handed over to us by a new method – here’s Badr. > > BADR: Actually, in our interrogation, the American interrogators have been telling us they have paid a lot of money to those who handed over us to Americans. > > HUTSON: The problem was, we were offering bounties, you know, $5,000 or $10,000 (Al Qaeda brought more than Taliban did) and so “ok, fine, here’s your money” and they take them to Gitmo. > > HITT: That’s Rear Admiral John Hutson, the Navy’s top lawyer. He was judge advocate general until 2000. He says, essentially we bought Badr, and a whole lot of other prisoners. > > HUTSON: And when you look at the economy at that part of the world, you know, that really is kind of a king’s ransom. So a lot of people were tagged as terrorists and handed over to the Americans in Afghanistan and Pakistan because 1) the Americans were paying rewards, sometimes as much as a full year’s wages, and 2) it was a good way to get rid of people the locals didn’t like, especially critics of the local government. [Here’s some more](http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/prisoner-testimonies/writers-jailed-in-2002-for-political-satire) [about Badr and his brother](http://esl-bits.net/advanced-listening/Media/Habeas3/default.html). Some people just can’t take a joke. > [@](#): > > Like millions of Afghans, they fled to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of their country in the 1980s and joined one of the many anti-Soviet factions that got quiet support from Pakistan’s military intelligence service. Their small group was called Jamiat-i-Dawatul Quran wa Sunna, and Dost became editor of its magazine. Even then, “we were not fighters,” said Badr. “We took part in the war only as writers.” > > After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the men split with Jamiat, partly over its promotion of the extremist Wahhabi sect of Islam. Dost wrote lampoons against the group’s leader, a cleric named Sami Ullah, portraying him as a corrupt pawn of its sponsor, Pakistan, working against Afghan interests. > > In November 2001, as U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan, the mullah’s brother, Roh Ullah, “called us and said if we didn’t stop criticizing the party he would have us put in jail,” said Badr. Ten days later, men from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate hauled the brothers off to grimy cells. And now? > [@](#): > > HITT: Americans are going to think that because you were at Guantanamo Bay, that you were a terrorist, and that everybody was. > > ABDULLAH: Yeah. > > HITT: What would you say to them? > > ABDULLAH: Uh… I would say, even if I were an angel, I would still be a terrorist to them, because it’s the thing that they wanted. People don’t want to take responsibility for their mistakes, that’s it. They want to put it on others. It’s like slaughtering a sheep, for example, and when the sheep keeps shaking and the blood’s spilling all over the place, they’d scream at it and say, “You’re a bad sheep! Bad, bad sheep, because your blood came on my clothes, or my dress.” You know what I’m saying? They would take you, maybe torture you, or maybe kill you, or maybe put you under so much stress, and then they would say, “You’re a bad person,” ‘cause you’d been through those things. Why did you put me through those things in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/185 "2010-02-19T15:35:49Z")
Question I imagine somebody can answer: in the US criminal justice system, what percentage of people charged with felonies are ultimately acquitted? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/186 "2010-02-19T16:40:52Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Question I imagine somebody can answer: in the US criminal justice system, what percentage of people charged with felonies are ultimately acquitted? [Somewhere around 10-15%.](http://www.ncsconline.org/WC/Publications/Res_Juries_HungJuriesChap2Pub.pdf) Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/187 "2010-02-19T17:02:23Z")
When did Saddam get lumped into the “terrorist” camp? And yes, America was instrumental in defeating the Axis in the last of what I consider the “needed” wars. That had zero to do with our moral resolve or “rightness” and mostly with raw muscle. And ALL wars have seen large numbers of civilians slain. Your point? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/188 "2010-02-19T18:53:37Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > When did Saddam get lumped into the “terrorist” camp? Before the conquest, there were stories going around about him contributing to the widow’s and orphan’s fund of palestinian bombers. Some thought that made him worse than bin Laden. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/189 "2010-02-19T19:26:30Z")
Someday, the Reagan Papers will be released from the embargo. And, pals and gals, the proverbial shit will hit the fan… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/190 "2010-02-19T19:31:16Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > When did Saddam get lumped into the “terrorist” camp? When the Republicans could no longer pretend Iraq was building an arsenal (or was it had built? Was going to build? Wanted to build? So many lies) with which to threaten the US. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/191 "2010-02-20T04:04:01Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > When did Saddam get lumped into the “terrorist” camp? > > And yes, America was instrumental in defeating the Axis in the last of what I consider the “needed” wars. That had zero to do with our moral resolve or “rightness” and mostly with raw muscle. And ALL wars have seen large numbers of civilians slain. Your point? What about the Korean War. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/192 "2010-02-20T04:19:40Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > What about the Korean War. You mean, in terms of civilians slain? [Lots:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Crimes_against_civilians) > [@](#): > > In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia, by assassinating every educated person—academic, governmental, religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during NPA retreat. Likewise, in combating enemy infiltration—immediately after the invasion in June 1950—the South Korean Government ordered the nation-wide “pre-emptive apprehension” of politically-suspect (disloyal) citizens. > > The military police and Right-wing paramilitary (civilian) armies—abetted by the US—summarily executed thousands of left-wing and communist political prisoners at Daejeon Prison and in the Cheju Uprising (1948–49). US diplomat Gregory Henderson, then in Korea, calculates some 100,000 pro-North political prisoners were killed and buried in mass graves. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission received reports of some 7,800 civilian killings, in 150 places, occurred before and during the war. And those are just the civilians deliberately and knowingly killed _qua_ civilians, never mind the ones accidentally killed as collateral damage in military attacks. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/193 "2010-02-20T04:32:01Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > You mean, in terms of civilians slain? [Lots:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Crimes_against_civilians) > > And those are just the civilians deliberately and knowingly killed _qua_ civilians, never mind the ones accidentally killed as collateral damage in military attacks. I’m second generation Korean-American and I personally think the Korean War was well worth the costs-it prevented the rise of a bat\*\*\*\* insane Stalinist tyranny throughout all of Korea. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/194 "2010-02-20T06:14:25Z")
Well, we’ve already determined that you place little to no value on human life, so I think we’ll all be taking your judgment on the matter with a grain of salt. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/195 "2010-02-20T06:55:38Z")
**Curtis** , you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that seeing the world in shades of grey is wrong, and that we must have a stark view of good and evil, and then in the next breath, advocate [realpolitik](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik). Realpolitik isn’t about morality, but about practicality and realism. It’s completely amoral, and Machiavellian. You’re contradicting yourself. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/196 "2010-02-21T14:52:53Z")
I really don’t think Americans have an idea of how \*much \*Reagan is hated overseas. Well, I know he was hated here in SA (with good reason - the fucker really was a racist, supremacist shithead), and in the UK too (probably his close association with Thatcher had something to do with that) Rot in Peace, Ronnie, you senile, doddering old fool. I hope your last years were an endless nightmare of pain and confusion. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_jeffrey_lebowski/32/215_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/197 "2010-02-21T19:16:54Z")
Good point about the racism, **MrDibble**. One of my favorite stories about St. Ronnie is when he mistook the only person of color in his cabinet, Samuel Pierce (Secretary of HUD), for a mayor - “How are you Mr. Mayor? I’m glad to meet you. How are things in your city?” Here’s another anecdote about old Dutch, and his decline in the twilight of his presidency, courtesy of Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus from their investigative work [_Landslide_](http://www.amazon.com/LANDSLIDE-PA-Jane-Mayer/dp/0395517575) and retold [here](http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0617-06.htm): > [@](#): > > In March 1987 a memo was written by Jim Cannon to Howard Baker, Reagan’s new Chief of Staff. His first recommendation: “Consider the possibility that section four of the 25th amendment might be applied.” The amendment allows for the removal of the president when “the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Mayer and McManus reported that staffers told Cannon in confidence that Reagan had become “inattentive and inept … He was lazy; he wasn’t interested in the job … he wouldn’t read the papers they gave him - even short position papers and documents … he wouldn’t come over to work - all he wanted to do was watch movies and television at the residence.” Scholarly works have been written on Reagan’s confusion of facts with Hollywood images. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/198 "2010-02-23T03:32:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > **Curtis** , you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that seeing the world in shades of grey is wrong, and that we must have a stark view of good and evil, and then in the next breath, advocate [realpolitik](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik). Realpolitik isn’t about morality, but about practicality and realism. It’s completely amoral, and Machiavellian. > > You’re contradicting yourself. I support a semi-idealistic foreign policy mixed with some realpolitik so we won’t be like those fools in Star Trek. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/199 "2010-02-23T07:24:56Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > I support a \*\*semi-idealistic \*\*foreign policy mixed with some realpolitik so we won’t be like those fools in Star Trek. I think you may want to replace that bolded word with "rigid ideologically-driven ", there’s nothing “idealistic” about the low motives of standard conservative foreign policy. It’s all about the almighty dollar for them. That and a pathological hatred of people with more melanin in their skins. Look at St Ron, Long May He Rot. Or Cheney, Satan’s Own Dick. Benjamins and Brown People. That’s the story. So stop seeing the world in black and white. \*Especially \*when your own side is definitely _ **not** _ the side of the angels. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_jeffrey_lebowski/32/215_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948/200 "2010-02-23T08:03:13Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > I support a semi-idealistic foreign policy mixed with some realpolitik so we won’t be like those fools in Star Trek. What the eff are you talking about **Curtis**? You are aware that a tv show is make believe, right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ronald-reagans-birthday/527948.md?page=11)