Gitmo may be closed.

or; what will the fallout be?

from JoeUser Forums
B-B-B-B-BREAKING NEWS! The Associated Press has discovered that the Bush administration may be close to closing the doors on the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, de facto "home" to many terror suspects and other detainees for all these years now.

Of course, after the breaking of the story, the backpedaling begins. From the article:

Three senior administration officials spoke about the discussions on condition of anonymity because they were internal deliberations.
Expected to consult soon, according to the officials, were Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace.
Previous plans to close Guantanamo ran into resistance from Cheney, Gonzales and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. But officials said the new suggestion is gaining momentum with at least tacit support from the State and Homeland Security departments, the Pentagon and the Intelligence directorate.
Cheney's office and the Justice Department have been against the step, arguing that moving "unlawful" enemy combatant suspects to the United States would give them undeserved legal rights.
They could block the proposal, but pressure to close Guantanamo has been building since a Supreme Court decision last year that found illegal a previous system for prosecuting enemy combatants. Recent rulings by military judges threw out charges against two terrorism suspects under a new tribunal scheme.

So . . . if they close up Gitmo, what happens next? Where do these accused terrorists go? Another military facility? If so, which "lucky" place gets them?

After all, according to Condi Rice herself (of Gilmore Girl's mailbox fame), the United States "doesn't have any desire to be the world's jailer."

I feel that the situation in Guantanamo has probably done more harm for American influence and power abroad than good it may have done. And hey, Laura and Barbara Bush are with me on this, both supposedly referring to Gitmo as a "blot on the US record abroad."

So, JU, what do you think? Close Gitmo? Keep it open? Where do those people go if they close it? I'm interested to see what you have to say.

EDIT: I forgot the article link. Here you go.
13,979 views 40 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oh yeah, and Colin Powell (one of the few men associated with this administration at any point who I actually respect) called for the immediate closure of Gitmo earlier this month.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Gitmo is our national shame. But closing it won't help until we close the ideologies that opened it in the first place.

In Gitmo, we've become everything our founding fathers despised. We've ignored rights they considered precious and inalienable, and forgot the respect for the rule of law that we used to cherish.

Harsh words? Perhaps. But it's how I truly feel.
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
In Gitmo, we've become everything our founding fathers despised. We've ignored rights they considered precious and inalienable, and forgot the respect for the rule of law that we used to cherish.


Eloquent explanation of how I've felt about it. Thanks, Gid. You'll get an insightful cookie from me for that one.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Three senior administration officials spoke about the discussions on condition of anonymity because they were internal deliberations.

Then maybe they should keep their mouths shut. I hate that, don't you? If they're talking "on conditions of anonymity" then they shouldn't be talking.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Maybe we should have made Gitmo as secret as a gulag.  I guess that would have made us more popular.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

Additionally the closing of Gitmo will simply mean that another country will hold these prisoners for us. Genius idea. I am sure that they would love the tender ministrations of Turkey/Saudi Arabia/Mexico over the "torture" of U.S. prisons with our "inhuman" under-inflated basketballs. What a disgrace.

 

I am sure that after they are moved to a country that actually knows what torture is they will thank the leftist activists who got them moved and took away their American pro-bono lawyers.

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oh yeah, and Colin Powell (one of the few men associated with this administration at any point who I actually respect) called for the immediate closure of Gitmo earlier this month.


Did you see his interview on Meet the Press a week ago Sunday? It was very eye opening. I think if he hadn't been there during W's first term we would have seen even more misteps. The transcript is online on the Meet the Press website if you missed it.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
Gitmo is simply a symbol of America's fear.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Gitmo is simply a symbol of America's fear.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
Gitmo is simply a symbol of America's fear.


Yes, I mean really, what is there to fear from terror right?

How inexcusably silly of us to fear people who respond to cartoons, films, and knightings with murder, violence, and threats of more of both.

Come on people, just put your heads back in the sand and all of it will just go away naturally. No one wants to hurt you.

Eurasia has always been our ally.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Anything other than giving foreign terrorists full constitutional rights, access to government paid lawyers, and treatment equal to a top-notch resort will result in"the world" and the left complaining. 
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
hey why don't we just give them z visas and put them in line for a quick path to citizenship. after all they just want to be peaceful farmers and take care of their families.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
If they're talking "on conditions of anonymity" then they shouldn't be talking.


it could be that the press isn't really talking to anyone.

and i have the same feelings about all of these people standing up for what they believe hiding behind a mask.


if you really believe what you are standing up for get rid of the mask
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top

I don't recall German POWs in World War II being put through the criminal justice system.

There's only a couple hundred people at Gitmo and most of them were captured on the battlefield. What does one do with enemy combatants in a time of war?

Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
There's only a couple hundred people at Gitmo and most of them were captured on the battlefield. What does one do with enemy combatants in a time of war?


That's actually a huge part of the problem, whether they define them as enemy combatants or not. There were issues with: no specific country they were fighting for, no specific country we were fighting against, no uniforms/structured military, and others.

Recently, military tribunals appointed to prosecute several detainees have flat stated that they have no jurisdiction. So, we can't prosecute them criminally and we can't prosecute them militarily... and we can't detain them indefinitely (no, we haven't already detained them indefinitely; they were detained until they could face trial... which they now can't face). Like SanChonino asked, what do we do with them now? It's a question that's been bouncing around my head for a few weeks now, and I have no answer.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
I don't recall German POWs in World War II being put through the criminal justice system.
There's only a couple hundred people at Gitmo and most of them were captured on the battlefield. What does one do with enemy combatants in a time of war?


When does this war end, draginol? When violence no longer exists and world peace reigns supreme? After all, it's a "war on terror"; all we need to do is redefine terror, and we've given these people a life sentence without benefit of trial, without due process. That's the problem with a "war" on an ideology; it CAN'T be won.

Do we give these people due process, do we give them trial by jury? In my opinion, the answer is, emphatically YES, because we ARE Americans, we ARE the greatest nation on the earth, and because the ideals we hold dear ARE noble and just. Our founding fathers held human rights to be INALIENABLE (Yes, I know that the phrase doesn't appear in the Constitution, but the Declaration IS a foundation document that helps to understand the mindset of the founding fathers).

Yes, most of these men were captured on the battlefield. But are all of them terorists, or were some of them simply defending their homeland, the same way you or I would if we were being invaded? Iraq may not be perfect, but to them it is their homeland, their nation. Do we villainize and give them life sentences for doing what we would do in a similar situation?

Give these people due process. Give them fair trials. And let the chips fall where they may. Anything less IS inhuman, it demeans us as a nation, and it makes the criticism of outsiders just and reasonable.
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yes, most of these men were captured on the battlefield. But are all of them terorists, or were some of them simply defending their homeland, the same way you or I would if we were being invaded? Iraq may not be perfect, but to them it is their homeland, their nation. Do we villainize and give them life sentences for doing what we would do in a similar situation?


most of these people are from the battlefield Afghanistan not Iraq

if you could count on their word. you could get them to promise to go to their home countries and not become terrorists again. that is of course a big IF.

and i believe that the ones that were only fighting to defend their country have been released.

Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
Gid, I don't know if you're still mad at me but I agree with everything you wrote on this issue.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
We need to try these people and if guilty execute them. Why is Bush keeping them in Jail? I want them to be punished and do away with any of them that are guilty of terrorism! WHY should we be spending money to keep them alive?
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
and i believe that the ones that were only fighting to defend their country have been released.


But unless they are tried, we have no way of knowing that. That's my point here.

Gid, I don't know if you're still mad at me but I agree with everything you wrote on this issue.


still mad about the other issue, but there's no reason we can't agree on other ones.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
WHY should we be spending money to keep them alive?


I would think the most obvious explanation would be for interrogation purposes.  These people should not be given full Constitutional rights, nor access to the public justice system.  It's too flawed as it is to allow a foreign terrorist to be "let off" by a technicality or some liberal leaning judge.


Reply #23 from PolMach Forums Top
Gitmo was a sign in how gutless Bush has been in his fight on terrorism. The only reason it was put there was to be outside of US judicial oversite until the matter could be brought to the Supreme Court.
How do we protect our freedoms by giving them up? Torture, Gitmo, illegal wiretaps made legal after the fact and all signed off by our present Attorney General.
Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
How do we protect our freedoms by giving them up? Torture, Gitmo, illegal wiretaps made legal after the fact and all signed off by our present Attorney General.


Foreign terrorists never had our freedoms.  When we capture these terrorists, I really would like to konw what the liberal solution is?


Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
Foreign terrorists never had our freedoms. When we capture these terrorists, I really would like to konw what the liberal solution is?


1. Our founding fathers believed these rights to be inalienable. It would be in our best interests to support those rights for ALL humans, just not the ones we like.

2. I'd like to know what the CONSERVATIVE solution is. Put them on ice till they die? What if we've made a serious mistake in some of these cases? I'm not saying we have, but I AM saying due process is something that should be afforded ALL humans regardless of national identity.

It's pretty glib to write someone off as a "liberal" just because they believe in the sanctity of our national values.