For another it's been working for the past 6 years.
If by 'working', you mean 'making sure that people who might very well be innocent have no chance to appeal their charges or contest their detention', then you're right.
If by 'working', you mean 'upholding American belief systems in the rule of law and the concept of equal justice', then it's a cataclysmic fail. But you don't care, because you figure that it'll never happen to you.
Obama has practically said that some of these detainees will never be processed through our court system. No appeals, no witnesses, no trial.
So how does Obama figure in to your defintion of cataclysmic failire/
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Hopefully we can stop that from happening. The "preventative detention" idea being floated is not acceptable even with restored habeas rights. We'll need to see more specifics.
For another it's been working for the past 6 years.
If by 'working', you mean 'making sure that people who might very well be innocent have no chance to appeal their charges or contest their detention', then you're right.
If by 'working', you mean 'upholding American belief systems in the rule of law and the concept of equal justice', then it's a cataclysmic fail. But you don't care, because you figure that it'll never happen to you.
Obama has practically said that some of these detainees will never be processed through our court system. No appeals, no witnesses, no trial.
So how does Obama figure in to your defintion of cataclysmic failire/
This is where you or I differ. Even though I voted for and supported Obama, I think he's wrong on the issue and will loudly say so. You, however, voted for and supported Bush when he broke the law and continue to do so with all kinds of evasions.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
Moving the terrorists out of Gitmo, and scaling back (not closing) the facility are both valuable feel good measures that would definitely improve world opinion of us dirty Americans. I get it, don't see any problem with it. Moving terrorist (suspects) to the U.S. isn't going to endanger any of us. The people who live in my neighborhood are a hell of a lot more dangerous to me on a daily basis than Al Qaida ever was.
Hell there is a large, empty prison in Hardin, Montana that would be a perfect place to torture....erm I mean detain terrorists. At least it is a place that both sides of the issue would be happy with. The Dems can be happy that the terrorists are being afforded their basic human rights, and the Reps can be happy that mother nature will take care of the torture for them (you know what that means if you ever lived in eastern Montana).
In the end, I don't get that this is a huge deal anyway. Move them or not, who fucking cares. If the new administration can't fix the problem even if it means keeping the facility open, then they are no better than the last administration. I think they can do it, but they have to stop talking and start doing.
I was going to post, but Torakus beat me to saying it all. I suspect that the cost of imprisoning someone at Gitmo would be significantly higher than stateside so it makes simple financial sense to move them alongside all the taint that's surrounded Gitmo itself.
Come to think of it, why does the US still bother with Gitmo itself anyway? Seems an awfully expensive political statement against a rather insignificant country.
Cost is not really a factor because they are all sunk costs. Gitmo already existed as a detention facility for refugees, and is manned by the military. The only way I can see cost being a factor no matter where they are housed is if the administration would follow Embar's suggestion and build a new facility stateside.
And we've had a naval base in Cuba since like the Teddy Roosevelt days. It's not a statement against Castro. One could argue that with the modern aircraft carrier foreign naval bases are a thing of the past.....but that is another topic entirely.
Closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and holding detainees domestically under a new system of preventive detention would simply "move Guantánamo to a new location and give it a new name," said Michael Ratner , president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The pathetic thing is you think that's a reason not to close Gitmo. You don't care about "preventative detention" the same way you didn't care about torture.
Obama is wrong about his plan for "preventative detention". The same groups that opposed Bush's torture programs (which Obama ended) and indefinite detentions without trial will fight Obama on this issue. Obama is wrong, even though it will only be used on a handful of people and they won't be tortured and they will have limited habeas rights.
Closing Guantanamo and mainstreaming the process for how the detainees are handled is the critical first step to ending wrong headed ideas like this, it's not a reason for leaving it open.
I think the arguement being made, Lurker, is that until the US is ready to abolish unlimited detention, there is no reason to close Gitmo.
Whether we should end unlimited detention or not is a subject for another debate, but for now, as long as the US is going to do it, then Gitmo is just fine. Your argument seems to be drifting towards the question of legitimacy concering unlimited detention. That's really not the core of the debate in this thread.
In fact, you should probably be arguing to keep Gitmo open until the practice of unlimited detention is abolished. Why? Because as others have noted, Gitmo serves as a symbol. But if you disperse 200 detainees around the country and close Gitmo, you also disperse the power of the symbol. Not many will care about 200 individuals languishing in US prisons, and they lose the power of the symbol. At the very least, it's much easier to rally around somethnig like Gitmo than it is to rally around 200 different personalities.
Closing Gitmo would have the opposite effect of what you want. It will prolong the policy of indefinite detentions by defusing and diluting political pressure.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Where are you getting the 200 number from? There are 240 people at Gitmo at the moment. Almost all of them will be tried in federal court, tried by a military commission, or released.
Interesting theory about keeping Gitmo open as a rallying cry against indefinite detention of the detainees. Twisted but interesting. Following your theory and logic, you should be arguing to close Gitmo so you can disperse the symbol and continue the indefinite detention that you've supported all these years. Of course, taking advice from someone who doesn't care about the topic or wants a different result probably wouldn't be smart.
I think I've said in this thread that any number of solutions would work. Gitmo is fine. Building another facility is fine. Dispersing them is fine. I actually think moving some to European countries and keeping some here is the best solution, and ensures that this remains a world-community issue, not just a US one. As much as the Europeans have decried Gitmo, I don't see any standing up and volunteering to take some. (Although I think Sarkozy gave some lip service to the idea)
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Of course I support unlimited detention.....while there are still open hostilities between the US and Al Queda and the Taliban certainly. Even in war you don't release PoW's while the war rages on.
Are you saying you are against unlimited detention of fighters hostile to the US?
If they are PoWs then there's no trials and the implicit understanding they will be freed without restrictions once the "war" is over. I don't think that's the sort of detention anyone is talking about.
Of course, the whole concept of a "war" against terror is all kinds of fucked up stupid anyway.
Well, it’s the Super-Monroe Doctrine: “Get off our oil, people who dress funny!” - M. Bouffant
"You're a bad captain, Zarde. People like you only learn by being touched, and hard. And you will greatly disapprove of where these men put their hands." - M. Vanderbeam.
