Closing Down Club Gitmo

[Vladimir]

http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=ae11aafd-f076-aceb-2cb1-528cb682c4db


Ending Abusive Detention and Interrogation Practices:

Senator Feinstein today introduced new comprehensive legislation to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and impose broad reforms in America’s interrogation and detention practices. The legislation is cosponsored by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Specifically, the legislation, called the “Lawful Interrogation and Detention Act of 2009,” provides for a legal, effective, and humane system of gathering intelligence and holding suspected terrorists. It ends the practices of indefinite and secret detention and coercive interrogations that have been used by the CIA and at Guantanamo since 2002.

“Coercive interrogations and secret detentions have brought shame on our nation and made the war on terror harder to fight,” Senator Feinstein said. “They violate U.S. and international law, and our treaty obligations. We need to return to the national norms and values that have driven the United States to greatness since the days of its founding, but which have been tarnished badly during the past seven years. This legislation will do exactly that, and advances policies that I believe are consistent with the policies and intentions of President-elect Obama.”

The legislation has four key provisions:

* Requires the closure of the detention facilities at Guantanamo within one year. All individuals held at Guantanamo must be:
o Charged with crimes and tried in the United States through the federal criminal justice or the military justice system;
o Transferred to an international tribunal, if one has jurisdiction to hold trials for such individuals;
o Transferred back to their native country or to the custody of another country;
o If the other options can’t be followed and the individual is determined to pose no security threat, released; or
o Held in accordance with the law of armed conflict.
* Requires the CIA and all other intelligence agencies to use only the 19 specific interrogation techniques that are authorized by the Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations. This requirement would put intelligence interrogations under the same legal requirement for all Department of Defense agencies, thus creating a clear, single standard across the U.S. Government;
* Prohibits the CIA from using private contractors to conduct interrogations of detainees; and
* Requires the intelligence community to notify the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of any detainees being held, and to provide the ICRC with access to those detainees.


There is one ray of sunshine though:


Requires the CIA and all other intelligence agencies to use only the 19 specific interrogation techniques that are authorized by the Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations. This requirement would put intelligence interrogations under the same legal requirement for all Department of Defense agencies, thus creating a clear, single standard across the U.S. Government;

Looks like the Army leads the way! :army:

It's available on-line so you can conduct "lawful" interrogations at home. Something the whole family can enjoy. :cheerleader:

I bet this was written years ago. So, opinions? Yea or nay?

[lars573]

Good. This was a long time coming. An end to the 21st centuries first concentration camp.

[Strike For The South]

Good. This was a long time coming. An end to the 21st centuries first concentration camp.

The flair for melodrama on this forum lately is :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

[LittleGrizzly]

About damn time we stopped trying to bring ourselves down to the level of the terrorists, maybe now america can lecture other countries on justice and torture without being hypocritical...

[Mooks]

About damn time we stopped trying to bring ourselves down to the level of the terrorists, maybe now america can lecture other countries on justice and torture without being hypocritical...

I really doubt that will ever happen.

[Hooahguy]

aw.... now where am i going to get my strippers from?

[CountArach]

About bloody time.

[BigTex]

The flair for melodrama on this forum lately is :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

What do you mean lately? There's always been a flare for melodrama in the backroom, something to do with bleeding hearts and hormones.

As for the topic, pretty neutral about it, it served a purpose.

[Watchman]

You mean they were actually planning to drag the US name through the mud ? :inquisitive:

[lars573]

The flair for melodrama on this forum lately is :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
I try my best. However. Gitmo does fit the parameters of both a Soviet GULAG camp and an early NAZI concentration camp.

[Strike For The South]

I try my best. However. Gitmo does fit the parameters of both a Soviet GULAG camp and an early NAZI concentration camp.

Indulge me, if you would.

[lars573]

All NAZI concentration camps were built originally to house political prisoners like socialists and communists. And later POW's. For example Auschwitz (well the first one anyway, there were 3) was built to house Soviet POW's in 1941. They didn't start to house Jews and other "undesireables" till later on. Soviet GULAG's (GULAG is actually an acronym for the NKVD branch that ran them) were built political prisoners. Most of whom had been kidnapped in the middle of the night. And shipped to a camp and held without trial for years on end. Stop me if that sounds familiar. Soviet GULAG's also housed criminals who's crime didn't warrant an imediate execution. And during WW2 Germans were also guests.

For fun GULAG means, The Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies (bolds are where the letter for the acronym come from). And in Russian that comes out to GULAG.

[Lord Winter]

I try my best. However. Gitmo does fit the parameters of both a Soviet GULAG camp and an early NAZI concentration camp.

:inquisitive::inquisitive:

:no: Not even close, there's a difference to be something that is a threat to human rights and the full scale indiscriminate murder of a race.

[HoreTore]

:inquisitive::inquisitive:

:no: Not even close, there's a difference to be something that is a threat to human rights and the full scale indiscriminate murder of a race.

As Lars correctly pointed out, and you would've known if you bothered to read his post, is that the nazi concentration camps wasn't about extermination until later in the war(after Hitler's "final solution").

[Lord Winter]

As Lars correctly pointed out, and you would've known if you bothered to read his post, is that the nazi concentration camps wasn't about extermination until later in the war(after Hitler's "final solution").

I'm sorry he posted at the same time I was composing mine, I didn't see it.


It's still an incredibly major stretch. Gitmo isn't being used domestically to enforce Bush's rule. Its a botched, immoral holding place for POW's. Random democrats aren't being arrested in the middle of the night for opposing the state. Comparing Bush to the nazi's is laughable, honestly I don't like Bush but he's no hitler or Stalin, or even any other lesser dictator.

Godwins law by the way

[Husar]

That Bush isn't Hitler doesn't mean that his camps aren't similar to Hitler's.
FYI similar is similar, not equal.

Anyway, good to know that America is removing this ugly stain from it's gray west. :2thumbsup:

It's vest, isn't it?

[Lord Winter]

That Bush isn't Hitler doesn't mean that his camps aren't similar to Hitler's.
FYI similar is similar, not equal.

Anyway, good to know that America is removing this ugly stain from it's gray west. :2thumbsup:

True, but they each have completely different goals, which makes any comparison irrelevant.

[Ja'chyra]

True, but they each have completely different goals, which makes any comparison irrelevant.

Not true, it might have been true if you'd said methods but then you'd be.

Illegal detention and torture seem to be quite similar to me. Mind you if I was in charge I'd have done the same and then killed them so hey ho.

[HoreTore]

Illegal detention and torture seem to be quite similar to me. Mind you if I was in charge I'd have done the same and then killed them so hey ho.

Now what was that reason we invented the legal system again...?

[Ja'chyra]

Now what was that reason we invented the legal system again...?

To ensure the people sent to these camps are the right ones?

[HoreTore]

To ensure the people sent to these camps are the right ones?

Aha!

And with your "kill them all" attitude; would innocent people get killed as well?

If the answer is yes; isn't that a rather silly thing?

[Ja'chyra]

Aha!

And with your "kill them all" attitude; would innocent people get killed as well?

If the answer is yes; isn't that a rather silly thing?

Obviously not as my government would be infallible.

But anyone found commiting or planning to commit terrorist acts against my country would be detained, information about terrorsist activities extracted and then would be quietly disposed of. Tbh I can't see any other way of eradicating fanatics that doesn't involve global war.

[HoreTore]

But anyone found commiting or planning to commit terrorist acts against my country would be detained, information about terrorsist activities extracted and then would be quietly disposed of. Tbh I can't see any other way of eradicating fanatics that doesn't involve global war.

Do I have to remind you why we invented our legal system yet again?

We cannot, under any circumstance, allow one branch of our government perform investigation, trial and sentence. To do so would ensure the murder of innocents by the government, something which is done in systems of government other than civilized democracy's. And the number of completely innocent people having spent years on Gitmo certainly proves that.

There is a reason why we have courts. Sentencing people should not be done lightly, quickly or without proper checks and balances. The court system ensrues that. The CIA or FBI alone does not. Period.

It's not about giving a fair trial to Osama Bin Laden, it's to ensure that the guy you have actually is Osama Bin Laden.

The only real way out of the mess Gitmo has made, is to instantly give full criminal rights to each every prisoner there. Treat them exactly as you would've treated any other criminal, which is what should've been done in the first place. Yes, I do realize that means that most, if not all, cases will be thrown out of court due to the extreme number of illegal practices they've been subjected to. But the lives of a few hundred of these guys aren't even close to worth as much as the american legal system.

I'd take a shining and fair legal system over the vengeance on a few hundred bearded idiots any day of the week. These are the western values everyone are talking about, why aren't we defending them? Why are we throwing them in the garbage to sate our bloodlust?

[Ja'chyra]

Where did I say they wouldn't have to be proven guilty first?

But in all reality innocent people will always be punished in error but this shouldn't be used as an excuse for not punishing the guilty.

[HoreTore]

But in all reality innocent people will always be punished in error

Our justice system is based on the opposite - thankfully.

We can never, ever accept an innocent man being punished for something he has not done.

Anyway, back to Gitmo, the trouble is that as of today, none of them are guilty. They have not been found guilty by a court of law, and thus they are to be treated as innocents, as suspects, not convicts.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Godwin in 10, you lads are slipping.:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: must I submit royalties to Tribesman for those?

[Ja'chyra]

Our justice system is based on the opposite - thankfully.

QUOTE]

And yet it happens

[QUOTE]We can never, ever accept an innocent man being punished for something he has not done.

Not true, we can never find it acceptable but as long as it still happens we have to accept it.


Anyway, back to Gitmo, the trouble is that as of today, none of them are guilty. They have not been found guilty by a court of law, and thus they are to be treated as innocents, as suspects, not convicts.

True that they haven't been found guilty yet but if you think all suspects are treated as innocents, in any country, then you are sadly mistaken.

[lars573]

I'm sorry he posted at the same time I was composing mine, I didn't see it.


It's still an incredibly major stretch. Gitmo isn't being used domestically to enforce Bush's rule. Its a botched, immoral holding place for POW's. Random democrats aren't being arrested in the middle of the night for opposing the state. Comparing Bush to the nazi's is laughable, honestly I don't like Bush but he's no hitler or Stalin, or even any other lesser dictator.

Godwins law by the way
Godwins law no :daisy: , you don't suppose I knew full well what I was doing. Do you? :laugh4::laugh4: Any how it's not as much of a stretch as you might think. Gitmo has people inprisoned for years without any kind of trial for political beliefs and political action (or just the suspicion of action). Action in the form of revolutionary violence. Soviet GULAG camps had the same kind of prisoners. NAZI concentration camps too (in the begining). But as similar as Gitmo and the GULAG camps/Concentration camps were their are differences.

Firstly is that the US military and intelligence services wants it's Gitmo inmates alive and talking. I'd have a hard time believing that the NKVD and the SS wanted the same for their camp inmates. The US government used a military base in a hostile foregin nation so that they could get away with this illegal operation. The Soviets and the NAZI's has no such needs. Any person who complained about the camps (if they knew about them), woud become their next guest. Also the NKVD had the power to imprison people for 5 or 10 years with no trial at all. Being suspected/accused of actions "against the revolution" was enough. The US doesn't work the Gitmo inmates half to death either (google the road of bones for more on that).


Gitmo and the Soviet/NAZI camps may not be exactly alike. But they are discomfortably similar.

[Vladimir]

Gitmo and the Soviet/NAZI camps may not be exactly alike. But they are discomfortably similar.

I also hear that the guards have guns too. Another frightening similarity. :yes:

[HoreTore]

Gitmo and the Soviet/NAZI camps may not be exactly alike. But they are discomfortably similar.

They are, at the very least, the closest a civilized democracy and legal system has come.

And that should enough, really. In that camp, we* have treated completely innocent people, people who did NOTHING except being in a very wrong place at a very wrong time, worse than convicted mass murderers. If that's not unsettling and bonechilling, I don't know what is.

There was never a need for Gitmo, the people responsible for 9/11 would've been found guilty in an ordinary trial. Heck, they'd probably plead guilty and ask for the death penalty(like a couple of them just did)! The other reason for Gitmo, intelligence, is just as ridiculous, as it has been an established fact from the time of Aristotle that torture is NOT a good way to extract intelligence - and judging by the current status of OBL(ie. not captured and probably alive), I'd say his argument is still bloody valid.

Gitmo is an affront to civilization, an enormous stain on the american flag and arguably the largest policy failure of our time. Let it burn. It has done absolutely nothing good, and has destroyed almost everything.



*actually I mean you, I'm from norwayland :laugh4:

[lars573]

I also hear that the guards have guns too. Another frightening similarity. :yes:
Which makes it even more shocking. :smash:

[Lord Winter]

Godwins law no :daisy: , you don't suppose I knew full well what I was doing. Do you? :laugh4::laugh4: Any how it's not as much of a stretch as you might think. Gitmo has people inprisoned for years without any kind of trial for political beliefs and political action (or just the suspicion of action). Action in the form of revolutionary violence. Soviet GULAG camps had the same kind of prisoners. NAZI concentration camps too (in the begining). But as similar as Gitmo and the GULAG camps/Concentration camps were their are differences.

Firstly is that the US military and intelligence services wants it's Gitmo inmates alive and talking. I'd have a hard time believing that the NKVD and the SS wanted the same for their camp inmates. The US government used a military base in a hostile foregin nation so that they could get away with this illegal operation. The Soviets and the NAZI's has no such needs. Any person who complained about the camps (if they knew about them), woud become their next guest. Also the NKVD had the power to imprison people for 5 or 10 years with no trial at all. Being suspected/accused of actions "against the revolution" was enough. The US doesn't work the Gitmo inmates half to death either (google the road of bones for more on that).


Gitmo and the Soviet/NAZI camps may not be exactly alike. But they are discomfortably similar.

I agree they have to be stoped, I'm not arguing for them, merely against the hyberbole in your statement.


One question, would FDR be as bad the Nazis too? After all had the internment camps, which are far bigger then Gitmo is now.

[LittleGrizzly]

One question, would FDR be as bad the Nazis too? After all had the internment camps, which are far bigger then Gitmo is now.

You could probably make some argument for it, though you are really streching it with that, the gitmo comparison is a bit of a strech to make in my eyes, afaik fdr's interment camps weren't as bad*

*no torture, and at least the people could look to the end of ww2 as a probable release date, admittedly that must have seemed a long way off but in comparison to when a 'war on terror' could end it doesn't seem like it would take anywhere near as long...

[Watchman]

From what I know of it, while it was indeed rather rude of the Allies (the Brits put their Germans behind barbed wire too) to intern people of certain backgrounds "just in case", the internees were then treated well enough, on the whole properly cared for, and let out without hassle as soon as the war was over.

That's quite a few points where Gitmo fails in comparision.

[lars573]

I agree they have to be stoped, I'm not arguing for them, merely against the hyberbole in your statement.


One question, would FDR be as bad the Nazis too? After all had the internment camps, which are far bigger then Gitmo is now.
That's hard to say, I've always respect his cunning. And really as unpleasant as carting up Japanese-americans to concentration camps* was, he probably did them a favour by doing it. In those camps they lost their freedom of movement, lively hood, and their dignity. But they were housed, fed, and clothed by the US tax payer. If they hadn't there lives could have been more miserable. I heard a story that during WW1 the Canadian government rounded up every single man with German and Austrian pass ports and put them in camps too. But in 1916 a few hundred/thousand families petionned the Canadian government to be put into the camps too. Because the anti-German/Austrian sentiment the war had whipped up made it impossible for them to make a living on the outside.








*The British actually coined the term concentration camp. For the camps where they sent every Boer man, woman, and child who hadn't taken up arms against them in the second Boer war.