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-   -   Obama to restart Guantanamo military commissions (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=181120)

August 03-09-11 09:33 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Platapus (Post 1615115)
Sad. He is no better then Bush. :down:
Or,... Obama has access to the same classified reports which have managed to convince him that it really is a bad idea to let those people go free.

UnderseaLcpl 03-09-11 10:39 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by August (Post 1616126)
Or,... Obama has access to the same classified reports which have managed to convince him that it really is a bad idea to let those people go free.
Probably. I was personally involved in some of the operations that took some of these people as prisoners, at least in Iraq. Most of the time, the info we got on these people came from other Iraqis who were terrified about the possibility of their families being killed. For those who lack context, simply approaching coalition forces or worse, a base, is tantamount to suicide. If we don't shoot them by accident, odds are good that someone, somewhere, with a connection to the insurgency will see what they are doing and report it, which is as good as having your family dead already.

At first I questioned the reliability of the intel. After all, who's to say that Iraqi "x" isn't giving us false intel on Iraqi "y" because he want to obtain his goat herd or something? How the hell would I know? My training in Iraqi culture amounted to about 3 hours of informative briefs and "I don't even know how many hours" of other marines not taking it seriously. Can't really blame them. They're naval assault infantry, not garrison troops, not police.

Personal contact with the informants showed me otherwise. You could tell who they were, even in a group of other Iraqis, and they often were placed in groups of actual insurgents to throw any insurgent observers off. They literally reeked of fear. Unlike insurgents, who only gave you hateful looks or no looks at all, they would periodically give you this "help me" glance. It is difficult to describe, to say the least. It was the look of a person who had nothing left to lose or risk. It was the look of a person who was just utterly broken; willing to go against everything his culture was about and everything he was taught because he was more afraid of the insurgents.

For the most part, the people we have taken into custody and placed in Guantanamo are the same people who intimidated our informants so. Nothing is beneath them. They are idealists fighting for an ideology that justifies the torture and killing of anyone in their path by saying that a god considers them to be beneath human dignity. They treat women as objects and non-believers as sub-humans.

Beyond that, what most people seem to forget is that these people are non-uniformed combatants. We'd be perfectly within our rights to just hang them and forget about them, as per the Geneva convention. The only reason that any of this Guantanamo crap is even an issue is because of politics. Politics that our President is now being forced to rethink because the right actually was right.

Bubblehead1980 03-10-11 12:43 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by August (Post 1616126)
Or,... Obama has access to the same classified reports which have managed to convince him that it really is a bad idea to let those people go free.

Great point.Barry ran his mouth during the campaign about Gitmo etc then during his transition he was given a dose of reality as far as terrorism and the wars go, because he became privy to intel only POTUS and his closest people are, which showed him the reality.I think as a symbolic move he vowed to shut Gitmo down and worry about later, figuring his popularity would cover him but it has not.Reality is, these people belong there and Gitmo is a vital part of the war on terror, he knows this now, end of story.

Bubblehead1980 03-10-11 12:44 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl (Post 1616162)
Probably. I was personally involved in some of the operations that took some of these people as prisoners, at least in Iraq. Most of the time, the info we got on these people came from other Iraqis who were terrified about the possibility of their families being killed. For those who lack context, simply approaching coalition forces or worse, a base, is tantamount to suicide. If we don't shoot them by accident, odds are good that someone, somewhere, with a connection to the insurgency will see what they are doing and report it, which is as good as having your family dead already.

At first I questioned the reliability of the intel. After all, who's to say that Iraqi "x" isn't giving us false intel on Iraqi "y" because he want to obtain his goat herd or something? How the hell would I know? My training in Iraqi culture amounted to about 3 hours of informative briefs and "I don't even know how many hours" of other marines not taking it seriously. Can't really blame them. They're naval assault infantry, not garrison troops, not police.

Personal contact with the informants showed me otherwise. You could tell who they were, even in a group of other Iraqis, and they often were placed in groups of actual insurgents to throw any insurgent observers off. They literally reeked of fear. Unlike insurgents, who only gave you hateful looks or no looks at all, they would periodically give you this "help me" glance. It is difficult to describe, to say the least. It was the look of a person who had nothing left to lose or risk. It was the look of a person who was just utterly broken; willing to go against everything his culture was about and everything he was taught because he was more afraid of the insurgents.

For the most part, the people we have taken into custody and placed in Guantanamo are the same people who intimidated our informants so. Nothing is beneath them. They are idealists fighting for an ideology that justifies the torture and killing of anyone in their path by saying that a god considers them to be beneath human dignity. They treat women as objects and non-believers as sub-humans.

Beyond that, what most people seem to forget is that these people are non-uniformed combatants. We'd be perfectly within our rights to just hang them and forget about them, as per the Geneva convention. The only reason that any of this Guantanamo crap is even an issue is because of politics. Politics that our President is now being forced to rethink because the right actually was right.

Great post:salute:

Tribesman 03-10-11 04:09 AM
Quote:
Obama has access to the same classified reports which have managed to convince him that it really is a bad idea to let those people go free.
Since it was never proposed to let them go free that is one hell of a strawman.

Quote:
Great point
Donkey Oaty.
Attack that windmill:doh:

Quote:
Reality is, these people belong there and Gitmo is a vital part of the war on terror, he knows this now, end of story.
The reality is that Gitmo is a stain on America which needs cleansing, it cannot be cleaned unless the prisoners can be shifted to other prisons and brought to trial. He knows this now cannot happen with idiots blocking the moves, end of story.

Gerald 03-10-11 04:31 AM
Guantanamo in another world
 
http://i.imgur.com/1nLx1.jpg

Platapus 03-10-11 09:29 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl (Post 1616162)
Beyond that, what most people seem to forget is that these people are non-uniformed combatants.
What people forget is that these people are SUSPECTED of being non-uniformed combatants. We don't know how many of them were rounded up by the bounty hunters we employed at the start of the AF campaign.

I am not comfortable with the United States holding political prisoners in a concentration camp for the rest of their lives if

1. They have not been brought to trial
2. Or worse, found not-guilty in a trial but are being held.... just because.

We currently have existing procedures for trials involving classified information. This is nothing new and the proceedures work. There are even current exclusions to prevent the accused from viewing or hearing about very specific sensitive evidence. Such evidence is examined in camera. No need to create new rules, the existing rules will suffice.

Americans do not hold political prisoners in concentration camps. That's how I was brought up, That's what I fought for and spilled my blood on foreign soil for.

Quote:
We'd be perfectly within our rights to just hang them and forget about them, as per the Geneva convention.
Only if you consider the Geneva Convention that the US uses. The rest of the world with the exception of the US, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, and Iraq, has ratified Protocol 1 (Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977.)

Under the Geneva Convention that the rest of the world uses, no we can't just hang them.

This what makes the United States spouting about the Geneva Conventions so hypocritical. We still have not ratified protocol 1 or 2, and have only recently ratified protocol 3, where the rest of the civilized world has ratified them.

So any discussion about the Geneva Convention has to clarify whether the discussion is about the Geneva Convention the US uses or the Geneva Convention the majority of the rest of the world uses.

In any case, my position is clear: I do not approve of my country holding political prisoners in concentration camps. It saddens me that the country I have served all my adult life (and continue to serve) would even consider this, no less do it.

Just an old military guy's worthless opinion.

Tchocky 03-10-11 09:47 AM
Ugh. The mess of Guantanamo sometimes seems to be happening in a parallel dimension. I guess the choice of location has something to do with this.

The situation is as close to no-win as makes no difference. You round up guilty and innocent alike, let's say 100 guilty and 100 innocent. Tie them up, torture them, leave them in a legal black hole for who knows how long. You now have 200 radicalised fighters holding grudges. "vital part of the war on terror" indeed, we just haven't specified which side it operates for.

The ones you have evidence against, try them in proper courts.

The ones with no evidence, but only suspicion etc? Damned if I know what to do.

Keeping internment camps running indefinitely can't be the answer.

Keeping internment camps open just because "there's no law that specifically says we can't" is completely the wrong answer.

Bubblehead1980 03-10-11 02:08 PM
These people are terrorists, enemy combatants, they are not soldiers from another nation.They deserve nothing but the firing squad or perhaps a visit to the hangman.Fellow American's who would seek to give these people rights make me sick, need to look in the mirror and think about which side you are on because they very people you advocate for, would be the first to slit your throat for not believing in the same invisible man they do.

Platapus 03-10-11 02:16 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980 (Post 1616629)
These people are terrorists, enemy combatants, they are not soldiers from another nation
Perhaps. Perhaps not. We don't know until evidence of presented and evaluated in a court of law.

razark 03-10-11 02:19 PM
If they're not soldiers, then they are criminals. We have rules for dealing with criminals.

Quote:
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.

Has it been so long since America stood up against countries that hold people indefinitely, with no charges?

Bubblehead1980 03-10-11 02:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by razark (Post 1616638)
If they're not soldiers, then they are criminals. We have rules for dealing with criminals.




Has it been so long since America stood up against countries that hold people indefinitely, with no charges?

no, they are not criminals, they are terrorists,/enemy combatants.They are not entitled to the constitutional rights a US citizen enjoys.

We should hold them indefinitely, military trial and execution if foudn guilty.Time to get tough. Those we have released, many have been recaptured on the battlefield, these people are sick much like a repeat sex offender, there is no cure.

Growler 03-10-11 05:41 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980 (Post 1616643)
no, they are not criminals, they are terrorists,/enemy combatants.They are not entitled to the constitutional rights a US citizen enjoys.

We should hold them indefinitely, military trial and execution if foudn guilty.Time to get tough. Those we have released, many have been recaptured on the battlefield, these people are sick much like a repeat sex offender, there is no cure.
What happens when the cure makes more of them? You think ol' Mohammed there doesn't have a little Mohammed at home who's gonna grow up po'ed that the Americans made his pop disappear?

Furthermore, and this is key: What are we, that as a nation, we are so afraid of these people that when we do "capture" them, we're just going to fill a camp with them, call them "bad people" and let it go at that?

Is it possible that we can't handle them as a nation? 911 was terrible; but we came together, citizens of the nation, and we rallied around our wounded and grieved our dead and started the process of healing and rebuilding together. Then we turned into scared kittens hiding under the skirts of our "protectors" and allow them to perform behaviors that, were we less scared, we would never have permitted.

History will judge us harshly, especially against the things we claim to hold dear.

Tchocky 03-10-11 05:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Growler (Post 1616768)
Is it possible that we can't handle them as a nation? 911 was terrible; but we came together, citizens of the nation, and we rallied around our wounded and grieved our dead and started the process of healing and rebuilding together.
Not only that, but a lot of us in other countries felt wounded as well. The rally was spread across the world. Le Monde put it well.

Tribesman 03-10-11 06:04 PM
Quote:
These people are terrorists
Bubbles, at law school have you got to the bit about verdicts yet?

Quote:
Fellow American's who would seek to give these people rights make me sick
its you who is sick and is a disgrace to your nation and all it is supposed to represent, in fact with your views you could well be considered a disgrace to humankind.

Quote:
no, they are not criminals, they are terrorists,/enemy combatants.
Oh dear oh dear, you do have severe problems with law:doh:


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