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Journal pudge's Journal: Shut Down Gitmo! Just, um, because it's BAD! 23

Journal by pudge

I need a bumper sticker saying, "Gitmo don't torture terrorists, guards do."

Seriously ... why shut down a facility EVEN IF systematic torture is happening there? Then you need to pay a ton more taxpayer money to get a new facility, and for what? If you have not changed the (supposed) torture policy, or gotten rid of the perpetrators, then nothing has substantially changed. And if you do, then there's no reason to shut it down.

And that's assuming there actually is systematic torture going on, which is something no one's come close to actually showing, but just for the sake of argument assming there is: it's still a stupid idea.

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Shut Down Gitmo! Just, um, because it's BAD! More

Shut Down Gitmo! Just, um, because it's BAD!

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  • you see things in black and white, good and evil, this and that. look'it worrying about wasting "the man's" money. should anyone every be imprisoned when we are all children of stars? Dude you're so harshing my world.
  • The left doesn't care what actually happens here. Their objective is to keep the goal posts moving. By doing such, then can always criticize the president or the US. Who really believes anything good would be said about shutting down Gitmo? No, instead the left will harp on the president for some other issue, or go on the attack again saying, "See! There must have been torture there!" By appeasing the left on each of their little whims we have lost every time. It is just like any other sort of war, a
  • In for a penny, in for a pound

    As I've heard more and more accusations of "torture" of detainees at Guantanamo, and the rhetoric spirals more and more out of control (list me as firmly in the camp that would like to see Senator Durbin horse-whipped), and comparisons made to Nazi death camps, Soviet death camps, and Cambodian killing fields -- just to name a few comparisons.

    Others have decried the damnable lies, the outrageous exaggerations, and the borderline-treasonous libels of our troops. Me, I'm lookin
    • ellem, I am sure that if you thought about it a bit you could figure out a way to flush a book down a toilet. In fact I doubt that you would even have to resort to using a paper shredder.

  • Because it's too late to try and disabuse the entire command chain of the idea that US law doesn't apply to their actions in Guantanimo, Cuba? Because it's impossible to extend the necessary oversight to prison wardens in such a remote region? Because due to some combination of factors that we may not ever identify, having prison camps in Guantanimo leads to the systematic abuse of the prisoners?

    </devilsadvocate>

    Most likely, politicians need to be able to say they are doing something about the p

  • Can't link it due to stupid work proxy (it's lunchtime!) but Ann Coulter's latest column had a lot of great points about keeping Gitmo open.

    Also, about the "systematic" torture, etc. Number one, there's not a toilet around, especially not in Cuba, that can flush a book. And as far as the "real" desecration that happened, wherein a guard urinated too close to a vent, and a detainee's Koran was supposedly in contact with a couple drops of Urine? I'm calling bullshit on that as well. First of all, let's say

    • So I wonder why the reports of abuse the Durbin was citing came from FBI agents who were working with and/or observing interrogators. It also leads me to wonder why there are hundreds of pages of FBI memos regarding the treatment of detainees not only at Gitmo, but at other "holding" facilities around the world. It makes me pause when I consider that the military (ie men in uniform themselves) lawyers assigned to some of the prisoners are speaking out about mistreatment at and the sham of Gitmo.

      We're su

      • No, I'm simply saying that Carribean temperatures, Orange Glazed Chicken, and Christina Aguileira music hardly denotes "torture".

        I also think the whole "Koran desecration" thing was a load of bullshit, as it doesn't seem plausible. First, no toilet can flush a book. Second, with regards to the urine "mist" or whatever, I think that scenario is highly unlikely and was probably a complaint from a detainee that was taken far too seriously.

        In short, Durbin is an idiot.

        • But would you say that handcuffing a man hands and feet togther to a concrete floor in a fetal position in an extremely hot or extremely cold floor for so long (for 12 and more hours) that he ends up defecating himself and lieing in his own feces and urine is defined as torture?

          Because that, and not the orange glazed chicken, is what was described by an FBI agent in a memo to his superiors.

          If you don't think it is torture, I challenge you to do it. I would LOVE for you or Ann Coultre or Hannity or Lim

          • But would you say that handcuffing a man hands and feet togther to a concrete floor in a fetal position in an extremely hot or extremely cold floor for so long (for 12 and more hours) that he ends up defecating himself and lieing in his own feces and urine is defined as torture?

            On its own, I would not call that torture, no. First, torture has to have a specific intention (to gain information, etc.), otherwise it's just plain abuse. And what was described does not give us any feeling for what the intent
          • But would you say that handcuffing a man hands and feet togther to a concrete floor in a fetal position in an extremely hot or extremely cold floor for so long (for 12 and more hours) that he ends up defecating himself and lieing in his own feces and urine is defined as torture?

            I would certainly consider it unpleasant, but to compare it to the real, body mutilating, death causing Soviet Gulags and Nazi Concentration Camps is a ridiculous leap of logic. The folks at Gitmo, after all, are still alive. Do yo

            • The folks at Gitmo, after all, are still alive.

              There are reports of prisoners dieing under US care at various holding facilities world wide. At least one died from being beaten to death (punches to the chest causing heart failure).

              "Unpleasant," but not "torture"... hmmm.

              There seems to be a lot of "Us/Them" in this. In effect "It is okay to treat THEM that way. After all, they are our enemies. You can do anything you like to them as long as it gets results."

              We're not a country that canes people

              • As far as proving that these people deserve this treatment, the prisoners at Gitmo have had no real ability to exonerate themselves. There may indeed be real bad guys there, but we aren't attempting to prove anything. Just the label of terrorist is enough to hold them till the end of the War on a Noun or the End of the Time (whichever comes first... I am betting on the latter).

                Yes, and ... good. You act like this should be self-evidently bad, when it is something I agree with and support. That's the way
          • Hey Look! Durbin admits he was wrong, and got all teary eyes about it. [yahoo.com]

            Guess that settles that, then.

            • Durbin bowed to political pressure from a bunch of tards that blew his statement out of proportion. He was saying that we (the US) are the "Good Guys" and shouldn't be engaging in acts (documented by FBI agents uncomfortable with the legality and humanity of those acts) which would tend to label us as the "Bad Guys."

              That's fine. You go ahead and be okay with torture. As long as they aren't doing it to anyone of your own family, friends, race, creed, color. That's fine. Then they are still the good gu

              • Durbin bowed to political pressure from a bunch of tards that blew his statement out of proportion. He was saying that we (the US) are the "Good Guys" and shouldn't be engaging in acts (documented by FBI agents uncomfortable with the legality and humanity of those acts) which would tend to label us as the "Bad Guys."

                What he SAID was that what the U.S. was described to do is only done by the world's most terrible regimes, which is entirely false. The Brits did those things (and worse) to the IRA, as the F
                • should apologize for -- if nothing else -- the intellectual sloppiness required to have made such a ridiculous claim.

                  I believe that's what he did end up apologizing for.

        • I also think the whole "Koran desecration" thing was a load of bullshit, as it doesn't seem plausible. First, no toilet can flush a book. Second, with regards to the urine "mist" or whatever, I think that scenario is highly unlikely and was probably a complaint from a detainee that was taken far too seriously.

          What would you say if I took a book and ripped out pages of it and then flushed them down the toilet? I can assure you that this is possible... even in crappy toilets. People that have been starved

          • This is DOCUMENTED in the Army's own findings. It is not highly unlikely. In reality, it actually happened! The soldier was punished.

            I know what the source is. Again - look at the physics of it. It's highly unlikely that it really happened that way - what I think happened is that the military is being overly sensitive. So the guy takes a leak near an air intake, some of the urine gets all the way through the duct work and on to some terrorists Koran, enough to where the terrorist notices it.

            Right.

            Th

  • If critics think that prisoners can be held and interrogated under better human rights conditions then we should open Gitmo for contract proposals so they can do it themselves. Rather than telling us to shut it down they should be offering to run it better. But with all the praise for the food and the conditions there in its defense, I think we should not close it for prisoners but open it up for civilians. Guantanamo Bay is an excellent port and as real estate it is much too valuable for a prison. The

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