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Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative....

Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Fearandloathing said:
MMC said:
Fearandloathing said:
First off, he promised to CLOSE Gitmo. He's doing it.





They don't care.

I suspect the goal is to get it all wrapped up before the 2016 so Republicans have nothing to shoot at.

Obama never has been about what is, but what he can make it appear to be. There was no resolution in Iraq when he pulled out, and we know the local government wanted troops to stay.

My concern is not the Afghan government as it has never ruled Afghanistan, but what's shaping up to fill the void, especially since Obama has again been so kind as to tell them exactly he intends to to.
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Well AQ is already back there.....and as you can see from the one link. The Taliban have a revived insurgency operating throughout the country.
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Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

MMC said:
Someone should have asked him.....can you say with releasing these Taliban members that they will not go back to fighting for the Taliban. How does that make US troops in Afghanistan feel.

Then they should have caught him over the Afghan Government not even really up and running. Both leaders still fighting each other too.
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Asking these sorts of questions could have ruined the negotiations. Much like Cuba, the headlines work better than the details.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Grant said:
The bar for what constitutes a terrorist seems to be set pretty high. Major Hassan, he of the Fort Hood Massacre, had terrorist on his business card, was in constant contact with fellow terrorists, threatened to murder Americans on a number of occasions and then finally did, shouting Allah Achbar repeatedly while doing so.. Those murdered, despite having weapons training, were unarmed and because it is being called 'workplace violence' the dead and wounded are not eligible for Purple Hearts, or any other distinctive recognitions.

So claiming this administration is too hard on terrorists, after after releasing five in exchange for a deserter, doesn't seem to carry much weight. Maybe electing a Community Organizer, with no experience in actually organizing a community, was not such a bright idea. The National Disgrace of Fort Hood :: SteynOnline
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I agree, he has spoiled the waters here, but I don't see how that relates to Gitmo. There, they have every evidence the guy was a terrorist, but few if any of the detainees have even seen any evidence against them.

It is impossible for the US to demand human rights changes in Cuba, China and North Korea, their leaders simply sit back, laugh and say "Gitmo".....

The US needs to wake up to the fact that just about every nation on earth has condemned Gitmo and the torture that's going on there. Simply renaming **** doesn't work outside the US anymore.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

MMC said:
Fearandloathing said:
MMC said:
Well AQ is already back there.....and as you can see from the one link. The Taliban have a revived insurgency operating throughout the country.
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Re-entered?

I know Canadian soldiers who did tours in Kandahar [the severest of the fighting] who contend the whole war simply drove them underground and some suggestion their numbers have been swelling with every real and perceived injustice by American troops.
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Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Grant said:
Asking these sorts of questions could have ruined the negotiations. Much like Cuba, the headlines work better than the details.
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Yeah, but BO's Team had already given him the scoop and why he will have a major difficulty.


In December 2012 Jeh Johnson, the former top Pentagon lawyer and current Homeland Security secretary, mused in a speech at Oxford that even after the end of the AUMF, the US might possess residual wartime detention powers, citing a second world war precedent.

The US and the UK “faced similar challenging questions after the cessation of hostilities in World War Two, and our governments delayed the release of some Nazi German prisoners of war,” Johnson noted......snip~
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

If they'd just tried all those bastards at the time, hanged the ones who deserved it, and sentenced the rest to prison terms, we wouldn't have this problem now.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Grant said:
Obama said there were a number of thingss he would do, yes, including transparency in government, but releasing suspected Islamic terrorists was not high on the list of why people voted for him. The color of his skin was far more important'
It is not up to MMC to determine guilt or innocence. I would leave the issue with the military, not a Community Organizer.
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I corrected your post for you. Also, you're absolutely right, it's not up to MMC to decide guilt or innocence, it's up to the government, and the government cleared all 4 of them of all charges in 2008.

matchlight said:
If they'd just tried all those bastards at the time, hanged the ones who deserved it, and sentenced the rest to prison terms, we wouldn't have this problem now.
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Exactly! It seems like some people around here prefer: "Grab whoever you like, charge nobody with anything, and then torture them for decades until they die! Guilty? Who cares!"
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

matchlight said:
If they'd just tried all those bastards at the time, hanged the ones who deserved it, and sentenced the rest to prison terms, we wouldn't have this problem now.
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Now they are, as predicted, just killing them in the field. While this is acceptable and requires no red tape at all, there is no intelligence being gained. Leftists would rather see terrorists, or possible terrorists, dead, and I can understand their attitude, but gaining intelligence is important also.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

RabidAlpaca said:
Also, you're absolutely right.
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I corrected your post for you as well. Maybe we can continue this conversation after you've graduated from high school.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Fearandloathing said:
MMC said:
Fearandloathing said:
Re-entered?

I know Canadian soldiers who did tours in Kandahar [the severest of the fighting] who contend the whole war simply drove them underground and some suggestion their numbers have been swelling with every real and perceived injustice by American troops.
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Yep.....re-entered or was always still there.


5. Al Qaeda is still operating in Afghanistan today. Al Qaeda's leader in the Kunar and Nuristan provinces is Farouq al Qahtani. It is well-known that al Qahtani leads al Qaeda's forces and works with the group's allies in these remote areas. But al Qaeda operates outside of Kunar and Nuristan as well. Indeed, one of the documents captured in Osama bin Laden's compound and released to the public shows that the al Qaeda master ordered some of his subordinates to relocate from northern Pakistan to Ghazni and Zabul, as well as Kunar and Nuristan.

Read more: Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan: An enduring threat - The Long War Journal
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Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

matchlight said:
If they'd just tried all those bastards at the time, hanged the ones who deserved it, and sentenced the rest to prison terms, we wouldn't have this problem now.
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Heya Matchlight. :2wave: Well now that BO has opened relations with Cuba. Once he clears out all the detainees. Then the Repubs concern would be if he handed Gitmo over to Cuba.

If he did that the Repubs would be in an uproar. Maybe some Demos too.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

RabidAlpaca said:
I corrected your post for you. Also, you're absolutely right, it's not up to MMC to decide guilt or innocence, it's up to the government, and the government cleared all 4 of them of all charges in 2008.



Exactly! It seems like some people around here prefer: "Grab whoever you like, charge nobody with anything, and then torture them for decades until they die! Guilty? Who cares!"
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You do not know enough about this subject to correct anything I say about it.

The United States did not torture anyone at any time, let alone "for decades." And unlawful enemy combatants, for example the bastards detained at Guantanamo, have almost no rights under the laws of war. You might want to read Ex Parte Quirin, and then explain to us why you know more about the rights of unlawful enemy combatants than the Supreme Court.

Here is some of what those mean, icky justices said in Quirin:


An important incident to the conduct of war is the adoption of measures by the military command not only to repel and defeat the enemy, but to seize and subject to disciplinary measures those enemies who, in their attempt to thwart or impede our military effort, have violated the law of war . . . . . . . . . .

By universal agreement and practice, the law of war draws a distinction . . . between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but, in addition, they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful . . . . . . .

Nor are [persons] any the less belligerents if . . . they have not actually committed or attempted to commit any act of depredation or entered the theatre or zone of active military operations. (my italics)


The Court in Quirin also cited the rules followed by the U.S. military at the time. These have not changed substantially.

[Under] the Rules of Land Warfare promulgated by the War Department . . . "All war crimes are subject to the death penalty, although a lesser penalty may be imposed" . . . [Some] distinguishing characteristics of lawful belligerents that they "carry arms openly" and "have a fixed distinctive emblem" . . . "[P]ersons who take up arms and commit hostilities" without having the means of identification prescribed for belligerents are punishable as "war criminals" . . . "[M]en and bodies of men, who, without being lawful belligerents" "nevertheless commit hostile acts of any kind" are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war if captured, and may be tried by military commission and punished by death or lesser punishment. (my italics)





For anyone who hasn't seen my recommendation of a very well-written, well-documented book, I'd like to make it again. The author is Andy McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who helped convict Abdel "The Blind Sheikh" Rahman for conspiring in the first bombing of the World Trade Center by Muslim jihadists in 1993. The title is "The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America".
 
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Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Grant said:
Now they are, as predicted, just killing them in the field. While this is acceptable and requires no red tape at all, there is no intelligence being gained. Leftists would rather see terrorists, or possible terrorists, dead, and I can understand their attitude, but gaining intelligence is important also.
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So, BO got this one wrong with calling this issue a National Imperative.....huh?
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

MMC said:
So, BO got this one wrong with calling this issue a National Imperative.....huh?
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The National Imperative, like his other recent initiatives, had to fall within the time of the election and the new session in 2015. That's his Imperative in a hurry..
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Grant said:
The National Imperative, like his other recent initiatives, had to fall within the time of the election and the new session in 2015. That's his Imperative in a hurry..
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Well, it looks like a lot of his own followers and party members aren't agreeing with him on this one.....huh?
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

MMC said:
Well, it looks like a lot of his own followers and party members aren't agreeing with him on this one.....huh?
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They're all seeing the light, which is reflected in the polls.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Grant said:
They're all seeing the light, which is reflected in the polls.
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Yeah but you know they will say, the polls don't count. He isn't running for anything again.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

MMC said:
Yeah but you know they will say, the polls don't count. He isn't running for anything again.
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He's trying to get in as much Change as he can before he's blocked. All anyone can do now is Hope he's stopped in 2015.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

Grant said:
He's trying to get in as much Change as he can before he's blocked. All anyone can do now is Hope he's stopped in 2015.
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I don't know if he can on this one. McConnell did say Immigration will be on the plate in Feb. But First is the Keystone issue and this time BO himself will have to make the choice.
 
Re: Obama Releases 4 Gitmo Detainees Into Afghanistan: Closing is National Imperative

matchlight said:
You do not know enough about this subject to correct anything I say about it.

The United States did not torture anyone at any time, let alone "for decades." And unlawful enemy combatants, for example the bastards detained at Guantanamo, have almost no rights under the laws of war. You might want to read Ex Parte Quirin, and then explain to us why you know more about the rights of unlawful enemy combatants than the Supreme Court.

Here is some of what those mean, icky justices said in Quirin:


An important incident to the conduct of war is the adoption of measures by the military command not only to repel and defeat the enemy, but to seize and subject to disciplinary measures those enemies who, in their attempt to thwart or impede our military effort, have violated the law of war . . . . . . . . . .

By universal agreement and practice, the law of war draws a distinction . . . between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but, in addition, they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful . . . . . . .

Nor are [persons] any the less belligerents if . . . they have not actually committed or attempted to commit any act of depredation or entered the theatre or zone of active military operations. (my italics)


The Court in Quirin also cited the rules followed by the U.S. military at the time. These have not changed substantially.

[Under] the Rules of Land Warfare promulgated by the War Department . . . "All war crimes are subject to the death penalty, although a lesser penalty may be imposed" . . . [Some] distinguishing characteristics of lawful belligerents that they "carry arms openly" and "have a fixed distinctive emblem" . . . "[P]ersons who take up arms and commit hostilities" without having the means of identification prescribed for belligerents are punishable as "war criminals" . . . "[M]en and bodies of men, who, without being lawful belligerents" "nevertheless commit hostile acts of any kind" are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war if captured, and may be tried by military commission and punished by death or lesser punishment. (my italics)





For anyone who hasn't seen my recommendation of a very well-written, well-documented book, I'd like to make it again. The author is Andy McCarthy, the former federal prosecutor who helped convict Abdel "The Blind Sheikh" Rahman for conspiring in the first bombing of the World Trade Center by Muslim jihadists in 1993. The title is "The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America".
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I'm actually glad you brought this up. I've highlighted in red the entirety of my point. Most of the prisoners held at Gitmo have received no trial of any kind. The 4 men in question were cleared of all charges in 2008, yet it still took 6 years to release them.

What I find particularly disturbing is that people like yourself don't give one flying rat's ass whether these people are guilty or not. You figure "Oh, they were captured, so **** THEM let's do whatever we want! They're terrorists they have no rights!"

Sorry, but nowhere does it say in the constitution, the geneva convention, or anywhere else that the government has the unilateral power to snatch and grab anyone it chooses then hold them indefinitely without trial. I strongly urge you to inform yourself because you have absolutely no ****ing idea what you're talking about.

So my advice for you is to grow a pair of balls and stop letting fear run your decisions. If there is evidence against these men, the government should present it and convict them. After that, I don't think anyone particularly cares what we do with them. You are defending permanently imprisoning people who have no evidence against them and haven't been charged with or convicted of anything, which I find morally deplorable and ethically disgusting.
 
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