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The Endless Shame of Guantanamo Bay @newrepublic @WriterJMS MY SAY: The shame is yellow journalism aimed at besmirching the finest military detention facility on earth. 735 RELEASED, and NONE executed, beheaded, blown up, hacked to death, dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, drowned or burned alive. All things our enemies have done to us and/or our allies. There is no moral comparison between Gitmo and how our enemies treat their captives.
The Endless Shame of Guantanamo Bay
Posted from newrepublic.com
Guantanamo Bay
War on Terror
Terrorism
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
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So.... The prison released prisoners - eventually - and didn't murder or torture them.
If that's your standard for the "finest military dention facility on Earth," I think you have set a VERY low bar.
Tell me, real quick, how many of those released 735 saw their day in court? How many were even officially charged? How many are still detained? Of those how many have likewise never been officially charged or had a trial?
There is no moral comparison between how we treat prisoners and how the bad guys treat prisoners. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS. But there *is* a moral comparison between how we treat prisoners and how we are SUPPOSED to treat prisoners. Between what we SAY and what we DO.
And we do not come out favorably in that comparison.
If that's your standard for the "finest military dention facility on Earth," I think you have set a VERY low bar.
Tell me, real quick, how many of those released 735 saw their day in court? How many were even officially charged? How many are still detained? Of those how many have likewise never been officially charged or had a trial?
There is no moral comparison between how we treat prisoners and how the bad guys treat prisoners. THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS. But there *is* a moral comparison between how we treat prisoners and how we are SUPPOSED to treat prisoners. Between what we SAY and what we DO.
And we do not come out favorably in that comparison.
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MAJ Montgomery Granger
According to the Law of War and the Geneva Convention, even lawful combatant POWs do not need to be charged or tried, and may be held 'until the end of hostilities.' Until all Islamists are dead or no longer have the means or will to kill us, we must defend ourselves. Gitmo is a small piece to the big puzzle of how we win the Global War on Terror. Gitmo is not a 'prison,' per se, it is a 'detention facility.' Most detainees should still be there. A confirmed recidivism rate of over 30% is proof of that. If we were playing Capture the Flag, and you were the jailer and started arbitrarily letting prisoners out, your team would kick your ass. What's different now?
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SFC Casey O'Mally
MAJ Montgomery Granger Hostilities have ended. By your own standard, all prisoners should have been released already. Have they?
Also, these are not / were not POWs. They were never held as POWs or considered such. They were held because they were UNLAWFUL enemy combatants. With evidently no requirement for us to prove they were even combatants, let alone unlawful ones. And no opportunity for them to defend themselves, either.
When we detain people in this country, it is because we suspect them of committing a crime. After we detain them, we charge them. If we fail to charge, we release them. We do not hold indefinitely with no charges, no trial, and no defense. That is our standard.
And a recidivism rate of 30% is EXCEPTIONALLY low, when compared with other violent crimes. Which tells me a good number of those folks were probably innocent. Of course, we'll never know because they never got a chance to defend themselves.
Either we apply POW rules, and the day we were out of Iraq (the 1st time) all POWs detained in that theater should have been released back to Iraq, and likewise for Afghanistan. OR we apply criminal rules, and they should have all been charged and tried. But this "we get to make up whatever rules we want" approach is not only ridiculous, it is shameful.
Also, these are not / were not POWs. They were never held as POWs or considered such. They were held because they were UNLAWFUL enemy combatants. With evidently no requirement for us to prove they were even combatants, let alone unlawful ones. And no opportunity for them to defend themselves, either.
When we detain people in this country, it is because we suspect them of committing a crime. After we detain them, we charge them. If we fail to charge, we release them. We do not hold indefinitely with no charges, no trial, and no defense. That is our standard.
And a recidivism rate of 30% is EXCEPTIONALLY low, when compared with other violent crimes. Which tells me a good number of those folks were probably innocent. Of course, we'll never know because they never got a chance to defend themselves.
Either we apply POW rules, and the day we were out of Iraq (the 1st time) all POWs detained in that theater should have been released back to Iraq, and likewise for Afghanistan. OR we apply criminal rules, and they should have all been charged and tried. But this "we get to make up whatever rules we want" approach is not only ridiculous, it is shameful.
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The correct Topic for this story is "Journalism". That's what it's all about. The shame of journalists who have been parroting the indoctrination to which they were exposed in journalism school
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