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What should we do with the Guantanamo prisoners?

What should we do with the Guantanamo prisoners?

  • Total voters
    45
  • Poll closed .
DA60 said:
It is a turn of a common phrase.


'Prov. You can use bad or immoral methods as long as you accomplish something good by using them.'

The end justifies the means - Idioms - by the Free Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

My point, which I assumed would be obvious, was/is that to use bad/immoral methods to try to achieve a 'good' result is never justified.

You disagree - fine.

But I do not.
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If you want to shift it to that, then you have a second problem - morality of a means is often determined by the end under pursuit.
 
cpwill said:
If you want to shift it to that, then you have a second problem - morality of a means is often determined by the end under pursuit.
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I don't wish to shift it to anything.

I have made a point, which for some reason you disagree with.

So noted.

That is the end of my relative interest in it.

To debate morality is pointless, IMO. And whatever other point you are making holds little interest for me as I - with respect - feel you are just doing so to try and nit pick at a position that you do not agree with using some sort of technical minutia.

Fair enough as this is a debate board.

And there was a time I would take up that kind of debate...that time has passed (for now) as I have other things in my life that hold more importance to me.


Gitmo is an abomination to me. A chapter in U.S. history that is both cowardly and disgusting. And there is NO chance you are changing my mind on that...none.

So further discussion is, IMO, pointless.

I gave my opinion earlier. That is all I really wanted to do on this subject.


I wish you good day, sir.
 
DA60 said:
I don't wish to shift it to anything.

I have made a point, which for some reason you disagree with.

So noted.

That is the end of my relative interest in it.

To debate morality is pointless, IMO. And whatever other point you are making holds little interest for me as I - with respect - feel you are just doing so to try and nit pick at a position that you do not agree with using some sort of technical minutia.

There was a time I would take up that kind of debate...that time has passed (for now) as I have other things in my life that hold more importance to me.

Gitmo is an abomination to me. A chapter in U.S. history that is both cowardly and disgusting. And there is NO chance you are changing my mind on that...none.

So further discussion is, IMO, pointless.

I gave my opinion earlier. That is all I really wanted to do on this subject.

I wish you good day, sir.
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I don't feel that the point that morality of behavior can change with the ends is immaterial at all to the discussion - on the contrary, that question is rather central to it.

However, if you don't wish to discuss it :) I hope you have a good day as well. I will not, as it is 2:30 am and I have to write a 20 page paper over the next 36 hours or so.
 
cpwill said:
I don't feel that the point that morality of behavior can change with the ends is immaterial at all to the discussion - on the contrary, that question is rather central to it.

However, if you don't wish to discuss it :) I hope you have a good day as well. I will not, as it is 2:30 am and I have to write a 20 page paper over the next 36 hours or so.
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Were you not living/based in Asia before? Or am I thinking of someone else?
 
DA60 said:
Were you not living/based in Asia before? Or am I thinking of someone else?
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I'm back in America. Where God pays attention. :lol:
 
vesper said:
You are so full of *(((*Y that I don't know where to begin. Did you forget that Bush went to Congress with "said intelligence" and all of the Democrat party agreed including Hillary a Senator at the time and John F-ing Kerry that we should invade Iraq on the intelligence we had at the time? Yet you blame Rumsfield? Cripe sakes you need a reality check.
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Try reading my post before you start spewing your garbage. Where did I say anything about not invading? I said Rummy screwed up the "engineering".

We had a chance to engineer that place to suit us. But, the Bush Admin refused to work with what we had and instead tried to shoehorn Iraq into some box that did not exist. Now it's a mess.

Sheesh. Way to prove Chris right.
 
calamity said:
Try reading my post before you start spewing your garbage. Where did I say anything about not invading? I said Rummy screwed up the "engineering".

We had a chance to engineer that place to suit us. But, the Bush Admin refused to work with what we had and instead tried to shoehorn Iraq into some box that did not exist. Now it's a mess.

Sheesh. Way to prove Chris right.
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Rumsfeld resigned in 2006. I don't see how anyone could still be blaming him for the mess Iraq is in today, 7 years later. Bush was a lame duck the last two years of his presidency with a Democrat Congress doing everything it could to make the Iraq war as unpopular as possible in hopes it would gain them back power in the next election. We had Murtha and John Kerry accusing our military of atrocities at Haditha and every one of them accused were found innocent but not until their lives were made a total hell. We had Nancy Pelosi accompanied with other Democrats going over to talk to Assad against the administrations request not to while our country had him on our list of enemies for his part in aiding those who were killing our servicemen. There was John Kerry and his wife making little trips privately to dine with the Assad's undermining what the Bush administration was trying to accomplish. Then there was the peanut farmer Carter who took it upon himself to seek a friendly meeting with Hezbolah another terrorist group on our list of enemies again undermining the Bush administration. We had a Democrat Congress that used funding the military as blackmail to get Bush to sign their proposed pieces of legislation and fund their pet projects. We are now going into the sixth year of the Obama administration where Obama had two full years of a Democrat Congress to do anything he wanted and still enjoys a Democrat majority in the Senate and yet you are still blaming Rumsfeld/Bush administration for the mess in Iraq today!
 
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vesper said:
Rumsfeld resigned in 2006. I don't see how anyone could still be blaming him for the mess Iraq is in today, 7 years later. Bush was a lame duck the last two years of his presidency with a Democrat Congress doing everything it could to make the Iraq war as unpopular as possible in hopes it would gain them back power in the next election. We had Murtha and John Kerry accusing our military of atrocities at Haditha and every one of them accused were found innocent but not until their lives were made a total hell. We had Nancy Pelosi accompanied with other Democrats going over to talk to Assad against the administrations request not to while our country had him on our list of enemies for his part in aiding those who were killing our servicemen. There was John Kerry and his wife making little trips privately to dine with the Assad's undermining what the Bush administration was trying to accomplish. Then there was the peanut farmer Carter who took it upon himself to seek a friendly meeting with Hezbolah another terrorist group on our list of enemies again undermining the Bush administration. We had a Democrat Congress that used funding the military as blackmail to get Bush to sign their proposed pieces of legislation and fund their pet projects. We are now going into the sixth year of the Obama administration where Obama had two full years of a Democrat Congress to do anything he wanted and still enjoys a Democrat majority in the Senate and yet you are still blaming Rumsfeld/Bush administration for the mess in Iraq today!
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Nonsense. We invaded in 2003. By 2006 the place was a lost cause. Rummy left it a complete mess.

The war was won in a week. The peace was lost over the following 6 months. By Spring of 2004, Iraq sunk into chaos.

It didn't have to be. Read up on it. You'll see all the blunders and penny-pinching that resulted in a successful insurgency.

Here's an article from 2006, long before Democrats got control, which really wasn't until Jan 2007.
A catalog of Rumsfeld's biggest blunders.
 
calamity said:
Nonsense. We invaded in 2003. By 2006 the place was a lost cause. Rummy left it a complete mess.

The war was won in a week. The peace was lost over the following 6 months. By Spring of 2004, Iraq sunk into chaos.

It didn't have to be. Read up on it. You'll see all the blunders and penny-pinching that resulted in a successful insurgency.

Here's an article from 2006, long before Democrats got control, which really wasn't until Jan 2007.
A catalog of Rumsfeld's biggest blunders.
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A catalog from Slate magazine? :lol: One of the biggest anti-Iraq war publications that daily beat their anti-Bush drums during the Bush administration that weighs in on "Rumsfeld's blunders". That's choice but explains why you think what you do.
 
vesper said:
A catalog from Slate magazine? :lol: One of the biggest anti-Iraq war publications that daily beat their anti-Bush drums during the Bush administration that weighs in on "Rumsfeld's blunders". That's choice but explains why you think what you do.
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So. Is your argument that Rummy did a fine Job and the Democrats lost Iraq?


There are plenty of other sources which spell out Rummy's failures. But I suspect your mind is made up. Rational conversation with you is probably not an option, I've noticed.
 
lizzie said:
Yes I do. If you hate your enemy enough to go to war, then kill them. If you don't really want war, then stay home and leave them the hell alone. War is about the most serious human endeavor there is. Trying to have a nice war is total bull****.
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Every war in history that I'm aware of has produced POWs. In my eyes, surrendering to a superior enemy force is a basic right of those who participate in a war.
 
calamity said:
So. Is your argument that Rummy did a fine Job and the Democrats lost Iraq?


There are plenty of other sources which spell out Rummy's failures. But I suspect your mind is made up. Rational conversation with you is probably not an option, I've noticed.
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Actually I wasn't a fan of going into Iraq but after the overwhelming support from the Senate including most Democrats to invade I felt it was important for the troops sake that it be supported. When I watched the Democrats start flip flopping on their initial support for the war right before mid-term elections, it was apparent they were using it for political gain and continued to do so while we had men and women in grave danger. Their friends in mainstream media took every opportunity to leak secret intelligence that also undermined the relationships we were trying to build in the region and put Americans as well as soldiers in unnecessary danger. It became quite clear to me the left was trying to undermine any success because success would mean a second Bush term. I believe playing politics with our soldiers' lives is about as appalling as it gets.
 
cpwill said:
So.... you do nothing?
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Yes. It allows one to pronounce solemn judgements from the comfort of one's living room. There's always someone else who will do the hard stuff when the **** hits the fan. It also allows one to escape the reality that people of good will are required at some point to confront evil directly. That's just way too scary to contemplate when we could just release them all and let some other unfortunate deal with the consequences.
 
calamity said:
So. Is your argument that Rummy did a fine Job and the Democrats lost Iraq?
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In 2007 in Fallujah we were pulling down enemy propaganda that they would leave plastered to mosques, peoples homes, etc. They would try different tacts, doing experimentation, seeing what worked.

In one section of the city, they argued that siding with the Americans (or even not helping AQI) was a fools' bargain, because America was going to abandon its "allies" and pull out. To prove their point, they quoted several U.S. Senators, including the lady who wants to be the next President of the United States and the current Majority Leader who had helpfully declared at that point that the Surge had failed (before it had even really fully begun).

That particular propaganda campaign was devastatingly effective. That section of the city was the last to become secure, and we lost more guys there than the rest of the city combined.


Just my own small observation. I wouldn't defend Rumsfeld's mistakes in judgement, only point them out to those who are now determined to repeat them.
 
vesper said:
Actually I wasn't a fan of going into Iraq but after the overwhelming support from the Senate including most Democrats to invade I felt it was important for the troops sake that it be supported. When I watched the Democrats start flip flopping on their initial support for the war right before mid-term elections, it was apparent they were using it for political gain and continued to do so while we had men and women in grave danger. Their friends in mainstream media took every opportunity to leak secret intelligence that also undermined the relationships we were trying to build in the region and put Americans as well as soldiers in unnecessary danger. It became quite clear to me the left was trying to undermine any success because success would mean a second Bush term. I believe playing politics with our soldiers' lives is about as appalling as it gets.
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No one "flip-flopped" until the war began to be mismanaged. What was appalling was Rummy using his position to hire and surround himself with yes-men, not supplying our troops with adequate equipment (remember their lack of body armor and humvees which lacked IED protection?) and getting our boys killed as the country slipped into chaos because he minimized the number of our troops and disbanded the Iraqi army.
 
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radcen said:
What should we do with the Guantanamo prisoners?

Release them? Try them? Leave them there indefinitely... forever?

Do we lose any alleged moral high ground by detaining then indefinitely? Should we care?
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My question is why is it necessary to try these people in our courts? They have no right to due process protections of US federal courts. The military tribunal was real quick to process the Australian Hicks and convict him and a Canadian with an Arabic name. But those from Pakistan, Yemen etc. they keep dragging their feet on and I can't help but think it has something to do with the Human Rights Watch group putting the pressure to give the detainees left due process protection and maybe that is why they have been leaving things in limbo. I know Obama was against the tribunal set up from the beginning and was pushing for them to be tried in our court system but then backed off from that because it was met with a lot of disdain. The others already convicted didn't get such a privilege. I think we need to continue with the military court and git r done.
 
cpwill said:
Thank you for describing Civil Disobedience. But I cannot help but notice that you did not answer the question.

Was (for example) the Civil Disobedience practiced by Martin Luther King Jr justified?



:shrug: I'm not really willing to do a state-by-state search of the relevant law, and will take your word on it.



On the contrary, the use of the absolute declares the absolute.
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Oi answered it by telling you it isn't the same thing. It's not immoral. And there us expectation of not going to jail. MLK went to jail as you recall. So you're trying to compare an apple with a tree frog.

I'm sure you enjoy quoting your last sentence, but it's meaningless. Common phrases come with a well know societal context.
 
calamity said:
No one "flip-flopped" until the war began to be mismanaged. What was appalling was Rummy using his position to hire and surround himself with yes-men, not supplying our troops with adequate equipment (remember their lack of body armor and humvees which lacked IED protection?) and getting our boys killed as the country slipped into chaos because he minimized the number of our troops and disbanded the Iraqi army.
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I don't remember it that way Calamity. Have a nice day.
 
radcen said:
What should we do with the Guantanamo prisoners?

Release them? Try them? Leave them there indefinitely... forever?

Do we lose any alleged moral high ground by detaining then indefinitely? Should we care?
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Had we explained better at the start, what we were going to do and why it was necessary, we would not have had the problems. Even now it would be a help to explain, explain, explain.
But we should put massive pressure on the governments that criticized American action to take some of the criminals. The US government should make it quite clear that it is not a problem the US wants to solve alone and"freinds" like Germany will face consequences if it continues to shun shouldering responsibility appropriate to its profits from international security.
 
vesper said:
I don't remember it that way Calamity. Have a nice day.
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I'm sure you don't. Selective memory is not a very attractive trait of the Right.

Here's a reminder---John McCain back in 2007 saying Iraq was mismanaged by Rummy.


McCain: Iraq War Mismanaged For Years - CBS News
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday the war in Iraq has been mismanaged for years and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will be remembered as one of the worst in history.

"We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement — that's the kindest word I can give you — of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war," the Arizona senator told an overflow crowd of more than 800 at a retirement community near Hilton Head Island, S.C. "The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously."
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cpwill said:
In 2007 in Fallujah we were pulling down enemy propaganda that they would leave plastered to mosques, peoples homes, etc. They would try different tacts, doing experimentation, seeing what worked.

In one section of the city, they argued that siding with the Americans (or even not helping AQI) was a fools' bargain, because America was going to abandon its "allies" and pull out. To prove their point, they quoted several U.S. Senators, including the lady who wants to be the next President of the United States and the current Majority Leader who had helpfully declared at that point that the Surge had failed (before it had even really fully begun).

That particular propaganda campaign was devastatingly effective. That section of the city was the last to become secure, and we lost more guys there than the rest of the city combined.


Just my own small observation. I wouldn't defend Rumsfeld's mistakes in judgement, only point them out to those who are now determined to repeat them.
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IMO, by 2007 the war was lost. We had our chance in 2003 & 4. Once that failed, especially by 2007, abandoning Iraq actually made sense.
 
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