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Fixing Guantanamo

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 10:09:37 AM EST
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Time Magazine has a long feature article, How to Fix Guantanamo.

It offers five suggestions, all well-taken:

  • 1. The White House must work with Congress
  • 2. Repatriate the small fish
  • 3. Process the 400 plus habeas cases through the courts. In other words, let the judiciary do its job
  • 4. Live by the Geneva rules
  • 5. Lift the veil of secrecy

The article also notes that 75% of those being held are no longer being interrogated. If they haven't been charged with a crime and have no useful intelligence information, it's time to send them home -- or to another country that is willing to take them and allow them to live in freedom.

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    • Fixing Guantanamo | 18 comments (18 topical)
    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#1)
    by cpinva on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 12:54:45 PM EST
    yep, these guys are so dangerous, they've pretty much ignored the bulk of them for the past couple of years. mr. bush has a wee bit of a problem: if he claims they're combatants, than he has to abide by the GC. if he claims they are terrorists, than he has to charge them and try them in civil court, because that's prettty much what hamden boils down to. there's also the spector of 2006 & 2008 looming over all: should the republicans lose their current majority status, there might well be some difficult times ahead for those currently in charge. beware the last minute ollie north style "shredding party" in jan. 2009

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#2)
    by soccerdad on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 02:08:58 PM EST
    Bush has made it clear that they want the ability to torture people. Their idea of foreign policy is the threat of sheer brutality shock and awe.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 02:22:59 PM EST
    Like other examples of doublespeak, the concept of "shock and awe" enables its users to symbolically reconcile two contradictory ideas. On the one hand, its theorists use the term to plan massive uses of deadly force. On the other hand, its focus on the psychological effects of that force makes it possible to use the term while distancing audiences from direct contemplation of the human suffering which that force entails.
    They're not really people anyway. They're just 'collateral damage' statistics.... untermenschen. Right? :-/

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#4)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 03:10:42 PM EST
    et al - From the post.
    If they haven't been charged with a crime and have no useful intelligence information, it's time to send them home
    Problem is, about 5% have returned to their evil ways when released, and have been re-captured or killed. I know it's no concern of yours, but the military probably would have serious problems with releasing people they may have to fight again.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#5)
    by Edger on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 03:46:58 PM EST
    Media Banned From Gitmo - But Not Fox News Fixing Guantanamo Bay:
    Fox News: Pol: Too Many Inmates Freed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told "FOX News Sunday" that... "In fact, we are a country that believes in international law, that believes in living up to our international obligations, including at Guantanamo, where the president made very clear that that was what would govern our efforts and our behavior at Guantanamo," she said.
    ...well, the obligations we feel like living up to, anyway. Except the Geneva Convention, Red Cross obligations, the US Constitution, Supreme Court rulings, and anything else that is just a "godda*n piece of paper".

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 03:53:12 PM EST
    ...well, the obligations we feel like living up to, anyway Exactly. & good catch too on the fox spewAGE, edger!

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#7)
    by Al on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 04:09:42 PM EST
    PPJ, you cite a Fox News article which names a few cases where ex-Guantanamo prisoners have gone back to Afghanistan to fight US troops. Assuming these cases are correct (and that's a pretty bold assumption, considering the source), if the US military had considered them POW's to begin with, they could have held them until the end of hostilities, right? So why did the military let them go, PPJ? Out of the goodness of their hearts? Or was it because of the bleeding-heart liberals whining all the time? Why were they released, PPJ? That's an interesting question, don't you think?

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#8)
    by Sailor on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 04:55:54 PM EST
    10 out of 759 is not 5%, ppj just told another untruth.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#9)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 06:48:36 PM EST
    Al - I put it down to Left Wing whining myself. After all, don't you claim that all of our military are mean evil people??? Sailor, well we had: it's conceivable that a number of them would be so upset by the circumstances of their incarceration that they could seek to do harm to the United States at a future time, that that could be an explanation for some of the 12 individuals.
    SEC. ENGLAND: Well, they could, but on the other hand, we're keeping them because, you know, a lot of these are very, very bad people. On the other hand, people have learned to read and have learned to write, and so it's not just being incarcerated. We do try to get people prepared for a better life.
    Well, that was at the end of '04 when we had about 550 terrorists at GITMO, so out of 200 more, we should gave 6, or 18 out of 759, which is about 2.37154%... Nice to see that you still call mistakes lies... Tell me. Do you get into a lot of heated arguments person to person, or do you accept mistakes???

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#10)
    by Edger on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 09:08:35 PM EST
    One thing I'd like to see here that I really never expect to see, is for some of the wingers, any of them, even one, present any ideas for solving any of the problems that have been discussed here, without simply repeating the bushco line. This thread with the topic 'Fixing Guantanamo' began with TL's post referencing a Time article whose subtitle is 'The court issues a stern rebuke, but as long as the prison remains open, why not improve it?'. The article then goes on to outline 5 suggestions that, if honestly adopted, would probably remove a large percentage, if not all, of the criticisms from across the country and around the world that have been levelled at the administration.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#11)
    by Edger on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 09:40:17 PM EST
    Criticisms about the prison at Gitmo, that is.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#12)
    by Al on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 10:28:18 PM EST
    Al - I put it down to Left Wing whining myself. After all, don't you claim that all of our military are mean evil people??? (PPJ, evading my question about why the military have released prisoners from Gitmo)
    Of course the military could not care less about "Left Wing whining". So, what is the answer, PPJ? Why did the military release those prisoners? Does this make sense to you?

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#13)
    by jondee on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 05:51:45 AM EST
    "Dont you claim that all our miltary are mean, evil people?" Check up your as* and see if you can come up a link that substantiates this, or, for that matter, anyone here ever saying that "the U.S is evil".

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#14)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 07:57:33 AM EST
    Al - Must I educate you? Sarcasm aside, the military released these people because they thought they were not a threat and should be released. Why else would they?? Here is the process. Note the review. Jondee - Having reading problems? Is the spittle flying from your mouth hampering your vision? Is rage destroying your reading ability? It was the military, not the US. Now, want some quotes? I got these in less than two minutes:
    (Conscious Angel)..have projected their Van Dammed rage and righteousness onto to iraqis.
    (SD)....My answer would be they were targeted at non-civilians but they didn't care if there were a whole bunch of civilians close by.
    (Jondee)... Ive had it with this"we dont target civilians"crock of sh*t-if you know civilians will be killed, you are culpable.
    Now you will come back and try to argue that the word "evil" is not used. True. But how could someone who is not evil do such things as the quotes claim??? Tell us again how you support the troops.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#15)
    by jondee on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 08:27:55 AM EST
    Bush's butt-boy - Is your brain as rheumy as your eyes? Most here have stated consistently that they want those brave young men out of harms way; you, on the other hand, are obviously perfectly happy to throw any number of them into the fire (as long as it isnt you), in order to make real the dreams of that slime that you shuck'n jive for. Tell us again about "seventeen ropes for seventeen necks" Mr. Support The Troops.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#16)
    by soccerdad on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 08:49:33 AM EST
    So PPJ couldn't come up with anything unless he misinterprets it out of context. Gee I'm shocked shocked i tell you. Only an idiot would propose keeping the international symbol of the US slide into torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners open so maybe 4 more dont go back and fight us. Everyday Gitmo remains open is everyday the insurgents can rightly say "see, the US is a hypocrite. They tell us about freedom yet they torture innocent people" How many recruits / day is Gitmo worth to you. Bush wants to keep it open in fact just because it is meant as a symbol of the brutality and inhumanity the US is willing to rain down on anyone who opposses it. Shock and awe. Thats what the destruction of Fallujah and now Ramadi is about. Collective punishmnet meant to force surrender by means of sheer brutality. Thas what the incursion into Gaza is all about. Subjucation through force and brutality. Thats the point to which we have sunk, although its not really new.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#17)
    by Al on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 10:26:45 AM EST
    Al - Must I educate you? Sarcasm aside, the military released these people because they thought they were not a threat and should be released. Why else would they?? (PPJ, not understanding the question of why some Guantanamo prisoners were released).
    But they were a threat, weren't they? So why did the military release them? In the Pentagon press conference you linked to, the Secretary of the Navy had this to say:
    Now again, as we've mentioned, as in previous conflicts, we do not want to release someone who will return to the battlefield to fight Americans and our allies. And this is the dilemma we have trying to strike a right balance. And as you are aware, there's been at least 12 of the more than 200 detainees that have been previously released or transferred from Guantanamo that have indeed returned to terrorism. So this is a very difficult process we're in. We don't want to let people out who will come back, fight and kill Americans or anyone else in the world; at the same time, we are trying to strike the right balance in terms of their rights and their freedoms. So it is not without risk.
    My reaction to this is, you released twelve prisoners and they went back to the battlefield? What are you, stupid? If you read the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, you will see that once someone has been taken prisoner, the options are to repatriate him immediately if he is seriously wounded or seriously sick, to send him for internment in a neutral country (which has to be negotiated, of course), or keep him until the cessation of hostilities if the second option were not feasible. So why didn't the military do this? Because to consider these prisoners POW's they would have to recognize all the other rights of the prisoners according to the Geneva Conventions, which as we know the military are quite unwilling to do. For the military, Guantanamo is not a POW camp. The main purpose is to extract information from the prisoners. Take for example, Osama bin Laden's celebrated driver. He's not there because it is a crime to have driven bin Laden around; he's there because of what he may know about bin Laden. But the Geneva Conventions would protect him from being tortured to give up useful information. The conclusion is that the prisoners released by the military do not have any useful information to give. They cannot be held indefinitely because they are not prisoners of war. So the military release them, knowing full well that they may go back to Afghanistan or wherever and take up arms against the US forces there. But to the military, the price that they would have to pay for hanging on to them is too high. For the military, this is simply an acceptable trade-off. I'm sure the soldiers who fall victim to these released fighters will understand.

    Re: Fixing Guantanamo (none / 0) (#18)
    by Sailor on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 08:47:27 AM EST
    BTW, linking to a press conference is not the same as providing facts. and this is just silly:
    we're keeping them because, you know, a lot of these are very, very bad people.
    That sounds more like an Abbot and Costello routine than an adult speaking. Please tell us, where in law is 'a bad, bad person' defined? That's a talking point, not a fact, 86% weren't caught by our military so we have no way of knowing much about them except wearing a casio watch can be a ticket to gitmo.
    Fifty-five percent (55%) of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies
    Kinda blows your talkingpoints out of the water. BTW, I can't find the term 'enemy combatant' anywhere in the GenCons. Anybody got a link or is it just more fiction made up by bushco?
    Nice to see that you still call mistakes lies.
    either you are incapable of doing simple math, or you deliberately wrote an untruth. Which is it?
    It was the military, not the US
    Wow! Our military is no longer a part of the US! Everything at gitmo and abu ghraib was handed down directly by WH neocons, yet somehow a freestanding military, not under control of bushco, decided all on their own to let these guys go. Sheesh.
    Now you will come back and try to argue that the word "evil" is not used
    You said 'evil' and it wasn't true, and obviously not a mistake, because you tried to justify it. This is fairly disengenuous from someone who loves to quibble over whether bush ever used the word 'emminent'.

    Fixing Guantanamo | 18 comments (18 topical)