Obama's Gitmo release

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Right now prisoners are still being captured on battlefield. Instead of being sent to the clean, organized conditions of Guantanamo that was designed to safely contain such combatants, they are being 'held' in Afghanistan in much less desirable conditions because the President has 'closed' Gitmo. As long as we fight this war, we are going to capture enemies who don't designate themselves by uniform or country, and with whom we have no one to treaty. Guantanamo was designed for this circumstance, for their benefit and ours. Would you like all the prisoners now being held in Afghanistan and Iraq to come straight to District Circuit Court? What's the plan?

Well, you miss one important point concerning why Gitmo was created: to keep those held there outside of the US legal jurisdiction. The reason for that is obvious -- things that weren't legal were going to be done. The fact that Gitmo represents an effort to evade the rule of law -- created by a country that claims to pride itself on following the rule of law -- is exactly why it has become such a stain on the reputation of our country.

To your point, I think those captured on the battlefield should be treated as prisoners of war. Whether the camps are in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the US is of little concern to me as long as they meet the international requirements for the treatment of POWs. If we happen to snag someone who was involved in 9/11 or another international terrorist incident, a SuperMax prison seems like a good place to imprison them to me (assuming they can be tried and convicted).

Mind you, tens of thousands of people have been detained in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gitmo was never designed or expected to hold prisoners in those numbers. So, your contention that Gitmo was some sort of luxury prison for those being held in Bagram and Abu Ghraib is really a red herring.

Of course, most prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq are thrown back in the water. Gitmo was desiged for the high value prisoners--ie the ones who would like to, and could have the capacity and connections, to kill our servicemembers (the convenient proxies for you and me)--and were caught actively working towards that end or with intelligence of those who are. So where do those people go now? Why would you treat as a prisoner of war someone who is not a member of a formal army? Why would you give Miranda rights to someone who plants roadside bombs and kills civilians and follows no known rules of warfare? You would treat them as criminals facing criminal prosecution? Based on what CSI Unit actively scraping the battlefield? Military tribunals are uniquely situated to handle degrees of evidence that the military and CIA in the field can gather--many who are under cover. This may not be comfy for you, but these are dedicated professionals who can put two and two together (personally, having served jury duty a few times I would trust their evaluation a lot more than a jury of my peers--sorry everyone!). Your desire to shift these folks into US legal jurisdiction doesn't account for the fact that we hardly have US legal pre-conditions on the battle field. It is a different scenario and it calls for different solutions.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Of course, most prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq are thrown back in the water. Gitmo was desiged for the high value prisoners--ie the ones who would like to, and could have the capacity and connections, to kill our servicemembers (the convenient proxies for you and me)--and were caught actively working towards that end or with intelligence of those who are. So where do those people go now? Why would you treat as a prisoner of war someone who is not a member of a formal army? Why would you give Miranda rights to someone who plants roadside bombs and kills civilians and follows no known rules of warfare? You would treat them as criminals facing criminal prosecution? Based on what CSI Unit actively scraping the battlefield? Military tribunals are uniquely situated to handle degrees of evidence that the military and CIA in the field can gather--many who are under cover. This may not be comfy for you, but these are dedicated professionals who can put two and two together (personally, having served jury duty a few times I would trust their evaluation a lot more than a jury of my peers--sorry everyone!). Your desire to shift these folks into US legal jurisdiction doesn't account for the fact that we hardly have US legal pre-conditions on the battle field. It is a different scenario and it calls for different solutions.

You are distorting my argument. I would treat people captured on the battlefield as prisoners of war even if they are not formal members of an army because I recognize the reality of modern warfare. I would have hoped that the British treated colonial minutemen as prisoners of war rather than as the terrorists of their time.

I would subject those accused of participating in international terrorism to our justice system. Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef are two examples of successful prosecutions. The justice system is capable of protecting sources and methods and many legal changes have been made in recent years to exactly that end.

Finally, you continually refer to how Gitmo was "designed" rather than how it was actually used. It may have been designed for high value prisoners, but was ultimately used to imprison a number of random people turned in by bounty hunters and score-settlers who were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Were the three boys between the ages of 13 and 15 described in this article "high value prisoners"?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/05/terror/main598252.shtml

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Of course, most prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq are thrown back in the water. Gitmo was desiged for the high value prisoners--ie the ones who would like to, and could have the capacity and connections, to kill our servicemembers (the convenient proxies for you and me)--and were caught actively working towards that end or with intelligence of those who are. So where do those people go now? Why would you treat as a prisoner of war someone who is not a member of a formal army? Why would you give Miranda rights to someone who plants roadside bombs and kills civilians and follows no known rules of warfare? You would treat them as criminals facing criminal prosecution? Based on what CSI Unit actively scraping the battlefield? Military tribunals are uniquely situated to handle degrees of evidence that the military and CIA in the field can gather--many who are under cover. This may not be comfy for you, but these are dedicated professionals who can put two and two together (personally, having served jury duty a few times I would trust their evaluation a lot more than a jury of my peers--sorry everyone!). Your desire to shift these folks into US legal jurisdiction doesn't account for the fact that we hardly have US legal pre-conditions on the battle field. It is a different scenario and it calls for different solutions.

You are distorting my argument. I would treat people captured on the battlefield as prisoners of war even if they are not formal members of an army because I recognize the reality of modern warfare. I would have hoped that the British treated colonial minutemen as prisoners of war rather than as the terrorists of their time.

I would subject those accused of participating in international terrorism to our justice system. Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef are two examples of successful prosecutions. The justice system is capable of protecting sources and methods and many legal changes have been made in recent years to exactly that end.

Finally, you continually refer to how Gitmo was "designed" rather than how it was actually used. It may have been designed for high value prisoners, but was ultimately used to imprison a number of random people turned in by bounty hunters and score-settlers who were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Were the three boys between the ages of 13 and 15 described in this article "high value prisoners"?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/05/terror/main598252.shtml

Not intentionally distorting your argument; just making my own without deeply finessing yours. There may be points of agreement. I am sure there were people wrongly scooped up. Many were set free. Many who were not wrongly scooped up and were set free returned to their prior activities as we know. I don't have time to read about the 13 and 15 year old boys right this second, though if they are unjustly imprisoned my heart goes out (also to those poor Uighurs who China has said will be killed if returned; wrong place wrong time, but hey perhaps everyone should avoid hanging out in terrorist training camps in future). However, 13 and 15 year old brainwashed teens have been known to cause some mayhem too in this world. It doesn't sound like your issue is with Guantanamo, but with processing people through. Personally, I would rather keep them at Guantanamo than spend a ton of money to build an identical holding facility somewhere else that is not called Guantanamo which is what is going to happen. And I agree that the smallest fish should be released, the largest should face trial with special rules (I am gobsmacked you are not kicking and screaming about that) and go on their merry way to Supermax which is much less nice with its little sliver of sunshine and very appropriate. As to holding the rest (including new ones presumably being picked up since we are currently fighting two very active wars) somewhere else in the interim, why? Whole wings of a jail have to be closed for one prisoner. Our jails are not designed for this? And some prisoners are never meant to stand trial. Since when do we try all prisoners of war? Did we try the German prisoners we held in camps in the midwest and who helpfully built our highways? Usually prisoners are held until the war is over; the fact that these folks chose to fight without a country to treaty with is frankly their problem, not ours.

[Anonymous]

I have to add that in the mayhem after 9/11 the past admin may have made lots of mistakes, including where to go to war. however, they also locked up some real cretins and prevented MULTIPLE terrorist attacks. I have no issue with finessing how we go forward; this 'War on Terror' which we did not declare (and I think Obama changed the name? Can't keep up) could last 5, 30 or 100 years. We had better get our protocols straight, and maybe invent new ones. What I do have a problem with is pointing backwards and calling everything the first responders did 'vile, disregarding human rights yadda yadda'. President Obama is embracing with slight paradigm shifts much of what Prez Bush did on the war front, and moreover expanding on it. He is withdrawing us from a stabilized country (Iraq) and upping the war footing in a very unstable place (Afghanistan) in a rather hawkish manner. However, the people he will rely on there--the miltary and intelligence -- have been told that everything they have done prior is bad, vile, unacceptable but they have not been given new, clear directives or the sense that the current administration has their back in any way. Since he doesn't like the former modus operandi, and has yet to develop the next one--what are these folks doing in the meantime? Can they take R and R in Hawaii until we clear our national schizophrenia and give them the clear directive and unmitigated support they deserve?
Stop looking back President O; war is messy. If you have a better idea suggest it. You certainly have the Congress in your pocket for anything convincing you can say. This one is not on Republicans--it's on your leadership going forward for our united country.