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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.
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.
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.
If they don't mind being treated a little worse than a terror suspect they could get corporate IT jobs.
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.
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.
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?
One laptop per terrorist!
Mod me down you wonderful bastards, it's called comedy!
So they are in the Star Wars forums then... (Im just joking please don't hurt me)
"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!
I welcome them to my neighborhood - there's 4 houses on my block that are empty now. Even if they only fill one, that's one less house being used for covert teenage sex and drug use or being decorated with spray paint as "turf". It puts a few people willing to work in my neighborhood, which is lacking a few, and could possibly even raise the value of my property in the long term as having an occupied house next door looks much better than having a burned out husk, because someone started a fire with a pipe or a cookstove. There's a few places nearby hiring ($8/hr, but it's a job), and in a few years, they could be chasing the American Dream at full speed. So again, yes, move them into my neighborhood. The house payment + utilities is almost certainly less than what debt we're racking up on them in GITMO.
Truck driver, plumber, Linux systems engineer.
What about the countries they originally came from? Do they not want them back? Why? Or is it that they don't want to go back? If so why?
Oh, most of their countries of origin would love to take them back. Then throw them into jail and torture them. In the specific case of the 17 Uighurs, the country of origin is China. We all know how much China likes members of ethnic minorities, especially if said members were in Afghanistan and could have been subject to terrorist training. The Wikipedia article got a bit of background information on the topic.
The Guananamo Uighurs are also a subject of discussion in e.g. Germany. While the possible threat of terrorism is generally assessed as non-existant, the German government tries hard to avoid any quarrels with China. Granting asylum to these detainees would certainly stress the diplomatic relationship between the two countries.
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.
RTFA. They are Uighurs (an ethnicity). Chinese government policy (China is their home country) is to execute them on sight.
It only makes you wonder why we won't send them there if you're an idiot.
They fled China to escape persecution, and were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so wound up at Gitmo.
China has no problem with us sending them back, we have a problem with handing them over for summary execution.
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.
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
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"
Ever hear of refugees? Is it strange that persecuted people from a brutal dictatorship would head to a country that practices their religion?
... hard core killers.
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
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.
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.