Ex-Gitmo prisoner carries out suicide attack

[DC Tom]

It's not unusual for someone to enter a prison either as an innocent man/woman, or as a petty criminal, only to emerge a REAL criminal, and commit REAL criminal acts.

 

What we're learning is that a number of these people at Gitmo who were held for years had absolutely NO ties to terror. I'd imagine if someone took me prisoner for no reason and held me for 5 years (leaving aside the question of torture), I would probably emerge hating them and wanting to exact a toll on them. I personally don't think I'd actually do anything, but you just never know.

 

I don't know if that's the case with this guy. But I wouldn't bet MY life that Gitmo, or the threat of Gitmo, would dissuade anyone already leaning toward terrorism. Anyone who thinks that clearly is not understanding what creates and drives a terrorist.

 

HOWEVER...if somebody imprisoned you for five years in Gitmo, you probably did something to earn the trip. The guys there weren't just busted for a broken taillight or out buying beer one day and grabbed off the street. They were serious bad-asses to begin with.

[erynthered]

That IS NOT what America is all about, regardless of the WHY these people are being held.

 

 

 

Sorry. But can you tell me what the !@#$ this means?

[Peter]

Sorry. But can you tell me what the !@#$ this means?

 

If he has to explain that to you . . . .

[Steely Dan]

If you are going to view the "they hate us because of our freedom line is simplistic" approach, the same can easily be said for your response.

 

Radical Islam and it's desire to subjugate has been around a lot longer than the US. To say their hatred is fueled only by our presence in the ME ignores history and the nature of their religion and it's intolerance of other ways of life and belief systems.

 

 

It's a nice quote, but I wonder how BF (not BlueFire )would have felt in the age of nukes and suicide bombers? I have a feeling there might be a caveat or two there.

 

I'm not advocating trouncing all over human rights, but try to look at the situation with a bit more objectivity. AFAIK, the population at Gitmo consists of what are essentially POW's. The unfortunate part is, we can't just let them go, back to their places of origin as the bulk of them will simply seek to reorganize and continue to attack innocent people who don't agree with their interpretation of Islam. You let POW's go home when the war is over and one side has won. That simply hasn't happened yet, and it may never happen. But how do you give them a trial? Of what crimes are they guilty other than being enormous douches that will most likely attempt to kill people if they are released? I just don't see a good solution. If there are genuinely detainees who are there with no just cause, everything should be done to send them home. But ferreting those out wont happen overnight.

 

As a side note, my best friend is a guard at Gitmo. He has always been pretty liberal, both socially and politically. His take on the situation is that every single person they have there is a killer. They will do everything they can to inflict harm upon any human being that doesn't share their POV.

 

Edit: Also regarding the articles claiming prisoner abuse - again, according to a person who I consider a best friend, it's utter BS.

 

He claims the prisoners are treated with kid gloves and are not beaten or mistreated. Yeah, they are still prisoners and that no doubt is awful, but these stories of beatings sound like complete nonsense, and are more likely propaganda after listening to his first hand accounts. He has been there almost a full year, so perhaps things have greatly changed, but again, according to a guard with first hand experience, the abuse allegations are nonsense.

 

What countries have radical Islamists attacked in order to take them over and convert them to Islam? Israel doesn't count because they aren't trying to convert them. They are trying to remove them from what they consider holy land. It's the same reason they want us out of Saudi Arabia.

 

I don't think Franklin would become a little sniveling little fraidy cat like so many Americans are now. You have a better shot of getting hit by lightning twice than you do being victim to a terrorist attack.

 

What do you think your friend is going to tell you?

 

 

It's not unusual for someone to enter a prison either as an innocent man/woman, or as a petty criminal, only to emerge a REAL criminal, and commit REAL criminal acts.

 

What we're learning is that a number of these people at Gitmo who were held for years had absolutely NO ties to terror. I'd imagine if someone took me prisoner for no reason and held me for 5 years (leaving aside the question of torture), I would probably emerge hating them and wanting to exact a toll on them. I personally don't think I'd actually do anything, but you just never know.

 

I don't know if that's the case with this guy. But I wouldn't bet MY life that Gitmo, or the threat of Gitmo, would dissuade anyone already leaning toward terrorism. Anyone who thinks that clearly is not understanding what creates and drives a terrorist.

 

 

 

HOWEVER...if somebody imprisoned you for five years in Gitmo, you probably did something to earn the trip. The guys there weren't just busted for a broken taillight or out buying beer one day and grabbed off the street. They were serious bad-asses to begin with.

 

I believe Ed Meese once said; You wouldn't be arrested if you weren't guilty.

 

They were serious bad-asses? You know that how?

 

If he has to explain that to you . . . .

 

:worthy: I think some people should go back in American history and learn why the government was set up the way it is.

 

Personal freedoms are not taken away all at once they are slowly eroded away over time. Giving up any civil liberties is taking a step toward totalitarianism. No thanks.

[blzrul]

HOWEVER...if somebody imprisoned you for five years in Gitmo, you probably did something to earn the trip. The guys there weren't just busted for a broken taillight or out buying beer one day and grabbed off the street. They were serious bad-asses to begin with.

Oh that's a crock and you know it. Tell me about the dumb German idiot who got pulled off the bus because the US was paying the Pakistanis a bounty for "terrarists", who it was DOCUMENTED BY THE US that he had NO terrorism ties and who was held for 6 years....stupid guy was guilty of being a dumbass, but if that was a crime this board would be shut down.

 

Bush himself had the guy freed because his buddy Ms. German PM decided he owed her for the bad backrub...

 

Your statement is right up there with "of course there are no innocent people on death row." I expect idiocy from most people but you are usually reasonable.

[Pete]

I fail to see how giving terrorists more reason to recruit is good policy.

 

Gitmo is a BAD idea. When you hold yourself up champion of freedom, it's more than a little hypocritical to lock people up for years without charges or due process.

Well stated Darin. Do you favor open borders?

[John Adams]

It's a nice quote, but I wonder how BF (not BlueFire )would have felt in the age of nukes and suicide bombers? I have a feeling there might be a caveat or two there.

 

Just a point to note. Franklin didn't face nukes but the possibility of violent anarchy was always a hair's breadth away for those early Americans. And don't forget, he saw some of the French Revolution--anarchy in full force--first hand. He had a lot better feel for the terrorist (people willing to violently attack civilized society) than we do, even if those terrorists went by other names.

[UConn James]

At what point does "do what we say, not what we do" become even more absurd than it already is?

 

If we routinely violate the rights of HUMAN BEINGS, how can we expect anyone else to hold themselves to the standard that we preach but don't practice?

 

You know, Walt Whitman wrote some great lines of free verse about the nature of America. Among them, in "Song of Myself": "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes." I think he's qualified to speak, having been a nurse for the Union and supporting the war b/w the states even tho he detested war. He went along with Sherman's 'March to the Sea' and its brutality b/c it broke the will of the South. And don't suppose that his words were simplistic and contemporary --- if you can say nothing else about him, Whitman was deep and precise, able to take a step back and see the larger scope and the absurdities, the everyday hypocrisies in himself and his country that just were and, same today, just are.

 

It's nice for the textbooks to say that you have a set standard, a universal code of conduct, whatever, that you always follow to the T, but back in the real world, that isn't always possible nor is it always preferable in order to achieve what needs to be achieved to secure safety. Please always respect a president's job of daily having to decide courses of action among utter confusion and in direct conflict with your principles. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."

 

Sometimes things that don't seem right either given the rules or in gut feeling have to be done b/c they have to be done. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand much.

[UConn James]

HOWEVER...if somebody imprisoned you for five years in Gitmo, you probably did something to earn the trip. The guys there weren't just busted for a broken taillight or out buying beer one day and grabbed off the street. They were serious bad-asses to begin with.

 

My brother escorted a goodly number to Gitmo in the year after 9/11 with his Raven team.

 

Remember those pictures of the detainees gagged and bound? That wasn't done for sh--s and giggles.

 

It's like that kid in Rhode Island a few years back who shot the detective in the interrogation room. Then they took him to court and he beat some guards. Then they took him to court in heavy chains and he spit on everything. Then they took him to court in a Hannibal Lecter mask. Now, after his initial arrest, people made a big to-do about his black eye that the usual suspects shouted was police brutality. Then the POS started all the other stuff and they shut up quickly. Guy didn't care what happened to him and that's one of the most dangerous people to be around.

[yall]

What countries have radical Islamists attacked in order to take them over and convert them to Islam? Israel doesn't count because they aren't trying to convert them. They are trying to remove them from what they consider holy land. It's the same reason they want us out of Saudi Arabia.

 

I don't think Franklin would become a little sniveling little fraidy cat like so many Americans are now. You have a better shot of getting hit by lightning twice than you do being victim to a terrorist attack.

 

Of course, it was Israel's holy land long before that, but hey, let's only pay attention to the last 60 years...

 

Radical islam predates any American involvement in the ME. Beyond that, look no further than countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Iran, and Afghanistan to see where radicals are killing and violating basic human rights with impunity, and virtually no good reason to blame the US or western culture. But that doesn't stop them as it's a very convenient excuse.

 

 

 

What do you think your friend is going to tell you?

 

The truth? I have no obvious reason to assume he is lying to me.

[erynthered]

If he has to explain that to you . . . .

 

 

Over your head as usual.

[erynthered]

I think some people should go back in American history and learn why the government was set up the way it is.

 

Sarcasm, putz.

[Chilly]

Sometimes things that don't seem right either given the rules or in gut feeling have to be done b/c they have to be done. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand much.

 

And it doesn't matter what the hell we think of it, or how the hell we perceive it. What matters is the way the world and the enemy perceives it.

[UConn James]

And it doesn't matter what the hell we think of it, or how the hell we perceive it. What matters is the way the world and the enemy perceives it.

 

What of the Japanese-American internment camps during WW2? Anyone going to try to argue that they were a major reason for Pearl Harbor? Oh... wait. Or that the Japanese attacked us any more viciously than they would have otherwise? The potential of having 'sleeper cells' free on US soil was a risk that FDR just couldn't take. Not to make a direct comparison: the J-A hadn't been captured in an act of combating U.S. forces.

 

There is a sizable contingent in Islam that annually beat themselves bloody for not being there in 700 A.D. when one or other of their leaders were killed. Whatever perception was formed by U.S. actions promoting terrorist recruitment... well, I'd say the damage is done. This stuff of bending over backwards for POWs with the goal of eventually releasing them was intended for rational people --- that they would see the cause of their nation's military is over and stop fighting (I'd say this is still applicable in conventional state-state conflict). Victory in the GWOT will be defined by the absence of people willing to do anything and everything and fight to the last suicidal twitch in their fervency. You ever let the inmates in Gitmo out of our custody, you have GWOT+1.

 

(edited)

[Chilly]

What of the Japanese-American internment camps during WW2? Anyone going to try to argue that they were a major reason for Pearl Harbor? Oh... wait. Or that the Japanese attacked us any more viciously than they would have otherwise?

 

As if this is comparable.

 

There is a sizable contingent in Islam that annually beat themselves bloody for not being there in 700 A.D. when one or other of their leaders were killed. Whatever perception was formed by U.S. actions promoting terrorist recruitment... well, I'd say the damage is done. This stuff of bending over backwards for POWs with the goal of eventually releasing them was intended for rational people --- that they would see the cause of their nation's military is over and stop fighting (I'd say this is still applicable in conventional state-state conflict). Victory in the GWOT will be defined by the absence of people willing to do anything and everything and fight to the last suicidal twitch in their fervency. You ever let the inmates in Gitmo out of our custody, you have GWOT+1.

 

The old terrorists aren't rational defense, I love it.

[Alaska Darin]

What of the Japanese-American internment camps during WW2? Anyone going to try to argue that they were a major reason for Pearl Harbor? Oh... wait. Or that the Japanese attacked us any more viciously than they would have otherwise?

Not a valid comparison.

There is a sizable contingent in Islam that annually beat themselves bloody for not being there in 700 A.D. when one or other of their leaders were killed. Whatever perception was formed by U.S. actions promoting terrorist recruitment... well, I'd say the damage is done. This stuff of bending over backwards for POWs with the goal of eventually releasing them was intended for rational people --- that they would see the cause of their nation's military is over and stop fighting (I'd say this is still applicable in conventional state-state conflict). Victory in the GWOT will be defined by the absence of people willing to do anything and everything and fight to the last suicidal twitch in their fervency. You ever let the inmates in Gitmo out of our custody, you have GWOT+1.

The terrorist recruitment angle is the smallest part of the entire issue. The fact that our government is holding people without charge or due process is contrary to the core values this country was founded on and is supposed to stand for.

[Wacka]

What of the Japanese-American internment camps during WW2? Anyone going to try to argue that they were a major reason for Pearl Harbor? Oh... wait. Or that the Japanese attacked us any more viciously than they would have otherwise? The potential of having 'sleeper cells' free on US soil was a risk that FDR just couldn't take. Not to make a direct comparison: the J-A hadn't been captured in an act of combating U.S. forces.

 

 

 

(edited)

 

The Japanese internment camps were set up AFTER Pearl Harbor.

[Peter]

Over your head as usual.

 

Oooooooooooo.

 

Great comeback.

 

You are right (at least regarding W's America -- or should I say the Cheney, Addington, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Hadley, Perle, Gonzalez America). Under W, America is about locking people up based on giving 25k rewards to people who have vendettas, depriving them of basic due process rights, using the same "enhanced interrogation techniques" as the gestapo ("Verschärfte Vernehmung") and the Spanish Inquisition, rendering prisoners to countries where we know they will be tortured, etc.

 

I am a conservative and a Republican. I am absolutely embarrassed by what W, Cheney, et al have done to this country and to the Republican party.

 

In the words of Rumsfeld, I will leave it to you "dead enders" to defend what will go down as one of the worst (if not the worst) administrations in the history of the United States.

[UConn James]

Not a valid comparison.

 

The terrorist recruitment angle is the smallest part of the entire issue. The fact that our government is holding people without charge or due process is contrary to the core values this country was founded on and is supposed to stand for.

 

Why not? Because you say it isn't? Not perfectly comparable, but then again, what situation is when we're going slightly off the map of charted territory? Both involve the detention of people our govt perceived to be an enemy. In WW2, that tho nothing had been done, the possibility existed; now, that most of the Gitmo detainees were captured actively fighting our forces.

 

As I've said before, I would support charges in a military court. I believe the administration does as well, but they've been been slow to act (govt? slow to act? No!) precisely b/c they're charting new ground. So far they have been able to skirt this by capturing and holding them off the mainland. But with the trial from last fall, seems like charges will trickle in. Not exactly how one'd want it done, but then again, you and I aren't party to the nitty-gritty. Frig... Phil Spector was held for like 4 years before he went to trial, no? But suppose they are all tried and justice is meted. Where do you put them when you advocate shutting down Gitmo?

[UConn James]

The Japanese internment camps were set up AFTER Pearl Harbor.

 

Prol'ly the reason for the much-used sarcastic "Oh... wait" right after.