http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jstreet/322871

Quote :

"like Kurnaz--and cleared for release, but are unable to return home to countries like Tunisia and China for fear of torture and execution. Meanwhile--because it would be embarrassing, surely, to create a refugee category for those caught up in the dragnet of terrorist witch-hunting--the United States refuses to grant them asylum. Instead, they remain in limbo at Guantanamo, where they are kept and in some cases--as emerged this week-–"softened up" for visiting Chinese interrogators. "

6/17/2008 12:28:09 PM

Quote :

"How do you know everyone in there is a terrorist? "

It is up to the military to sort that out. We can discuss how long it is taking them to do this, and I would agree it's taken too long. But the sorting out process does not require that these prisoner cases get injected into our already clogged up domestic justice system. A system that requires more openess in evidence and information than might be desired for security reasons.

Quote :

"i just wish we could hypnotize the rest of the iraqi citizens that hate us now more than they did in 2003 so in the future they wont attack us"

Ron Paul tells us that the muslims hate us because we are there. One of Bin Laden's main reasons for attacking us was our presence in Saudi Arabia. The question is- if we pulled out and left the mideast, would the muslims attacking us now cease their war on us?

Would being more of a neutral country make us less of a target for the haters of the world?

6/17/2008 12:29:11 PM

Quote :

"Ron Paul tells us that the muslims hate us because we are there."

This is not an original thought by Ron Paul in the least. This has been put forth by many leftists for years - namely Noam Chomsky.

Also I think there are some Pentagon reports that have indicated this as well.

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 12:47 PM. Reason : .]

6/17/2008 12:47:09 PM

Quote :

"I wonder why the countries wont take them back if they are truely innocent though."

Mostly because they stand accused of "affiliation" with terrorist groups, or, failing that, they've been falsely locked up for half a dozen years. Hell, they just might be a security threat after that. (Wouldn't you?)

That being said, many of these countries figure that Gitmo isn't their problem - and therefore they have no obligation to deal with these people once we're done with them. In other words, "It's your problem now - we don't feel like taking any risks."

Quote :

"What I oppose is the amount of time it has taken. I know we will make mistakes, but it shouldnt take the kind of time it is. I also blame, as you linked dr, just accepting detainees from other countries without any evidence..(that we know of, but that is the way it seems)"

But this is the problem I've been pointing out all along - there's been no serious effort to determine guilt or innocence. The Administration has dragged its feet the whole way - this is why the Supreme Court intervened in granting Habeas rights to begin with.

Which is what the argument really is all about - how the hell do we sort through the deck of guilt or innocence if no process is in place to do so and no serious attempt is made to do so?

Quote :

"It is up to the military to sort that out. We can discuss how long it is taking them to do this, and I would agree it's taken too long. But the sorting out process does not require that these prisoner cases get injected into our already clogged up domestic justice system. A system that requires more openess in evidence and information than might be desired for security reasons."

Let's not confuse two things here - what this is about is habeas hearings, not full trials. A habeas petition forces the jailer (in this case, the military) to present a prisoner and a charge to a judge, whereupon they prove that they actually have a reason to lawfully detain this person. This is not a full trial. It does, however, have the effect of keeping the government honest and not simply jailing people without knowing whether or not they belong there.

Furthermore, we already have procedures in place to deal with sensitive information of national security importance. Civilian courts are already equipped to deal with these circumstances. But regardless, this is not about putting each prisoner up for a full civilian trial, with civilian evidentiary rules - this is about the most basic legal process of proving that we actually have a lawful reason to keep these prisoners detained in the first place. Which, in many cases, we don't.

You can complain all you want for how long this has taken, but when it comes right down to it, it's your own damned fault for opposing the very thing that would have sped this up in the first place - habeas hearings that actually would have forced the government to go through and determine (and thus prove - to a judge) that these people actually belong here.

Instead, we've been treated to demagoguery about how these people are sub-human animals and just sat and sat and sat with our thumbs up our asses all the while completely unconcerned about whether the same government that brought us such national wonders as the DMV and the TSA could possibly fuck this one up.

6/17/2008 12:52:37 PM

Quote :

"Freed Guantanamo inmates take up arms"

after the treatment they receive there no wonder they took up arms against the US. Gitmo is just a place to create enemies and terrorists.

6/17/2008 12:57:46 PM

Quote :

"Would being more of a neutral country make us less of a target for the haters of the world? "

obviously. make no mistake. we want the funk out of Saudi -- there's no telling how much oil is left there, and we've never gotten a straight answer from them -- that's why we're in Iraq.

but we'd be making a conscious decision that we're not going to be imperialists in terms of acquiring resources. is this what we want? is this in the best interest of our economy given our energy needs and habits?

for the long term, the answer is a loud and resounding 'hell yes!', but how much economic pain can we withstand in the path to freedom from carbon dependence?

do we have a high enough collective IQ to realise that the sooner we become carbon-independant, the better off we'll be? or are we just going to conserve the old way of doing things?

how would we game this with regards to China and Russia's spheres of influence? is it not our manifest destiny to export and sustain democracy around the world? is that our calling, and is that a stronger imperative than the imperialistic resource-grabbing that everyone does?

there are no easy answers

6/17/2008 1:05:11 PM

I think i finally figured out why communism is bad.

6/18/2008 1:39:14 AM

Regarding Scalia's statement that “at least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield.”

Quote :

" Despite being repeatedly debunked, this statement has been reflexively accepted as true by Members of Congress and much of the American public. Justice Scalia is only the most recent disseminator of an urban legend that refuses to die. ... Scalia’s source was a year-old Senate Minority Report, which in turn was based on misinformation provided by the Department of Defense. Justice Scalia’s reliance on these sources would have been more justifiable had the urban legend he perpetuated not been (one would have thought) permanently interred by later developments, including a 2007 Department of Defense Press Release and hearings before the House Foreign Relations Committee less than two weeks before Justice Scalia’s dissent was released. ... – According to the Department of Defense’s published and unpublished data and reports, not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans."

http://law.shu.edu/center_policyresearch/reports/urban_legend_final_61608.pdf

6/21/2008 2:25:57 PM

why dont they just capture these scumbags, put some kinda rice chip type thing in, and track them down...see where they go and whatnot, etc etc etc

6/21/2008 7:16:29 PM

I am not exactly sure why such a big deal is made out of this.

Yes, some guilty persons may be set free and they may kill other Americans, but there are all kinds of laws that we could enact if we really thought life was more important than human rights.

We could torture gang leaders. Burn murders in the street. Shoot people for being suspicious. Execute corporate executives who shirk on safety. Outlaw guns, etc.

Facism is effective at quelling violence. We know that.

The question is whether or not we want to increase risk in our lives in the support of human rights. I thought we had agreed yes.

[Edited on June 23, 2008 at 2:17 PM. Reason : .]

6/23/2008 2:17:21 PM