Obama Orders Gitmo To Close

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760016' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:16 AM']Yes just like another great decision of theirs, abortion. I for one choose to question the validity of their decisions.[/quote]

There's nothing wrong with questioning them. Still, I think there is a bit of a difference in that I think even if you don't agree that the tactics used at Gitmo are wrong and think they [i]should[/i] be legal, I don't see that a person coming from your standpoint would think that it is intrinsically wrong that they should be made illegal. On the other hand, allowing abortion is an intrinsic evil.

Also, I think that the Supreme Court has the authority to interpret the Geneva Convention as it relates to its implementation under the US military in this instance, whereas I do [i]not[/i] believe that the "right" to abortion falls under the 14th ammendment of the constitution. -Katie

[Saint Therese]

Your question and point are unclear.

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760031' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:36 AM']Your question and point are unclear.[/quote]

I wasn't asking a question, here's what I'm trying to say with regard to delineating the differences between the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion vs. interpretation of the Geneva Convention.

Although you may disagree, the Supreme Court ruling on the interrogation tactics at Gitmo in relation to Common Article 3 is not really comparable to its ruling on abortion, as:
a) The court allowing and NOT allowing something are different
b) Whereas abortion is the taking of a human life, which is intrinsically wrong, NOT allowing certain interrogation tactics to be used in Gitmo is not intrinsically wrong, thus the two situations are separate examples. -Katie

Btw I fully agree that the Supreme Court is imperfect, however, in this instance I don't see any other higher authority contradicting their upholding of Common Article 3 in the Gitmo situation and in fact the UN and various human rights organizations agreed that prisoners held in Gitmo were protected under said Article. So, I don't know where else to look if we're trying to figure out whether or not prisoners in Gitmo are entitled to protection under the Geneva Convention.

Edited January 24, 2009 by Tinkerlina

[Saint Therese]

I get what you're saying.
What I'm saying is that the decisions of the Court are to be questioned. No matter their subject. Once a bad decisions means I question every one.

[Saint Therese]

dp

Edited January 24, 2009 by Saint Therese

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760037' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:59 AM']I get what you're saying.
What I'm saying is that the decisions of the Court are to be questioned. No matter their subject. Once a bad decisions means I question every one.[/quote]

Yeah, I can understand that. And the reason I am personally against the methods that have been used isn't because the Supreme Court ruled as it did, it's because of my own ethics-I just wanted to point out that the Court had ruled on to make the point that I think that the government should be consistent in what it says and does. -Katie

[Saint Therese]

If the gov't were consistent it wouldn't champion rights of terrorists and deny them to innocents.
The real problem with the American political system is that the American people believe that the goverment acts in their best interests and therefore they trust the government. 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.

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760043' date='Jan 24 2009, 03:18 AM']If the gov't were consistent it wouldn't champion rights of terrorists and deny them to innocents.
The real problem with the American political system is that the American people believe that the goverment acts in their best interests and therefore they trust the government. 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]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying-I do still think, though, that regardless of what someone has done, while in our custody any person should be treated humanely. I don't really trust the government much either. -Katie

Edited January 24, 2009 by Tinkerlina

[Hassan]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760004' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:00 AM']Just because they rule something doesn't make it so.[/quote]


Therese.

If you read the Geneva Conventions it is very, very clear that they do not only apply to uniformed soldiers.

[cmotherofpirl]

Why the Gitmo policies may not change
By: Josh Gerstein
January 23, 2009 06:29 PM EST

There may be less than meets the eye to the executive orders President Obama issued yesterday to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and prohibit the torture of prisoners in American custody. Those pronouncements may sound dramatic and unequivocal, but experts predict that American policy towards detainees could remain for months or even years pretty close to what it was as President Bush left office.

“I think the administration’s commitment to close Guantanamo is heartening; the fact they want to give themselves a year to do it, not so much,”, said Ramzi Kassem, a Yale Law School lecturer who represents prisoners like inmate Ahmed Zuhair, who was captured in Pakistan in 2001. “That would bring men like my client to eight years imprisonment for no apparent reason.”

Here are a few of the delays, caveats and loopholes that could limit the impact of Obama’s orders:

1. Everyone has to follow the Army Field Manual—for now…

Obama’s executive order on interrogations says all agencies of the government have to follow the Army Field Manual when interrogating detainees, meaning the CIA can no longer used so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, which have included waterboarding, the use of dogs in questioning, and stripping prisoners.

However, the order also created an interagency commission which will have six months to examine whether to create “additional or different guidance” for non-military agencies such as the CIA. One group that represents detainees, the Center for Constitutional Rights, deemed that an “escape hatch” to potentially allow enhanced interrogations in the future.

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White House counsel Greg Craig told reporters such fears are misplaced. “This is not an invitation to bring back different techniques than those that are approved inside the Army Field Manual, but an invitation to this task force to make recommendations as to whether or not there should be a separate protocol that's more appropriate to the intelligence community,” he said.

The distinction Craig made between “protocols” and “techniques,” though, seems less than clear.

“For now, they’re punting, saying they’ll comply with what’s in the Army manual…but at some point in the future this commission may revert to the executive” to recommend harsher techniques, said Kassem, adding that he was concerned about how transparent the commission’s recommendations would be.

“I’m happy to postpone that discussion [on “enhanced interrogation”]… on the condition that [it] happens transparently,” he said.

A Columbia law professor who worked on detention issues at the State Department under President Bush, Matthew Waxman, said Obama is wise to leave open the possibility of different guidance for the CIA’s experienced interrogators. “I’ve worked on drafts of the Army Field Manual,” Waxman said. “It’s designed to be in the hands of tens of thousands of people who may not have a lot of training or supervision.”

2. Obama ordered a 30-day review of Guantanamo conditions—by the man currently responsible for Guantanamo.

A section of Obama’s order on Guantanamo entitled “Humane Standards of Confinement” orders Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to spend the next thirty days reviewing the current conditions at the Caribbean prison to make sure they’re legal and follow the Geneva Convention. It seems doubtful that Gates, who has been atop the chain of command for Guantanamo for more than two years, will suddenly find conditions that were just fine on Monday of this week are now flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention.

“He’s not exactly impartial,” Kassem said.

Waxman pointed out that adhering to the Geneva Condition is “already the law,” and deemed that section of the order “bizarre.”




3. Obama vowed no torture on his watch, but force-feeding and solitary confinement apparently continue at Guantanamo for now.

It’s possible that the 30-day referral to Gates is simply an effort to buy the Obama team time to deal with two Guantanamo practices that some consider torture, or at least inhumane: force feeding and isolation of prisoners. According to detainee lawyers, about two dozen inmates who refuse to eat as a form of protest are currently being force fed, and about 140 are in some form of solitary confinement.

The Bush administration has argued that the feeding is humane and that the solitary, at least as practiced now, is not the kind of total isolation that amounts to torture. “There’s an important distinction to be made between isolation and separation” from other prisoners,” Waxman said.

As far as we know, the force feeding and solitary practices continued onto Obama’s watch. Craig dodged a question about the new president’s views on those issues. “I'm not going to get into the details,” Craig said.

4. The vast majority of detainees in American custody may see no benefit from Obama’s orders

While Obama ordered a case-by-case review of the 245 prisoners held at Guantanamo, the 600 prisoners held in indefinite American custody in Afghanistan and roughly 20,000 in Iraq won’t get such attention. The general policy review might aid them, eventually, but unless someone was about to torture them it’s unclear how they are better off.

“I think there’s a fairly good chance that on the whole from the perspective of my clients at Guantanamo and Bagram [the site of an American air base and prison in Afghanistan], their lives will be the same until those facilities are shut down, unfortunately,” Kassem said.

Asked why the reviews are limited to prisoners at Guantanamo, and not those at Bagram or Abu Ghraib, Craig said, “The president asked us to look at Guantanamo. That's the answer.”

5. The orders downplay the possibility that some prisoners might be set free in America.

Obama ordered that when Guantanamo closes, any remaining inmates “be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.” But Obama’s wordsmiths seem to have deliberately trimmed out any explicit mention of the explosive possibility of freeing prisoners on American soil.

While Obama’s aides seem to prefer trying prisoners in civil courts or freeing them abroad, there are no obvious charges to be filed against some of the detainees. Once Guantanamo closes, letting them loose in the U.S. may be the only option if other countries won’t take them.

Craig said he was “hopeful” that other governments will take many of the detainees, but some nations may not step up until the U.S. does. “One question a lot of countries keep asking is, ‘How many are you going to take?” Waxman said. “There may be some countries that want to earn some credit [with the] new administration…but I don’t expect this problem to go away.”

6. Military commissions are shut down…. for now

One of the attention grabbing provisions of Obama’s orders calls for military tribunals at Guantanamo to be “halted.” But the Obama administration is not ruling out returning to some sort of military forum to deal with some of the prisoners.

“This order does not eliminate or extinguish the military commissions, it just stays all proceedings in connection with the ongoing proceedings in Guantanamo,” Craig said, making clear that “improved military commissions” were still on the table.

That suggestion exasperates detainee lawyers like Kassem. “That would be a huge mistake, “ he said. “That system [is] set up to launder statements obtained through torture… What’s the point of getting rid of our offshore, improvised, sham, military tribunals in Cuba, only to recreate it here in the United States?”

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760043' date='Jan 24 2009, 01:18 AM']If the gov't were consistent it wouldn't champion rights of terrorists and deny them to innocents.
The real problem with the American political system is that the American people believe that the goverment acts in their best interests and therefore they trust the government. 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]
The argument that "the government doesn't do X means that it can't and shouldn't do Y" is a fallacy. Just because right now, abortion is legal, doesn't mean we shouldn't protect other humans from inhumanity as well. Keep praying for abortion.

And no, the "government" per se doesn't have the power to rule, but the people in the government do. They are legally elected representatives of the people. The power of the people to elect their government means the people they elect have the power to rule. Like it or not, that's how it works. It means putting up with people even when you disagree with them. If you have a problem with that, I suggest finding a new country with a different form of government.

[Giolla]

I didn't read the entire thread. But in all honesty closing Gitmo is a big mistake. Allowing terrorist to be judged the same way Americans do. Also we should be allowed to use any tatics of getting useful information necessary.

[missionseeker]

[quote name='Saint Therese' post='1760036' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:57 AM']I get what you're saying.
What I'm saying is that the decisions of the Court are to be questioned. No matter their subject. Once a bad decisions means I question every one.[/quote]


That makes absolutely no sense. By that logic if the supreme court ruled Roe v Wade you would question it.

Just sayin'

[missionseeker]

[quote name='missionseeker' post='1760223' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:14 PM']That makes absolutely no sense. By that logic if the supreme court ruled Roe v Wade you would question it.

Just sayin'[/quote]

overruled*

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Giolla' post='1760218' date='Jan 24 2009, 02:08 PM']Allowing terrorist to be judged the same way Americans do.[/quote]

I honestly don't see why the difference. If an alleged murderer and an alleged terrorist are both tried-what makes one better than the other? Also, many terrorist are American (not necessarily the ones in Gitmo, but there are many US citizens who have been accused of terrorism).

[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]

There are so many reasons NOT to allow any tactics necessary to be used but the most important is that it perverts everything the US portends to stand for. There also is the tricky matter of having to override the Geneva Convention, which we helped formulate. -Katie