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Guantanamo Is Closing (pg. 3)
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Source: Democracy Now
Additional Link: LA Times
I'm just curious when everyone is stop loosing their mind every time Obama sneezes or blinks, not that it's likely to stop any time soon. The man is a fraud, not to mention the whitest black man since Colin Powell. And when I say white, I mean no different than your average WASP, except with a darker skin tone; a Wallstreet whore on a leash firmly tugged by AIPAC. Lame :). |
They're closing the secret prisons, outlawing torture, but its in your quote, they have to "preserve some tools." I don't see a problem with that or how it amounts to fraud. |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh4
They're closing the secret prisons, outlawing torture, but its in your quote, they have to "preserve some tools." I don't see a problem with that or how it amounts to fraud. |
Are you serious? It's the exact same "tools"... how is that any different that what we've had going on for the last 8 years? Josh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume you're quite familiar with the extraordinary renditions program and don't need a recap... honestly, I'm puzzled by your response :conf:. |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Are you serious? It's the exact same "tools"... how is that any different that what we've had going on for the last 8 years? Josh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume you're quite familiar with the extraordinary renditions program and don't need a recap... honestly, I'm puzzled by your response :conf:. |
As long as it doesn't involve secret prisons and torture I don't see a problem with maintaining the tools to deal with our enemies. Since Obama said a big stern NO to both of those, they won't be a factor in it. The difference between the last 8 years is it won't involve secret prisons and torture. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh4
As long as it doesn't involve secret prisons and torture I don't see a problem with maintaining the tools to deal with our enemies. Since Obama said a big stern NO to both of those, they won't be a factor in it. The difference between the last 8 years is it won't involve secret prisons and torture. |
Yeah, I was going to point out that extraordinary rendition doesn't necessarily mean torture. It's when it's secretive that we have a problem... I'll wait to see whether there's a bit more transparency (and a bit less torture) this time around before leaping down his throat. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Yeah, I was going to point out that extraordinary rendition doesn't necessarily mean torture. It's when it's secretive that we have a problem... I'll wait to see whether there's a bit more transparency (and a bit less torture) this time around before leaping down his throat. |
I'm not well versed on this whole rendition thing and the nuances so maybe someone can help clear this up for me.... but didn't Obama just EXPAND rendition? Here is what I understand (someone correct me where I'm wrong):
With rendition, agents turn detainees over to authorities in their home country for interrogation. The Left went berzerk over this practice under Bush (even though it started under Clinton)... and this was one of the things that was going to change under Obama. According to this LA Times article, Obama had a sudden revelation as President that renditions are more necessary than ever (I assume after being able to read the actual intelligence reports after becoming president) if the CIA can't hold these subjects at Gitmo or its own secret sites. Here's a blurb:
| quote: | The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.
But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street. |
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-r...8176,full.story
So, the major controversy was due primarily because the home countries of the terrorists torture for information. Most of these terror suspects grabbed by the CIA come from countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and other places where the Geneva Convention only provides respectability but not any legal constraints of any kind. People were bitching that the CIA essentially outsourced its torture to subcontractors in this rendition process, ensuring that these methods would get used without getting their own hands dirty and getting the information torture produced.
Because of the Gitmo hysteria, Obama's kind of forced to expand rendition now because there's no place to put them. By law, the CIA can't bring suspects back to the US, so the only options are now rendition, assassination, or release.
"Frankly, I think the US does a better job of treating its detainees than anywhere a rendition program would deliver them, but without a Gitmo or CIA holding site, that's the only way to ensure that we can get any intelligence that will protect the US. I'm not surprised that Obama has reached the same conclusion, now that he has the responsibility to keep the nation secure from foreign attack. It's amazing how clarifying that responsibility can be, and Obama at least must have a little more comprehension of what Bush went through the last seven years. Perhaps the Left will suddenly realize the same logic and give him a pass on this."
-Kevin McCollough |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| People were going berserk because detainees were being renditioned to secret prisons in Egypt and Eastern Europe. Leaving them under the jurisdiction of their home countries is a good deal more just. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
People were going berserk because detainees were being renditioned to secret prisons in Egypt and Eastern Europe. Leaving them under the jurisdiction of their home countries is a good deal more just. |
yeah but isn't he still going to secretly allow "enhanced interrogation tactics" in a classified annex to the current Army Field Manuel? What's the difference between then and now, really? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
yeah but isn't he still going to secretly allow "enhanced interrogation tactics" in a classified annex to the current Army Field Manuel? What's the difference between then and now, really? |
That's reading quite a bit between the lines. I'm going to wait to see if that happens, but you're right - it does make me a bit uneasy that this leaves the door open for some of the same to continue, albeit on a smaller scale. |
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| XaNaX |
| The real problem with closing the Gitmo prison isn't what you are going to do with the terrorists you want to hold. Some unlucky junior Republican senator is going to have a supermax terrorist prison built in their state, that much is nearly certain. The problem is what do you do with the people we have detained and now cleared for release? No country in the world wants them, imagine the government of any country that accepted them trying to explain that decision away on TV when the "cleared" terrorists they accepted blew up a train station and killed 800 civilians. You think "well the US said they were OK" would fly" as an explanation? I don't. Obama sure as hell won't be bringing them on US soil, it would be political suicide for him and all the democrats if one of them pulls something here. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
Well, for all the talk that Obama isn't reversing Bush's policies... the Bush administration sure seems to think he is.
| quote: | Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.
In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects.
And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans—and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team—understand.
“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said.
Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.” |
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18390.html
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| josh4 |
That's to be expected, it doesn't mean anything. Saying it now supposedly resolves them of any blame in the future and gives him an I told you so should something happen. It would be that way no matter what Obama does. |
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| LazFX |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Source: Democracy Now
Additional Link: LA Times
I'm just curious when everyone is stop loosing their mind every time Obama sneezes or blinks, not that it's likely to stop any time soon. The man is a fraud, not to mention the whitest black man since Colin Powell. And when I say white, I mean no different than your average WASP, except with a darker skin tone; a Wallstreet whore on a leash firmly tugged by AIPAC. Lame :). |
RACIST!!! STEP IN LINE. NOW!! :D |
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