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Diffing Guantanamo Bay SOP Manuals
James Hardine writes "The Washington Post is reporting that Wikileaks has released another manual for Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay together with the US military's rendition operations manual. This release follows from the Wikileaks release of the 2003 SOP Manual as discussed on Slashdot last month. Wikileaks compares the two manuals (2003, 2004) and reveals damning changes in official US detainee policy in exquisite detail. Who knew that diff could be such a powerful political weapon?"
Except for the fact that soldiers no longer have to carry a human rights card, what are these damning changes? I see little to protest in the diff.
Reading this article made me realize just how we've all fallen victim to the "boiling frog syndrome". Ten years ago it would have seemed nuts to be reading, and hearing about, the operation of concentration camps in the West, other than when reading about WWII. Now we read stuff about concentration camps, internment, loss of habeas corpus, the US kidnapping people from around the world, etc, and it's all just regular, "same old" news. A few people still feel a little shock, and even fewer actually bother to do anything about it, while the rest of us twiddle our thumbs and either hope it'll all go away or think that "well, we've done nothing wrong, so we'll be fine."
I wonder what sort of stories we'll be reading in another ten years that would shock us now but will seem like regular occurrences in 2017? Thoughtcrime executions, archived recording of all telephone calls (the European Union is already working on this!), incarcerating people because they have the "genes" of a potential psychopath (again, the EU is looking into this)? It's gunna happen and we'll just keep boiling like the frogs we are.
What do you do when you've managed to grab a a wolf by there ears?
One approach would be to claim that it's not really a wolf, it's a bloodthirsty monster, and we don't really have it by the ears, and it's being well treated anyway. Plus no one else will grab it by the ears for us.
Or you can just take your licks for doing something that's so obviously stupid.
My claim is that you need to introduce them to the US judicial system and let it sort things out. Some bad guys might be able to slip through the cracks, but in my opinion we deserve any blowback that we get.
diff oldboss.txt newboss.txt | wc -l
0
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
This seems to be the scariest change for me. MPs can handle that type of guard duty. Changing all references of MP to Guard means the military can start using either regular enlisted who are not properly trained to run a prison, or hire private contractors to run the prison. We already have private prisons stateside.
I wonder if they're as proud as Bush was for ignoring memos titled Bin Laden determined to attack in US, not taking heed (and improving airline security), and successfully making us vulnerable to an attack.
Cause that's totally comparable to someone releasing the SOP manuals of a prison.
You see, friend, it's people like you who "weaken" and make America "more vulnerable to terrorist attacks". Instead of targeting your anger toward an administration that has let its incompetence actually harm American interests, you'd rather cry about some hypothetical weakening.
If they are guilty then charge them and let them have their day in court.
If there is no evidence then release them.
But holding them indefinitely on hearsay and suspicion in a legal limbo is madness. The problem will not get easier to deal with the longer you leave it, at some point they will have to be dealt with - so better to get it out of the way now. Confront the problem whatever the cost, return or charge them, and get that embarrassment and shut down.
That's exactly right. It even happens with our constitution. Amendment 18 enacted prohibition, and over a decade later the 21st amendment nullified the 18th; but they're both still there.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
If soldiers, they would be POWs and under Geneva conventions.
If not, they are allegedly civilian criminals and should be prosecuted in the civilian judicial system.
Problem with Gitmo is the US has decided these people are neither soldiers nor civilians but fall in some black hole category in between, where they have no access to civilian justice and no POW rights either.
Exactly how did this weaken America? America is suppose to be the land of the free and a place where democracy rules. Gitmo is a prison (from what I understand, it is the nicest of all of our external prisons) where we are holding suspects. This prison is the one that the feds MEANT to show the press. So why should the press and our citizens not see what is the absolute nicest that we will be.
What should worry ppl is what is NOT being seen. In those dark rooms, is where we should be casting a light.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am actually pretty conservative but torture is wrong.
It's sad that conservatism has fallen into such disrepute. I used to think, "Hey, my conservative friends and I want the same things. We just have different ideas about how to accomplish those things."
Now, all my "conservative" friends are suddenly very liberal. They haven't changed. The terms have changed.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Anyone else spot what should be wrong about this statement?
"What will be the duration of the current "armed conflict"? "
Welcome to the problem with the Geneva Conventions - they were written for a different kind of war.
If I had to put an end date to it, I'd say that the "conflict" is ended when the nation from which they were taken is in a position to restrain them from further combat if returned. In specific, send them back to Afghanistan when the government there can guarantee they won't be wielding an AK any more - Taliban eradicated, and control of the whole country. This is in the spirit of the original conventions - soldiers are returned when the war is over and they won't fight anymore.
For insight, look up the concept of "parole" as it pertains to war - POW's can be released if they promise to not engage in combat against the capturing country. If they do, they are not subject to the GC's anymore - at the time the GC's were written, that was understood to mean "shot out of hand for being a saboteur/spy". The idea is that, once a soldier is captured, he should cease to be a threat.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
What a nice re-writing of history in which you ignore that not only did Clinton respond to those attacks, but he was met by opposition from a Republican-controlled congress the entire time.
Even if your claim had a hint of truth, wasn't it the Bush administration's duty to correct for Clinton's alleged errors in judgment? You state yourself that Al-qaeda was known to be a threat for years, yet Bush still didn't acknowledge their threat until the towers fell.
What could have been done in 5 months? How about an analysis of weaknesses in airline security? How about hardened cockpits? How about the use of air marshalls? How about anything?
You should try reading. I assure you it's more fun than purchasing a patriotic bumper sticker!
Military Police work on every single US military installation in the country, probably the world. They control traffic at gates, catch speeders, and write parking tickets just like their civilian counterparts. They also work in brigs watching over our own troops. Your assertion that Military Police only guard POWs is completely, and utterly wrong. 'Guard' in this case may mean US military personnel OTHER than strictly MPs.
You all want to know one of the main reasons things like SOPs for military installations are marked FOUO? Or why anything is marked FOUO for that matter? It's because there are too many idiots who misinterpret things because they don't understand BASIC military terminology for one, or they can't even begin to understand what our military actually does.
One after another, "Maybe it's Blackwater", "Maybe the prisoners are guards", "Maybe it's aliens". It makes present and former military personnel sick. That is WHY many things are FOUO.
This SOP was written for a very specific audience, BTW. The whole "Camp Rules" section at the top of the diff smells very fake, and at the very least is out of place/context. It would be a separate document, and obviously in different languages. If it were to be included with the SOP, I doubt the translations would be absent. Who the hell keeps getting these as PDFs anyway? I didn't think they were ever distributed electronically outside of formal messaging systems. They're usually just kept in a binder somewhere.
Semper Fi
You have to take all of those hearings with a grain of salt. Even the chairman of the committee has gone on the record to say that they didn't get the whole story and that they had problems getting statements from key witnesses. The 9/11 Commission was put together to lend legitimacy to a pre-formed conclusion. Any evidence that failed to fit into the predetermined paragidm was supressed and left out of the "official" record.
Live without any rights, without any privacy, without anything you can call your own, no hope for release, no way to fight back, with no due process, totally powerless, and absolutely at the mercy of your guards, and you will go mad eventually. There is plenty of reports already that the people held at Gitmo are either gradually losing their sanity, or have already lost it, and who should be surprised? The confinement procedures at Gitmo follow well known brain-washing techniques that we were told the Soviets were using during the Cold War, to demonize them. That the US is now the mirror image of their own anti-Soviet propaganda would be hillarious, if it were not so sad and so outrageous.
The erosion of our freedom concerns me greatly, and I think that is where we really need to put our focus, not so much what we're doing abroad, but what we're doing here.
If the erosion of your freedoms really concerns you then you should be concerned about the fact that the Commission charged with investigating what happened wasn't given the full freedom to investigate it. You should care that more money was spent investigating why the Challenger blew up, or investigating Clinton's blow job than was spent investigating 9/11/01. Our government has been into messy, black ops stuff for a LONG time... from over throwing popularly elected governments and causing coups (Iran), to supporting oppressive military dictators (Pakistan, Iraq under Saddam), to all sorts of nastiness with drugs (Iran Contra, CIA ops). I'm not saying that the government planned and executed 9/11... that's crazy talk. The government has been covering up any sort of investigation into what really took place though. There has been so much crazy shit that our government has been involved with over the last fifty years that is finally coming home to roost that they can't let it get out. bin Laden was a CIA asset. Saddam was an allie of the United States. The fact of the matter is that our government has made some REALLY BAD foreign policy decisions that have alienated and pissed off a huge portion of the population of the world. At this point in the game the government needs to keep up the facade that they can "protect" us from evil terrorists while concealing the fact that the "evil terrorists" want to attack us because of what the government has been doing since before I was even born.
It baffles me that you can say that you care about the erosion of our freedom and liberty here at home, yet at the same time call me into question for questioning what has taken place since 9/11. Everything that is going on with the erosion of our freedoms is BASED ON 9/11. 9/11 is used as the justification for all of the nonsense that is taking place with the PATRIOT Act, suspension of habeus corpus, wiretaps and everything else.