NO plans to close Gitmo - 'We need somewhere to

I have a few points with that one:

I think the desire to reduce it to "bad guys vs. good guys" is at best naive. There are bad guys and good guys on both sides. It's not merely good Americans vs. bad ragheads, or even bad detainees.

Brand is as representative of how Americans are good as Salim is as representative of how (group -- detainees?) are bad. The fact that Salim did bad stuff has no particular bearing on whether the people at Gitmo are bad or not -- but more to the point, even if THEY are bad, we are the ones who are supposed to be upholding things like the Geneva Convention and due process.

And while Salim may have been trained to do what he did -- and what he did was bad, of course -- he acted pretty much in a vaccuum. The abuses at Abu Ghraib, Bagram etc. happened within the official structure, and it's still being investigated how much knew what, when. There seem to be signs that it was tolerated if not condoned.

That's not something that sits well with me.

My immediate point, though, was just that your article is extremely unconvincing in that it tries to extrapolate from the single Salim -- Pepe incident. If we give any larger weight to anecdotes like that, what is to be extrapolated from the single Brand -- Dilawar incident? (Oh and btw Slappy, those cookies were delish, thanks.)

So that was the relevance in terms of this thread -- your article, which appeared in the post immediately preceding my parody, is weak for that reason.

Brand X wrote:

Yep, these jokers in prison just aren't folks snatched off the street and detained for no good reason. This is war, they are prisoners of war and should be detained until the war is decided.

So are we at war with said 'enemy combatants'? If we are - then we are in violation of Geneva Convention rules by our actions and inactions in Gitmo.

You can't have it both ways.

TF

Brand is as representative of how Americans are good as Salim is as representative of how (group -- detainees?) are bad.

The fact that Salim did bad stuff has no particular bearing on whether the people at Gitmo are bad or not ...

-- but more to the point, even if THEY are bad, we are the ones who are supposed to be upholding things like the Geneva Convention and due process.

And while Salim may have been trained to do what he did -- and what he did was bad, of course -- he acted pretty much in a vaccuum.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib, Bagram etc. happened within the official structure, and it's still being investigated how much knew what, when. There seem to be signs that it was tolerated if not condoned.

My immediate point, though, was just that your article is extremely unconvincing in that it tries to extrapolate from the single Salim -- Pepe incident. If we give any larger weight to anecdotes like that, what is to be extrapolated from the single Brand -- Dilawar incident?

Is Brand indicative of American soldiers?

That remains my overriding point -- the Salim-Pepe incident is terrible, sad, scary, all kinds of bad things, but limited in scope. That is the point of my first sentence that you quoted above.

That remains why I posted here, to point out that weakness in your article. That remains the relevance.

I have never said that people who do bad things should not be dealt with -- merely that they should be dealt with in a lawful way. What Brand did to Dilawar was unlawful.

That Gitmo is in a strange limbo is itself a problem to my mind. It should be resolved.

Is Brand indicative of American soldiers?

That remains my overriding point -- the Salim-Pepe incident is terrible, sad, scary, all kinds of bad things, but limited in scope. That is the point of my first sentence.

That remains why I posted here, to point out that weakness in your article. That remains the relevance.

I have never said that people who do bad things should not be dealt with -- merely that they should be dealt with in a lawful way. What Brand did to Dilawar was unlawful.

That Gitmo is in a strange limbo is itself a problem to my mind. It should be resolved.

Is Brand indicative of American soldiers?

That remains my overriding point -- the Salim-Pepe incident is terrible, sad, scary, all kinds of bad things, but limited in scope. That is the point of my first sentence.

That remains why I posted here, to point out that weakness in your article. That remains the relevance.

I have never said that people who do bad things should not be dealt with -- merely that they should be dealt with in a lawful way. What Brand did to Dilawar was unlawful.

That Gitmo is in a strange limbo is itself a problem to my mind. It should be resolved.

sozobe wrote:

Is Brand indicative of American soldiers?

I don't think so. Do you?

American military officials in Afghanistan initially said the deaths of Mr. Habibullah, in an isolation cell on Dec. 4, 2002, and Mr. Dilawar, in another such cell six days later, were from natural causes. Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, the American commander of allied forces in Afghanistan at the time, denied then that prisoners had been chained to the ceiling or that conditions at Bagram endangered the lives of prisoners.

But after an investigation by The New York Times, the Army acknowledged that the deaths were homicides. Last fall, Army investigators implicated 28 soldiers and reservists and recommended that they face criminal charges, including negligent homicide.

But you do acknowledge that terrorists do bad things ... I mean, you admit you know that's what they are trained to do. Do you think Salim is indicative of terrorists?

I guess that's my overriding point that I've stated a couple of times: Salim was trained to do what he did; Brand was not.

But the relevance of the Salim anecdote is it highlights precisely the thing that terrorists ARE trained to do. The Brand incident highlight precisely the thing that American military guards ARE NOT trained to do.

But among those mentioned in the new reports is Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, the chief military intelligence officer at Bagram. The reports conclude that Captain Wood lied to investigators by saying that shackling prisoners in standing positions was intended to protect interrogators from harm. In fact, the report says, the technique was used to inflict pain and sleep deprivation.

An Army report dated June 1, 2004, about Mr. Habibullah's death identifies Capt. Christopher Beiring of the 377th Military Police Company as having been "culpably inefficient in the performance of his duties, which allowed a number of his soldiers to mistreat detainees, ultimately leading to Habibullah's death, thus constituting negligent homicide."

Captain Wood, who commanded Company A in Afghanistan, later helped to establish the interrogation and debriefing center at Abu Ghraib. Two Defense Department reports have said that a list of interrogation procedures she drew up there, which went beyond those approved by Army commanders, may have contributed to abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Ticomaya wrote:

But the relevance of the Salim anecdote is it highlights precisely the thing that terrorists ARE trained to do. The Brand incident highlight precisely the thing that American military guards ARE NOT trained to do.

Again, see above. This is more arguable than you seem to think.

Glad you agree re: Gitmo. What do you think should be done? (I don't know, myself.)