Is It Time To Close Guantanamo Bay?

We shouldn't be holding anyone without charging, trying, or convicting them for some kind of criminal offense. That so few prisoners there have been put through any kind of process is damning. Our respect for law and process and treating everyone in a just and humane manner is what makes us better than our enemies, and compromising those values to fight an enemy destroys us in the process. If we are truly righteous (which, by comparison, we are), then we should not fear to try a terrorist or conspirator in open court. Guantanamo Bay represents a significant betrayal of what this country stands for and it should have been closed a long time ago.

and we have at least 2 empty Federal prisons in USA......time to use them and create jobs and lower costs........

It should be closed ASAP.

We need to close this dark chapter in our history. It should have NEVER been built in the first place, and the atrocities that occurred there should be investigated further with charges given out.

Gitmo is a black eye in our history for sure.

Hard Truth said:

The whole point of Guantanamo was to get around established laws, it should never have been used for prisoners. The prisoners should be treated as POWs per the Geneva conventions, given a legitimate trial in the USA or set free. I don't buy the arguments that we need a special category of criminal/combatant so the established laws can be circumvented. Obama should have used an executive order to move the prisoners to the USA and put them on trial as he (supposedly) originally intended to do.

By the way, there is good reason to believe that some of the prisoners may be innocent, or too small-time to be worth incarcerating.

Click to expand...

1. most of the guys being held at gitmo do not meet the guidelines of the geneva convention to be considered POWs

2. i agree they should either be tried or set free.

3. the problem lies with where are you going to try them? which court would hear the cases?

4. if you set them free..where the hell are they going to go? many of them would be killed in very short order if they were sent back "home" (either by their former terrorist buddies out of fear that they had collaborated with the enemy or by the locals who don't want a terrorist living amonst them). i've been to iraq and gitmo, most of those guys are living better in gitmo than they were in whatever desert craphole they came from

Guantanamo Bay has been a US Military instillation all my life and certainly long before 9/11/01. I see no reason to shut it down. As far as the Camp Delta section where Al Qaeda POWs are kept, I'm not sure. Knowing how passionate Sen. Obama was about closing it then did a 180 once he became POTUS leads me to conclude there has to be some important national security reason for his change in position that he cannot share with the public.

Since the War on Terror has gone on longer than anybody expected I could be talked into supporting the concept of offering each detainee the choice of having their status' changed from POW to criminal suspect and then face a regular criminal charge(s) such as murder or conspiracy to commit murder under Afghan, Iraqi, British, German, US law, etc. depending on where each infraction occurred with the real possibility of multiple trials per detainee when multiple jurisdictions are involved with sentences to be served consecutively but with time deducted for time already spent at Camp Delta.

Smeagol said:

Guantanamo Bay has been a US Military instillation all my life and certainly long before 9/11/01. I see no reason to shut it down. As far as the Camp Delta section where Al Qaeda POWs are kept, I'm not sure. Knowing how passionate Sen. Obama was about closing it then did a 180 once he became POTUS leads me to conclude there has to be some important national security reason for his change in position that he cannot share with the public.

Since the War on Terror has gone on longer than anybody expected I could be talked into supporting the concept of offering each detainee the choice of having their status' changed from POW to criminal suspect and then face a regular criminal charge(s) such as murder or conspiracy to commit murder under Afghan, Iraqi, British, German, US law, etc. depending on where each infraction occurred with the real possibility of multiple trials per detainee when multiple jurisdictions are involved with sentences to be served consecutively but with time deducted for time already spent at Camp Delta.

Click to expand...

That's the funny thing about fighting wars against such broadly defined words. You can never win.

War on Drugs
War on Illiteracy
War on Poverty
War on Terror

All of those have one thing in common...the cost a hell of a lot of money and they NEVER end.

I think Gitmo is a great place to house this scum.....It is isolated and segregated unlike prisons in the USA...Keep them there forever.......

Navy Pride said:

I think Gitmo is a great place to house this scum.....It is isolated and segregated unlike prisons in the USA...Keep them there forever.......

Click to expand...

Yea you think that even after stats like this?
"779 persons have been imprisoned in Guantanamo since January 11, 2002.166 prisoners are still detained in Guantanamo.
603 prisoners have been released.
1 Guantanamo prisoner has been convicted by US federal courts (Ahmed Ghalilani)."

I think we should expand Gitmo. Send these thug gangstas down there to live out the rest of their lives.

Yeah, Romney, Boehner, and Cantor at least would look good in an orange jump suit. Might have to special order one for McConnell though...

Navy Pride said:

I think Gitmo is a great place to house this scum.....It is isolated and segregated unlike prisons in the USA...Keep them there forever.......

Click to expand...

To be completely honest, I'm convinced the reason they're keeping them at Gitmo rather than someplace in the US is Gitmo is in Cuba. If they were in Indiana for example, Al Qaeda terrorists might be able to claim a whole list of rights under the US Constitution. Alternately, if they just let them go free its likely they'll get back to being terrorists.

A messy situation for sure and the only guaranteed solution is to eliminate the terrorists motive, which is wash our hands of the Middle East and let them live the medieval lives they cherish so much in isolation. Problem is I can see us doing that as long as they're sitting on the world's largest known oil reserves. Add to that the fact that our own corporate interests have dug in their heels to do everything they can in hopes that oil maintains an EXCLUSIVE monopoly as the fuel for the personal transportation our economy must rely upon no matter how many people have to get blown up. They have convinced a major portion of the population that no other alternative to oil is nor can ever be viable until every last drop of oil is used up with the possible exception of natural gas, which they also happen to profit from ignoring and duping almost the whole counting into ignoring everything we know about the new technology business model.

I still think we should declare our American punk ass gangsters, ie; Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, Gangster Deciples, M13, etc, as domestic terrorists. Round them up, (they are very easly identified,) and send them all to Gitmo to make bitches out of those Islamaniacs.

But that's just me....

Navy Pride said:

I think Gitmo is a great place to house this scum.....It is isolated and segregated unlike prisons in the USA...Keep them there forever.......

Click to expand...

Yeah...that is a great idea....let us keep housing SUSPECTED terrorists or scrubs with American tax payer money. Sounds great!

I thought you were supposed to be "Very Conservative"....if you like wasting money than you are anything but conservative.

Too many atrocities have been committed there by our own people. If we are to proclaim to provide rights and be free...we cannot let this go on. It should be closed.

Captain America said:

I still think we should declare our American punk ass gangsters, ie; Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, Gangster Deciples, M13, etc, as domestic terrorists. Round them up, (they are very easly identified,) and send them all to Gitmo to make bitches out of those Islamaniacs.

But that's just me....

Click to expand...

Thus the difference. Those on American soil are afforded US Constitutional rights; speedy trial, presumption of innocence, Miranda rights, legal counsel, no aggressive interrogation, no double jeopardy, rights to habeas corpus (which in the case of Al Qeada would give them legal access to highly classified intelligence to then publish on the Internet), etc. etc. That's the REASON IMHO they aren't allowed to set foot on US soil. Street gangs are certainly a menace to society but already being here gives them rights including not to be expelled to GITMO.