Obama/ Love Him or Hate Him, We've Got Him

@Cycloptichorn,

Come on dummy, we are fighting wars against terrorists, why do you think we are getting killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Please do not continue to argue nonsense? The world has changed. War has changed, and the definition of war has changed. We did not change it. Those guys did.

2 Replies

@okie,

okie wrote:

Come on dummy, we are fighting wars against terrorists, why do you think we are getting killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Please do not continue to argue nonsense? The world has changed. War has changed, and the definition of war has changed. We did not change it. Those guys did.

Empty phrases that are devoid of any factual argument don't convince people, Okie. You can't just throw your hands up and say 'the world has changed! the definition of war has changed!' and expect people to think it's a strong argument. It isn't.

And even if it was, one would think your side would have the nuts to legally change the rules. Don't want to follow the Geneva Conventions? Fine, repudiate them. Don't want to give people trials? Change the actual laws so that they don't have that right. Want to make torture legal? Pass the laws.

Problem is, your side did none of that; the entire Gitmo process has been an extra-legal exercise in power by the US. You don't want to actually 'change' anything, you want to enjoy a situation in which we are not bound by laws. That's not how America works, bud, and if you think that makes us more vulnerable to terrorism, too ******* bad.

Cycloptichorn

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@okie,

okie wrote:

oe, your credibility is near zero.

Insulting other posters doesn't increase your credibility either, okie.

okie wrote:

Some of your innocent people have in fact been released, only to be caught trying to kill again.

So what?

I have it on good authority that some petty thieves who have been arrested have been released, only to be caught trying to rob a bank.

Does that mean that if somebody has been locked up for whatever reason, he shouldn't be allowed to get out ever again? Should he remain locked up for the rest of his life, preferably without trial, because there's a chance that he might actually commit a crime?

You don't make any sense here, I'm afraid.

okie wrote:

If you think war allows for normal rights given to citizens of the United States, then you live in a dream world, not reality.

I have never said that.

I have said that there were several possibilities regarding how detainees could have been treated.

If you think that the inmates of Guantanamo were actually "caught on the battlefield" (as you've stated earlier) and captured during the course of a war, fighting US soldiers, then the obvious choice would have been to treat them as POWs.

You have even stated as much earlier - that they should be treated as POWs rather than as civilians - but then went on to state that they couldn't be treated as POWs, because this was a "new type of warfare".

okie wrote:

It simply is not possible.

Why is it not possible?

You've said now a couple of times that they cannot be treated like POWs, that they cannot be treated like domestic terrorists, and that they cannot be treated like the Nazi elites in the Nuremberg trials.

You've not come up with a reason why these methods worked in all those other cases, but couldn't possibly work for the Guantanamo detainees.

okie wrote:

I would love it if no innocent person died as a result of the people you choose to defend, the terrorists, but it isn't possible.

Now read this very carefully, okie, because you seem to have missed this the last couple of times:

I'm not defending any terrorists.

Matter of fact is: you have no idea whether the detainees in Guantanamo actually are terrorists. Just take the time to look up the case of Murat Kurnaz, okay? He's a Turkish citizen who was living in Germany, and who was picked up by Pakistani security forces, and handed over to US forces, for head money.

He wasn't a terrorist. He didn't try to kill anybody. He spent four years in Guantanamo.

I'm not defending terrorists, I'm defending the rights of innocent people who got swept up in this administration's "War On Terror" and left in a state of lawlessness created by the Bush administration.

okie wrote:

I doubt there are many, if any, innocents in Gitmo.

That's your right. You can doubt there are many, but it's a fact that there were some who have been swept up, transferred to Gitmo, and who have been locked up for years without a trial.

Are some or maybe even many of the Gitmo detainees terrorists? Possibly. We don't know that. You don't know that.

But that possibility shouldn't allow for the existance of an internment camp that exists outside of international and domestic law, and that has already failed when innocent people got locked up for months without any recourse.

okie wrote:

It is a verifiable fact that innocent people have died in the criminal justice system as well. That is reality. Man is not perfect.

Sure. And it is a very good reason to improve the system.

But you are not looking for improvements, you are just taking the fact that innocent people die as a given fact, shrug it off and declare, "hey, don't blame me, man is not perfect, sometimes innocent people die".

And then you go off on rants how everything possible should be done to protect innocent people from dying in a terrorist attack.

okie wrote:

Again, Bush did the best he could, given what was dealt.

If that was the best he could do, you don't have a reason to complain.

Bush made a decision - to hold the detainees in a state of lawlessness outside of US territory, and to disregard the Geneva Conventions. If that was the best he could have possibly done, so be it.

Now you have to deal with the consequences of those very best decisions.

1 Reply

@old europe,

oe, sorry for any insults.

Back to sort of square 1. First question:
If people were picked up on the battlefield, why are we obligated to treat them under Geneva if they did not represent a flag or nation, nor do they wear a uniform, of a nation that signed Geneva?

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@okie,

okie wrote:

The world has changed. War has changed, and the definition of war has changed. We did not change it. Those guys did.

So what?

The world has always changed, and will always change. War has always changed, and will always change.

There was a huge difference in the way the First and the Second World War were fought. The war has moved away from confined battlefields, where soldiers would fight it out, to civilian areas. Hundreds of thousands of civilians got killed in the bombing of purely residential neighborhoods in World War II.

And yet, in spite of those dramatically changed circumstances, in spite of the millions of victims of the war, in spite of the brutality of the methods that were used and, apart from anything else, in spite of the sheer horror of the millions of people who got worked to death, starved or gassed in the concentration camps, the Allies were able to deal with those responsible for those acts in a criminal court.

In the face of that, your claim that a criminal court is just not good enough for dealing with potential terrorists seems really, really feeble.

1 Reply

@old europe,

oe, the criminal court came after the war was over. And we didn't try the average soldier in the criminal courts, I don't think. That would be preposterous. I could see trying Osama Bin Laden in something like a Nuremberg Trial perhaps. But trying hundreds, or perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of terrorists or soldiers in criminal courts, come on, that would be an invitation to chaos.

1 Reply

@okie,

okie wrote:

And if Obama returns to the Clinton policy, alot more innocent people will die, I fear that. That is why the Obama presidency is making alot of people nervous, and you should be just as nervous if you care about innocent people.

what part of the Clinton administration didn't you like, the peace or the prosperity?

1 Reply

@dyslexia,

False peace, policies led to 9/11 and false prosperity, chickens are coming home to roost, dys, to quote your prez's friend.

Well, I guess we will see if the next Clintonista administration works out okay? Not starting out too well with no economic optimism being gendered with the next Clinton administration that Obama is setting up, dys.

1 Reply

@okie,

You'll love this, Okie

Quote:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge Thursday ordered the release of five Algerians held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the continued detention of a sixth in a major blow to the Bush administration's strategy to capture terror suspects without charges.

In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the government's evidence linking the five Algerians to al-Qaida was not credible as it came from a single, unidentified source. Therefore, he said the five could not be held indefinitely as enemy combatants, and should be released immediately.

"To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with the court's obligation," Leon told the crowded courtroom.

As a result, "the court must and will grant the petitioners and order their release," he said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GUANTANAMO_DETAINEES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-11-20-13-27-58

See, our federal courts understand that you cannot legally hold people without credible evidence. You just can't do it. I don't care if you think it makes us 'safer' to do so. It's not a possibility in America.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

See, our federal courts understand that you cannot legally hold people without credible evidence. You just can't do it. I don't care if you think it makes us 'safer' to do so. It's not a possibility in America.

Cycloptichorn

Again, this all hinges on whether you believe the war, wherein people are picked up offshore as enemy combatants or terror link suspects can be tried with the same legal hoops to jump through as you would a domestic criminal, cyclops. I don't think you can. Again, it depends upon where the people were captured and under what circumstances.

Again, to repeat the obvious, the enemy has so mixed their military operation within civilian guises that the problem does not lend itself to normal circumstances. Again, we did not create the problem, they did.

Again, the manner in which you wish to treat the pr0blem can be partly blamed for 3,000 deaths and billions in damage, that is my opinion, you don't have to agree with it, but I am in agreement with the best legal and military expertise in the current administration, which has given us 8 years without a serious terror attack after 9/11, and 9/11 I attribute primarily to the failure of the previous administration.

We just have a difference in opinion, and again your philosophy will have the chance to test it out again, and I for one have very little confidence in it. Very little.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

oe, the criminal court came after the war was over.

That's true.

But I didn't say that you have to try them in a quasi-civilian criminal court. I'm merely pointing out to you that a criminal court was what the Allies deemed to be appropriate even for those responsible for millions of deaths.

okie wrote:

And we didn't try the average soldier in the criminal courts, I don't think. That would be preposterous.

No, you didn't.

But the same is true for the "War On Terror". Even Rumsfeld said that the vast majority of those captured, those detained in Iraq and Afghanistan, would be treated according to the Geneva Conventions. And those detained in the United States (like, for example, Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted of conspiring to kill citizens as part of the 9/11 plot) obviously already went through the American criminal justice system. Without showing up on a battlefield, trying to kill Americans, later. Seems that the system works.

okie wrote:

I could see trying Osama Bin Laden in something like a Nuremberg Trial perhaps.

That could work, I suppose.

okie wrote:

But trying hundreds, or perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of terrorists or soldiers in criminal courts, come on, that would be an invitation to chaos.

But we're not talking about "tens of thousands of terrorists". I have no idea why you feel the necessity to make up numbers and facts,

We're talking about the Guantanamo inmates, and about them only.

1 Reply

@old europe,

There are hundreds of terror suspects, soldiers, enemy combatants, whatever the term, and I do not think it is beyond the realm of possibility to have thousands, maybe tens of thousands down the road, I do not, because we are talking about numbers equivalent to soldiers, oe. And I am curious, if you try people picked up in a battle area, and try them here in the courts, just how do you collect evidence, forensic evidence, witnesses, and all of the other hurdles? It isn't practical. O.J. Simpson got off, the court could not even convict him based on pretty convincing evidence, one lousy case that took months, years from the time of the crime. Our court system is not designed for this problem.

If we fought a war like that, we would still be sorting through the evidence on the shores of Normandy, oe. I find the arguments put forth here to be really bizarre, and I find it hard to believe some of you actually believe some of the stuff you say. Honest, I am trying not to be sarcastic, but all of this really is a puzzlement to what I would consider to be common sense.

1 Reply

@okie,

okie wrote:

There are hundreds of terror suspects, soldiers, enemy combatants, whatever the term, and I do not think it is beyond the realm of possibility to have thousands, maybe tens of thousands down the road, I do not, because we are talking about numbers equivalent to soldiers, oe.

Are we? It seems to me that you're just making this up as you go along.

There are most certainly not "tens of thousands" inmates in Guantanamo, which has been the topic of this discussion. If you want to change the topic, go ahead.

okie wrote:

And I am curious, if you try people picked up in a battle area, and try them here in the courts, just how do you collect evidence, forensic evidence, witnesses, and all of the other hurdles? It isn't practical.

The vast majority of those "picked up in a battle area" are not being held in Guantanamo. Apparently, it isn't a problem to treat those "tens of thousands" of people according to the Geneva Conventions. Which is all that has been asked for.

Nobody has demanded to bring all the detainees picked up in Afghanistan or Iraq over to the United States.

We are only talking about the detainees of Guantanamo here.

okie wrote:

O.J. Simpson got off, the court could not even convict him based on pretty convincing evidence, one lousy case that took months, years from the time of the crime. Our court system is not designed for this problem.

Your court system is not designed to deal with criminals?

I'm sorry to hear that.

okie wrote:

If we fought a war like that, we would still be sorting through the evidence on the shores of Normandy, oe.

But you are not. So, apparently, the way of dealing with POWs in WWII did work. Why not use the same method now?

okie wrote:

I find the arguments put forth here to be really bizarre,

Which one exactly? The argument that you should follow international treaties that you, as a country, have ratified? The argument that you should follow your own Constitution? The argument that criminal courts were able to deal with the Nazi elite and should therefore be capable of dealing with a bunch of supposed terrorists?

I mean, you haven't even made an argument so far.

You have merely stated that "Hey, this is a new type of warfare. We can't follow the Constitution any more. We have to break the international treaties we have signed. This is worse than World War II. No room for the rule of law."

You haven't even explained why you think that seems to be the case.

okie wrote:

and I find it hard to believe some of you actually believe some of the stuff you say.

I find it very hard to believe that you actually belief that the rule of law isn't all that important, that the Constitution shouldn't apply, and that the ratification of a treaty signed by the United States of America means zilch, merely because a Sec of State says so.

I also find it hard to believe that you got yourselves into this situation by disregarding the Constitution and international treaties, and now you're not even man enough to stand by that decision and simply accept the consequences, but whine incessantly about how everybody else except for those making the decisions should be blamed for that situation.

okie wrote:

Honest, I am trying not to be sarcastic, but all of this really is a puzzlement to what I would consider to be common sense.

You consider it common sense to break treaties and disregard the Constitution.

I'm not sure your "common sense" is worth a lot.

1 Reply

@old europe,

old europe wrote:

But you are not. So, apparently, the way of dealing with POWs in WWII did work. Why not use the same method now?

For one of several reasons, because that war had an end, the losers surrendered. You have not addressed the fact that the war we are engaged in now with terror organizations, since they are not a government, but instead a surrogate of governments, they may not surrender for decades. Do you advocate keeping these prisoners indefinitely, for perhaps 50 years, or longer, in a prison camp, oe? Or do you advocate turning them back to where they came from so that they can once again kill us? What would you do?

And by the way as far as I can determine, close to 800 people have been detained at Gitmo, approaching a thousand, oe. I could be wrong, but that is a number I found.

2 Replies

@okie,

okie wrote:

old europe wrote:

But you are not. So, apparently, the way of dealing with POWs in WWII did work. Why not use the same method now?

For one of several reasons, because that war had an end, the losers surrendered. You have not addressed the fact that the war we are engaged in now with terror organizations, since they are not a government, but instead a surrogate of governments, they may not surrender for decades. Do you advocate keeping these prisoners indefinitely, for perhaps 50 years, or longer, in a prison camp, oe? Or do you advocate turning them back to where they came from so that they can once again kill us? What would you do?

And by the way as far as I can determine, close to 800 people have been detained at Gitmo, approaching a thousand, oe. I could be wrong, but that is a number I found.

The vast majority of those held in Gitmo were not captured on any battlefield, Okie. They should be tried, and those who are found innocent of the charges or who we lack specific evidence against should be released, yes. They might go on to fight the US, they might not, who can say? You can't keep someone in jail for actions they may take afterward. I doubt our armed forces are worried about another few hundred people being released from prison...

It's estimated that more than a third of these people never had anything to do with terrorism or AQ, ever; what is the argument for not letting these people go, exactly?

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

@okie,

okie wrote:

old europe wrote:

But you are not. So, apparently, the way of dealing with POWs in WWII did work. Why not use the same method now?

For one of several reasons, because that war had an end, the losers surrendered.

I think you're mixing two things up. It's true that the Nuremberg Trials were pretty much a direct consequence of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Those trials took place after the war was over, and that they were conducted as civil criminal trials.

POWs, on the other hand, can be tried by a military court, and that usually takes place while a war is still going on.

okie wrote:

You have not addressed the fact that the war we are engaged in now with terror organizations, since they are not a government, but instead a surrogate of governments, they may not surrender for decades.

I haven't addressed it because it isn't a problem. You can try the inmates of Guantanamo in a civilian criminal court, even if the war is still going on, or you can treat them as POWs and try them in a military court, even if the war is still going on.

When trying them in a civilian court, they would be awarded the protections the Constitution offers in similar cases (like the McVeigh case), and if tried in a military court, you would follow the regulations set out in the Third Geneva Convention.

Either way, you are under no obligation to wait until the supposed war is over in order to try them in a court.

okie wrote:

Do you advocate keeping these prisoners indefinitely, for perhaps 50 years, or longer, in a prison camp, oe?

No, quite the opposite. I'm all in favour of giving them their day in court, and, if convicted, to lock them up for the rest of their life.

You, on the other hand, seem to be advocating exactly that. You don't want them to be treated as POWs and tried in a military court, you don't want them to be treated as civilians and tried in a civilian criminal justice court, and you obviously don't want to simply let them go.

okie wrote:

Or do you advocate turning them back to where they came from so that they can once again kill us?

If they are not found guilty in a competent court, there's hardly a way to keep them locked up. What are you proposing? See if they are actually guilty or not, and, if not found guilty, keep them locked up preemptively so they cannot even try to kill Americans in the future?

okie wrote:

What would you do?

Give them their day in court. If found guilty, lock them up. If found innocent, let them go.

It's not that difficult.

okie wrote:

And by the way as far as I can determine, close to 800 people have been detained at Gitmo, approaching a thousand, oe. I could be wrong, but that is a number I found.

That doesn't sound like a very problematic number. It's certainly not the "tens of thousands" you mentioned earlier. Seems like all of them could be dealt with in a rather timely fashion.

And let me add that if the Bush administration had decided to treat them as POWs in the first place and tried them in a military court, this matter could have been dealt with even faster.

1 Reply

@old europe,

It's important to remember that to Okie, there are no innocents in Gitmo. No trial can result in an acquittal. Because all the people are going to do is go right back to killing us, even if there was no evidence that they were doing that before whatsoever.

In the minds of those like Okie, each person in there is a super-spy. A deadly cipher, someone who we could never afford to release. It's a warped view of the situation.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

It's important to remember that to Okie, there are no innocents in Gitmo. No trial can result in an acquittal. Because all the people are going to do is go right back to killing us, even if there was no evidence that they were doing that before whatsoever.

Well, yes. At least he hasn't said otherwise. And that alone is an amazing example of circular reasoning: If they are locked up in Guantanamo, they must be terrorists who want to kill us. But if they are terrorists who want to kill us, they deserve to be locked up in Guantanamo...

1 Reply

@old europe,

Well you guys are about to get your desire, so we will see how your plan works out, and be assured we will be here to point it out if people die needlessly, or if the criminal justice system is mucked up seriously by this war problem. I don't see how this debate can be resolved, so let the cookie crumble and we will see what the results are. Treating OBL as a criminal didn't work out very well before, because remember, Clinton said he had no reason to hold him, do you see a parallel to Gitmo, and what happened, 3,000 innocent people died and billions of dollars in carnage. I hope you guys are prepared to take responsibility for what you are arguing, and likewise for Obama. As president, the buck stops there, okay.

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@old europe,

Quote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:
In any case, it is hard to see how the Allied response to Nazi Germany's threat to dominate the world can be categorized as law enforcement rather than warfare.

Sure.

Just as the American response to terrorism falls into the category of warfare rather than law enforcement. That's not what we're talking about, though. We're talking about what should be done with those responsible for the respective acts of aggression.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:
The Nuernberg Trials took place after Germany was utterly defeated. There was very little concern that anyone acquitted during the trials would, within a matter of weeks or months, resurface on a battlefield trying to kill members of the Allied forces.

Fair enough. If your only concern is the prevention of recidivism rather than justice for the millions of deaths caused by the Nazi regime, than you do have a point.

However, that would generally make a criminal trial against any terrorism suspect, whether domestic or international, very difficult. How could you bring Timothy McVeigh to trial if there was a chance that he, if acquitted, might resurface in front of another Federal building, trying to kill hundreds of people?

Oh, right: you trust in the American justice system.

Let's be clear.

You made the assertion that dealing with Nazis from a law enforcement perspective was successful as evidenced by the fact that Germany has not had a dictator since Hitler.

Clearly the American and Allied response to the Nazis was 99% warfare, and only at the end when symbolism mattered 1% legal.

Don't get me wrong. I think the Nuerenberg Trials were a fantastic example of American Exceptionalism and the absolutely right way to deal with the extant situation.

However, the fact remains that the Nuerenberg Trials took place when the enemy was utterly defeated, the results were hardly likely to be disputed, and anyone acquitted represented virtually no risk at all to the Allies.

You are the one who introduced the concept of recidivism with your vainglorious claim that Germany has not had a dictator since the end of WWII. I'm happy to concede that the Nurenberg Trials represented, in large part, an expression of justice served for the victims of Nazi travesties.

The Timothy McVeigh analogy is also highly flawed.

McVeigh did not represent a unified movement intended to wreck death and destruction on American citizens and facilities. That there were no follow up heinous acts is proof positive for this assertion.

As with any other criminal, if McVeigh had been acquitted he might have repeated his crime. But he wasn't acquitted, was he?

The fact of the matter is that something like 50 of the 400 or so Gitmo prisoners set free have taken up arms against America and some have killed our soldiers.

There was never a war between the US and loonies like McVeigh. There is clearly, an ongoing war between the US and Islamic Extremists.

The terrorists are not fools like so many of us Americans. They deliberately chose not to assume the uniforms of a recognized army, not because they couldn't afford to, but because it enabled them to blend in with the citizenry.

Now when the US tries to apply the letter (and intent) of the Geneva Convention to these terrorists, we have sympathizers claiming this should not be the case.

We are in the middle of a war.

We are not at the position we were after WWII to concern ourselves with symbolism and future relations.

We weren't releasing German and Japanese prisoners in the middle of our war with their countries.

It comes down to this:

Every Gitmo prisoner who is released because of your support (and the support of like minded fellows) who takes up arms and kills an innocent (American or otherwise) is part of your karma --- hold it on your heads.

Whisper in my ear how this is acceptable based on principles of international justice.

2 Replies

Obama/ Love Him or Hate Him, We've Got Him

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