Obama's Gitmo Policy Coming Home To Roost

[DC]

And conversely, I don't look forward to visiting Europe, since I know most Europeans are like you.

yup Europe is a monolithic entity, never go there, thats like going on vacation on a Borg-cube.

 

[Praktik]

How likely is it that they just randomly grabbed someone off the street and tortured a confession out of him?

It's happened before. Well in this case, he died before he could give a confession - but I bet they were this close!

And conversely, I don't look forward to visiting Europe, since I know most Europeans are like you.

Ok then. More European women for the rest of us... Don't let your politics blind you to the beauty of Europe - you're missing out!

 

[BeAChooser]

The simple expedient of not wearing a uniform or observing any of the rules of war while carrying out their brutish treacheries should not make priveledged characters of them.

Toontown ... allow me to introduce the left at JREF and all the illogic and nonsense they spout on a daily basis. And just so you know, they outnumber us, so you'd better have a thick skin and lots of patience.

 

[DC]

Toontown ... allow me to introduce the left at JREF and all the illogic and nonsense they spout on a daily basis. And just so you know, they outnumber us, so you'd better have a thick skin and lots of patience.

Hey comrade BaC, how is life in communist america?

 

[Ryokan]

And conversely, I don't look forward to visiting Europe, since I know most Europeans are like you.

If you change your mind, the beer is on me. I quite like talking to people with a different opinion.

Also, I like America. Sure, the US haven't been paragons of perfection at all times, but in total I'd say they've been a boon to the world rather than make it worse. If you really think Europe is populated mostly by people like me, we really can't be that bad..

 

[willhaven]

I like how this is all Obama's fault for trying them in a court under the US rule of law, and not Bush's fault for, y'know, torturing him via extrajudicial means.

Exactly.

Also, he'd have to ignore the hundreds of potential terrorists tried in civilian courts since 9/11 by the Bush administration. Civilian courts have over a 90% conviction rate. We only ever tried a handful (< 10) with tribunals and, if I recall correctly, 3 were convicted and 2 are now free men. One man boycotted his own trial and was given a life sentence.

The civilian system works more often than the tribunal system.

 

[sarge]

And again, your response is not even close to answering the question I actually asked.

Actually, my response answers your question. You simply do not like the answer - a response that has alwys struk me as strange, especially in response to a correct answer.

I did not ask whether the defendant is granted constitutional rights. I asked if you really believe the defendant has done anything to earn or deserve said rights.

The Constitution itself describes the conditions that must be met in order to earn the rights described in and guaranteed by the Constitution. The sole qualification required to "earn" the rights we are discussing is to have been born, and to fall under the jurisdiction of the US.

I did so in response to you asking me if I really believe some other off the wall nonsense you made up.

Perhaps you are having trouble keeping seperate the arguments of several different interlocutors. I have made nothing up at all, and everything I have posted as fact is indeed factual.

As soon as you people decide to read and respond to what I actually say, without twisting it around and asking if I'm saying something I did not say, then maybe we can talk. But as long as you keep playing these little word-twisting games, this is all that's going to happen.

Again, you seem to be confusing several of the arguments you are attempting to address, lumping them all together. As of yet, I haven't twisted your words or ascribed to you anything you didn't actually write.

 

[leftysergeant]

How likely is it that they just randomly grabbed someone off the street and tortured a confession out of him?

Very likely. But we will never know, because the merry morons had no clue how to produce reliable intel from interogation of prisoners. We were offering bounties greater than an average Afghan would earn in a lifetime for turning people over to our forces. For that kind of money, you could probasbly get them to capture people on a mass scale for the slave trade. It has happened in even more civilized nations.

 

[Toontown]

Question: is testimony obtained through torture admissable in a miliatry court? (I really don't know -- but if it is, that should be changed).

I don't think it should make a difference where torture is involved.

A military tribunal is made up of appointed judges. There is no jury. I'm pretty sure judges can hear any testimony they choose to hear, given that an inexperienced, impressionable jury is not involved. I don't see why judges would deny themselves the opportunity to hear all the testimony. Judges are supposed to be able to correctly judge the value of testimony and evidence.

I don't really care whether the ass is tried or not. If they don't have a case against him, I would much prefer that they save the millions of dollars in lawyer-feed, and not try him in a civil court, which would be a huge debacle and media feeding frenzy, in addition to being an exercise in futility.

If they don't have a case against the bastard, there are 4 possibilities. They can:

1. Hold the hot potato indefinitely if they deem him too dangerous to release. This they can do, but not without heat from the left. Does Obama even care about the left anymore? He probably needs to, but doesn't want to.

2. Return the hot potato to his country of origin. Not an exciting option. All political spin aside, the guy probably is a terrorist, and if so is likely to return to his former ways triumphantly, as a conquering hero. Unless his country of origin promptly incarcerates him.

3. Pay a country to take the hot potato. Also not an exciting option, for similar reasons as (2)

4. Release the hot potato into the general US population if no other country will take him. The least palatable of the options, sure to elicit a very negative reaction from the populace. Not to mention the fact that he probably is a terrorist.

And all this, because an approved, briefed, and quietly accepted interrogation technique was suddenly, belatedly declared to be torture by the formerly quiet Democrat leaders, when and only when the destructive political value of doing so was recognised. And now their treachery is about to bite Obama on the ass. Perhaps, in their zeal for POWAH, they forgot what happens when their political treachery works better than expected: they inherit the whirlwind they helped stir up.

 

[Unabogie]

And all this, because an approved, briefed, and quietly accepted interrogation technique was suddenly, belatedly declared to be torture by the formerly quiet Democrat leaders,

Which technique? Can you spell out the specifics? At least then we can stop talking about "harsh interrogation" vs "torture" since we can just reference what they did. So since you mentioned a singular technique it'd be easy for you to say which one you mean.

 

[leftysergeant]

And all this, because an approved, briefed, and quietly accepted interrogation technique was suddenly, belatedly declared to be torture by the formerly quiet Democrat leaders, when and only when the destructive political value of doing so was recognised.

See thast pile of leaves and garbage at the far corner of the garden? That's where the parts I bolded go.

Only the merry morons approved of that crap and they were wrong. That's all there is to it. They were wrong and evil and stupid and the GOP is trying to rack more of the same stupid across the Oval Office carpet. Don't cite me anything that Gonzo or Rummy or that pulseless nosferatu say about what is or is not torture. They are not fit to be considered authorities. They are motivated to lie and disemble. They could be tried for war crimes if they say too much.

 

[joobz]

This is an interesting problem and one that highlights much of the issues with Gitmo in the first place.

1.) The clear argument against Gitmo is that without a mechanism of fair trial, innocent men can be detained without much recourse. We know this happened at Gitmo. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010...-knew-Gitmo-held-innocent/UPI-56981270851328/

2.) Conversely, enacting a more constitutionally acceptable detaining system results in greatly complicated intelligence gathering and permits the potential release of guilty parties.

I do not know of a legal system where we can avoid both 1 and 2 perfectly. My guess is as increase the protections of innocents, we increase the likelihood of guilty people to escape. And visa versa.


Truth is, I understand why BAC and others take the hard line in favor of limiting option 2.
I hate the idea of a terrorist escaping custody on stupid legal grounds. However, I hate even more the idea that innocent men can be captured and detained.

I prefer our society to favor liberty and freedom. To be a bright light of hope. Even if this means that our capturing methods must be more carefully controlled.

Gitmo was a black mark on the promise of American Liberty. We will likely have terrorists evade justice as things get sorted out. But I'd rather this, than perpetuate the nonsense it is to keep an innocent from their family. To keep an honest member of society from being part of society. Now that we know the way the scoring will be done, the CIA, FBI and military will be better prepared to deal with suspects more judiciously.

 

[Toontown]

Which technique? Can you spell out the specifics? At least then we can stop talking about "harsh interrogation" vs "torture" since we can just reference what they did. So since you mentioned a singular technique it'd be easy for you to say which one you mean.

You're right. It's not hard. This is the information age. It's getting harder and harder for politikers to lie, cover their tracks, and foist the blame off on others.

Poor politikers. Entire careers, entire ideologies, built on huge, putrid piles of lies. What will they do when it gets to the point where they can't get away with lying anymore?

Actually, Top Democrats were briefed on the entire range of harsh interrogation techniques, not just waterboarding. All but one approved.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/de...boarding_in_2002_didnt_have_any_problems_wit/


Waterboarding In 2002, Didn’t Have Any Problems With It Then
Ken McCracken • December 11, 2007


Which means that all this soaring hyperbole about our gross human rights violations, and all the absurd comparisons of Guantanamo Bay to Soviet-era gulags, is just a bunch of grandstanding from politicians who don’t have the courage to stand up in public for the policies they approve of in private.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
“The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough,” said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange. . . .
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
Individual lawmakers’ recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. “Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,” said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. “And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.”

Not just approval, but encouragement.
Which means that all the Democrats have done to undermine the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts has been motivated not by actual concern over human rights but rather out of cynical partisan maneuvering.

 

[Unabogie]

You're right. It's not hard. This is the information age. It's getting harder and harder for politikers to lie, cover their tracks, and foist the blame off on others.

Poor politikers. Entire careers, entire ideologies, built on huge, putrid piles of lies. What will they do when it gets to the point where they can't get away with lying anymore?

Actually, Top Democrats were briefed on the entire range of harsh interrogation techniques, not just waterboarding. All but one approved.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/de...boarding_in_2002_didnt_have_any_problems_wit/


Waterboarding In 2002, Didn’t Have Any Problems With It Then
Ken McCracken • December 11, 2007


Which means that all this soaring hyperbole about our gross human rights violations, and all the absurd comparisons of Guantanamo Bay to Soviet-era gulags, is just a bunch of grandstanding from politicians who don’t have the courage to stand up in public for the policies they approve of in private.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
“The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough,” said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange. . . .
With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).
Individual lawmakers’ recollections of the early briefings varied dramatically, but officials present during the meetings described the reaction as mostly quiet acquiescence, if not outright support. “Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing,” said Goss, who chaired the House intelligence committee from 1997 to 2004 and then served as CIA director from 2004 to 2006. “And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.”

Not just approval, but encouragement.
Which means that all the Democrats have done to undermine the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts has been motivated not by actual concern over human rights but rather out of cynical partisan maneuvering.

So your position is that since Democratic leaders didn't object, I can't either? And your second contention is that waterboarding is NOT torture? Just trying to see what kind of mind I'm dealing with.

 

[Toontown]

So your position is that since Democratic leaders didn't object, I can't either? And your second contention is that waterboarding is NOT torture? Just trying to see what kind of mind I'm dealing with.

I don't give a rat what you object to, and I don't give a rat what you're trying to do. And you don't need to explain what you're trying to do. I can see what you're trying to do. I have eyes, you know.

You asked a question. I answered it. Now you're trying to twist the answer around in an apparent attempt to manufacture something you can use.

 

[Unabogie]

I don't give a rat what you object to, and I don't give a rat what you're trying to do. And you don't need to explain what you're trying to do. I can see what you're trying to do. I have eyes, you know.

You asked a question. I answered it. Now you're trying to twist the answer around in an apparent attempt to manufacture something you can use.

And by asking a follow up question I'm "twisting your answer to use against you"?

Well, your original answers are kooky enough, but yeah, I was hoping to delve deeper. No loss though, since you've asked to be left alone, I'll oblige.

 

[Toontown]

And by asking a follow up question I'm "twisting your answer to use against you"?

Well, your original answers are kooky enough, but yeah, I was hoping to delve deeper. No loss though, since you've asked to be left alone, I'll oblige.

I can't believe you're actually trying to deny what you tried to do. It's right there in black and white. You tried to reframe what I said into something I did not say. And in so doing, you tried to make it look like you didn't really ask the question you asked, which I went to all the trouble of answering.

Was I supposed to say, "That's right. You can't object, because they didn't."

Was I supposed to say, "Yes, of course you can object, even though they didn't."

No. I shouldn't have said that. Because your so-called follow-up question was a non-sequitur.

You asked specifically what interrogation techniques the Democrats were briefed on. I answered. You couldn't use the answer, so you pretended the answer was something other than what it was, and then you tried to elicit from me my opinion as to whether I think waterboarding is torture or not. Because you were hoping to make that an issue you could use.

Now do you understand yourself? Because I do. It's all right there in black and white.

 

[fishbob]

And again, your response is not even close to answering the question I actually asked. I did not ask whether the defendant is granted constitutional rights. I asked if you really believe the defendant has done anything to earn or deserve said rights.

We interupt this rant to bring you the following educational message.
We all have rights, we don't have to earn them or deserve them - the person you admire the most and the defendent you hate the most have the same rights. The Constitution lists them, but does not grant them. What a concept.

Now back to your ill considered gas-baggery.

 

[leftysergeant]

You're right. It's not hard. This is the information age. It's getting harder and harder for politikers to lie, cover their tracks, and foist the blame off on others.

Poor politikers. Entire careers, entire ideologies, built on huge, putrid piles of lies. What will they do when it gets to the point where they can't get away with lying anymore?

Actually, Top Democrats were briefed on the entire range of harsh interrogation techniques, not just waterboarding. All but one approved.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/de...boarding_in_2002_didnt_have_any_problems_wit/

Got evidence to support this BS?

 

[Toontown]

We interupt this rant to bring you the following educational message.
We all have rights, we don't have to earn them or deserve them - the person you admire the most and the defendent you hate the most have the same rights. The Constitution lists them, but does not grant them. What a concept.

Now back to your ill considered gas-baggery.

Perhaps, in time, you can all recover from that offhand remark I made.

If I had known you would all latch onto it like half-starved hyenas on a wildebeest femur bone, and chew on it for a week, I might have refrained from making the remark.