Obama Orders Gitmo To Close

[kujo]

Man, I was busy all day yesterday and missed out on all of this juicy conversation. So let me jump right in:

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760043' date='Jan 24 2009, 03:18 AM']The government has no power; the power to rule in a democratic republic comes from the people. The gov't is a necessary evil which must be questioned and constrained if a democratic republic will continue.[/quote]

If you were familiar with social contract theory, you'd realize that people have given "the government" (an abstract, unclear term that is thrown around here in an irresponsible way) the authority to provide an environment where our lives are safe and where we can be free to pursue certain degrees of prosperity. John Locke, one of the theoretical Founding Fathers of our country, says that we gave this authority to "the government" because we needed laws to protect us (and our property) and a neutral arbiter to adjudicate when these laws were violated. Thus, as our Constitution says, "the government" is of the people, for the people and by the people. They have as much power as we let them have. We can go round and round about states' rights vs. the welfare state and what not. But "the government" is not some illegitimate entity. It's been created by us, and, in Rousseauean terms, the fact that we've remained in this society means that we've given it tacit approval (assuming no one on PhatMass is currently planning the next American Revolution).

[quote name='Giolla' post='1760218' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:08 PM']Also we should be allowed to use any tatics of getting useful information necessary.[/quote]

That is simply not true, dude. Beyond the fact that torture and "enhanced interrogation techniques" presents a serious moral quandary, it's yet to be proven to work in the first place. The straw man argument of the "ticking time bomb" and other Jack Bauer-like scenarios which are usually the intellectual assumptions (conscious or not) are just fictitious theoretical constructs which are never as complex as the [b]real[/b] situations are. Simply put, there will probably never be a situation where we have Terrorist X in our custody and know 100% for sure that he/she has the information necessary to prevent an imminent terrorist attack. Furthermore, even if he/she did, there's a good chance the they wouldn't tell us anyway. If they're privileged enough to know the full breadth of the attack, that means their one of the people planning it and are so fully entrenched in their ideology that no amount of pain will persuade them otherwise. But this is all BS because it would not happen in the first place, leaving the cold hard fact that the people who are subjected to this treatment are often either innocent people or nobodies with no pertinent information. Thus, even when looking at this from a utilitarian mindset, it just doesn't work.

[quote name='Giolla' post='1760514' date='Jan 24 2009, 09:50 PM']But we need to extract information to protect our country. If these guys are willing to kill themselves for their beliefs they can take having water poured on them, dogs barking, or it going from really cold to Hot. I think when it comes to protecting our country the people should not question the government.[/quote]

I think you're assuming that there's some magic number of punches, kicks, yells, etc. that will crack them. You're assuming that there's some temperature whereby [i]anyone[/i] will boil. I just don't think that's true. And, even if it was, as I said before, there's a good chance that we either don't know for sure that they have any actionable intelligence, or that they just simply don't have it.

[quote name='Giolla' post='1760618' date='Jan 24 2009, 10:47 PM']Talking doesn't necessarily work. The other option is full fledged war.[/quote]

Really? Those are the only options? Talk...[i]or war[/i]?

[quote name='Hassan' post='1760638' date='Jan 24 2009, 11:02 PM']Or removing the conditions that turn young men and women into suacide bombers.

Muslims are not genetically angry and violent, nor were the Anarchists of Russia and the United States, nor were Irish Catholics who blew up English trains. Enviormental factors lead to such behavior. Perhapse we cold spend a little less money making gunships for the Israeli's or spend less time turning a blind eye to Russian atrocities in Chechnya and direct some of that time and money to the appauling conditions that so many Muslims societies are in (I mention Muslims only because the individual in Gitmo were Muslims, the same holds for all terrorist movements).[/quote]



[quote name='Giolla' post='1760662' date='Jan 24 2009, 11:18 PM']Really against conflicting countries? Conflict > Negotiations = Problem solved (very rare) or Conflict > Negotiations > War (usually what happens), or worst case scenario Conflict > War[/quote]

You are stuck in a Cold War (and prior) mentality, when conflicts were between State A and State B. The fact of the matter is that, while your convenient little math equation might have some validity 60 years ago, it just doesn't hold any water (pun) now. Francis Fukuyama predicted this muddy state of affairs in his seminal-book [u]The End of History[/u] after the Cold War, where he said that conflagrations between States would decline over time while non-state actors (i.e.- ethnic groups, intergovernmental organizations, global networks of terrorism, etc.) would begin to exercise some level over control over the foreign policy of the Great Powers. We are not engaged in a conflict with States, but rather with non-state actors, international organizations which have no alliances to any one or two particular states. And, while certain states give nominal degrees of support to these organizations, the conflict is not with those states alone, but rather with the network of terror that gave birth to the attacks on 9/11. There's no "homebase" of terror, no "terror country." So, while we are going into Afghanistan and Iraq with the hopes of deposing dictators and ousting regimes which have been supporting terrorist groups, we should remain mindful that, while we are cutting off the funding of the group, we are doing little (if anything) to create an environment where the ideology of the group will be rejected. But that goes into what Hassan was saying above here...

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760685' date='Jan 24 2009, 11:32 PM']The reason they have problems is they have corrupt gov'ts that don't care about the welfare of their people, and people who won't or ca'nt fight for their rights.[/quote]

And how did [i]that[/i] come to pass? Often by being propped up the US (and Britain...and France...and Spain....and Russia...). Or by being imposed on the people after military coups. Either way, the people don't [b]deserve[/b] the evil that they currently live under. That is a pretty crappy thing to say, sis.

[quote name='Giolla' post='1760703' date='Jan 24 2009, 11:38 PM']I don't see the correlation between fighting for freedom vs. blowing oneself up because you disagree with one's ideology.[/quote]

To borrow your method of arguing

Hopelessness + Poverty = Anger

Anger + Ideology = Fundamentalism

Anger + Fundamentalism = Violence

[quote name='Hassan' post='1760715' date='Jan 24 2009, 11:46 PM']Most of the sociological data suggusts that the modern problem with terrorism in not due to some sort of response to religious imperatives in themselves. The frustrations are expressed in Islamic metaphores and through Islamic mediums because that is the core identity of most people in the Muslim world (and some are true believers) but the cause is more traced back to himiliation and political impotence. Chechen attacks on Russia has a lot more to do with Russian imperialsim than the Chechen's nominal adherance to Islam.[/quote]



[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760722' date='Jan 24 2009, 11:48 PM']Being complicit doesn't make one the cause; did we cause them to have a dictator?[/quote]

Did they cause themselves to have a dictator?

[Saint Therese]

That's total BS.

[kujo]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1761199' date='Jan 25 2009, 01:58 PM']That's total BS.[/quote]

Why thank you. I know that it is BRILLIANT STUFF.

Really...that's all you got?

[Saint Therese]

Ok well... I don't like the shirt you're wearing in your avatar. HA!

[missionseeker]

wow.

[kujo]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1761235' date='Jan 25 2009, 02:27 PM']Ok well... I don't like the shirt you're wearing in your avatar. HA![/quote]

LULZ.

But seriously...what is BS about it?

[SpareTime]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760666' date='Jan 24 2009, 11:19 PM']Its not our responsibility to to solve the problems of other nations.[/quote]

i take it you're 110% against liberating iraq, then. with a statement like that, you must be, if you remain consistent.

[SpareTime]

[quote name='kujo' post='1761237' date='Jan 25 2009, 02:30 PM']LULZ.

But seriously...what is BS about it?[/quote]

i would like to know too, but i won't hold my breath. a response like that probably means that they can't refute your arguments, so they are denying them instead.

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='SpareTime' post='1761445' date='Jan 25 2009, 04:56 PM']i would like to know too, but i won't hold my breath. a response like that probably means that they can't refute your arguments, so they are denying them instead.[/quote]

I don't know-maybe it really was the shirt

[Saint Therese]

[quote name='SpareTime' post='1761440' date='Jan 25 2009, 03:53 PM']i take it you're 110% against liberating iraq, then. with a statement like that, you must be, if you remain consistent.[/quote]

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1761449' date='Jan 25 2009, 04:58 PM'][/quote]

What do you mean? -Katie

[Saint Therese]

[quote name='Tinkerlina' post='1761456' date='Jan 25 2009, 04:03 PM']What do you mean? -Katie[/quote]

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1761554' date='Jan 25 2009, 06:10 PM'][/quote]

I just wondered what you meant to say in response to his question with the mellow face. -Katie

[Winchester]

What is the plan for protecting our borders once terrorists are kept in America in numbers?

What is the difference between a terrorist and a citizen criminal? A terrorist and a regular army soldier? How do these differences affect the nature of their detainment?

Considering the nature of terrorist organizations, I can liken a terrorist to an espionage agent. Are espionage agents historically subject to different treatment than regular army?