Here's what's going to happen:
(1) Several detainees will be tried (and some, likely, will be convicted and confined)
(2) The rest will be returned to their homelands and many of those will be killed (no one wants these people roaming free in their country because they are [b][i]dangerous[/b][/i]--if they weren't dangerous, this would be a non-issue).
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
I am confused about the argument here and why you keep asking if Canada is going to take these detainees, Sven?
Guantanamo should be closed and trials based on the rule of law and due process should happen immediately. Any detainees found innocent should be returned to exactly where they were found. That includes Khadr.
The problem with returning all detainees to their respective homelands is that many of them will be persecuted and killed.
The question then becomes: What do you do with those detainees?
Politically, it would be impossible for Obama to simply release them in the United States. Gitmo would stay in place before that happened. So, several European countries are considering taking in detainees to assist Obama (who didn't create Gitmo) with the closing of the camp.
Some, like FM, just say, "Fuck you. You solve the problem. It's your problem." What is unsaid is: "No fuckin' way do I want dangerous people like that roaming free in Canada!"
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
There are people being tortured all over the world; we cannot take in every one of them. Us/Canada etc. should never have gone into Afghanistan or Iraq. We should leave and return any of its citizens that were taken. End of story. They can apply in due process for refugee status and wait in line.
I think I understand now. The U.S. saved all these detainees from persecution, torture, and death in their home countries. Guantanamo is a kind of safe haven.
Thanks, Sven, for clarifying that point. We should definitely keep Gitmo open, so those poor folks can feel secure.
When did you say you were moving there?
Here's what's going to happen:
(1) Several detainees will be tried (and some, likely, will be convicted and confined)
(2) The rest will be returned to their homelands and many of those will be killed (no one wants these people roaming free in their country because they are [b][i]dangerous[/b][/i]--if they weren't dangerous, this would be a non-issue).
Don't complain to us. Complain to your government. It wasn't "politically impossible" for them to grab people at random from foreign countries and confine them, torture them, interrogate them, deny them legal counsel, and deny them habeas corpus, but somehow it's "politically impossible" to release them?
You didn't try to get Canada to take OJ Simpson after he was acquitted, did you? Apparently it wasn't "politically impossible" to release that dangerous man back into the US society.
What about Posada Carriles, the terrorist who is living free in the USA?
What about Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, and dozens of other dangerous and powerful terrorists and mass murderers who are allowed to live among decent folk in the USA?
Politically impossible? Only because people like you let them get away with it.
I'd be happy to accept these poor abused people into Canada, as refugees even, from the crazy tyranny of Guantanamo Bay.
But as free people, if they were released into either Canada or the US, wouldn't they be able to cross the border like other people? So would it really a big difference which nation they were released into? Or will America release them into other nations and then still bar them from ever visiting the USA?
I am pretty damned sure these detainees will never want to step another foot in the Land O the Free if they ever get released.
Politically, it would be impossible for Obama to simply release them in the United States.
As was mentioned before, the U.S. government has welcomed some of the lowest of the low with open arms. They've knowingly and willfully harboured the lowest of the low from international justice. Your government does what it wants, Sven.
Releasing the "confessed" 9-11 mastermind and all those civilians abducted in Pakistan and labelled "al Qa'eda", picked off the streets and mule paths in Afghanistan and Iraq, London, Morocco, Haiti etc by the inquisition would be tantamount to Jack Ruby sleeping in on the day he was supposed to shoot Oswald. KSM and the rest of the most dangerous "al Qa'eda" are patsies, Sven. Obama's job will be to sign the execution order for these highest ranking patsies before any of them actually receive a fair trial or talk to anyone with any investigative news credentials.
But it sounds like they have nothing on the likes of Khadr. The evidence surrounding his case apparently does not represent a compromise of "national security"
I think I understand now. The U.S. saved all theI think I understand now. The U.S. saved all these detainees from
persecution, torture, and death in their home countries. Guantanamo is
a kind of safe haven.se detainees from
persecution, torture, and death in their home countries. Guantanamo is
a kind of safe haven.
The incredible thing, you know, is that they actually believe their own bullshit after a while. Sven will actually convince himself that Guantamano is being kept open so that people who have been physically and psychologically tortured by his country for years won't be harmed if sent home.
[Unionist, slapping self in head:]
Got it!
GW Bush opened Guantanamo for [b]really bad[/b] reasons.
Barracks Obomber will keep it open - for [b][i]really nice[/i][/b] reasons!
I humbly thank you, Sven! It sometimes gets too chilly up here in winter to follow simple Amurrikan logic.
A repentant nation of torturers, if its repentance be true, must document its crime, apologize for it, legislate against it, and begin the great work of decades to repair what can be repaired.The greatest act of repair is the trial and punishment of the criminals: those who ordered the torture, those who implemented it, those who abetted it. The greater the number of senior torturers tried--Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Gonzales, Ms. Rice, Mr. Tenet, and Mr. Rumsfeld for a start--the fewer trials need be held of torture's thousand grunts and straw bosses. What is vital (I mean the term literally, for lives hang in the balance) is that the tortured have the chance to confront their torturers in court. The victims need the catharsis of seeing the once omnipotent authority brought low, the demi-god made human. Their thirst to be safe again, which we can never fully slake, can be partly relieved by showing that even crimes committed in dark cells in the distant wastelands of empire can be brought to light and the criminals punished.
Where trials are not possible (though in America they are) a victim may find lesser relief in a victim-driven truth-and-reconciliation commission of the kind South Africa used to reckon with Apartheid. What will not do is an inquiry of the kind Mr. Obama is contemplating, a variant of the 9/11 Commission, which will give the victim little public voice, will levy no penalties, and will urge him to "trust the authorities" about crimes that include abuse of the highest authority and savage ruptures of trust.
But even trials will not be enough. [b]The United States, having damaged its victims for life, must also offer them care--medical, psychological, financial--for life. The innocence or guilt of the victims, all of whom Bush has accused of terrorism and some of whom may be guilty, is irrelevant to our duty.[/b]
If we repair the individual, we will also repair humanity, which is our burden too since torture, though we try to forget, is a crime against humanity. Millions of Muslim innocents have come to fear our midnight knock, our black hood descending swiftly over their eyes, and they deserve peace from our terror. When we give it to one, we give it to all. And in doing so--here, an argument even an American president might understand--we dissuade a few young men from strapping bombs to their chests.
[url=http://www.counterpunch.org/hendricks01092009.html][color=mediumblue][u]... The Torturer-elect[/u][/color][/url]
[Unionist, slapping self in head:]
Got it!
GW Bush opened Guantanamo for [b]really bad[/b] reasons.
Barracks Obomber will keep it open - for [b][i]really nice[/i][/b] reasons!
I humbly thank you, Sven! It sometimes gets too chilly up here in winter to follow simple Amurrikan logic.
Who said that Obama wants to keep Gitmo open?
The "simple Amurrikan logic" is: Obama wants to close Gitmo. That's pretty simple to follow. And, having grown up on the Canadian border in northern Minnesota, I know that even cold Canadian winters do not make that kind of logic too difficult to follow.
The high-falutin (yet equally simple) Soviet Canuckistan logic:
America = Evil™ (always...and forever, at least until a Chavesesque leader someday, and blessedly, rules the land).
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
M. Spector, that is about as likely to happen as Iran and Israel joining hands tomorrow morning and singing kumbaya around a campfire.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Who said that Obama wants to keep Gitmo open?
[size=20]Obama did![/size]
And so, we return to the opening post - and so, the circle is complete:
In particular, he said, [b]he was unlikely to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in the first 100 days of his presidency[/b].
"It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize -- and we are going to get it done -- but part of the challenge ..... is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, [b]many of whom who may be very dangerous, who have not been put on trial[/b] or have not gone through some adjudication," Obama said.
While some evidence against terrorism suspects may be tainted by the tactics used to obtain it, Obama said, that doesn't change the fact [b]there are "people who are intent on blowing us up."[/b]
So, Guantanamo has to be kept open until the "trials" are finished and the "very dangerous" people "who are intent on blowing us up" have been - whatever.
Now, explain how that is different from George W. Bush's policy. I don't recall him saying, "I want to keep Gitmo open long after all the detainees have been tried and sentenced." I may have missed that quote.
On this front - as on Israel, Iran, Afghanistan - there is no discernible substantive difference between the two presidents.
Now, that may change. I hope.
M. Spector, that is about as likely to happen as Iran and Israel joining hands tomorrow morning and singing kumbaya around a campfire.
So what's your point? That people shouldn't speak the truth because powerful people don't want to hear it?
Unionist, you take that to mean that he [i]wants[/i] to keep Gitmo open?
Like I've been saying, it's not as simple as those who wear shit-colored glasses would seem to believe.
You say you want [u]expediency[/u]? Agree to take all detainees into T.O. and I'm sure we could have Gitmo closed down and all detainees safely tucked away in your neighborhoods within a week following Obama's inauguration.
Oh? You say you're not looking for [b][i]that[/b][/i] kind of "expediency"?!?
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
__Hmmm Sven keeps insistinng that if these people in Gitmo, go home they will be tortured and killed, yet he has provided no proof of this, at all.
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"watching the tide roll away"
M. Spector, that is about as likely to happen as Iran and Israel joining hands tomorrow morning and singing kumbaya around a campfire.
So what's your point? That people shouldn't speak the truth because powerful people don't want to hear it?
Well, the [u]truth[/u] is that I'd like my farts to smell like rose pedals.
But that's not going to happen.
So, I prefer to live in reality.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
__Hmmm Sven keeps insistinng that if these people in Gitmo, go home they will be tortured and killed, yet he has provided no proof of this, at all.
Which is completely beside the point, because even if it's true, it doesn't excuse the USA from doing what is right for those detainees.
__Hmmm Sven keeps insistinng that if these people in Gitmo, go home they will be tortured and killed, yet he has provided no proof of this, at all.
Heck, I'll take your word for it. Let's send 'em home. No skin off my nose.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Well, the [u]truth[/u] is that I'd like my farts to smell like rose pedals.
But that's not going to happen.
So, I prefer to live in reality.
In reality, your farts smell a whole lot better than your political opinions.
In reality, your farts smell a whole lot better than your political opinions.
Well, truth be told, my farts smell like apple plumbs. It ain't rose pedals, which would be my preference, but they smell better than [i]any[/i] political opinions.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Unionist, you take that to mean that he [i]wants[/i] to keep Gitmo open?
No, I take it to mean that he [b]will[/b] keep it open.
By the way, you've been repeating over and over and over and over and over that the only problem is where to send the poor inmates.
Funny, that's not what Eau-Balm-Uh said.
He said the problem is that there's a buncha terra-rists there who want to blow us up and we haven't put them on trial yet.
So I guess he's really saying, they should be released on bail, resettled in Canada and Portugal and other countries, then subpoenaed back for trial as their turn comes up?
By the way, where did you get this invention anyway that Obama is looking for countries to take these people?
Obomba was interviewed today by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week":
As Stephanopolous noted, [b]the most asked question on Obama's own transition website relates to investigating the "crimes" of the Bush administration.[/b]Asked if he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate such matters as warrant-less wire-tapping and torture, Obama demurred.
"We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth," he said. "And obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law.
"On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering."
[url=http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/11][color=mediumblue][u]Sou...
So Sven, you were challenged to provide proof of your assertations and apparently you cannot. So you do not hesitate to be shallow and at best "flp".
What a useless twit you are.
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"watching the tide roll away"
So Sven, you were challenged to provide proof of your assertations and apparently you cannot. So you do not hesitate to be shallow and at best "flp".
What kind of "proof" do you want? The only thing I am citing are the statements of several European countries who have said that many detainees will be persecuted and killed if returned to their homeland.
Evidently, that doesn't satisfy you and you're inclined to simply ship them back to their homelands?
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Sven, do you suspect you're being monitored by shadow feds? Is that why youre not making any sense right now? Because if that's the case, we certainly would understand.
Sven, do you suspect you're being monitored by shadow feds? Is that why youre not making any sense right now? Because if that's the case, we certainly would understand.
Fortunately, unlike some countries...*cough* *cuba* *cough*, I don't worry about what some government aparatchik thinks about what I write.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Fortunately, unlike some countries...*cough* *cuba* *cough*, I don't worry about what some government aparatchik thinks about what I write.
And indeed why should you? Your politics don't present a challenge to them in the slightest!
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"watching the tide roll away"
Fortunately, unlike some countries...*cough* *cuba* *cough*, I don't worry about what some government aparatchik thinks about what I write.
And indeed why should you? Your politics don't present a challenge to them in the slightest!
How the heck to progressive "heros" like Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney manage to stay out of jail in this country? My, my, my. I guess their ideas, like mine, don't "challenge" anyone in power either?
Again, take your shit-colored glasses off. You'll see things better that way.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
I have to agree with you. That was [i]such[/i] a clever repartee.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Unionist, you take that to mean that he [i]wants[/i] to keep Gitmo open?
Like I've been saying, it's not as simple as those who wear shit-colored glasses would seem to believe.
You say you want [u]expediency[/u]? Agree to take all detainees into T.O. and I'm sure we could have Gitmo closed down and all detainees safely tucked away in your neighborhoods within a week following Obama's inauguration.
Oh? You say you're not looking for [b][i]that[/b][/i] kind of "expediency"?!?
__
The anti-Canadian snarl of condescension is a rather unfortunate approach, Sven.
And unfortunately it also led others to respond with anti-"American" comments. Too bad. I would hope we could keep ourselves out of the gutter this low life Sven inhabits. Some of my favourite relatives are US Democrats, Americans, though not Republican losers like Sven.
I fail to see why the straw alternative posed by Sven was the US releasing the prisoners holus bolus into the US general pop. Surely there'd be treatment for them to undo the effects of torture first? A consideration of language training where necessary, protection, support, jobs, etc? Of course, some of them will be so damaged from the Gitmo boys' club that they will never be independent human beings again, sadly, like Omar Khadr, I fear.
I propose that regardless of where they are resettled, the US pays the full cost of resettlement, including full, lifelong treatment and support for those rendered permanently disabled by Gitmo.
These are the things that would be offered to them by other accepting countries. I wonder how come Sven thinks the US is not capable of a proper resettlement program and would just 'release them'?
And why the hell would we care so much about Obama's 'political problem' anyway? lol
Seriously though, I do believe that those against whom the US has not been able to build a case, after all this time, should be immediately released under appropriate resettlement plans and with US funded support.
Frankly, I doubt they'd be safe in the US as the CIA would no doubt swoop them up for it's mind control programs to turn them into CIA ops or assassins.
But then, of course, the CIA operates those programs in several countires including Canada ... hmm
I fail to see why the straw alternative posed by Sven was the US releasing the prisoners holus bolus into the US general pop.
That wasn't Sven's idea, it was mine. I still maintain it's the fair and logical thing to do (Sven doesn't even bother to argue that point, simply dismissing it as being unlikely to happen, and presumably therefore not worth discussing).
For their own protection, as I indicated above, the releasees should be resettled under the witness protection program and given $25 million each in compensation for their ordeal.
Surely there'd be treatment for them to undo the effects of torture first? A consideration of language training where necessary, protection, support, jobs, etc? Of course, some of them will be so damaged from the Gitmo boys' club that they will never be independent human beings again, sadly, like Omar Khadr, I fear.
Yes. All they need is "treatment"...and they will then be good boys who will love peace and sing kumbaya.
Riiiiiiiiight.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
the releasees should be resettled under the witness protection program and given $25 million each in compensation for their ordeal.
Where'd you pull that number from?
Straight from your ass.
Besides, that would make them decidedly "rich" (by any fair definition of that term)...and I thought you hated "rich" people?
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Besides, that would make them decidedly "rich" (by any fair definition of that term)...and I thought you hated "rich" people?
What's wrong with that? Don't you [b]want[/b] me to hate the Guantanamo detainees?
What's wrong with that? Don't you [b]want[/b] me to hate the Guantanamo detainees?
I don't want you to hate anyone.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
I don't want you to hate anyone.
Sorry, I didn't mean to infringe on your territory.
Sven, do you suspect you're being monitored by shadow feds? Is that why youre not making any sense right now? Because if that's the case, we certainly would understand.
Fortunately, unlike some countries...*cough* *cuba* *cough*, I don't worry about what some government aparatchik thinks about what I write.
Right. Those NSA spooks only ever use illegal wiretap on "al Qa'eda" agents of chaos. As M Spector says about your safe political opinions expressed here, you would prolly never have to worry about being disappeared overseas on some secret CIA torture flight in the middle of the am. And you would prolly never see the inside of a torture cell at Gitmo, because you're one of the large minority of Americans who believes in and supports the inquisition. Yours is not to question why.
Sven will want a few of these T-shirts with a change of warmongering plutocrats in the works
As has become apparent in the last few days, at least 30 prisoners -- mostly Yemenis, who now comprise 40 percent of the prison's population -- have recently embarked on hunger strikes at Guantánamo. They are, understandably, incensed that Salim Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, was repatriated in November, to serve out the last month of the meager sentence he received after a trial by Military Commission last summer, while they, who have never been charged with anything, remain imprisoned with no way of knowing if they will ever be released.
[url=http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/11-9][color=mediumblue][u]Andy Worthington[/u][/color][/url]
OBL? Shadow gov severed all covert ties to OBL and his Islamic Gladios some undisclosed time after 1992. Sven, surely you were aware of this?
[url=http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/11-9][color=mediumblue][u]Andy Worthington[/u][/color][/url]
No wonder, then, that many of these men had no useful or "actionable" intelligence to offer to their interrogators at Guantánamo, and how distressing, therefore, to discover that torture techniques were introduced because, in a horrific resuscitation of the witch hunts of the 17th century, prisoners who claimed to have no knowledge of al-Qaeda or the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden were regarded not as innocent men captured by mistake, or foot soldiers recruited to help the Taliban fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the 9/11 attacks and had nothing to do with bin Laden's small and secretive terror network, but as al-Qaeda operatives who had been trained to resist interrogation.
Witch hunts and phony war go together.
So Sven, you were challenged to provide proof of your assertations and apparently you cannot. So you do not hesitate to be shallow and at best "flp".
What kind of "proof" do you want?
Where did Obama say he's looking for places to resettle detainees?
Where did he say that's holding up the closure of Gitmo?
Not saying he didn't say it - just asking for your source.
The anti-Canadian snarl of condescension is a rather unfortunate approach, Sven.
And unfortunately it also led others to respond with anti-"American" comments.
Examples?
What has happened to Sven? I seriously hope he is no human rights lawyer. He just gets further and further right, and resembles the right more and more with every post.
For some sick and strange reason I am actually enjoying the surprised disappointment that some are having at the (shocking!) news that Obama will not leave Iraq right away or close Gitmo in his first 100 days.
I myself was shocked that anyone believed this in the first place and would greatly prefer if Obama would do these things. The fact that he stated he wanted to increase presence in the failed and doomed mission in Afghanistan and mused about invading Pakistan should have easily given it away that he would be in Iraq just as long as Bush would have been and that Gitmo would remain open for awhile. His cabinet and advisor picks are helping some wake up to the fact that there is no "hope and change". "Yes we Can" maintain the status quo!
I need to research the history of Gitmo more, but Obama should close it immediately and hand over control of this land to Cuba. All detainees should be returned to their countries of citizenship. Once there, if they wish to apply for refugee status, go for it. I don't believe they should be bumbed ahead of anyone else in line. He should also immediately end the embargo and travel restrictions with Cuba. Both of these things would not be difficult to do if he actually had any intention of doing them.
Good points Ghislaine.
All detainees should be returned to their countries of citizenship. Once there, if they wish to apply for refugee status, go for it. I don't believe they should be bumbed ahead of anyone else in line.
I suppose that's one way to handle it. But, I thought there were U.N. "rules" about not repatriating people to a country in which they are likely to be persecuted or killed? I may be wrong. But, even if that is not the case, should a person be shipped back to a country if there is a high probability that they will be killed there?
He should also immediately end the embargo and travel restrictions with Cuba.
That is long overdue. The embargo has no purpose (and, as a tertiary side benefit, it will eliminate the ruling party's excuse that the only reason Cuba is failing economically is because of a US embargo--which is absurd).
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Where did Obama say he's looking for places to resettle detainees?
Where did he say that's holding up the closure of Gitmo?
Not saying he didn't say it - just asking for your source.
Fair questions. I don't think he has said it. But it's been written about extensively (at least down here) about the basic problem Obama has: If he can't (or doesn't feel it's right to) send many detainees to their homelands (due to a belief they will be persecuted or killed), then where does he release them? Politically, it would be suicide to simply release them into American society.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
Wow, 99 posts, all about Sven's silly argument. From what I can deduce: Canada has done something to upset Sven, as these are certainly not the first posts of his that reveal some kind of irritation with or jealousy about Canada.
So Sven, on behalf of all Canadians, (except those here who participate on Babble, as I would not presume to speak for them, but I will for others, who don't know I'm speaking for them): We're sorry. Whatever it was we did to ruin your day, or your week or your year, whether it was the server at the coffee house you visited in Toronto or Winnipeg who made the comment about Americans who never bother to buy Canadian money when they come to Canada, whether it was the VIA Rail attendant who got your snack order wrong, or whether it was our own Prime Minister, who perhaps has not had the time to reply to your letter yet, we feel bad that you feel bad about Canada, and if there's anything we can do that will make it up to you, we will do it. [i]Except[/i] clean up your country's foreign policy, human rights, economic or environmental disasters.
And Hoodeet, I didn't know that about Canada's refugee policy. I thought Canada was pretty good about taking refugees in. I don't about about refugees from Iraq, but from war-infested African countries, from the Bosnian crisis, from ruined economies in South and Central America. I'm sure it's pretty sucky, but most likely better than anything the US is doing. Correct me if I'm wrong.
