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Sorry For the Detainment, Here's a Laptop
A select group of 17 Uighur Muslims held in Guantánamo, and waiting for a nation to grant them asylum are getting laptops and web training from the US military. Their web training will take place in a virtual computer lab the military has set up. The lessons will be limited to DVD language training as well as a basic users skill — set to help in any future employment options. Nury Turkel, an Uighur rights activist, said the training would help the men "be reintroduced into a modern society," adding that it "also would give hope to the men that their freedom is nearing." This special group already gets to order fast food and use a phone booth for weekly calls. I think the government is on to something here. Nothing keeps a man pacified like an occasional phone call, a cheeseburger, and surfing for a little porn.
I'm sure they gave them laptops free of any spying programs. BTW mahmud, who you talking to in swat province?
an occasional phone call, a cheeseburger, and surfing for a little porn
I dunno. I can only eat, chat, and fap so much. But I could play CivIII day and night.
I can see the fnords!
Nothing keeps a man pacified like an occasional phone call, a cheeseburger, and surfing for a little porn.
Tell my boss that. He won't let me surf porn or make personal calls at work. Cheeseburgers are alright though.
I dunno, I'm sure some of their resumes are stocked full of skills that some countries would be interested in.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
For those not in the know, these prisoners are a tough case. The Chinese don't want them back (they're nasty separatist rebels to them), and they don't want to go back to China as it is for fear of waking up one morning with a bullet in their heads. They really don't belong in Gitmo -- they're not full-on Al Qaeda. Nobody in the US wants to grant them asylum because they're former gitmo detainees. The last thing the US wants is to release them to somebody like Yemen or Saudi Arabia, where they can become full-on Al Qaeda. A US judge said they have to be released, but didn't specify to which country. This whole thing is just a mess...
As waterboarding wasnt giving enough answers, they changed tactics and now are giving them laptops with Windows ME and Microsoft Bob. I'm sure there are international laws against that inhuman methods of torture.
Surfing porn attempting to get an idea of what those 70 virgins will look like.
This ain't f*ckin funny. These poor souls are being held in Qitmo for absolutely no reason other than the USA Bank (aka China) wants them there.
While this is a nice gesture, their lives are ruined, and there's nothing we can do to make up for it.
At the very least, we need to either charge them with a crime, or let them go.
If they don't mind being treated a little worse than a terror suspect they could get corporate IT jobs.
Turn them over to the Chicoms.
Also spoken in Afghanistan, Australia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey (Asia), USA, Uzbekistan.
Or it could be a plot by the US government to create an army of disgruntled, economy destabilizing gold farmers in WoW.
These people are not considered terrorists. That's why they have to be released sooner rather than later.
They are currently being held because they can't go back to China, and they haven't yet found a place that can give them asylum.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
and how is the lab different from a non-virtual computer lab? do they login with their laptops and run a program that simulates a computer lab?
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
I think a lot of people there are detained as POW. They are not terrorists, they simply lived in a country and were part of an army that the USA decided to invade.
Despite the judgment of your own court to release them...hmmm
What exactly makes them terrorists - being in Gitmo?
Do yourself a favor and never do anything - anything at all - that might make anybody suspicious, because you know just the suspicion is enough to make you actually guilty.
The treatment of these prisoner is a good start in the right direction. The poor treatment of prisoners is a contributor to the world's poor view of the United States. The next step is going to be releasing all those prisoners which the United States is holding who aren't even charged with anything.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Let's see - shelter, fast food, phone access, and now computers. Yep, I'd say that makes their living conditions better than just about every homeless person in America. This must make the millions of recently unemployed Americans feel ever so special. Sorry to be cynical, and I have virtually no idea if these guys actually pose a real threat or not, but am I the only one that thinks prisoners should be put to work to offset some of that tax money being wasted on keeping them alive?
and people like you make the rest of us question whether our "side" deserves to win sometimes.
By the way, the terrorists have nearly won already. We're less free and have less of the ethical high ground than ever before.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
One laptop per terrorist!
Mod me down you wonderful bastards, it's called comedy!
"Coalition military intelligence officials estimated that 70% to 90% of prisoners detained in Iraq since the war began last year 'had been arrested by mistake,' according to a confidential Red Cross report given to the Bush administration earlier this year." http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0511-04.htm "In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said. The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent home from Guantánamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed 'no threat' to American forces." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?ei=5088&en=4579c146cb14cfd6&ex=1274241600&pagewanted=all
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Give a terrorist the tools and knowledge to conspire against us with people around the globe, instantly. What could possibly go wrong?
And herein lies the problem with my dumbass countrymen. So obnoxiously opinionated with an inversely proportional knowledge of the subject at hand. Guess you hadn't heard that we've already released hundreds of innocent "terrorists" from Gitmo?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
How many of them have actually have trials to determine guilt or innocence? Have they even had a chance for a trial? I'm really hazy about where they are in that step but we still need to respect the rule of law. If some of them are innocent, are you suggesting that they work off their incarceration because we jailed them? (Not trying to be a pain here, honest question).
Of course. My apologies. Why would I want to RTFM? That would break the long standing tradition here. :)
bash: rtfm: command not found
That should have been RTFA. Gawd I'm on a roll today.
bash: rtfm: command not found
Nice non sequiter there. Of the "70% to 90%" who were picked up, almost all of them were cleared and released immediately. Those detentions have nothing at all to do with Gitmo.
I think the government is on to something here. Nothing keeps a man pacified like an occasional phone call, a cheeseburger, and surfing for a little porn.
Sounds like a typical day of work.
If the USA took them from their original country, and they can't/won't go back, then it should give them asylum as part recourse for messing up their lives so badly.
Of course, there's still the issue of the torture...
Sorry guys, our bad. Here! Have a laptop! I'm sure those guys will just LOVE America after that. Since they're getting web training, I can't wait to see their facebook pages...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What do I have to do to get in there?
Then ask India if they need more customer service employees at Dell's help desk!
"Coalition military intelligence officials estimated that 70% to 90% of prisoners detained in Iraq since the war began last year 'had been arrested by mistake
The calculation in my .sig is based on the assumption that error rates amongst the detainees are no greater than those made by American police officers who shoot the wrong person when discharging a weapon after arriving at the scene of an altercation. That left-wing America-hating organization, the NRA, has done research to document that the cops shoot the wrong person about 10% of the time, as opposed to Real Americans, who shoot the wrong person about 2% of the time.
Of course, given the "fog of war" and the incentives to use non-judicial detainment as a way of getting back at your enemies, the probable fraction of innocents in Guantanamo is much higher. And to the anonymous coward who claims below that we can't infer anything about the fraction of innocents in Guantanamo Bay based on the astonishingly high fraction of innocent detainees in Afghanistan: what are the judicial procedures employed by American forces to ensure guilt prior to incarceration in Guantanamo?
Many centuries of blood-soaked history have taught us that a public and speedy trial by a judge who is applying more-or-less clearly defined laws is the only thing that is remotely likely to protect the innocent accused from zealous cowards who would otherwise see them punished without trial. No one who is in touch with reality at all can think that there are not many innocents in Guantanamo Bay, and anyone who loves America and the principles for which it once stood should be clamouring to have everyone either tried in public in the normal American system of courts, or released.
Advocating anything else is evidence of a profound hatred for everything that once made America a great and admirable republic.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Honestly, they should be released here in the US. We're the reason they, unjustly, spent the last half a decade in a hellish prison we should, at the least, man-up and take responsibility for our actions rather than try to pawn them off on someone else. I think the bigger disgrace is that they have spent even a day in that place past the point where we, publicly, admitted they aren't terrorists.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
We don't want the NRA on the left, you can have them back.
Did they give them the video professor? I hear he has a great product!
775 prisoners have been delivered to Guantanamo. Of these, 420 have been released without charge already, and of those that remain only 60 to 80 actually have pending charges. The rest will be freed (once there's somewhere to put them). So, if anything, the accuracy of imprisoning people in Guantanamo is actually worse than general picking up of people in Iraq, not better.
There is not a real problem here. I'm a former refugee (along with my family), lived with tortured persons, and families of political prisoners and know there are international laws and conventions that define what to do when you have people not welcomed in their own country. This false problem is because the US don't have the political will to apply those conventions after the mess they have created.
anyone who loves America and the principles for which it once stood should be clamouring to have everyone either tried in public in the normal American system of courts, or released.
Released where? That's the question. At this point, we'd love to release the Uighurs; should we 'release' them in China? They'd be tortured. And we'd love to release lots and lots of Yeminis. Should we release them into Cuba? Or into the Atlantic? Or Miami? How about into your neighborhood?
Your post seems like someone who's really pissed at the current situation, which is well and truly screwed up, but doesn't have a solution to solve it. The current Adminstration is working to get many of these people asylum in various countries, but they don't want them, and it appears that they don't want to come to the US, and the Congresscritters certainly don't want them to come to the US. So, it's going to take a while.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
Personally, I'm willing to have these people in my neighborhood. The biggest threat to my safety I perceive is from vigilantes bent on finding and killing them, not the prisoners themselves.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Buy or build them new homes if you have to. If these people are found innocent, yet the countries that they were taken from won't take them back (or it's not safe to send them back there, because of the claims of them being terrorists that the US made taking them prisoners in the first place), then the US government is responsible for their well being. Especially all that have been put through abuse and unlawful imprisonment (which I guess is the majority).
Treat them well, and own up to your mistakes. Make them realize you realize your mistakes, especially your crimes, and they'll be no threat.
Then prosecute the actual criminals instead, the torturers and what not.
We are all God's parents.
Naive Much ?
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They've been detained for years with only the companionship of other males... for the most part, I'd wager that these are non-fucking terrorists.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Accuracy?
Just because the Military chose not to prosecute does not mean these were sweet villagers minding their shops and tending their gardens when "inaccurately" picked up.
They were caught with weapons in hand in combat or with large weapon caches.
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They went so far to the right that they overflowed to the left. Just subtract a few.
"DVD language training"? Shouldn't that be "DVD-based language training"?
"DVD language training" sounds like there is a special language called "DVD", presumably composed of very long strings of 1's and 0's...
If Hollywood has taught us anything, is that your logic is incredibly flawed as long as basic personal hygiene tools and facilities are provided.
These ARE FUCKING TERRORISTS what don't you get?
These people have not been convicted of anything; many of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Would you want them driving your taxi cab? Flipping your burgers? Digging up your main sewer line?
Why wouldn't I?
You fucking bleading heart liberal socialists need a quick lesson in The World in the 21st Century. It is US against them.
"F*cking fascists" (to use your own words) like you need a quick lesson of The World in the 20th Century, because attitudes like yours brought us two world wars and genocide.
On the other hand, Islamic terrorism is insignificant; for all its fireworks, 9/11 simply wasn't a significant contributor to mortality in the US even in 2001. People (like you) who try to create irrational fear because of 9/11 are helping the terrorists, both by destroying our liberties and by ascribing more power to terrorists than they actually have.
The US will not win the war on terrorism by force or jailing people. The only way we can win is through justice and compassion.
Check out, say,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/04/10/china-religious-repression-uighur-muslims
or http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4435135.stm
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Nice non sequiter there. Of the "70% to 90%" who were picked up, almost all of them were cleared and released immediately. Those detentions have nothing at all to do with Gitmo.
The article you are replying to said: "...were sent home from Guantanamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed 'no threat' to American forces." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?ei=5088&en=4579c146cb14cfd6&ex=1274241600&pagewanted=all "
Did you not actually read the article you're responding to????
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Just because the Military chose not to prosecute does not mean these were sweet villagers minding their shops and tending their gardens when "inaccurately" picked up.
They were caught with weapons in hand in combat or with large weapon caches.
Not really.
In the wake of 9-11, the approach taken was that if it wasn't clear sure whether somebody was a terrorist or not, it was prudent to detain them and try to figure it out the details later.
I can understand this attitude-- it's the "better safe than sorry" approach. It's not the way we do things in the US normally ("I'm not sure if this guy is a criminal or not, so let's arrest him until we can figure it out" wouldn't be allowed by any police force in America), but I can't say that I don't understand the reasoning.
But the consequences of that way of operating is that many, or possibly most, of the people picked up actually aren't terrrorists.
(and the downside of that is that, although they may not have been terrorists before they were detained, five years in Gitmo may very well have changed their attitudes... so "better safe than sorry" may actually make us unsafe, and definitely sorry.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
They were caught with weapons in hand
How surprising is it to find Afghani males with weapons?
or with large weapon caches.
Again, how unusual would that be in a tribal country that has had no effective national government since the early 1980s?
Hell, if the USA were somehow occupied, the same could be said of many USAsian households (in the south particularly).
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
They are not considered terrorists but the U.S. refuse to grant them asylum? Who are you kidding?
Perhaps I wasn't specific enough. Weapons in hand shooting at Coalition troops, lead by or members of Taliban.
Why do you persist in this fiction that random individuals were grabbed from their beds and shipped at great expense half way around the world?
Are you a total idiot, or do you just think the average American Soldier is?
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They were caught with weapons in hand in combat or with large weapon caches.
That still makes them PoWs who should be released as soon as the war is over.
If there was any actual crime to charge them with, they would have been charged long ago.
The biggest danger about these people is that they might now deeply hate the US because of how they were treated, but that's a danger the US chose the create. Giving them an apology, a laptop, useful training, and a chance at a better life might go a long way to mitigate that danger.
These people are not considered terrorists.
An honest question: how did a bunch of Uighur Muslims with Chinese citizenship even end up where U.S. forces happened to capture them in the first place (Afghanistan/Iraq)? Did they just happen to be touring the country?
Why would you expect a Muslim detention camp inmate to be any less celibate than, say, a catholic priest at an all-boy boarding school?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
[...] detained as POW. They are not terrorists, they [...] were part of an army [...]
What army is this?
The Afghani and Iraqi armies? Or organizations such as 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' [Sunni] and the Muqtadr al-Sadr 'army' [Shiite], neither of which always wear a uniform [although the Geneva Convention admittedly makes an exception for instances such as this] nor avoid intentional terrorist attacks on crowded marketplaces [See: Definition of terrorist]?
[...] simply lived in a country [...] that the USA decided to invade.
A bit of bias/resentment is showing through in this sentence. Your wording portrays it as if their only crime is being a patriot of a country which will not bow down to the US [resulting in invasion by an arrogant US 'deci[sion]']. In actuality, these men were found on the battlefield participating in attacks on the US, and from what information I can find, are aligned with terrorist organizations rather than the actual army of Saddam [the Taliban regime of 1996-2001 was never recognized by the UN and therefore would not be considered a 'regular army'; in fact, only 3-4 countries in the world recognized the regime].
If I felt like 'Godwin'ning this discussion, I would ask how many people in the 1940s would want to risk Nazi prisoners of war being released into the US due to potential technicalities- and these were men who fought for a recognized nation while wearing a uniform. I'm not saying that it's the right action to take, but it is certainly an understandable wariness.
Obviously, both keeping Guantanamo Bay's detainment center open or closing it will have important negatives and positives (morally and legally), but I personally believe that the upcoming closure will be a net gain for the US.
Thanks for your comment!
"Now look here, son... see, you don't need to be a martyr to get 70 virgins. Look here, type in 'www.virginteensluts.com' in that there white box..."
[...] kidnapped [...]
Just like the innocent Nazis were kidnapped when they were caught on the battlefield or after contributing in a significant way to the Nazi party.
[...] one of the reasons why the rest of the world hates the US.
[sarcasm]Kidnapping is also one of the reasons that the world(/muslims) hate the jews (who supposedly rule the NWO) - what a coincidence![/sarcasm]
Also, [citation needed] on the rest of the world (ie majority) hating the Americans.
But I do agree that putting them to significant work would be ridiculous for the US to try. Something like the option of doing their own laundry for extra privileges (ie another 0.5 hour of recreation time) doesn't sound terrible.
Erm... no they weren't all caught on the battlefield. Many were turned in by neighbors in return for cash rewards from the Coalition. Why do you persist in the fiction that they were all caught "on the battlefield"?
Having a family feud with a neighbor? Turn him in, collect the reward and then pinch his land - what's he going to do about it? Oh that's right, nothing, because he's in Cuba, being repeatedly subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" by CIA agents who can't understand why they can't make him say where the next Al-Queda attack is going to be.
The DoD has admitted for years now that the informant bonus system they put in place was a terrible mistake, especially as the troops on the ground had no real way of telling the difference between a harmless villager and a Taliban member.
Pot, kettle.
A lot of the people in gitmo are there because we paid some tribal lord a bunch of money for 'taliban soldiers' and they rounded up whomever they didn't like. So yes, Jamal the goatherder is not a terrorist.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
What would you do if some bunch of foreigners rolled into your country and started acting like occupiers? That's right, you'd shoot them.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Simple shooters were either shot or imprisoned locally.
To persist in your dream world you have to explain why only A FEW were sent half way around the world.
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
These were not shop keepers. Get over yourself.
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troll didn't say they were terrorists when arrested, lets face it even if you didn't hate the US before being shipped to gitmo, you sure as hell would after!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Ever hear of refugees? Is it strange that persecuted people from a brutal dictatorship would head to a country that practices their religion?
Honestly, it doesn't even matter: Bush's insistence on manufacturing a new term for them and keeping them in a hole for 5 years means that any of the ones that are actually dangerous can't be prosecuted anyway. That must frost you.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Oh look so mouc hcourage that you post as AC virtually admitting that you know your post is bullshit, and are ashamed of it.
I can give you a citation, my opinion and that of most of the people I know of America has gone from 30 years of admiration to dislike in the last 10 years, as has the opinion of most of the rest of the world. I would no go as far as hate, but its getting there, particularly looking at the some of the crap in this thread.
they can't be released to China, because the Chinese government considers dissidents terrorists
It surprises me that the US can't do a deal with the Chinese for these people. David Hicks was released to the Australians, jailed for a year then released with a control order. The Chinese can do deals too.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
isn't that is what got them there in the first place?
These ARE FUCKING TERRORISTS what don't you get?
They could be.
So could you! In fact, you CLEARLY are. Your one post does more to destroy America than those Chinese people you're bitching about ever did!
And since you clearly feel it is OK to treat 'enemies' who aren't enemies that way, I would suggest (and do to you if you were here, since it's OK by your own admission) that you toss yourself head first into a wood chipper. For America, of course.
The fuckers shouldn't even be getting out. They are terrorists! They were over there to kill our troops! WTF?!?
... hard core killers.
No, they were turned in by people who claimed they had weapons or who claimed that they were terrorists. If you started handing out cash in South Central L.A. for "known criminals," and you had no way to check their record, what do you think is going to happen?
Tribes turn in other tribes, just as in the slave trade days. It's one of the reasons a nation cannot dominate that region of the mideast - because they are not nationalists. Tribe and religion will always trump whatever flag is planted in the capital.
Not at all.
The idea that POWs should get civil trials frosts me. This is not a law enforcement issue.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSBoO4GzHaI&feature=PlayList&p=F0D2F5CCB22AE423&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=49
We're spending about $30,000 a second for warfare. That's probably a little too much.
Let's put it another way - every time you hear about a missile strike in Afghanistan or Pakistan, they are using Hellfire missiles, which are $70,000 a piece. We've lost 70 of the drones in action in the last decade or so, which are 9 million each, not including the ammunition that went down with them. They require a team of 55 people to operate, according to Wikipedia, and I can't even guess how much they cost each minute to operate.
Why people defend these wars for reasons of economy is beyond me. Spending that much money to kill the possibly terrorist and possibly terrorist adjacent -- and radicalize the survivors -- seems like a losing strategy.
Is America bound by any international treaty concerning warfare and the treatment of prisoners, which according to the constitution, must be followed? You should probably read the Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3. And then the Constitution.
If we want out of a treaty, I'm pretty sure that a memo sent between cabinet members and other appointed officials isn't quite kosher. I'll Godwin myself a little here: every totalitarian state provides legal pretext for it's actions, no matter how outlandishly conceived. To everyone but a small subset of dedicated partisans, people were tortured, sometimes to death, and not given due process. Whether that fact is important to you is something you have to decide.
In actuality, these men were found on the battlefield participating in attacks on the US,
If someone invaded my country, I'd be on the battlefield participating in attacks against whoever it was. Its like saying the French Resistance in WWII was a terrorist organization, and was generally unlawful. The only time your allowed to fight an invading military force is if the invaders recognize your legitimacy.
I'm not sure of the reason every singe detainee is there, but I have heard that there was some amount of them who were "enemy combatants", which is a different thing than a terrorist. An "enemy combatant" is a POW who is not subject to the Geneva Convention because they are called "enemy combatants".
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
More accurately, these people are not considered terrorists by the government of the United States. They probably are considered terrorists by the government of China. If the Chinese government refused to return some individuals considered terrorists by the U.S., there would be all kinds of criticism of China for "supporting terrorism" in the popular U.S. media. Now the tables are turned...
It's a funny old world - Muslim separatists fighting the military backed dictatorship government of China are good guys and not to be handed over to the Chinese government, which is one of the U.S.'s biggest trading partners. Meanwhile, Muslim separatists fighting the military backed dictatorships of several countries in the Middle East, which happen to supply the U.S. with oil, are chartered private CIA jets to be flown back ASAP for torture and possible summary execution. At the same time, the U.S. Vice President visits a country which the U.S. and U.K. bombed and invaded with land forces in order to force a separatist state only a decade ago, and small Muslim children greet him waving the stars and stripes and chanting "USA USA!!". What an interesting world we live in.
"round up the usual suspects"`
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
Straw man much?
"If you don't agree with me you hate American soldiers!"
Some of our soldiers are idiots, yes. Some are not. This shouldn't be suprising, since American soldiers are well American, and some Americans are idiots, and some are not. This isn't suprising because Americans are just humans, and some humans are idiots and some are not. Just because you enlist in the armed forces you are not suddenly immune from being a moron. Hell, I know some morons who enlisted just because they couldn't find a decent job, and weren't bright enough for college.
Hell, some of my army buddies (not enlisted, but know a small boatload who are/were) complain non-stop about how moronic their comrades are. Actually, its odd, they talk about their military job in roughly the same terms as the average American talks about their civilian job.
People in the military, like everyone else in the world, have to earn my respect. You don't get a pass just because you enlist.
That said, as I said, I have some friends and acquaintances in the military who I respect a great deal, and being in the military doesn't hurt this one bit.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Don't know how you got marked as a troll for that.
I'd prefer that they were carefully vetted before release, but after that I too would be fine with them in my neighborhood. As long as they are forced to open some decent middle eastern restaurants around here.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I agree with you completely... but...
We will never give them asylum. Imagine how the right wing media would run with that. "TERRORISTS ON AMERICAN STREETS!", sure, we know they aren't terrorist, as would anyone with half a brain willing to read up on these things, but the only proof most of America needs to prove that someone is a terrorist (as sadly evident in this very topic) is "zomg they were in Gitmo!"
Can't you just hear the right wing fear machine grinding happily on that for months.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Just like the innocent Nazis were kidnapped when they were caught on the battlefield or after contributing in a significant way to the Nazi party.
The captured Nazis also were subject to the Geneva Convention. And from what I've been told, there was this MASSIVE and somewhat important TRIAL after the war... Something called Nuremberg, or some such.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The fact is, we didn't treat them like POWs, so we can't start now, and we frequently put a bounty out on a fuzzily defined group of people and got a lot of guys like achmed the goatherder or the turkish chinese guys that nobody wants. What to do with them? I'd say offer asylum to the ones that aren't dangerous, since it's our fault they're in that spot.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Not to start a hostile, brutal flame war, but I'm somewhat glad. Lets make a small observation: Fundamentalist Jews (who aren't running a country) are generally harmless, well kept people; Fundamentalist Muslims make headlines all of the time for murder. The Torah is just as violent as the Qu'ran, in fact they're closely related. So why are there so many more violent fundy Muslims than Jews/Christians? Take a quick look at their social situation: war-torn poor countries with next to no education. Any surprise the un-educated group tends to violence? We see the same pattern in African countries plagued by famine. These people need education, and that's what they're getting; maybe now they'll have a shot at living a normal life.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Simple shooters were either shot or imprisoned locally.
To persist in your dream world you have to explain why only A FEW were sent half way around the world.
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
These were not shop keepers. Get over yourself.
Served in country, lead ground patrols, cleared buildings, and called in aerial strikes in and around Fallujah as part of the 1st MEF portion of Operation Vigilant Resolve. Our platoon commander filed numerous reports and we have combat video documentation of almost all combatants that we captured. I doubt anyone that we captured was sent to Gitmo. Most were scrawny, under trained kids defending what they thought of as their home.
It's pretty fucking simple. Either you have evidence to prosecute those in Gitmo or you do not. I believe in our Constitution, have fought and bleed to protect it. It says all men are created equal, not all men except those we call terrorists. If we can't produce a report, a video, a witness, a letter, or anything that shows those men in Gitmo are terrorists, then why the fuck are we still holding them? Just because they hate us? I missed the part of the Constitution that lays out the principle of jailing people just because they hate you. And I'm pretty sure that actions such as those we are taking in Gitmo are some of the very same actions (Re: British imprisonment of dissenters) that led to our founding fathers forming a more perfect union.
We have become that which our founding fathers despised.
Chinese? I thought you said Aphgan-Sunni-Shehe-muslim-towle-headed-alquada-commie.
Nevermind
Yours,
Enily Latella
An "enemy combatant" is a POW who is not subject to the Geneva Convention because they are called "enemy combatants".
Uh. NO. They are "enemy combatants" because they fit the legal definition of what a "enemy combatant" is. They are NOT POW's because they fall short of the definition of a POW in several areas, the most obvious is that they were not wearing a uniform. If the Taliban wants Geneva Convention protections, they can issue their "soldiers" uniforms. If they can afford AK-47's and RPGs, they can afford a friggin pair of pants and a shirt!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Hell, if the USA were somehow occupied, the same could be said of many USAsian households (in the south particularly).
Sorry, but there is a huge difference between the hand gun and a pump-action 12-gauge you'll find locked in a gun case in your typical American home and the 75 AK-47's, 25 RPG's, truck mounted 20-mm AA machine gun and recoless rifle that is hidden under the floor boards in the baby's room that you find in your not-so-typical Afghan hut.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What would you do if some bunch of foreigners rolled into your country and started acting like occupiers? That's right, you'd shoot them.
That depends. Has my country been at war with itself for 25 years, the population starving, little girls stoned to death for the crime of getting raped and the "invaders" come with food and promising to grant us freedom and leave?
Uh... no. I don't think I'd shoot them at all. For that matter, I'd shoot you for shooting at them.
Wait... are you talking about Iraq? Then the answer is different...
That depends. Has my country been under the thumb of a ruthless dictator thug for 25 years, the population starving, little girls stoned to death for the crime of getting raped and the "invaders" come with food and promising to grant us freedom and leave?
Uh... no. I don't think I'd shoot them at all. For that matter, I'd shoot you for shooting at them.
There, fixed that for me.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
Straw man much?
"If you don't agree with me you hate American soldiers!"
Um, the GP never said that, YOU did. It was actually YOU who committed the Straw Man fallacy.
A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
The GP was saying that those who were there probably know more than those who were not and he assumed that you had neither been there nor had spoken with someone who has. You changed his argument to mean something that it didn't and then shot it down. Textbook Straw Man argument.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
This is Slashdot for goodness sake - why has no-one asked what processor or RAM the laptops have? And DO THEY RUN LINUX?
That's only if you use an obsolete form of the Geneva Convention. The post-WWII GC RTPOWs (which pretty much all countries recognise; to which the US is also a signatory, though not a subscribing party - it wasn't ratified by the US senate) afford POW status to irregular combatants, who take up arms against an occupying power.
These protections were brought in precisely to cover people like resistance fighters, as the grand-parent says.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Has my country been under the thumb of a ruthless dictator thug for 25 years, the population starving, little girls stoned to death for the crime of getting raped and the "invaders" come with food and promising to grant us freedom and leave?
Ok, you seem to be suffering from historical amnesia and/or an ignorance of basic information that's easily available from reading. Its depressing that people can expound on the rights/wrongs of actions done in their name in far-flung countries when all they know about it is rubbish like the above.
Who helped bank-roll the Taliban? Next, go read up on the alternatives to the Taliban - are they really better? Do you think it's possible the local populace see the Taliban as less-worse? Next, do you think the Taliban could institute their awful laws without at least some support and even acceptance from the population - i.e. the problems go much deeper than some central government that can be toppled, rather they speak to the culture in the more backward parts of the place (you may have read recently in the news that Karzai legalised rape in marriage). Food: UN food programmes don't need military force to be implemented, and such programmes were in place before the recent US/NATO invasion.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
China borders Afghanistan. The very western parts of China have (very) significant muslim, non-Han populations, such as the Uyghurs, many of whom desire independence, some of whom would even consider it offensive to refer to them as 'Chinese'. China does not have the best of human-rights records in dealing with such areas, and additionally it is doing its best to culturally and ethnically dilute these areas with the immigration of Han chinese.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
the most obvious is that they were not wearing a uniform.
I'm sure we both realize how dumb that is. Human rights has become a question of wardrobe? This makes sense how?
Think of the French Resistance in WWII, I'm sure most of us would agree that they had rights and were subject to the Geneva Convention.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Icebike said twice, with no provocation things such as:
Are you a total idiot, or do you just think the average American Soldier is?
And;
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
Both times when no one referenced, or implied, anything about US soldiers being morons, or otherwise slandered the people in the US military as a whole or in part. Both time he issued this statement was towards an attack on US policy and not those following mere orders.
So, lets simplify this; Someone says "The US Policy of imprisoning enemies is not infallible", and Icebike says "American soldiers are not dumb, ask one, though you probably would insult them [because you dislike them]". This is a text book straw man.
My comment, on the other hand, was just pointing this out, using a generalization of both of Icebike's comments. While the generalization might not be in the best rhetorical form, classifying it as a straw man was accurate.
You would be perfectly correct, if (and only if) any of the commenters was questioning the average soldiers judgment. They didn't.
I did. Yes, I was also being a bit inflammatory, but I'm sick of blind patriotism, and using the "troops" as a shield to protect dogmatic political ideologies.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Read their stories genius. Some were, but some were definitely NOT picked up with any weapons. Many of them were delivered by warlords for rewards of up to $5,000 which is a lot fucking money over there.
Anyone ever see how these people were treated?
Kidnapped, beaten, shackled, hooded and ear-muffed, tied down like hogs for entire duration of the transfer to Guantanamo to be subjected to the hospitality of people looking to 'give back for 9/11'.
Hey, sorry for all that. I hope you do not take that torture stuff personal. It was just an innocent mistake.
Can happen to anyone, right? Anyone could mistake a 13 year old child for a terrorist, right?
So lets keep this quiet and everything will be ok. We both know how dangerous it is in your country and how accidents can happen... a wedding here, a 'smart bomb' there...
Naturally we can all rely 100% on the claims by the military that Guantanamo is some kind of resort for bad boys.
They won't let anyone in and those that they do have to agree not to say anything or else they would not be let back in again.
Plus they would never lie to us, right?
As you seem like a reasonable person, please allow me to ask you this:
So let me get this right, you directly or indirectly killed, injured and/or captured people (innocent or ) defending their homes against a professional and highly trained and equipped imperial army in a invasion and occupation based on lies?
How dirty does it feel?
(I'm a 'hate the sin, not the sinner' kind of person.)
What should "frost" you is how stupid Guantanamo Bay has made The US look to the rest of the world. However, there are enough redneck statements in this thread that one suspects significant inbreeding may have occurred in the USA.
Incest, keep it in the family!
It isn't Chinese policy to execute Uighurs on sight... the rest of your post wasn't worth reading.
Hmm. Wasn't Obama's father persecuted (some say tortured) by the British and isn't his son now the 'Administrative head' of the all-but-bankrupt corporate UK 'plumb/plump goose' colony (IN ADMINISTRATION) known as the U$A? Aside from the 911 failure connect the dots and communicate, plus using the DisInfo 'blame anybody game' (to attack two nations) technique - apparently 'long-term payback' is now worrying some ... a lot!
Maybe it is just me, but I would not trust a laptop given to me by the US government.... "Here - please use this for everything you do in the future. We promise this is a standard machine with no additional hardware/software that will keep us informed of what you use it for."
I agree with you completely... but...
We will never give them asylum. Imagine how the right wing media would run with that. "TERRORISTS ON AMERICAN STREETS!", sure, we know they aren't terrorist, as would anyone with half a brain willing to read up on these things, but the only proof most of America needs to prove that someone is a terrorist (as sadly evident in this very topic) is "zomg they were in Gitmo!"
Can't you just hear the right wing fear machine grinding happily on that for months.
So, let's see. A groups or multiple groups of people use fear of terror to influence political decision making, in this case stopping what is clearly the "right thing to do" from happening. Who's the supposed terrorist in this scenario again?
As for anyone who wants to debate that giving these guys shelter on US soil is "the right thing to do" (assuming they even fucking want to live there), don't even try. You did the bad thing, and now you have to take responsibility. Not doing so puts the great US of A on the same level as the kindergarten kid who just hit his neighbour on the head with a wooden horse and is trying to convince the teacher that an invisible man did it.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Fair enough. I only read the parent comment which is what I thought you were referring to.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I'm sure we both realize how dumb that is. Human rights has become a question of wardrobe? This makes sense how?
Here is what the Geneva Protocols define as POW's
4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
* that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
* that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
* that of carrying arms openly;
* that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Sorry, but those planting road side bombs and then blend back into the population do not qualify. If you have a problem with this, please take it up with the governments who have signed on to the Geneva Convention.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
If the status of a person isn't known, there is to be a tribunal. No tribunals were held to establish the status of persons before they were tortured or sent to Guantanamo. You can read the army field manual and see if that's the procedure that was followed.
As for Obama, I agree, he should have released everyone we have no evidence against. The problem being that we have radicalized each of the detainees, so if they were simple tribesmen before, now they may be a little pissed that they've lost years of their life and family members because of the colossal stupidity and cowardice of the Bush Administration. If you read any competent book on the subject, you'll discover that the legal black hole was foreseen as soon as the torture memos started circulating, but instead of listening to experienced army and FBI interrogators, the Bush Administration fired or excluded anyone who didn't agree with their flimsy legal contortions.
But let's ask a better question. If a group of Canadians bombed a building in China from training camps in Minnesota, would you accept a Chinese invasion? Would you demand that they provide evidence for the act, or allow them to attack Minneapolis with drones? Would you accept them rounding up any Canadian citizens and sending them to a base in Vietnam for "detainment" without due process, while secretly sending some of them to North Korea to be tortured - the same way we sent people to Syria and Egypt?
If you have no problem with the second scenario, then you have some moral ground to stand on. If you do have a problem and you still support what we did, you just a hypocrite.
Living in a country that was occupied by German forces during WWII, I can inform you that your definition of "terrorist" includes everyone we had fighting against the Germans.
That is the exact same reasoning said Germans used as for why the Geneva convention did not apply to them, and thus they were doing nothing wrong putting these people in concentration camps.
You are no better than those Germans.
As soon as idiots like you start throwing the words "liberal" and "socialists" around, it throws any intelligent argument that you may have out the window. You just need a "Get a brain morans!" sign and you would be all set.