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| Re: Obama Frees Five Prisoners From Gitmo! (1190636) | |||
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Re: Obama Frees Five Prisoners From Gitmo! |
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Posted by Nilet on Tue Jun 3 09:19:32 2014, in response to Re: Obama Frees Five Prisoners From Gitmo!, posted by Terrapin Station on Tue Jun 3 08:53:07 2014. I am not familiar with the particulars of the Gitmo situation.Here they are: The US government arrests/kidnaps people. Some of them are US citizens. These people are locked up in Guantanamo Bay, without any charge being filed against them, nor any ability to challenge this imprisonment. The US government has now admitted that most of them were random people, completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but is claiming they can't be released because having been imprisoned and tortured for the last decade might motivate them to take highly justified revenge against the US for said imprisonment and torture. Essentially, "the fact that we wrongfully imprisoned you justifies imprisoning you." Note that additionally, some people were arrested, formally charged in courts, and then told that they would be locked up in Guantanamo forever unless they pled guilty in court and refused to present any evidence of their innocence. Still others were kidnapped, imprisoned in Guantanamo without charges or ability to challenge imprisonment, tortured, and then given a sham trial in a real court only after they had been too broken by torture to meaningfully defend themselves. ...but I also think that since the types of enemies of our country is experiencing (i.e. people clearly fighting "America" but not backed by an actual other sovereign nation) has changed, our laws need to change with it. Bullshit. There have always been criminals plotting mass murders; their motivations are irrelevant and their capabilities are unchanged. A "terrorist" group is no different from an organised crime family, which is no different from a "militia" that thinks the US is evil because black people. The only thing that distinguishes the arbitrary subset of brown-skinned criminals designated as "terrorists" is that they committed a crime more successful than most (courtesy of George W. Bush and his apparent illiteracy) and a group of unscrupulous politicians exploited that crime to seize dictatorial power by convincing a bunch of panicked animals that it was necessary to "protect" them. However I think the changes in law should still reflect our values and be in line with our existing laws and practices as much as possible. I firmly believe in the whole Ben Franklin business. Good. Then you support the immediate closure of Guantanamo (and other concentration camps), the cessation of mass spying, the repeal of the Patriot Act, NDAA, and Authorisation for Use of Military Force, and a massive investigation of the Bush and Obama regimes with plenty of special prosecutors to go around. But if a guy like Obama doesn't even want to shut it down, and he LOVES America, then I think there must be some good reasons for it. Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence. Seriously, Obama is either a far-right extremist or a spineless pile of jelly who acts like a far-right extremist because a far-right extremist told him to and he passively does whatever the shoutiest man in the room tells him to. "A prominent government official told me it was necessary, so I think there must be some good reasons for it" is the common bleat of the panicked animals who agreed to the end of democracy. I think the process should be more transparent and there should be laws made by publicly elected officials to deal with the situations that are causing these guys to be held indefinitely at Gitmo. The situation that is causing these guys to be held indefinitely is that the government has declared it can hold anyone indefinitely and doesn't have to provide a reason. Luckily, we already do have laws to deal with these situations— chief among them, the Sixth Amendment quoted earlier in this thread. |
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