Obama to Release One Third of Gitmo Inmates

reply to post by Kali74


Obama has missed so many of his promises, to not only his base, but those who are moderate, or even conservative. I am conservative, but I also believe Gitmo should have been closed. The countries these detainees came from, should have jailed them, for the crimes they committed.

reply to post by sonnny1


Assuming they even committed any crimes. "Enhanced interrogation" is infamously known to yield little to no credible intelligence.

Long story short, you hear that Mike is a terrorist or a terrorist supporter, so you kidnap Mike and torture him to tell you who his co-conspirators are. Even if Mike is innocent - after awhile he'll start spitting out names just to make the torture stop. So Mike says "Fine, Bill, Fred, and David!!! THEY are my co-conspirators"

Next think you know, Bill, Fred, and David are also in Gitmo, in stress positions, being waterboarded, and being asked to give up even more names.

How anyone in our society could think this a logical thing to do has always baffled me.

~Heff

reply to post by sonnny1


It really is a damn shame that true Conservatives, true Leftists and Libertarians on both sides have been banished to the fringe but that blame lies squarely on us, we (most of us) allowed this to happen. But, we are waking up...finally.

reply to post by Hefficide


Funny you say that.

I was watching Jessie Ventura, on Piers last night, and he told Piers if he was waterboarded 180 times, he too would have told them anything they wanted to know......




I am glad im not in the intelligence gathering group. I think you need to NOT have a conscience, when it comes to torture. Thats just MHO, right or wrong on the whole torture aspect of it all.

HOW BOUT RELEASING YOUR WRITINGS FROM COLLEGE YOU KENYAN COMMIE!!!

reply to post by Hefficide


Really?

Then why has it been used since the Johnson administration right up to the current guy

ehanced interrogation and rendition has always been used it only became a political talking point to put the current guy in the oval office.

reply to post by sonnny1


Nope, no conscience... to be in Intelligence you need what Corporations look for in CEOs and other high ranking positions, what retail chain Boards of Directors look for in Managers... you need to be a psychopath.

reply to post by neo96

Originally posted by neo96

Really?

Yes.

Originally posted by neo96

Then why has it been used since the Johnson administration right up to the current guy

By "it" I assume you mean torture? Or as we call it today "enhanced interrogation"? If so then it predates Johnson by thousands of years - and was,for example, a favorite activity of the Catholic church for a pretty long time. They had huge success with it as well. And thank God for that, otherwise all of those witches and heretics might have taken over the world.

Originally posted by neo96

ehanced interrogation and rendition has always been used it only became a political talking point to put the current guy in the oval office.

Actually rendition, as policy, only predates the "current guy" by a few adminstrations, beginning with the first President Bush:

The US has used rendition increasingly as a tool in the US-led "war on terror" to deal with foreign defendants, ignoring the normal extradition processes in international law. Modern methods of rendition include a form where suspects are taken into US custody but delivered to a third-party state, often without ever being on US soil, and without involving the rendering countries termed "extraordinary rendition." Hundreds of documents retrieved from Libyan foreign ministry offices in Tripoli following the 2011 Libyan civil war show that the CIA and the United Kingdom's MI6 rendered suspects to Libyan authorities knowing they would be tortured. The CIA was granted permission to use rendition (to the USA of indicted terrorists) in a presidential directive signed by US President Bill Clinton in 1995, following a procedure established by US President George H. W. Bush in January 1993.

Source


As far as the efficacy of "enhanced interrogation" goes - Here is a pretty good summary ( with links ) regarding torture.

My opinion? If you throw enough darts at a target, you're eventually going to get a few bullseyes. But to then call yourself an expert at darts???

Apply the same to torture. But add that if the person is guilty - there are other ways of extracting the information. If the person is not guilty then all you will get is faulty intelligence. And this is a big problem. I mean it's not like we didn't recently invade a sovereign nation over faulty intelligence or anything.

~Heff

reply to post by Hefficide


Yep "torture" is as old as civilization itself, but come on it did not become "conversation" until the last decade.

And I will see your source and post this:

1. Rendition is something the Bush administration cooked up.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Only issue I had the last admin gets blamed and nothing about the other guys.

reply to post by neo96


Trust me Neo, I'm just as irked at Obama for continuing this policy as I am at the last few POTUS's who did. I understand they have a lot on their plate and that national security is a prevailing interest.

But, seriously, we have chemical compounds now that can make anyone talkative. That seems far more rational to me than stress positions, humiliation, sleep deprivation, sensory overload - and the other "enhanced" methods currently in use.

~Heff

Not to get too off topic, but with the issue of torture, detaining people indefinitely?

From a moral standpoint, it is a horrid thing that we do to fellow humans.

From an honest, blunt standpoint?

If I knew that someone or several someones had knowledge concerning an act or acts that would harm innocent people, then I would be the first in line with a Black & Decker drill, aiming for kneecaps.

Sorry, it's nice to take the moral high ground when we're all sitting at home, enjoying a beverage, climate controlled environment, well lit rooms, safe in our comfortable environment.

Maybe I'm just not as evolved as many of you fine folks when it comes to something like this.

reply to post by beezzer


The catch is that you can only assume they know something much of the time. Especially in context to Gitmo inmates and the war on terror.

Torture can be effective, in a certain context. The problem is that the correct context is so narrow that it cannot be applied to general intelligence gathering, across the board, and be considered an effective tool.

The real analog is: Are we willing to torture a thousand innocent people just to get useful intel out of maybe ten of them? That is the crux of it.

~Heff

Originally posted by Hefficide


The real analog is: Are we willing to torture a thousand innocent people just to get useful intel out of maybe ten of them? That is the crux of it.

~Heff

Morally? No.

But then again, in this, I'm a screaming hypocrite. Imagine if it was a spouse or your child. Then extrapolate and understand that it is SOMEONE'S spouse or child that may be in danger.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

reply to post by Hefficide

The catch is that you can only assume they know something much of the time. Especially in context to Gitmo inmates and the war on terror.

Except those means is how Obama killed Bin Laden owed to those methods,

Ahhh..... I see how it is. The American people won't play nice to Obama's way of thinking about life for things like Immigration so the language changes and before you know it. what they're called has warped so far, we're left asking why anyone ever had to ask to be made a citizen anyway.


Here? Same thing.... Obama reasoned with us...for why it couldn't be closed. People didn't buy it and bitched...OH BOY did they bitch. I recall that in 2009 and even his base was pissed when one of his first orders of business tuned into his first big flop to the Bush side of thinking.

THEN...Obama had a brainstorm, but someone didn't pay the power bill or something because it fizzled about half baked. That would be the grand plan to revitalize an Illinois Community with a Prison Complex for the Gitmo prisoners on U.S. Soil and inside the U.S. System properly.

....Then they learned all that local boom would be a bust when Military and Federal people from outside the area would be staffing it anyway...and so even the locals came to say No Way to that concept.

Now? Now....after a decade of looking, searching and finding EVERY POSSIBLE REASON IMAGINABLE to release every last one we could...and I admit, from the start, people DID end up there who shouldn't have.........but now we have the crap at the bottom of the sifter and there are no nice guys left. Cryptome had the guidelines a couple months ago, issued to the whole Chain of Command regarding Gitmo and the way a full review MUST be called on an inmate if *ANYTHING* changes which may suggest a chance to release or re-categorize them.

Obviously.... 1/3rd have since found what even 10 years of reviews and searches for reasons TO release them failed to.....innocence among the guilty.

Let's hope THESE ones aren't heard from again as high ranking commanders in the forces against us. Nice one Mr. President. Why not just release KSM and Ramzi Yousef too? They're just misunderstood freedom fighters...right?

Obama to Release One Third of Gitmo Inmates

reply to post by Stormdancer777


After what just happened, it's almost as if he's thumbing his nose at America, and saying "hey, I can do anything I want, even if it is not in the interest of the US or world peace." After all, he got the Nobel Peace Prize, and didn't have to do anything to get it. Who knows, maybe he got promises from the 1/3rd he's releasing that they'll become instant citizens and vote for him. lol! All kidding aside, this is a disgusting piece of news.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus

All kidding aside, this is a disgusting piece of news.

Rombots confuse me.

First off, Obama is evil for not closing Gitmo....
Then Obama is evil for releasing Detainees from Gitmo....


What did you think was going to happen with a Shut Down Gitmo, move the Detainees elsewhere?

What would be the point.

Originally posted by Expat888
making room for all the new arrivals once he starts rounding up all the dissidents / "domestic terrorists" ... cant have an overcrowded gulag ..

I thought that was what all the FEMA camps were about. Besides FEMA camps are closer. Anyway, this is so contrived for the election cycle and getting his left base back on board.....yep he's transparent alright.

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Well, some of them get a temprorary reprieve from being tortured by being made to listen to Sesame Street music looped for days and days without rest.

I nearly died laughing when i heard about that one. Alot worse things to be tortured by then Sesame Street, i wonder if they made them watch Bert and Ernie get married on a loop?

Rombots confuse me.

reply to post by Tw0Sides


If you are referring to me, I am voting for Ron Paul. I never commented on my position on Gitmo. I commented on how Obama is making this decision based upon politics. Don't make assumptions based upon your predetermined bias. It seems you are the one that is a robot. Pavlof lives in you.