In article , Vito
wrote:

"DSK" wrote
The Gitmo prisoners are from a number of sources. Some (perhaps most)
are battlefield captives, others were grabbed in counter terrorist
sweeps. At least a few were turned over to the U.S. military by other
"gov't agencies."


Vito wrote:
Yes. But most people captured on the battlefield or in sweeps or where
ever
were either killed or imprisoned locally or freed - each after some sort
of
hearing to determine their fate. Only a small percent were sent to
Gitmo -
again after some kind of hearing to determine that fate.


I wonder where you heard this. It's never even been hinted at in any
material I've seen or heard.

It's implicite in their being there.

IOW, you made it up. Right.

Nobody arbitrarily kidnaps a civilian
off the street and carries them half way around the world to imprison them
at great cost without some sort of hearing into the value of doing so.

Hmmm. Those accounts I've read of you guys shipping people to Egypt to
be tortured are all false, then? If not, where's the record of the
hearing? Or do you mean that it's all being done on the whim of some
faceless person, unaccountable to anyone?

Tell me, why did you guys bring in habeas corpus in the first place? Do
you think it only applies to citizens of the USA? Obviously not, now I
think of it, because you've been desperate to keep people off of US
territory so as to keep them away from the normal protections of the
courts.

That's not to mention the softer, *possibly* legally acceptable methods
of sleep deprivation, humiliation, religious persecution, etc etc.

These are useful and acceptable methods of changing a person's outlook.

Ah. So you agree that the Chinese were correct, during the Korean War,
in doing just this sort of thing to US troops, and that in any future
conflict, you'll make no complaint about such methods being used on US
troops.

Right?

Take
a typical terrorist. He's not stupid but he is worse than ignorant. He's
spent years in school studying not science, history, et al, but poring over
the Koran, rocking back and forth while memorizing every verse. This
disinformation has led him to believe that there is only one God - Allah -
and that Mohammad is his prophet. Worse Mohammad demands that everybody
accept this weird notion and if they do not it is his duty to kill them (ie
us).

Simplistic. Wrong, and simplistic. This is the sort of dangerous
nonsense that got you *into* Iraq. You refuse to see that a person can
be extremely well educated, while being dedicated to a cause in
complete opposition to your own. By being so ignorant yourself, you
underestimate your enemy to your own disadvantage.

Was Nelson Mandela a terrorist? The then South African government
thought so, and locked him away for 27 years.

A man wants to kill you because God says he should. He belongs to a large
group who think likewise. They believe this so strongly that they will
gladly kill themselves to kill you. There are only two ways to combat
that - kill all of them first or re-educate them to give up thi idea. Given
their level of madness the latter will enjoy limited success.

So - when are you going to neutron bomb the entire land area of Iran,
Saudi Arabia, big parts of Iraq, Turkey, Indonesia..........?

Hmmmmm?

It's the logical thing to do, from your POV.

I quite agree with you as to the desirability of killing people who are
determined to kill you, BTW. I just think you're dangerously
simplistic. A better way would be to chop off their finances and let
them all rot.... but you won't do that because you're addicted to the
tit of cheap oil. Most of these problems are of your own making,
looking at history. If you know any history at all, if you've read any
of the accounts of the early explorers in that part of the world, you'd
know that the Wahabi sect have *always* been insular, suspicious and
totally intolerant of anyone outside their own strain of Islam. Read
the accounts of Louis Burkhardt who was the first European on record to
see Petra, to travel to Mecca, and a lot of other places, back in the
early 1800's.

It was you guys who empowered them with money from oil to cause such
trouble. Now you're stuck. You can't let go of the oil tar baby and you
can't set up a neocolonial regime in the face of ongoing resistance.
Iraq is shaping up to be a fiasco. I personally am disappointed about
that because I had hopes for success, for the formation of a secular
democratic state, and applauded the downfall of Hussein. I think I'm
going to see the foreign troops - including ours - scuttle home as soon
as it's face-saving to do so, followed by a 3 way civil war aided &
abetted by Syria and Iran, with possibly Turkey as well, to prevent
*their* Kurds from getting any ideas.

As I've said before, I'd be looking at ways to move to a hydrogen
economy powered by fission in the short term and whatever seems less
dangerous/better engineered/more efficient in the longer term. Leave
these nutcases rot. Stop trying to glue together people who want to be
apart - Sunnis, Shias and Kurds in Iraq, for example. It's likely not
going to work and you're only making it worse.


But this probably doesn't occur to people who brag about blowing up an
entire block of downtown Baghdad, and killing everybody there, in a
failed attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein. Or people who are in favor
of blowing up houses & cars with drone-launched missiles because
suspected terrorist leaders are suspected to be in there.

However, the guy at the top of this chain of command is a scrupulously
moral chap, he has never once gotten a blow job in his office.

Or his life! The war on Muslim extremism is understandable. I doubt that
GWB had any idea it existed before 9/11 and it definately interfered with
his plan for Iraq. Nobody has yet to offer a viable reason for invading Iraq
but there is good reason to contend Muslim extremism.

Agreed. Chop off their money supply. Refuse to let them travel in
Western countries. Air drop cheap radios, TV sets etc and set up
satellites broadcasting the virtues of Western society 24/7. Broadcast
educational TV as well as propaganda. The only source of education for
the poor is the religious schools; give them a free alternative and
different points of view and the issue of indoctrination declines
somewhat. These societies are dying and the fanatics know it. As people
get wealthier and better educated, the power of the hard core nutcases
decreases and they get more desperate. I have no love of, or tolerance
for, any society or religion that has as policy the oppression of
better than 50% of the population, believe me. I'm smart enough to not
try to create enemies out of allies, or **** off the bystanders in the
process. Unfortunately, your political leadership is plain stupid.

Toppling the Talban
and putting al Qaeda on the defensive were primarily intellegence
operations, supported by military. Gitmo is part of that. Iraq is not. It
is IMHO a rather stupid side show that does far more harm than good,
especially among those who cannot distinguish between the two seperate
"wars". If Roosevelt had been as bone stupid as Bush, he would have
attacked England in response to Pearl Harbor!

Yeah. It wasn't a bright move. Afghanistan was justified, Iraq was
plain stupid. Might have come off if the post-shooting management had
been half as good as the battle management but as we've seen, too
little resources, too thinly spread, too late, and too poor a quality.
Abu Ghraib has cost you guys more credibility than I think you realise.
You've demonstrated that under certain circumstances, you're no better
than the bad guys. The point you're missing about holding captives
without trial and without access to external reviewing authorities (Red
Cross et al), and engaging in psy war techniques, is that you
demonstrate that there is no fundamental difference between you and
them, only power. Without moral authority, power is pretty short lived
and sustainable only by increasing force. There goes your republic.

PDW