WCOM -- Withold Comments, Only Monitor

You are describing the situation in a fundamentally wrong way. There is no place for most of those people to go because their cases don't hold up well in U.S. courts. In fact, in many cases the cases against them are non-existent. That's why they are in Gitmo and not in a military prison within the country. The people who we have a decent case against will be transferred to normal military prisons and the people who we have no right holding will be sent home.

Don't you get it Ninespine? They're in Gitmo, they're DANGEROUS.

If their cases won't hold up in US civilian courts, why won't any other nation touch them? The US has been attempting to close Gitmo for a long time but no country will take any, let alone one, of these people away from us. And you're telling me its because US Courts aren't fair? Wouldn't a country who thought US courts were unfair be even more eager to take their citizens out of US control?

Here's a short bit out of a Washington Post Article:

In many cases, the prisoners’ countries do not want them back. Yemen, for instance, has balked at accepting some of the 106 Yemeni nationals at Guantanamo by challenging the legality of their citizenship.

Another major obstacle: U.S. laws that prevent the deportation of people to countries where they could face torture or other human rights abuses, as in the case of 17 Chinese Muslim separatists who have been cleared for release but fear they could be executed for political reasons if returned to China.

Compounding the problem are persistent refusals by the United States, its European allies and other countries to grant asylum to prisoners who are stateless or have no place to go.
-------------

Now don't get me wrong, I'd like to see everyone in Gitmo either released or have their cases brought before a court. But its not going to be that easy.

"Their backward ass, totally fucked up countries that have no stability and are run by mostly psychopaths don't want them back... CLEARLY THESE PEOPLE ARE GUILTY!" I'm sure those countries wouldn't let me come live there either. Does that mean I belong in prison?

We both know that lots of these people aren't wanted back because they are political dissidents, and in many cases radicals (if not opposed to radical groups themselves which control these countries). But being a radical or supporting a radical group does not make you guilty of terrorism. We aren't the thought police.

Well firstly thats not what Im saying.
Secondly, it does NOT matter why they won't take them back. All that matters is that they have both the legal right to refuse to take them back AND are using it.
You didn't answer my question, what do we do with people who we can't make a strong case against but who are refused even the ability to live, let alone be a citizen in, any other country?

Or what do we do with those people who's national countries will take them back but we cannot legally send them back because they will be tortured?

Send 'em here.

Your acting Prime Minister seems to think so.

If the U.S. government admitted it's mistake and seriously implored some friendly nations to take these people in, we both know plenty of countries would do so to score the brownie points.

Copypasta'd from hfswjyr:Your acting Prime Minister seems to think so.

pretty much

Copypasta'd from NineSpine:If the U.S. government admitted it's mistake and seriously implored some friendly nations to take these people in, we both know plenty of countries would do so to score the brownie points.

No, I don't know what you are talking about. What info caused you to arrive at this position, or did you just infer out of nothing?

I infer this out of the fact that there are plenty of countries that jump when we say jump. If you can convince a country to send a portion of it's tiny military on a mission as ludicrous as Iraq just for brownie points, you can ask them to take some people we wrongly imprisoned. This is our mistake and it's now our job to explore methods for cleaning it up. Keeping a secret prison where we store innocent people that we wrongly arrested in the first place isn't the solution. It's idiotic on it's face. It's such a ludicrous solution that it makes anyone supporting it look like a total tool.

If the U.S. can be an economic superpower, build thousands of nuclear weapons, and murder hundreds of thousands of people whenever we feel like it... We can unload a few dozen people. This isn't some dude from Detroit who works at a mall being tasked with this, it's the fucking United States. Get real.

Most countries were forced to send their military to iraq because the US has veto....................................................... It's not like we supported you in any fucking way, really.

Do you really think everyone ever sent to Gitmo was sent 100% in the wrong? That they are all fully innocent of anything illegal or dangerous? If that was the case it would be easy to find a host nation to take them, it would be acceptable even to release them in the US, but its not. What about the Yenemi citizens? Their own nation won't take them back, why is that? What possible reason would Yenem have for refusing to take back its own citizens if they were all totally innocent?
What possible reason would we have to hold these people if they didn't have known ties to terrorist groups or other militant anti-American/Western? Just because we hate those towel-heads? Is it just plain malice?
You're right, it is idiotic it keep a prison where we keep innocent people for no reason. But thats not whats being done.

FOR EXAMPLE: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Khalidmohammed.jpg/200px-Khalidmohammed.jpg>

Has confessed, very proudly at that, that he was the, quote "Mastermind" behind the 9/11 attacks as well as the 1993 WTC bombings as well as several other successful and unsuccessful terrorist attacks. Guess where he is? Gitmo. So don't tell me that everyone there is innocent, thats just not the case.

Here's two article you should read:
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12638668
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/politics/13gitmo.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Guantanamo&st=cse

I totally agree that Gitmo needs to be closed and the people there need to be taken out of "legal limbo" by putting them in court and coming to a decision. But its not going to be easy to find a place for all these men.

In one year Gitmo will probably still be open with some of the same people still there, as some will have been released undoubtably. What are you going to think then? The evil neo-con Bush will out of office. Are you going to think that Obama is just doing it out of malice too?

Even Obama said its going to be tough!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7825902.stm
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/the-challenges-of-closing-guantanamo/?partner=MOREOVERNEWS&ei=5040
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011300201.html


Where are you getting these opinions ninespine!?!? You are alone when you say it would be easy.
And again not everyone there is innocent, there have been at least 60 inmates there who have been released and then were captured AGAIN by Americans or killed by Americans in combat. Last year a man released from Gitmo blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Iraq!

And even right now I'm watching CNN and they are doing a story about the challenges Obama will face when he starts trying to close Gitmo!

1. I didn't say Obama must close it the day after he enters office. I'll be happy with slow but steady progress.
2. I didn't say that everyone there was innocent. In fact, I gave a detailed explanation of why their countries wouldn't want them back.

This post is wholly unnecessary, but unfortunately you apparently have a reading impairment. I could have literally copied and pasted my last two posts and they would have been a sufficient reply to this.

No it wouldn't be sufficient.
Because one, the slow and steady progress the US has made with Bush from over 500 to roughly 250 since 2006 apparently isn't enough to make you happy so you are a hypocrite.

And two, you hardly gave a detailed explaination, one sentance isn't detail. And in fact you admited many of them were radicals. But for some reason you still expect to be easy to unload these people on another country. Now why wouldn't another country want a bunch of radical islamists in their borders?

Have you realized yet you are really the only person who thinks closing Gitmo is going to be easy?

When the fuck did I say closing it was going to be easy? These boring, tired straw man arguments that you keep unloading are starting to become all you have.

The Bush Administration has been lowering the numbers because it has used more and more renditioning to other ghost facilities that are worse than Gitmo. That is not even close to a valid comparison. Not needing as many people in Gitmo because you are doing something exponentially worse isn't progress.

When I see the government make a serious, public attempt to unload these people and it fails, then I will gladly admit I was wrong. They haven't. Your entire argument is based on the ASSUMPTION that we can't get rid of these people. It's an assumption because we haven't really tried.

Now I'll just repeat myself because apparently you didn't read it the first time. Either that or your narcissism has truly taken over. I've never seen anyone in my life so giddy about puking their ill-researched nonsense all over everything. You barely even skim anything anyone else says anymore, preferring to blather on and on the same nonsense repeatedly with no attempt to actually address a single issue anyone raises.

"I infer this out of the fact that there are plenty of countries that jump when we say jump. If you can convince a country to send a portion of it's tiny military on a mission as ludicrous as Iraq just for brownie points, you can ask them to take some people we wrongly imprisoned. This is our mistake and it's now our job to explore methods for cleaning it up. Keeping a secret prison where we store innocent people that we wrongly arrested in the first place isn't the solution. It's idiotic on it's face. It's such a ludicrous solution that it makes anyone supporting it look like a total tool.

If the U.S. can be an economic superpower, build thousands of nuclear weapons, and murder hundreds of thousands of people whenever we feel like it... We can unload a few dozen people. This isn't some dude from Detroit who works at a mall being tasked with this, it's the fucking United States. Get real."

Yes, the NY-Times, Economist, BBC, CNN, Financial Times, Washington Post, President Bush, and President-Elect Barack Obama, all who say the following:
A) Closing Gitmo will be difficult.
B) There are a lot of people there who really have no place to go as no country will accept them.
C) Bush has been trying to close Gitmo since 2006, and has reduced the number of inmates from that time to the present to 250 from 500. (So therefore we have tried to closing and are continueing to try)
D) Barack Obama will face a challenge when deciding what to do with the inmates, as to what kind of trail they'll have, where they'll go afterwards etc etc

All these sources are wrong. Why? Because you say so? You haven't brought up a single other source to back what you are saying. But for some reason all my research is non-sense. You have to have sources, you cannot just simply know this information you have to have heard or read it somewhere, where was that?

How about this dude, do some research of your own and actually find a country that'll "jump when we say jump" and take these people with open arms. How about instead of just stating "there are countries that will" go find one, and then go find a few other respected sources(like mine) to confirm what you've said.
Right now its me, the NY Times, CNN, BBC, Financial Times, Washington Post, The Economist, President Bush and President Elect Obama against you. On what grounds do say we're all wrong and you know whats right?

Now you've said the reason the prison population has decreased was because of their transfer to other prisons around the world. Fine. Now can you show me a source?
Here's a list of most of the inmates ever to have been in Gitmo and their status as of recent:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/nationalsecurity/gitmoarchive.html

Go ahead, tell me something like its all false information and many of these people were transfered to a secret prison and provide no source for it.

You are fundamentally misrepresenting your sources. The sources aren't wrong, it's just that they aren't saying what you are saying. They are saying that it is going to be hard but Obama plans to start looking at options very early his Presidency. It doesn't say "They have nowhere to go, there are no options, and the facility cannot close." The sources are closer to what I am saying than what you are saying, and by a lot.

You have conveniently changed what you were saying to make your argument stronger. You started this thread saying that Obama CAN'T close Guantanamo and every post you back off farther and farther from that statement. If you have to resort to such blatant logical fallacy in order to debate, perhaps you should consider what that means about your arguments.

Good we agree, its going to be hard. But it should be done.

Not to pick at you but exactly do things like
"But there are some whose governments don’t want them, and others (eg, those Chinese Uighurs) whom their governments might torture or execute. International law says you can’t repatriate them. We’ll ask friendly countries to take a few, but you will end up having to let most go free in the United States. Some might well return to the battlefield after all we’ve done to them. But as General Barry McCaffrey has said (we’ll keep the quote handy), it’s going to be cheaper and cleaner to kill them in combat than sit on them for 15 years. " ~Economist
Or
"But experts say it is likely to take many months, perhaps as long as a year, to empty the prison that has drawn international criticism since it received its first prisoners seven years ago this week. One transition official said the new administration expected that it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp." ~ NY Times

How do these things support your stance of "There are plently of nations who'll jump when we say jump who'll take them"? Now "we say jump and they'll jump" isn't exactly a precise measurement of control or influence over a country by another country(say the US) so I can't be certain the degree of influence you're implying. However I think its reasonable to say that its implying a very large degree of control or influence. Now I know gov't work can be slow, but did you really mean it would take several months when you used the phrase "say jump and they'll jump.?"

Or my favorite, how does this list, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/nationalsecurity/gitmoarchive.html, which shows every known person who's been placed in Gitmo and their current status, some how support your statement that the majority of prisoners who have left Gitmo during the Bush years were really moved to other ghost prisons and sitll under US control. Clearly this list shows the majority have been released, how does this support your stance?

Because "released" is a vague term.

I'd also like to direct you to the notably tiny number of people on your list with "formal charges" by their names.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-03-20/news/ghost-prisons-ghost-courtrooms/

This is what I am talking about when I say there are secret prisons. If you actually believe that they aren't still using them, you are a fool.

I never said the majority of prisoners who have been released from Guantanamo were put in secret prisons. Learn to fucking read.

And here is a list that includes many countries who jump when we say jump.

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

What are you argueing against? I mean what point are you trying to make that I don't agree with or that you don't agree with. You keep saying that it won't be easy, which is correct, but you constantly say things like:

"If the U.S. can be an economic superpower, build thousands of nuclear weapons, and murder hundreds of thousands of people whenever we feel like it... We can unload a few dozen people. This isn't some dude from Detroit who works at a mall being tasked with this, it's the fucking United States. Get real."
And
"I infer this out of the fact that there are plenty of countries that jump when we say jump. If you can convince a country to send a portion of it's tiny military on a mission as ludicrous as Iraq just for brownie points, you can ask them to take some people we wrongly imprisoned."

Now you haven't said its going to be easy, but when you say things like this it makes it sound like you think its going to be easy. What exactly are you saying?

Released which means
"Some names came from family members of detainees who have sent letters home through the International Committee of the Red Cross. 153 people on the list have been sent back to their home countries for further detention or for release. They are marked with a "Yes" under "Released" on this page. Several of those have been interviewed by reporters."
(ie, its not vague)
Now I haven't counted the number of people on my list but I'm sure it numbers more than 14, so therefore the net change on prisoner population has decreased. Also I don't deny the fact that secret CIA prisons exist, but I think prison is not exactly the right term as it implies a large facility with a large prison population, but I don't know that for certain. And that brings me to my next point, almost nothing in the article from village voice is known for certain. All thats known is that 14 prisoners were transfered from these ghost prisons to Gitmo, and in fact they state thats all they know.

"And most important, what of all the other CIA ghost prisoners? Who are they? Where are they? What was done to them all these years? How have they been disposed of? "

Everything in that article is suspected and infered, not proven or known, other than 14 people were in ghost prisons and are now in Gitmo. So yes, there are secret prisons, but not much is known about em.

Also I forgot another great point about your list of countries who'll jump when we say to.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7807517.stm
Its a story about how Australia, a country on your list of countries who you say will jump when we say jump.
And I quote you :
"And here is a list that includes many countries who jump when we say jump.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_force_in_Iraq"

BBC has reported that Australia has in the past rejected a request by the US to take Gitmo prisoners and will likely do so again. So much for that theory.

And here's another one about one of those Chinese Ulygher people. Albania said they'd take him but he refused to leave Gitmo because he was afraid about Chinese revenge. So he asked to go to Sweden, where his sister lives. But Sweden refused to take him.
Now Sweden isn't in Iraq but it is one of those countries that "jumped when we said to" and went to Afghanistan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2009/01/closing_guantanamo_bay.shtml

I love search engines.

Use the fucking edit button.

yeah.

fucking dipshit.

people these days.

Im going for 10k posts again.

God, your logic is about as sound as that of a fucking six year old. I give you a list including dozens of countries and you point out one or two and then act like it's checkmate. Clearly no other country will take these people because fucking Australia won't. Get. Fucking. Real. Do you even think about this shit, let alone read it, before you post it?

I'm arguing against your original point. That's the point you have conveniently forgotten about. You said that it could not happen, that closing Gitmo is not a possibility. That's the point I was trying to make. If you admit that what you said isn''t true, and want to change your stance, then just admit that and we can move on. Don't pussyfoot around and slowly morph your stance so that you can escape doing that.

I'm pointing out options and possibilities, and honestly I'm pointing out obvious ones, that can be explored which have not been explored. There is plenty of room for investigation into what we can do with these people. All avenues have clearly NOT been exhausted and I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that the United States, with all the power it wields, can manufacture and house thousands of nuclear weapons, have the largest military in the world, have a powerhouse economy even under such dismal conditions... can't unload a couple of prisoners. It's unrealistic and infantile to believe such nonsense.

The point here isn't whether Bush was trying to close Gitmo or not, or whether those people were moved to secret prisons. The point is that trying to put the guy who OPENED the prison and later tried to slim it down over public pressure is not comparable to the guy who has always called it a horrible idea and never would have opened it in the first place. Trying to put those two people (Bush and Obama) on equal grounds is incredibly stupid. It takes such a lack of intellectual rigor to think something so pathetically disingenuous that I'd question whether anyone over the age of 14 would make such an ignorant comparison.

If a murderer says "Well I killed the guy, but I'm guilty and should obviously go to jail," that doesn't put him on equal moral standing with the family of the dead person just because they both believe the same thing. One still did something horrifically wrong and one didn't. Admission of guilt, especially under extreme public pressure and scrutiny does not grant anyone a free pass, and it especially does not put them on the same level as the people who wouldn't have done such an asinine thing in the first place.

Hold up. We can assume that these countries you've listed will take these people? You haven't shown that any of these countries will take any of these people, yet I apparently have to prove that each and every one of them won't take them.
How about you find me a country that will take them in, and then contact the State Department. Or find me a country that you think will take them in if we push them or make some diplomatic deals and explain why. But please none of this "These countries will jump when we say to" crap. Just because these countries went along with the invasion of Iraq doesn't mean they do anything we want them to or anything we ask them to.
You keep stating there are all kinds of options that we haven't explored but I have yet to hear you name one of these options. Do you know for a fact that all the nations who went to war with us in 2003 in Iraq have not been approached with the idea of placing some of these people in their countries? I hardly think you did the research, so please don't assume that they would take them and the US just hasn't tried yet.

Now I did say "I know he promised to shut it down, but the fact is that if Gitmo is offically shut down it probably won't really be shut down." What meant was that I could see Obama offically closing Gitmo as a prison even when inmates are still present there because of problems releasing or transferring them. But eventually the situation will be resolved as new options are discovered, deals are made, attitudes change, etc etc
Looking at it now I should have written that a little clearer.

Also I didn't mean that Bush and Obama aren't on moral standing, I'd never agrue something like that its too wishy-washy. I just wanted to point out that they were in agreement.

Lastly, we seem to agree on what should be done with Gitmo just not on exactly how its going to play out. We both agree Gitmo should be shut down and that all possible options should be explored and new options should be sought out and created. I'm content to leave it at that, I've found that if two people agree on a course of action the things like reasons why don't matter much. But we seem to disagree on the number of options available in the world, you seem to think there are a lot more than I do. Its really a minor issue, because again we agree on the course of action to take but we have different bets on the outcome.

Ok, so you change your opinion to mine. Game, set, match.

Copypasta'd from NineSpine:Ok, so you change your opinion to mine. Game, set, match.

I think we've had the same opinion for most of these issues for most of the time, the biggest thing we seem to disagree on is how we are going to get rid of these people.

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Just napalm the whole thing. No more Gitmo, no more prisoners, no more problem?

I'm just trying to compromise with ninespine and decide on some common ground!

You know Tom we could take some of those prisoners who's national gov'ts won't take them back and just force em on the country. Take Yemen for example, its got a coast line, so what we do is take these guys put them on a ship, sail to the edge of Yemen's territoral waters, and stick these guys on life boats, at that point they are free to go anywhere they want. Course, they really got no where else to go but Yemen.

All I was disagreeing with was the sentiment that we are stuck and there is nothing to do.

Copypasta'd from NineSpine:All I was disagreeing with was the sentiment that we are stuck and there is nothing to do.

We definatly aren't stuck with it, I agree. But it'll be tough.

Hey ninespine I want your opinion on something else. We know that the President has ordered Gitmo closed within the year and has asked for 120 days to review the status and information related to each person still there. Lets assume that the US is unable to close resolve the issue of what to do with the inmates there within a year, what should the US do? Everyone seems to agree it should be closed but all the news talk is about what is going to happen if we cannot find a place for all of the inmates. Now you may think its possible that Gitmo can close in a year, I don't, but regardless of our opinion on that time-line its always good to have a contingency plan.