Kerostasis

Are you serious? I didn't think that argument really needed to be attacked once it was exposed for what it really was, because it was so self-evidently insane. But since you insist, I'll try to explain it to you:

As point one, the majority of your arguments revolve around the concept that it is morally wrong for us to be imprisoning and/or torturing individual people who may or may not actually be guilty of anything. I'm not debating this assertion at the moment, simply bringing it up.

As point two, in response to the suggestion that these actions may be necessary for our continued safety, you replied that they are obviously not necessary for safety because we can ensure our safety via nuclear annihilation of the enemy. In case you'd forgotten already:
As point three, I suggest that it is highly hypocritical to argue that the annihilation of an entire country of innocents should be considered a more morally acceptable option than imprisoning a handful of individuals to prevent it from becoming necessary.

See the counterpoint yet?

Thats a nice quote, mind if I steal it? It applies so well to so much here!

...Ok, moving on.

Again you completely miss the point that I've been emphasizing in every post I've ever made in this thread: Guantanamo is NOT ABOUT PUNISHMENT. That's not the point. Its not why it exists. Its not what its for. Its not relevant to the discussion. That clear enough yet?


Ooh! Ooh! I've got the perfect response to that lying around here somewhere. Where did I put that? Oh right, here it is:
There we go. What on earth do you mean by saying there isn't a standard of evidence? You can talk about having a "high" standard or a "low" standard, but there is always a standard. The question is simply where to place that standard. Likewise with Oversight -- there is absolutely oversight in Gitmo. But its classified internal oversight. It doesn't run through the same oversight channels that govern US Civilian courts, nor should it.


Nowhere did I say that our civil rights caused our level of safety. I said that our pre-existing high level of safety allowed us to enjoy the luxury of high civil rights. Beyond that I'm not real clear on where you're going with this -- it doesn't really contradict anything I said.

It's still amazing how many refuse to acknowledge the existence of the movement that desires the elimination of America. No, of course, we aren't at war, and there aren't any fanatical jihadists willing to kill themselves to bring a handful of Americans down with them. Also, we've never been attacked on our own soil, and our ships are never bombed by small speedboats packed with TNT. And did you know there aren't any Islamic countries planning to attack Israel either? Absolutely no one is trying to wipe them off the map or anything, despite how much those silly Zionists complain about it.

Fair enough, at least this argument is feasible. But there are still those who disagree with you. And while I'd agree Joe-six-pack-Iraq will probably be fairly resentful when he gets out, I'm rather more doubtful that he would decide to kill himself in a suicide attack after being given a new chance at life.

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Hambergler

That is one amazing quote. I would like to think it's careless statement made in the wild throws of a rantathon, so I have to ask. Do you really think they will be grateful after: ruining their reputations (they are now known locally as a terrorists), their women married to other guys, everything they have worked all their lives gone. There kids calling other men daddy, Post traumatic stress disorder ofter all the torture. Years of their lives gone. Do you really think they have anything to live for after this. Except perhaps a nice suicide bombing against the people who caused their destruction.

If your captured on the battlefield thats one thing, but most have been sold into captivity by greedy warlords with AKs.

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Kerostasis

Grateful? I said he'd be resentful, not grateful. But I'm really not sure on that last point overall -- its the one place where I'm willing to give Fenix the benefit of the doubt.

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luna

My biggest issue with Guantanamo is that we are keeping people for extended periods of time without the opportunity to be tried and convicted of any specific crime. I cannot imagine being locked in solitary confinement for 5 years because some local warlord told the Americans I was a terrorist (for which they were paid handsomely) and interrogated day after day. I cannot for the life of me understand why this policy exists under our watch- it's not what I'd call "American" to hold people indefinitely without hope of a trial.

I cannot understand why we would want to be in the position of suspending basic human rights to individuals, regardless of what country they are from or what they are accused of. When a POW is captured, he is supposedly protected by international law. Why on earth wouldn't we want every single person we captured to be protected under those same laws?

As for waterboarding, Sordavie explained in detail exactly what I understand waterboarding to be. If a person believes they are going to die if they don't tell you what you want to hear, that's torture. Period. Let's just call it what it is instead of trying to sugar coat it. Now, whether or not you accept torture as a means to illicit information is another arguement, but let's call waterboarding what it is. If a person has their lungs forcibly filled with water and they are unable to breathe, that is torture. If it were done to our troops, we would be infuriated. Shouldn't we hold everyone to that same standard of basic dignity?

There are many really, really awful people in this world- don't be mistaken. However, if we are stooping so low as to employ inhumane tactics under our watch, how can we make any claim to being any better than they are? Can you imagine what daily life must be like for these people? Without a trial, how can we honestly know if these folks are guilty of whatever we're accusing them of?

Personally, I feel that our standards of justice- innocent until proven guilty, in particular- should be a universal principle. It's hard for us to stand on a moral high ground when we're not extending that basic right to everyone in our care, including those who are interned at camps outside of our sovereign boundaries.

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luna

I also wanted to share this resource that I came across, as I think it will be useful here:

http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/proje...nials-project/

This is from the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas. They are working on a project that collects testimonials from all different first hand sources connected to Guantanamo Bay, including former prisoners, FBI agents, interrogation logs and other valuable sources.

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Jesus had a soulstone.

TheFatKidDeath

Well, at least the detainees are provided a better health care system than what is offered the citizens of the country taxed to detain them.

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[tR]Greasy_mullet

The Govt is NOT responsible to provide Health care. The government would be doing something very illegal if they do but so far they have been getting away with it.

That said, there is NOTHING the government does that the private sector does not do better. We have one of the best systems in the world and people come from all over to use it. The only problem that we have is that their is too much regulation (Thats part of Fascism BTW) and too many lawyers getting fat off of it. These things DRIVE up the costs because not only do Doctors have to get tons of extra and more expensive insurence but they have to make sure they cover all their bases with Patients and give them drugs "Just in case" when they might not need them at all but they do it to cover their own butt.

Its like the housing Market. It crashed because of Govt regualtion. A while back the people making loans were not giving these people loans. Some sued and some asked the govt to step in. They did and made it clear to these lenders that they could not discriminate by not giving loans to these people with bad credit. So in response the lenders adjusted and came up with ways to cover their butts and try and give these people loans. Of course this is not going to work out for either group but its better than getting your butt sued off and losing all you worked for.

I could go on and on but none of that is really part of this topic. On topic these losers are being treated very well. I bet you many people in 3rd world nations would gladly trade places with them. Tourture light that does no permant or lasting damage is fine by me, we would be so luckyif our own guys were treated as nice.

We need to remember that war is hell. It is a horrible thing but something that must be done. To win wars we use many brutal and painful methods for both us and our enimies.

Beatnik

Very well said. I'd +rep you if I could.

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CingularDuality

But we're not trying to determine guilt! We're just gathering information and keeping suspected terrorists away from their social network.

It seems like some people have forgotten that we are involved in a very twisted war. We're not talking about detaining criminals, we're talking about keeping terrorists from blowing things up.

You could. Pony up to the PayPal website, buddy.

Serious answer: Apophis has already told all the SMs that he's working on a solution to the rep spam/abuse issue so that non-SMs can rep again.

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Steeler

Point by point, because I'm feeling contradictory:

Interstate highways
Public works projects (TVA, Hoover Dam)
Going to the moon
Winning WWII
Creating the Internet
I could go on... the private sector would never have done any of these things, even though many entities now within it benefit directly from these accomplishments. SOME things are best handled by markets, SOME are best handled by government. It depends on the quality of the people running said market or government. Believing in the infallibility of either is demonstrably foolish.

Fascist governments (by name or nature) have featured a variety of economic models. Often they use whatever results in the strongest power structure in the least amount of time. Sometimes that means nationalization of private industry and sometimes it means economic collusion between government and the heads of industry. Regulation is a feature of any planned economy, and has been a part of ours since its inception.

Do you understand what a bubble is?
...during the bubble years, the mortgage industry lured millions of people into borrowing more than they could afford, and simultaneously duped investors into investing vast sums in risky assets wrongly labeled AAA. Reasonable estimates suggest that more than 10 million American families will end up owing more than their homes are worth, and investors will suffer $400 billion or more in losses.
-Paul Krugman
Unrestrained capital investment with no long-term consideration of the economic consequences, including the basic ability to get your money back. It became the priority of many lenders, especially in the sub-prime market, to simply make loans and collect the commission. The viability of those loans became a secondary concern. The banks managing those assets failed to keep tabs on the system, and the government failed to execute proper oversight of the situation. I believe Bernanke called it a breakdown in market discipline. Whether or not the borrowers had good or bad credit is not the issue. The problem is that home prices were severely inflated in the first place, so that even those with the ability to pay were left owing more than their home was worth when the collapse came and the rates shifted up.

You would lose that bet. And it show how ignorant you are about the "3rd world." Our forefathers fought a war over self-determination, remember?

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ScratchMonkey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble

As always, read the talk tab and investigate the page's history to identify any bias issues.

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marstein

Here is a report from a guy who tried waterboarding himself.
Next question would be if it is effective. I think you don't really care. Either this nation is holding up the standards of humanity, Christianity and honors it contracts with the rest of the world, or it is not.

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leejo

I would like to see that jackass smash his fingers one at a time and see if he still preferred that to waterboarding, to which he subjected himself VOLUNTARILY.

Tell you what, waterboard yourself, then pull out your fingernails one at a time. Get some local gangsters to pick up your little sister and sodomize her in front of you. Kill her. Cut off a testicle. Smash your kneecap with a hammer. Shock your balls. Have the gangsters pick up your mother and feed her into a meat grinder feet first in front of you. Then waterboard yourself again.

So now you have what? A wet face, a sore nut, a dead sister, a dead mother, some bloody fingers, a broken patella, and a higher pitched voice.

Here is definitive proof that waterboarding is not torture:
If someone willingly subjects himself to waterboarding to make a political point, then it's not torture. Other than some weird fetishist, who would willingly subject themselves to any of the other "techniques" I described above?

Like most things, there isn't a black and white answer here. Is waterboarding "cool" as a domestic police interrogation technique? Oh hell no. Is it something we should be doing to our "detainees"? I dunno. It would be great if we didn't do it, and it would be better if we didn't feel the need to do it. But is it torture? Hardly, and not by any rational definition of torture that existed before 2002.

marstein

To add to Bommando's points above I would say that what the guy did was definitively not torture. It was an experiment. But if you did it to someone else it would definitively be torture.
You are splitting hairs. And you are wrong.

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mentholated

Can I ask you a question?

Have you ever had a near death experience? I haven't yet, but I can imagine that fearing your death has greater magnitude than fearing your amputation or crushing.