Said Ali al-Shihri:
The New York Times reports on a former Guantanamo detainee who was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007, then "passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists," and now has emerged as the #2 leader of Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen.
--PtM
This stuff will not be easily resolved without risk.
You mean, the Bush Administration that released al-Shihri?
We grab this guy, keep him locked up in a prison camp for 5 or 6 years, where he is treated poorly, held without trial or even access to legal counsel, beaten, and likely tortured (depending on your definition of the word), and we're surprised when he is released and has a grudge against the US government?
What is more surprising, is that so few ex-Gitmo detainees (esp. the innocent ones) have armed themselves in order to seek revenge for the way they were poorly treated.
The take-home message from this story isn't that we erred by releasing a dangerous man. It is that our horrible methods and tactics that are used in holding these men is turning them into terrorists who have a very reasonable grudge against the United States.
The relapse rate among terror addicts is very high. I blame a lack of government funding for continued anti-recidivism therapy
Does it really matter?
Yeah!
Wait.
Just occurred to me: There might be some selection bias in the post-Guantanamo crowd.
Nick
Key points of the study.
• At most twelve, not thirty, detainees can be alleged to have “returned to the fight.”
• It is by no means clear that even these twelve have been so engaged since their release.
• According to the Department of Defense’s published and unpublished data, not a single detainee was ever released by a court.
• Every released detainee was released by political appointees of the Department of Defense, sometimes over the objection of the military.
• According to the Department of Defense’s published and unpublished data and reports, not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans.
• The Department of Defense’s statements regarding recidivism are inconsistent with each other and often contradictory.
• These inconsistencies may be due to the fact that, despite the importance of tracking detainee recidivism, the Department of Defense’s sources of information are apparently media reports.
• Despite national security concerns, the Department of Defense does not have a system for tracking the conduct, or even the whereabouts, of released detainees.
• The only detainee who indisputably took up arms against the United States’ allies was the detainee identified as ISN 220.
• ISN 220 was not released as a result of any legal process, whether a CSRT or a federal habeas proceeding. No detainee has been released as a result of either
process.
• The decision to release ISN 220 was made by political officers in the Department of Defense and was contrary to the recommendations of military officers.
• The Department of Defense has never explained why ISN 220 was released, or who was responsible for that decision.
• It is at least plausible that a more transparent process would have resulted in ISN 220’s continued detention.
It suggests not leaving release decisions to political appointees in less than transparent processes.
Best,
Ben
"The fact that the Bush admin released this guy does not change the fact that there is some danger in doing so."
Well, sure. Obviously.
Of course, I haven't read anywhere that Obama intends to release people like al-Shihri, and the implication shouldn't be made that he intends to.
Closing Gitmo doesn't mean releasing the detainees.
We really need to kill everyone we see on the battlefield, like the Berserkers of old, only a whole country!
National Killing Rage (NKR): it's the only way to achieve peace.
The $$$ poured by the Saudis into Muslim schools in NW Pakistan is part of the problem with that country.
One could hope for a revolution in Arabia, were it not for anxiety that someone even worse would come out on top.
We know this is true because we know the exact whereabouts and actions of all of those we have released.
We also know that all those innocent babes in Guantanamo only hate the United States because of their poor treatment while there.
I'm surprised that he wasn't on the Pledge to Obama video posted earlier.
OK.
We grab this guy
Yes.
keep him locked up in a prison camp for 5 or 6 years
Right.
where he is treated poorly
Do you have evidence that this person was treated poorly?
held without trial or even access to legal counsel
How do you know this to be true about this person?
beaten
Says who?
and likely tortured
Depending on your definition of "tortured" and "likely".
Please do get all this straight.
An Anonymous Person:
I'm sure before he was detained, beaten, and tortured, he was a well adjusted guy.....but holding without access to a lawyer, that is certainly what turned him against the U.S.
Are you willfully ignoring the fact that not all of them were found on a battlefield?
Which part of the Geneva Conventions permits summary execution? They all seem to forbid it.
engage sarcasm mode And so he was, but due to the evil treatment suffered at the hands of the Bushitler SS he was converted to a terrorist. end sarcasm mode
The complaint against the Gitmo way of doing things was never that these people were all innocent and harmless - it was that we ought to have a better and more accountable system for determining which ones were innocent or harmless. This is just one more case in which the system we've been using so far has screwed that up.
He probably fled in the back seat of a Mercedes.
Which part of the Geneva Conventions permits summary execution?
Notoriously brutal, those Geneva Conventions.
ginsocal hits another one out of the park! There is only one cause of terrorism. Clearly, if rich people are terrorists, torturing people can't turn them against America!
Well, I know you're being sarcastic.
But gin does raise the important point that one of the most frequently-heard explanations for Islamist suicide terrorism is wholly inadequate as an explanation of what it is trying to explain.
Yeah, God can sort them out.
Of course, He's also planning on sorting out those who follow such a practice...
Uh, no. There was no Gitmo before 9/11. Gitmo has been blamed for increasing jihadist recruitment, not creating it.
What's frequently heard by you may depend a bit on whom you're listening to.
Even better, do not trust the Bush administration to handle anything competently.
"... in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks and during the first stages of the war in Afghanistan, that at least Qaeda-affiliated fighters did not qualify for Geneva Convention protections seemed entirely obvious. The Conventions, after all, were principally designed to regulate the conduct of war between states: more precisely, those states – the “High Contracting Parties” – that are party to them. The reference to “a conflict not of an international character” in Common Article 3 was meant to apply to civil wars. (See the ICRC commentary here.) The very idea of a war between a state and a transnational terror network was unknown to the drafters.
"The inapplicability of the Geneva Conventions to America’s adversaries in the “war on terror” was so obvious indeed that even the European Parliament recognized it. Thus, on February 7, 2002, only weeks after the first transfer of prisoners to Guantánamo Bay, the Parliament adopted a “Resolution on the Detainees in Guantanamo Bay”. Among other things, it states the following:[...]
"... Referring to the joint motion of the leftist parties, General Morillon asked: “Why is this urgent resolution being tabled now, given the spirit of solidarity that the horror of the [September 11] attacks unanimously inspired in this Parliament?” And then he continued:"Also, Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay, excerpt from an editorial review:
"... Cucullu finds that [early] excesses were quickly corrected. Current treatment and oversight routines exceed the standards of any maximum-security prison in the world.
"Despite what the public has heard, these are not innocent goatherds but dedicated jihadists whose overriding goal—as they themselves candidly say—is to kill Americans. Should they now be released to return to the fight, perhaps on American soil? Read this book and decide for yourself."
Which Geneva Convention are you reading? I seriously think you do not have a clue about what your talking about.
Sadly, that is likely the fate of many of the detainees if released. We're stuck with the problem now of what to do with them. While it makes many feel better to consider releasing (in any manner that is outside US military control, anywhere from a straight walk to passing them on to other government's detention) we simply cannot let them out of our control now. That is, we are stuck with the moral stench that has been created, and however unfair it might be to some of these individuals, their are really only two options: never let them out of US military custody (hard to ensure over the long run), and a bullet to the head (prevents politically motivated whims to let them go).
Why no skepticism?
I agree Liberals are often far to glib when they say the cause of terrorism is colonial oppression. But so too are Conservatives, in saying these are the bad guys, we're the good guys chaaarge!]
Maybe because "innocent guy in Gitmo" is sort of a dog-bites-man story by now?
one of the most frequently-heard explanations for Islamist suicide terrorism
Uh, no. There was no Gitmo before 9/11. Gitmo has been blamed for increasing jihadist recruitment, not creating it.
What's frequently heard by you may depend a bit on whom you're listening to.
Your last point may be correct, and I shall do all I can to listen less to my academic colleagues. On this as on all other matters. Thank you for the insight, Brother.
On your previous point, the propensity of some people to blame the victims of terrorism for terrorism predates "Guantanamo." I am responding here to a point raised by gin above, regarding the background of suicide terrorists. He is correct in his statement, and I am correct in mine.
What is your point, then? Do you think that the West is fundamentally responsible for Islamist terrorism?
And let me clarify that I am not trying to be "snarky" here. I am genuinely surprised by some of what I'm reading on this thread, and I'd like to know if I am misunderstanding what some of my fellow VCers are arguing.
It would also be good to keep in mind that this fellow joined a Yemeni terrorist organization that was already up-and-running. Did Guantanamo cause this organization to come into being as well? Or was an al Qaeda sympathizer able, upon release from prison, to join an organization that worked toward his goals? By methods he approved?
But so too are Conservatives, in saying these are the bad guys, we're the good guys chaaarge!
But al Qaeda patently are bad guys.
We are good guys--in comparison, at least.
As a conservative, the only part I don't agree with is "chaaarge!'
Nope. I think it mostly is *caused* by social factors, but I don't think the West is fundamentally responsible for the crappy state the Ottomans left the Arabs in, or that 50-100 years of colonialism justifies blowing up women and kids in 2001.
As you know from your own studies, historical events are usually overdetermined, so I'm sure there's blame to go around; but the fundamental responsibility is really a moral question, and living in a crappy country under tinpot dictators is not an excuse for killing people who haven't done anything to you.
The problem with Gitmo from a policy standpoint was that it neutralized some of our most effective rhetoric and diplomacy. We can't hold ourselves out as a model when we're imitating Joe Stalin. That I'm sure is the main reason why Bob Gates et al. have been trying to close Gitmo -- purely practical considerations.
Your insightful and accurate observation provides an example of the Greeks' hubris and nemesis; it also shows why Thoma considered superbus and ira to be the gravest of the deadly sins.
Ah, I see -- a fiscal conservative.
If you haven't already, Hoosier, you should look at the classic Kung Fu Monkey post on grown-up Republicans.
They were the grown-ups. They were the realists. Sure they were a bummer, maaaaan, but on the way to La Revolution you need somebody to remember where you parked the car. I was never one (nor a Democrat, really, more an agnostic libertarian big on the social contract, but we don't have a party ...), but I genuinely liked them.
Seriously, when GOP heartthrob Reagan called the Soviets the Evil Empire (and correctly so), what were these people thinking?
You can read through Conquest's book on The Great Terror and underline passages that read like they're out of 2007's Washington Post.
I had never heard of that site. Now I only with that the name "Kung Fu Monkey" was not a mere metaphor.
Ah, I see -- a fiscal conservative.
That's part of it. Back in the '80s, I thought "paleo-con" was a fine description. But that's now been taken over by a very different group.
So I go with "Oakeshottian" these days. Until something better comes along.
"It’s easy to forget that Guantanamo was conceived as the solution to a Clinton era problem. ... It’s worthwhile to recall the interview Scheuer gave describing the good old days under Clinton and what happened then."
Awww, where's your belief in individual talent?
Besides, don't we blow up an al-Qaeda # 2 every week or so? Lots of room at the top!
The one that seems to offer special hands-off treatment of Saudis at every opportunity?
I notice in all the speculation that no one has considered what would have happened to this fellow had he been put through our judicial system. Would he have been released to the Saudis?
Beautiful!
Hoosier/Sarcastro:
Since you've both gone serious on me, see Suicide Bombers: Warriors of the Middle Class by Randall Collins Foreign Policy magazine (Jan 2008), www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4131
Most of the explanations for why jihadists have become terrorists are wrong.
Personal observation: Prof. Collins misses one point. The typical terrorist cell is organized to keep its members from having much contact with the surrounding general population. This is done with potential suicide bombers, too. By not having contact with the surrounding population, they don't have the chance to develop any empathy, and the potential suicide bomber can be indoctrinated into believing that they are carrying out a righteous mission. In the US, due to our failure to study foreign cultures, we believe that there is some overall Arab or Muslim culture. There isn't. An important reason that suicide bombers come from other countries than the one they are used in, is that they are foreigners in the land. This also helps prevent them developing empathy. To Americans, they all look alike, since we don't know enough of the cultural cues to spot a foreigner. While being indoctrinated, the potential suicide bomber is taught enough about looking and acting like he (and sometimes, she) fits in, so that as long as the potential suicide bomber does not call attention to himself, he can find a target or crowd and detonate.
But, too many people in the US are emotionally invested (or indoctrinated) into the progressive ideal that knowledge leads to developing liberal (as in Western European and American) values. Suicide bombers and the jihadist leadership come from the upper middle and upper social-economic classes of their societies and receive Western oriented education. Many in the US and Europe cannot accept that such people, educated at Western schools, can totally reject Western liberal values as having nothing of value to offer them (to the point of accepting suicide as a preferable option as a means of attacking Western values).
I chuckle every time I read that passage. They should call it the "Saudi Arabian Center For Terrorists Who Can't Wage Holy Jihad Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff To Infidels Good Too."
Obama campaigned on just that point, drawing McCain's criticism that Obama was "naive," Pakistan being a by-gosh sovereign country and all that.
But, too many people in the US are emotionally invested (or indoctrinated) into the progressive ideal that knowledge leads to developing liberal (as in Western European and American) values.
Knowledge? More like Coca-Cola and cable TV.
Yet more proof that the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) needs a playoff system. Sure, various analysts can look at strength-of-infidels-defeated, margin of victories in internecine strife, etc.. But picking a #1 in this biz is embarrassingly imprecise at best, and -- let's be realistic -- politics and reputation play too much of a role. Let's pick the top, say, eight, and have them face each other directly for the title.
Like Prof. Collins' article. You'll really like this one from the Foreign Policy Institute:
Preaching Jihad on Welfare: The Story of Abu Qatada (Michael Radu – June 2008). It begins:
[But, one of the parts of the article you may really appreciate is:]
See www.fpri.org/enotes/200806.radu.jihadwelfareabuqatada.html
It's not just the Hoi Poli who don't have a clue. Most of our "intellectuals" are even more clueless and self-deluded.
Given Judge Leon's far higher standard of proof for detaining terrorists almost guarantees that the habeas review system will generate a far higher recidivism rate than the military tribunal system.
Now, Mr. Obama is threatening to release many of the worst cadre left in Gitmo because he simply will not have a place to put them after he shuts down the wrongfully maligned facility.
If he attempts to move them inside the United States, inviting attacks to free the prisoners, Obama will face a firestorm of opposition from the GOP and the representatives of both parties from any states gaining these terrorists.
The Courts have barred the movement of these terrorists to battlefield prisons like Bagram because they do not want to lose their jurisdiction. Mr. Obama is hardly likely to cross the courts.
Thus, Obama's least politically problematic alternative is to release more terrorists back to the battlefield in the Middle East under the fig leaf of rehabilitating them.
The only question is how many innocents will these released terrorists murder so Obama can make the EU and US left happy by reversing successful Bush war policies?
Okay. What would have happened to the fellow if he'd been put through the US justice system?
Cite?
If he attempts to move them inside the United States, inviting attacks to free the prisoners, Obama will face a firestorm of opposition from the GOP and the representatives of both parties from any states gaining these terrorists.
Luckily Jack Bauer will be on the case when the Jihadis highjack the CTU mainframe and coordinate an attack on a supermax prison. Boop. Beep. Boop. Beep.
Not true. Murtha has stated he is more than happy to have them in Penn. I guess he figures his backward and racist citizens (his words, not mine) will be somehow positively giddy to have a bunch of terrorists in their midst.
Has anyone considered that at least 100 of the prisoners in Gitmo are from Yemen? Bush has been trying to get rid of most of these fellows for over 2 years. Their country of origin won't take them back, or he can't send them to their country of origin as they may be tortured and he is legally prevented from sending them back to a country that engages in torture. (The real kind, not the pretend kind of the Left) In addition, it is obviously beyond stupid to send any of them to Yemen. The USS Cole bombers have already been let out of prison in Yemen to continue their work, I presume. Not a good resume, that.
The Red Cross is there on site at Gitmo. There has not been one documented instance of torture that I am aware of.
Also, what do you have against U.S. prisoners? Need I remind you that the people in prison in the US are Americans? What a grand plan. Put people into American prisons who are sworn to kill Americans.
Do you really think it will matter to them that the people they are killing are criminals? Since they are more than willing to kill women and children and other innocents, I doubt killing American criminals will bother them.
I would have thought that prisoners in America have enough problems. I am rather surprised that a bunch of lawyers want to ensure their death.
From a quick look through the comments on this thread the guy was totally innocent, rich, and just happened to be picked up for no obvious reason. Then, because he was water boarded, he became radicalised in prison causing him to join AQ and then become a leading member in a record short time.
According to the news reports he was in Afghanistan following a trip to Iran (he says to buy persian rugs for his store in Ryhad). While in Afghanistan he was wounded by an air strike forcing him to be sent to a Pakistani hospital. No statement as to how he got to Pakistan or who paid for his treatment but it was when he was released from hospital that he went into US custody. The military believes he was trained in urban warfare at a AQ camp in Afghanistan, brought money to AQ from Saudi Arabia when he arrived, and arrange travel plans for members through Iran.
No documents that say he was water boarded, no indication that he was ever treated harshly in anyway (other then being bombed) and documents that he stated he didn't follow Osama and just wanted to go home. In the end he was returned to his native land and then released by that government (though what he went through there is anyone's guess). He then closed the store and moved to Yemen to become the number 2 of AQ within a year.
Sounds too much like one of our resident gang bangers: shot while fleeing cops, treated, sent to jail, let out on good behavior and now because he has cred he's a major member of the gang.
Oh, you're a riot RPT! Let's see, "anonymously sourced..." Where have we heard a phrase like that before? Oh yeah, every day for the past 8 years! But then it was okay, because the "anonymous source" was trying to hang Bush and our country's fight against terrorism. Right, RPT?"
What are you talking about? I like credited and attributed sources and full disclosure! Full investigation! What are you afraid of in the full evaluation of each of the remaining detainees?
Obama's in office less than a week and he's already slaughtering innocent Muslim men, women and children in countries we're not even at war with.
What an overachiever!
So, if a few years in Guantanamo transformed a peaceful, innocent goatherd like Said al-Shihri into a top-level terrorist who hates the U.S. and wants to destroy it, how many death-to-the-infidel! fanatics do you think this particular Obama-ordered massacre created?
Also, if keeping Gitmo open neutralized some of our most effective rhetoric and diplomacy because we were imitating Joe Stalin, how much more does our rhetoric and diplomatic efforts suffer with Obama's directing military incursions into sovereign "allied" nations that end up snuffing out a few of their civilians?
Odd. That didn't stop the Bush administration from sending Maher Arar or that one German guy off to other countries to be tortured at our behest.
In addition, it is obviously beyond stupid to send any of them to Yemen. The USS Cole bombers have already been let out of prison in Yemen to continue their work, I presume. Not a good resume, that.
Just send them to Saudi Arabia. I hear they love terrorists. Right President Bush?
Need I remind you that the people in prison in the US are Americans?
So the Mexican national that was executed in Texas wasn't really a Mexican national? I learn something new every day. I'm also pretty sure the guys that were convicted and sent to prison for the '93 WTC bombing weren't Americans either. For some odd reason the Legion of Jihadis haven't flown their giant Hall of Jihad to any of the prisons those terrorists are being held at, much to the dismay of 24's writing staff.
Do you really think it will matter to them that the people they are killing are criminals?
Seriously? You think the guys in prison are going to be scared of terrorists? Boop. Beep. Boop. Beep.
What are you talking about? My post gives him the exact title that appears in the NYT.
I asked because I'm not familiar with his story. Thought someone might make an educated guess.
I see you have no answers to the points I raised. Nothing like sarcasm as a cover for an inability to answer the points.
I really didn't want to raise the whole Mexican National thing. It seemed superfluous to the thread. However, I assure you that I am well aware of it. I live in a county in Arizona where 30% of the inmates are Mexican Nationals. We are running out of room and money housing them. I imagine they could form some interesting alliances especially when it comes to smuggling terrorists into the US over the border. At least the non-US citizens can put their time in our jails to good use. Comforting thought, that. However, I still maintain that Mexican Nationals in our jails and this thread are apropos to nothing.
But how could we have possibly known? Just because he said so over and over during the campaign? Who really believed that, right? Certainly not the folks who called him a liar (and now realize he meant it) when he said he more or less agreed with them.
Hmmm... for those who view the killing of innocents as acceptable collateral damage in the WOT, that's not a bad kill rate, at least compared to some of our bombing runs.
Maybe he's a sleeper...
What points? That foreigners are held in US prisons (for terrorism, no less)? That President Bush had no problem sending people to countries that torture (innocent people in the two cases I mentioned).
As far as Mexican nationals teaming up with terrorists, you might want to see if Ramzi Yousef has had any luck. He's been held at a Supermax prison in Colorado for over a decade now. Do you think the US is going to toss international terrorists into Rikers? Boop. Beep.
Did someone read him his rights?
"I'm surprised that he wasn't on the Pledge to Obama video posted earlier."
Cmon, man. That was funny. Courtesy Houston Lawyer. Btw, how come every jihadist dude we indict, capture or shoot is number 2?
Get me frickin' bin Laden or that dope Zawahiri, and the rest of these monkeys will go back to selling rugs.
"These people WANT to be terrorists."
There's where you go wrong. They're not really people, you see, they're brown people, and thus either know not what they do, or else if they know, its just false consciousness. In any case, we're the ones responsible, like parents and their minor children.
Boys will be boys!
IANAL.
My guess is the defense team led by Ramsey Clark and Lynn Stewart call immediately for boatloads of classified material.
That would have the happy consequence of giving the terrs a virtual Lincoln Tunnel into our intel agencies. The prosecution, deciding that's a bad idea, drops the case. The guy walks.
Win one way, win the other, for Clark and Stewart.
Or, the judge decides to review said boatload and figure out which is okay to tell the world and which not.
Given the judges we have, half of them would allow/require a fabulous treasure trove of intel for the terrs into the trial.
The other half refuse the defense request, giving the defense a martyr/podium. Since the fate of the defendant is of no import to the jihadi enablers, his execution, should we be so lucky, is a win. As Sacco and Vanzetti would have been chumps had they been acquitted, their value, was as martyrs.
So, if no intel for the defense, at least they have a martyr and a tainted trial.
Others hereabout may have different expectations. Or claim to.
In a recent thread, holsinger made the exact same bogus point that you made, and then I proved he was wrong, and then he disappeared. I can't imagine why.
Are you going to disappear, or just ignore the proof? There are some other possibilities, but I consider them unlikely.
================
mac:
I guess you didn't notice what Crawford said.
If you are talking about peaceful muslims who already don't like America, and put one of them in that same scenario with America being the captor/tormentor, I'd say the chances of the formerly peaceful muslim becoming an anti-American terrorist is as close to 100% as can be.
So this begs several questions:
1. If we KNEW this guy was dangerous, why did we let him go?
2. If he was not dangerous, then why did we capture him?
3. If he was not dangerous when captured and has now become an anti-American terrorist, then how are WE not to blame for turning him in to a terrorist?
With respect to #3, to ignore the fact that WE are responsible for turning him into a terrorist takes a very special kind of ignorance that I've come to expect from the "America can do no wrong" crowd. But even then, you really have to be a moron to fail to have this reality at least register in your brain momentarily.
And we didn't just capture him. We captured him and held him for a long time. And very likely mistreated him. So if he was not dangerous, why did we not just capture him, but also hold him so long, and mistreat him?
We didn't know he was a terr. It's unlikely to the point of impossibility that he was an innocent and not only was radicalized, but trained for leadership at Gitmo.
Our process for figuring out who was which is flawed.
The point about this clown is to demonstrate that we really do have bad guys there.
About the only way to convince a lib of that is to let one go and see what he does.
Then we have the radicalizing excuse.
Tell me, Bruce. How did we miss getting so many as one bad guy? Not one.
Mr. Murtha is nothing less than a complete loon and thus the exception that proves most rules. However, if the Obama Administration actually takes Murtha up on his suggestion to move Gitmo to Hershey, PA, then the incredibly irresponsible voters who actually re-elected this loon in 2008 deserve everything they get.
Perhaps you can explain what they would get, other than trials and attorneys staying in their hotels? Thus far, I know of no cases where terrorist suspects have escaped from custody.
Crawford, in the article you sited, also wrote this.
"There's no doubt in my mind he would've been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Crawford said of Qahtani, who remains detained at Guantanamo. "He's a muscle hijacker. . . . He's a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don't charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, 'Let him go.' "
Yes, the military was mean to him. I think we have redefined torture here. Ask Daniel Pearl how he would define torture. Oh, you can't as they cut off his head for being a Jew.
This is not an intellectual game. It is life and death. Need I remind you of the 3,000 dead or do they not count?
Amen!
If we had provided due process from the start he would never have been released.
You mean that an agency which is so mean that they didn't provide due process for seven years got an attack of the conscience and let a known terr go as an act of repentance.
Please let us know if you can find an example of anyone claiming there are no "bad guys there."
=================
mac:
The one who has "redefined torture" is you. Crawford served as General Counsel of the Army (under Reagan) and Inspector General of the Department of Defense (under Bush I). Bush I appointed her "to the nation's highest military court in 1991 for a fifteen year term and [she] later served as its chief judge from 1999 - 2004." Then under Bush II she was selected to be in charge of detainee trials.
Please explain what you know that she doesn't regarding the proper definition of "torture."
According to Crawford, we weren't just "mean to him." According to Crawford, we tortured him.
If your knowledge of how to properly define "torture" is better than hers, then why did Bush put her in charge of detainee trials? He should have appointed you instead.
Please explain why "the 3,000 dead" are an excuse for lawlessness.
Then again, maybe your point is that they'd be alive if someone had tortured Bush into paying attention to the 8/6/01 PDB, instead of spending the next month clearing brush.
In all fairness to President Bush, he paid good money for that show ranch so he could play cowboy.
I thought they should be treated as innocent until proven guilty. If so, and since no one has been convicted of anything, don't we have to presume that there are no bad guys there?
No. And let me know if you can find an answer to the question that aubrey is ducking.
The US accepted with a number of caveats, including the following:
“That with reference to article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.'
The caveat leaves the US with a lot of lattitude. Did Crawford read the statute or did she make up her own definition?
Duh. She made up it up. Just what we need in our judges.
Not sure if you're talking to me:
The Gitmo thing, and other prisoners of the current unpleasantness has a new wrinkle:
Not state actors. Not uniformed fighting services. No declared war. It appears to some important that we can't predict the end of the war (???)so we'd know how long to hold these clowns.
If we had a war against a state or some organized force, we'd be treating these guys as generic POWs. Simply being in arms against the US is not a crime. So, if you're captured, you're not a criminal, you're a POW. This bunch, however, lacks everything that would qualify them as soldiers meriting POW status. Merely being in arms against us or the country where they're fighting is a crime.
They should be criminals. They are criminals. But various interpretations of various laws require us to treat them as sorta POWs. Plus we want to know what they know.
Lastly, the left wants us to think we have chosen from among the thousands of prisoners taken in various nations only innocent shepherds. And we spend huge amounts of money keeping them.
So we need to find out if they were in arms against us.
Then we have to worry about whether that's really that bad. Who's fault is everything, anyway?
So far, nothing remarkable.
The problem is that, as some guy said, with new circumstances, we must think anew.
We presume they were taken in arms, and, at least, would be POWs. Except they're not. Besides, it would mean we hold them until the end of the war, which seems a long way off. And it would be impolitic to treat them as ordinary criminals.
Reasonably, it should be sufficient to discover if they were in arms against us. If so, they're POWs or criminals. But lefties don't think the latter. They want a showing of an individual crime, apart from simply fighting as bandits.
If they weren't in arms, they should be let go.
But the other guys present a problem which is new. They, and current interpretation of law.
Nobody knows what to do, although many know what they would like.
We can "assume their guilt" if they're caught in combat. That is all that is necessary. By definition. But some folks don't think that is guilt of anything and we need some kind of trial to find out if they were actually captured in combat.
That's neat because the evidence is pretty slim. The guy shows up on a chopper, bound hand and foot and the unit which captured him says they caught him in combat. He does not have a uniform or military ID. The guys who caught him are now out of the service and probably unreachable.
Now what?
The snippy comment about Bush and his ranch comes as a surprise. I thought his critics wanted him to get out of Dodge, and busy himself with something other than affairs of state. Now we've reached the point in our partisanship at which the other side's guys are to be criticized for choosing to cut brush and ride the fences in retirement?
Or are you worried that his clearing of shrubbery will spawn terrorists motivated to attack our nation?
I'd ask what post-presidential lifestyle Bush-haters would recommend for Bush. But I have a suspicion that some people would criticize anything that he did. For my money, I like the idea of former presidents essentially going away for a while. At least for the first term of their successor.
I admire Bush tremendously, and think history will give him high marks.
GHWB, that is.
And I give that Bush very high marks for largely keeping his mouth shut about the Clinton Administration through its first term, and into the second. I am sure that you are happy to see the GWB Administration ended. Perhaps you'd be surprised that I feel exactly the same way; I didn't vote for Obama, but I am not sorry that we have a new president this week.
But the pointless bashing of GWB for the sake of bashing GWB is worse than stale. You won. Now, I hate sore losers. Thus I have congratulated my friends who worked on President Obama's campaign.
How about some graciousness in victory?
If we had a war against a state or some organized force, we'd be treating these guys as generic POWs. Simply being in arms against the US is not a crime. So, if you're captured, you're not a criminal, you're a POW."
For heaven's sake. Read the Geneva Conventions. If you operate out of uniform hiding among the civilian population you have no rights as a POW.
The Constitution creates a presumption of legal innocence (actually, legal "non-guilt" -- there's a difference). That just means until a defendant has gotten his full Constitutional due process, he can't be considered guilty by the legal system. That doesn't mean we can't draw our own conclusions based on our personal experiences and common sense. We all do it, and there's nothing wrong with it.
The criminal justice system found O.J. Simpson not guilty of murdering Nicole and Ron. Do you think that means we're supposed to pretend we don't think he did it?
This should be good...
Er, no. Bush bought the ranch right before running for president and now that he has left office he is moving to Dallas. The entire bit about "clearing brush" was a show put on to make the Ivy League educated son of a political dynasty seem folksy. You know, the kind of guy you want to have a beer with. Now that his term is over there's no reason for the pretense.
Please explain why three R presidents gave very senior positions to a person who is inclined to make things up.
And let us know if you actually have any evidence to support the serious accusation you're making. Please we explain why we shouldn't believe that it's you, not her, who is making things up.
Correct. But it's not true that you have "no rights" (and that claim is often made).. Common Article 3 requires that you be treated humanely.
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sg:
I'm making a distinction between what aubrey accuses his opponents of saying, and what they are actually saying.
If you arrest someone, it's because you think they're a "bad guy." And then you're obliged to either prove it, or release him.
No one is saying that no one at Gitmo is a "bad guy." What I (and others) are saying is that we're obliged to conduct a timely, fair process to separate the ones who are provably "bad guys" from the ones who aren't. And the ones in the latter category (and only those in the latter category) need to be released. Did Bush accomplish this? I don't think so. It appears that people have been released who should not have been released, and people have been held who should not have been held. Typical Bush: SNAFU.
Let's recall what you said:
The doctrine of 'innocent until proven guilty' means we can't lock someone up indefinitely. We have to be able to prove he's guilty (and that affirmative burden is ours; he doesn't have to prove he's innocent). But we don't arrest someone to begin with unless we think we're going to be able to do that. So they're not "treated as innocent" in the extreme sense that your question implies. Being fully "treated as innocent" would mean that you're not arrested, to begin with. Because if you believe the person is innocent, you don't arrest them.
No. If you started with the presumption that the person is not a bad guy, then you wouldn't arrest him to begin with. The fact you arrested him means you think he's a bad guy. But then you have to go ahead and actually convict him, or release him. This is what Bush failed to do.
And this is why your 'logic' looks like flippant sophistry. We don't "have to presume that there are no bad guys there" in order to call for due process, and in order to point out that even the "bad guys there" are entitled to due process, and that we have a burden to either prove they're "bad guys" or release them.
And let's recall what aubrey said:
The point about this clown (aubrey) is that he chronically relies on lame, pathetic straw-man arguments. No one has claimed that we don't "have bad guys there." I'm still waiting for him to show an example of someone making that claim.
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aubrey:
Bullshit. GC requires us to treat them humanely. It does not require us to treat them as POWs, or even "sorta POWs."
You seem to be claiming that all the people we captured were "fighting as bandits." But it turns out that most of the Gitmo detainees "have never been accused of committing a hostile act against the United States" (link, pdf). So I hope you'll tell us what "fighting as bandits" is supposed to mean. If a farmer has a gun in his house, does that mean he's part of the group that's "fighting as bandits?" Or is he trying to protect his family from bandits?
You're obviously an expert on all this, so hopefully you'll give us some answers.
Some folks (like you) think that most of our captives were "caught in combat" even though they weren't.
Try getting a clue. That's not what "the unit which captured him says." Analysis of our own records (see the above pdf) prove that our own guys admit that most of the captives were not "caught in combat."
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hoosier:
The problem is not what he's doing "in retirement." The problem is after reading the famous PDB he spent a month acting like a guy "in retirement."
I'd ask why you're pretending that someone made a complaint about Bush's "post-presidential lifestyle." No one in this thread made that complaint. I see that like aubrey, you prefer to argue with a straw man.
Here's some "graciousness in victory:" Bush did a wonderful job working on AIDs in Africa.
That doesn't mean he shouldn't be tried as war criminal.
With malice toward none, with charity for all . . .
Whatever happened to the better angels if our nature anyway?
So the answer to my request for graciousness is "no"? Or "Er, no," to quote one of my VC friends.
Bush is not selling the ranch, ferchristsakes. When Dr. Mrs. Hoosier and I lived in Dallas, we used to make day-trips out to Waco to visit friends at Baylor. It didn't seem all that big a deal to us.
I suppose you are suggesting that Bush doesn't actually plan on working the ranch? That he doesn't actually like the place, though reports from those who know him say he loves it and feels most comfortable there?
But I suppose anything that anyone says is an attempt at deception if it portrays Bush in a human light. This level of bile is unfortunate, and I'm happy to have been spared your burden.
When I read your comments on VC, I shall have to keep that in mind.
"charity for all . . ."
Charity is from the same root as "Christ", and that stuff on Aaron's beard. Showing any would be a violation of the separation of Church and Progressivism. Then again, that root also gave us "charisma", so maybe our new Prez will make it cool again.
I have. Here's one of the things I've learned: you have a long track record of inventing your own facts, and then disappearing when challenged (example). So I'm not the least bit surprised that you're not making even a feeble attempt to document the claims you made here.
There you go again. I invent nothing.
Then it must have been an entirely different davod who posted fiction here and then promptly crawled back under a rock after being exposed as a fabricator.
GWB is not human, he is Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, Satan, the Lord of the Flies, Liar, Deceiver, the Void, the Very Absence of Light. He is all that and he is worse still. The imaginative fantastical ≡ reality because pick-nose members of the commentariat obdurately need it to be so, obdurately insist it is so, with endless variations and repetitions. It is these pick-nose elect who are the light and the givers of light - and we are to be thankful.
- we found the weapons of mass destruction
- he wouldn't let them in
- a wiretap requires a court order
But then "Bringer of Light" is the literal meaning of "Lucifer" in Latin. So they are fine ones to talk, aren't they?
Revealing, idnit?
I should have said "one translation," since "a translation" is, I now see, ambiguous. I was trying to suggest that this is not "the translation."
I don't know enough about the language to choose one translation over the other; I studied it for only a short time. But it can be elliptical, since it is a syllabary language. People who have studies Chinese tell me that Mandarin is the same way: You put syllable in a certain order, and the order tells how to read the string of syllables.
The example that sticks in my head as most interesting--from Ho's lifetime-- is "ai quoc."
Ai = Love.
Quoc = country; nation; land
So "ai quoc" = (he) loves (the) nation = "patriot"
Fascinating. But hard. I can't say how "Chi Minh" comes to mean both of these translations. Here's one example of the one I mentioned, however.
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