I didn't really know this was coming, but I heard Obama's speech while driving this afternoon. I think the plan is a good one, but I am sure some here will disagree.
The Plan to Shut Down Gitmo
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD - FEB. 23, 2016The Obama administration this week will begin the task of trying to persuade Congress to support its plan to shut down the prison in Guantánamo Bay before the president leaves office in January.
Republican lawmakers all too often have been reflexive and thoughtless in their opposition to closing Guantánamo, one of the most shameful chapters in America’s recent history. Closing the prison by the end of the year is feasible. It would make the United States safer, help restore America’s standing as a champion of human rights and save taxpayers millions of dollars.
In recent weeks, the Pentagon and the State Department have made considerable progress toward the goal of further reducing the number of inmates at Guantánamo, which stands at 91. Of those inmates, the government expects to resettle 35 in other countries by this summer.
Of the remaining 56, 10 have been convicted of terrorism charges or have pending cases before the military commission established to prosecute terrorism suspects.
That leaves 46 inmates whose fate is uncertain.
Lawyers who represent Guantánamo inmates say that roughly 10 of those detainees would be willing to plead guilty in federal court to charges such as providing material support to terrorism or conspiracy to commit terrorism. The logistical and legal challenges of those potential plea deals should be relatively easy to overcome if officials at the White House and the Justice Department make settling those cases a priority.
American officials are separately exploring the possibility of sending some detainees to allied countries that might be willing to prosecute them. Meanwhile, in the coming months, a review board consisting of officials from multiple national security agencies will continue to examine whether some of the remaining detainees can be cleared for release.
Progress on those fronts would reduce the population at Guantánamo to a very small number. And that would make the cost of running the overseas prison increasingly hard to justify. The cost to taxpayers in the 2015 fiscal year was an astounding $445 million, which translates into a per-detainee amount that is exponentially higher than the cost of housing maximum-security prisoners at a federal correctional facility.
There will inevitably be a small number of detainees whom the government deems ineligible for prosecution and too dangerous to release. Officials at the Pentagon have been studying detention sites in the United States where they can be sent. Unfortunately, Congress has passed legislation that bars the administration from bringing Guantánamo detainees onto American soil.
Remove everyone from the confines, except prisoners. Fly over with a couple of F-18s. Explain that they carry two different weapons pods.
One with napalm. The other with something so vile that Muslims revolt at the thought of it.
Let them decide which one they want.
I have been opposed to taking prisoners of war and keeping them anywhere during or after a war. I favor swaps. I don't even support war, I think it is immoral and against the basic rights of a person to live in peace, in the land they were born in, the land God put them in. War is evil.
The problems with Gitmo have been many.
1. It was used as a torture site, the same as rendition sites, the same things happened there, everybody knows that.
2. It is against our Constitution to keep prisoners and deny them their basic rights, the govt. got around that legally by keeping them off US soil, it doesn't make it any more palatable. It is still morally wrong.
3. Some of those there were even found innocent by the Military Tribunals and they are still there, that makes no sense at all. They should have been released to their home countries or a neutral country (like some of the Scandanavian countries).
4. We are going to transfer some of them to US soil, to US prisons to keep them indefinitely. Do we have the right to do that?
5. The Patriot Act violates our Constitution. Legislation that followed is an extension of that.
6. Isn't it hypocritical to create fear mongering calling people terrorists, when reporters have exposed the US itself provided material support to Al Qaida and other groups at different times, in different places for political means/goals? People have written books about it going back to the first Afghan war where we supposedly hired the mujahideen to fight the Russians for us. We hired people in Libya to fight against Qaddafi, we sent money to Iraqi rebels to fight Saddam, we hired people in Syria to fight against Assad. We are always subsidizing groups to fight these wars. Then we say, oh but they are terrorists because these specific people are fighting against us, they want to do their own thing in these lands, we cannot control and manage them.
Yes I know there are hardliners who want everyone to convert to their version of Islam, and there are those that will bomb people etc. etc. We have more than one war going on. The one the hardliners are running; the one the intel and other agencies are running convincing people there are 'terrorists' lurking all over the world so you should give your rights to be safe and live in a surveillance state.
Why don't we just stay the eff home, seal our borders, fix our infrastructure, create jobs and let the other countries manage their own people/resources. We have 10,000 fighters still in Afghanistan, and they cannot leave, yet we ended our war there officially.
So we will close Gitmo, and still keep people there, or send them to some other horror prison. And if Congress doesn't agree, well the Prez can say he tried, they wouldn't let him close it.
[Edited on 2/23/2016 by gina]
[Edited on 2/23/2016 by gina]
I've never thought that enemy combatants should be housed in prisons within our country. People captured in military operations during military conflicts should remain within the military's control at a military detention facility.
Aren't we holding people in there that haven't been charged because there isn't enough evidence to charge them with a crime?
Kinda seems unAmerican.
Aren't we holding people in there that haven't been charged because there isn't enough evidence to charge them with a crime?
Kinda seems unAmerican.
I agree.
We invade other countries to give them that good old Merican demonacracy, yet we do this????
Do as we say, not as we do.
Put 'em in Bob's , Ron's and Billy's hometowns, let 'em assimilate with the US terrorist sympathizers locked up, make more contacts and then let 'em out in a few years on good behavior. Have 'em walking the streets of DC suburbs or NYC.
[Edited on 2/24/2016 by OriginalGoober]
I've never thought that enemy combatants should be housed in prisons within our country. People captured in military operations during military conflicts should remain within the military's control at a military detention facility.
__________________________________________________________________________Correct.
Some, like little billy’s post after your post shows they have a complete lack of understanding of the laws and rules of military conflict, the problems associated with bringing enemy combatants to U.S. soil and the value of gathering intelligence.
Little billy’s statement assumes “there isn't enough evidence” which is crap. I could explain the whys but the liberals are not interested in the facts, they have a political agenda which drives their thought pattern, defective as it is.
Yesterday Obama presented his speech on this subject and he dumped it all on Congress. This is again purely a political move. Dump the responsibility on Congress who will not allow these Islamic Extremists Terrorists to land on U.S. soil. Obama knows this and wants the political issue.
Obama is desperate to build his “legacy” which to date has been failure.
U.S. law forbids transferring enemy combatants to U.S. soil, period.
I suppose the real problem is that we are in a 100 year or longer war. there will be many "enemy" combatants captured. evidence will be hard to come by. these will be young men. there could be 10's of thousands of prisoners. how long will we hold them? where will we hold them? if we release them, the argument goes, they will rejoin the fight. I think we are unfortunately at the beginning of this. I don't think Gitmo is a long term answer.
The Republicans who attacked Obama for not closing down Guantanamo are now opposing shutting down the place. SSDD.
Correct.
Some, like little billy’s post after your post shows they have a complete lack of understanding of the laws and rules of military conflict, the problems associated with bringing enemy combatants to U.S. soil and the value of gathering intelligence.
Little billy’s statement assumes “there isn't enough evidence” which is crap. I could explain the whys but the liberals are not interested in the facts, they have a political agenda which drives their thought pattern, defective as it is.
Yesterday Obama presented his speech on this subject and he dumped it all on Congress. This is again purely a political move. Dump the responsibility on Congress who will not allow these Islamic Extremists Terrorists to land on U.S. soil. Obama knows this and wants the political issue.
Obama is desperate to build his “legacy” which to date has been failure.
U.S. law forbids transferring enemy combatants to U.S. soil, period.
Moron.
I suppose the real problem is that we are in a 100 year or longer war. there will be many "enemy" combatants captured. evidence will be hard to come by. these will be young men. there could be 10's of thousands of prisoners. how long will we hold them? where will we hold them? if we release them, the argument goes, they will rejoin the fight. I think we are unfortunately at the beginning of this. I don't think Gitmo is a long term answer.
_________________________________________________________________________
What is the answer?
Under Obama the U.S. just kills the Islamic Extremist Terrorists and none are captured. Thus intelligence is not gathered such as the information we got from Gitmo detainee Ayman al- Zawahiri which led The U.S. to Osama bin Laden.
Intelligence is essential in prosecuting the was on terrorism.
I suppose the real problem is that we are in a 100 year or longer war. there will be many "enemy" combatants captured. evidence will be hard to come by. these will be young men. there could be 10's of thousands of prisoners. how long will we hold them? where will we hold them? if we release them, the argument goes, they will rejoin the fight. I think we are unfortunately at the beginning of this. I don't think Gitmo is a long term answer.
True. Unfortunately true. I don't know what to do with them. If they are taken out of the fight, if they are taken away from the networks in which they operate that can only be a good thing. But then what do you do with them and how long do you keep them? Assuming you can get good intelligence out of them after capturing them then you can't just kill them in the fight - I mean, if there is value in capturing them that is. Once you've gotten all you can from them what do you do? Release and they will rejoin the fight. I don't know. I've never known how to handle this issue. I do know I have a very very hard time putting foreigners captured in a global effort to fight terrorist groups in American prisons here in this country. It isn't the place for them. That is for prisoners convicted in the American criminal justice system. People you get from a theater of war belong somewhere else.
I suppose the real problem is that we are in a 100 year or longer war. there will be many "enemy" combatants captured. evidence will be hard to come by. these will be young men. there could be 10's of thousands of prisoners. how long will we hold them? where will we hold them? if we release them, the argument goes, they will rejoin the fight. I think we are unfortunately at the beginning of this. I don't think Gitmo is a long term answer.
_________________________________________________________________________
What is the answer?
Under Obama the U.S. just kills the Islamic Extremist Terrorists and none are captured. Thus intelligence is not gathered such as the information we got from Gitmo detainee Ayman al- Zawahiri which led The U.S. to Osama bin Laden.
Intelligence is essential in prosecuting the was on terrorism.
its above my pay grade to have that answer.
If we can't have Gitmo, then I guess keep them in black sites around the globe. Much worse conditions for the prisoners if that is something you care about, I really don't.
Maybe it is kind of like sausage. We like it, but don't want to know how it is made.
It seems a strange war that doesn't have POW camps in the land the war is being fought.
Everything about this never ending war seems strange to me. I don't even know what we are fighting for. What constitutes a win? It seems we are just fighting to maintain our presence.
It sure seems like a lot of money for nothing.
I suppose the real problem is that we are in a 100 year or longer war. there will be many "enemy" combatants captured. evidence will be hard to come by. these will be young men. there could be 10's of thousands of prisoners. how long will we hold them? where will we hold them? if we release them, the argument goes, they will rejoin the fight. I think we are unfortunately at the beginning of this. I don't think Gitmo is a long term answer.
True. Unfortunately true. I don't know what to do with them. If they are taken out of the fight, if they are taken away from the networks in which they operate that can only be a good thing. But then what do you do with them and how long do you keep them? Assuming you can get good intelligence out of them after capturing them then you can't just kill them in the fight - I mean, if there is value in capturing them that is. Once you've gotten all you can from them what do you do? Release and they will rejoin the fight. I don't know. I've never known how to handle this issue. I do know I have a very very hard time putting foreigners captured in a global effort to fight terrorist groups in American prisons here in this country. It isn't the place for them. That is for prisoners convicted in the American criminal justice system. People you get from a theater of war belong somewhere else.
It's not a declared war. President Bush made it clear that this threat is outside the boundaries of anything else seen prior.
Just kill them all.
Thanks for clearing that up Bhawk. 
It seems a strange war that doesn't have POW camps in the land the war is being fought.
Everything about this never ending war seems strange to me. I don't even know what we are fighting for. What constitutes a win? It seems we are just fighting to maintain our presence.
It sure seems like a lot of money for nothing.
__________________________________________________________________________
“I don't even know what we are fighting for”
Ask the families of those murdered by Islamic Extremist Terrorists who were here on U.S. soil right under Bill Clinton’s nose.
Those Islamic Extremist Terrorists were here training to fly aircraft and planning their attack which killed almost 3,000 people. Clinton refused to act while Osama bin Laden was bombing our embassies and blowing a hole in the USS Cole.
Repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda was planning to attack the U.S. homeland, Clinton was too busy defending his lying under oath and sexually assaulting women.
Just like Obama the failure, Clinton acted as if he ignores terrorism it isn’t really there.
The families of the murdered would disagree.
Why aren't we bombing Saudi Arabia?
I suppose the real problem is that we are in a 100 year or longer war. there will be many "enemy" combatants captured. evidence will be hard to come by. these will be young men. there could be 10's of thousands of prisoners. how long will we hold them? where will we hold them? if we release them, the argument goes, they will rejoin the fight. I think we are unfortunately at the beginning of this. I don't think Gitmo is a long term answer.
True. Unfortunately true. I don't know what to do with them. If they are taken out of the fight, if they are taken away from the networks in which they operate that can only be a good thing. But then what do you do with them and how long do you keep them? Assuming you can get good intelligence out of them after capturing them then you can't just kill them in the fight - I mean, if there is value in capturing them that is. Once you've gotten all you can from them what do you do? Release and they will rejoin the fight. I don't know. I've never known how to handle this issue. I do know I have a very very hard time putting foreigners captured in a global effort to fight terrorist groups in American prisons here in this country. It isn't the place for them. That is for prisoners convicted in the American criminal justice system. People you get from a theater of war belong somewhere else.
It's not a declared war. President Bush made it clear that this threat is outside the boundaries of anything else seen prior.
Just kill them all.
________________________________________________________________________
The military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq were duly authorized by huge margins by The Congress by both parties including Sen. Hillary Clinton.
What is your plan to defeat Islamic Extremist Terrorism?
I suppose the real problem is that we are in a 100 year or longer war. there will be many "enemy" combatants captured. evidence will be hard to come by. these will be young men. there could be 10's of thousands of prisoners. how long will we hold them? where will we hold them? if we release them, the argument goes, they will rejoin the fight. I think we are unfortunately at the beginning of this. I don't think Gitmo is a long term answer.
True. Unfortunately true. I don't know what to do with them. If they are taken out of the fight, if they are taken away from the networks in which they operate that can only be a good thing. But then what do you do with them and how long do you keep them? Assuming you can get good intelligence out of them after capturing them then you can't just kill them in the fight - I mean, if there is value in capturing them that is. Once you've gotten all you can from them what do you do? Release and they will rejoin the fight. I don't know. I've never known how to handle this issue. I do know I have a very very hard time putting foreigners captured in a global effort to fight terrorist groups in American prisons here in this country. It isn't the place for them. That is for prisoners convicted in the American criminal justice system. People you get from a theater of war belong somewhere else.
It's not a declared war. President Bush made it clear that this threat is outside the boundaries of anything else seen prior.
Just kill them all.
________________________________________________________________________
The military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq were duly authorized by huge margins by The Congress by both parties including Sen. Hillary Clinton.
What is your plan to defeat Islamic Extremist Terrorism?
Kill them all. There's no other solution.
“I don't even know what we are fighting for”
Ask the families of those murdered by Islamic Extremist Terrorists who were here on U.S. soil right under Bill Clinton’s nose.
Those Islamic Extremist Terrorists were here training to fly aircraft and planning their attack which killed almost 3,000 people. Clinton refused to act while Osama bin Laden was bombing our embassies and blowing a hole in the USS Cole.
Repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda was planning to attack the U.S. homeland, Clinton was too busy defending his lying under oath and sexually assaulting women.
Just like Obama the failure, Clinton acted as if he ignores terrorism it isn’t really there.
The families of the murdered would disagree.
Keep it real. Sure the Clinton administration passed on chances to kill or capture Bin Laden. They certainly should've wanted him with the attacks that happened on their watch led by Bin Laden. Kick the can down the road I guess. BUT, the Bush administration also had intelligence of terrorists wanting to hijack airplanes for suicide attacks. Neither side is squeaky clean.
quote:It seems a strange war that doesn't have POW camps in the land the war is being fought.
Everything about this never ending war seems strange to me. I don't even know what we are fighting for. What constitutes a win? It seems we are just fighting to maintain our presence.
It sure seems like a lot of money for nothing.
That and the United States no longer declares war. Korea and Vietnam and the 91 war with Iraq were not declared wars. Just not the way they do things anymore. What we are doing now, while not war in a traditional sense, it is very clearly war all the same.
I get the same feeling though. How does it end? How do we win? Can it end? One thing I don't question is the real threat that exists. I don't believe that is debatable, only how we deal with it.
I get the same feeling though. How does it end? How do we win? Can it end? One thing I don't question is the real threat that exists. I don't believe that is debatable, only how we deal with it.
Yes, the threat is real, but have more lives been saved than have been lost in this war on terror?
I get the same feeling though. How does it end? How do we win? Can it end? One thing I don't question is the real threat that exists. I don't believe that is debatable, only how we deal with it.
Yes, the threat is real, but have more lives been saved than have been lost in this war on terror?
There is no answer to that. While al-Qaeda has been diminished, ISIS has grown. It is impossible to quantify what might have happened.
In her testimony before Congress today, Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed that Obama cannot move any detainee from Gitmo to U.S. soil.
I get the same feeling though. How does it end? How do we win? Can it end? One thing I don't question is the real threat that exists. I don't believe that is debatable, only how we deal with it.
Yes, the threat is real, but have more lives been saved than have been lost in this war on terror?
There is no answer to that. While al-Qaeda has been diminished, ISIS has grown. It is impossible to quantify what might have happened.
You can never know, but you have to consider the question to draw any conclusion about the wisdom of this strategy. If you consider that the weakening of al-Qeada is a result of the war in Afghanistan and the strengthening of ISIS is a result of the war in Iraq I guess you'd have to say the wisdom of the overall strategy is mixed at best. Since we are fighting an ideology rather than an entity it is nearly impossible to gage success, but it is not difficult to tabulate the mounting losses.
[Edited on 2/24/2016 by bob1954]
I get the same feeling though. How does it end? How do we win? Can it end? One thing I don't question is the real threat that exists. I don't believe that is debatable, only how we deal with it.
Yes, the threat is real, but have more lives been saved than have been lost in this war on terror?
There is no answer to that. While al-Qaeda has been diminished, ISIS has grown. It is impossible to quantify what might have happened.
You can never know, but you have to consider the question to draw any conclusion about the wisdom of this strategy. If you consider that the weakening of al-Qeada is a result of the war in Afghanistan and the strengthening of ISIS is a result of the war in Iraq I guess you'd have to say the wisdom of the overall strategy is mixed at best. Since we are fighting an ideology rather than an entity it is nearly impossible to gage success, but it is not difficult to tabulate the mounting losses.
[Edited on 2/24/2016 by bob1954]
Right, but there is no way to quantify the success. Some say that we haven't had an attack on the scale of 9/11, but I don't see that as any type of proven success. I guess that to determine if holding these people has gained us much, you have to examine whether the military has been successful with the info from Gitmo. Since we wouldn't have Gitmo without the war, we are talking in an ever expanding circle. IMO. we need to put them on trial or send the back. I doubt that we will do either.
Aren't we holding people in there that haven't been charged because there isn't enough evidence to charge them with a crime?
Kinda seems unAmerican.
It is un-American, they had secret trials, secret evidence, even with that some were found innocent by the Military Tribunals and are still there. They should have been sent back to their home countries. All nations are supposed to have cities of refuge for those who are persecuted or at odds with the govt./political conditions in the country. That goes back to the times of Abraham from the Bible, but sadly the Romans did not adhere to it anymore than modern day nations.
America ought to abide by it's own laws, not keep prisoners in foreign countries and abuse them. Catch and swap or release, that is what should be done with prisoners on a global basis.
Aren't we holding people in there that haven't been charged because there isn't enough evidence to charge them with a crime?
Kinda seems unAmerican.
It is un-American, they had secret trials, secret evidence, even with that some were found innocent by the Military Tribunals and are still there. They should have been sent back to their home countries. All nations are supposed to have cities of refuge for those who are persecuted or at odds with the govt./political conditions in the country. That goes back to the times of Abraham from the Bible, but sadly the Romans did not adhere to it anymore than modern day nations.
America ought to abide by it's own laws, not keep prisoners in foreign countries and abuse them. Catch and swap or release, that is what should be done with prisoners on a global basis.
There were no secret trials. Do you have a reliable link? They are POW's. They don't get a trial.