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I strongly suspect that most Democrats don't actually want to fund a bunch of forever wars either. I mean, that's what Obama was elected for, he just turned out to do the opposite of everything he was elected to do. "Help the poor, end the wars, shut down gitmo? I agree but let's tweak it to help the 0.1%, keep the wars going forever, keep gitmo going!"
Everyone has said they would shut down Gitmo, and then they do not.
Gitmo served a purpose in the early days of the war and quickly lost that purpose. It should have been shutdown a long time ago.
I don't think I agree with you about Gitmo ever serving a purpose. It was entirely outside of Geneva Conventions and served as a secure prison for anyone deemed an enemy of the state, including US citizens. Torture was regularly practiced and there was no oversight; it was an oubliette into which people disappeared for years, with no representation or recourse. Gitmo was everything the US should stand against, when we consider our highest ideals and morals.
The US has plenty of blood on its hands, but Gitmo was out in the open; there was no subtlety, it wasn't a "dark secret." The only thing it accomplished was to prove that you can scare the current American public enough that they'll accept nearly anything, including stuff that would have outraged the WWII US public.
Gitmo had nothing to do with Geneva. It dealt with US law. If we brought them back to our soil, they’d have full protections under the constitution.
Gitmo was supposed to be a stop gap while we figured out what that meant.
I was there for about six months. Obviously can’t get into details but it needs to be shutdown. It’s lived long past its purpose. The things that went on there are a black eye to our country.
Isn't that where the GC comes in? The convention isn't about applying your country's laws, but about ethical standards for treatment of enemy combatants. Gitmo being not on our soil is where Geneva should have come into play.
I'm sorry about that; maybe some people enjoyed working there, but I think it would have messed me up.
No. Geneva has nothing to do with it. We have to comply with Geneva anywhere.
We picked gitmo specifically because it’s not US soil.
There is the whole debate if they weee protected under Geneva and if they was law enforcement, etc. but gitmo was only selected to avoid US law.
Yah I think we're talking past one another. I wasn't debating where Gitmo was located; when I said it was "outside Geneva" I meant it was operating outside of the agreements of the Geneva Conventions. Torture is not allowed for captured enemy combatants under the convention; prisoners at Gitmo were tortured. Gitmo was not obeying the conventions.
I'm sure there are all sorts of loopholes engaged in what went on there; were insurgents technically "enemy combatants?" By classifying them as "terrorists" were they excluded from protection? Since they weren't wearing military uniforms, were they excluded from protection? Is waterboarding technically torture?
But nobody in the world is going to being the US in for trial, so the question was moot: we all knew Gitmo defied the spirit of the Geneva Convention; this is why I say it didn't serve a purpose. We know torture is an unreliable way of gathering intel. If I waterboard you enough, eventually you'll name your own child as a terrorist if I want you to.
The torture is a whole different debate. It was called enhanced interrogation techniques. I’ll leave it at I wouldn’t want that shit some to me. I’ve been through many of the techniques and they’re no joke.
I suspect we disagree on a lot of things, but this one thing we're in complete alignment. There's a golden rule concept floating in here: I think if one takes the position that waterboarding isn't torture, they should try it sometime. I don't want to be incarcerated, but I'd be willing to try it for a while it if meant proving it's not inhumane. Very few of the "approved" interrogation techniques I've heard come out of Gitmo would I willingly subject myself to.
I have been through them all but in a much milder manner. Also, when we did SERE training, they subjected us to techniques.
I can't say I am a fan of them or approve of their use in 99% of cases.
I have never been incarcerated but I think it should be humane and try to better the person. Just warehousing like we do currently is not a solution to any problem.
This season of the Serial podcast is about GitMo and it's very interesting. Would recommend.
I may have to check that one out.
What disappoints me is both parties have lost interest in closing gitmo
Well, I don't know. Democrats are more vocal about it for sure, but that's just because many of them hate either Jews or Israel. Democrats seem to love Ukraine, and would like to keep funding them, while Republicans seem to not care about them at all.
I'm making a distinction between the rank and file and the media, I don't really believe most rank and file are really like whatever the media or the like claim.... I mean if they really did flip 180 like that then it makes them incredibly disingenuous people...