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Monday, June 06, 2005
Joe Biden, useful fool for terrorists
Joe Biden is what passes for a "serious" Democrat these days among his party's leadership. I don't doubt his patriotism or intentions. But I often do doubt that he has the good judgment and intelligence of the average doorknob, and his comments yesterday provide good grounds for those doubts. As reported by the Washington Post:
A leading Senate Democrat said yesterday that the United States needs to move toward shutting down the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"This has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world. And it is unnecessary to be in that position," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said on ABC's "This Week." ...
Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed that an independent commission investigate Guantanamo Bay and make recommendations.
"But the end result is, I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners," he said. "Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don't, let go."
There are about 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002.
Sen. Biden is correct in noting that America's detention of unlawful combatants at Guantanamo Bay is being used as a propaganda tool by America's enemies. One wonders, then, why he seems to be so eager to help them. Propaganda, by definition, has no moorings to the truth; it is a political tool used to promote specific ends without regard to the truth. "Move them," he says — as if that would solve anything.
The truth is that the terrorists will take any response made by the United States to their actions and twist it to suit their propagandizing purposes. And they can and do rely on those whose reflexive instinct is to "blame America first" to assist them.
The detainees at Gitmo are there because they were captured while engaging in war against the United States. Disdaining uniforms, disdaining all the rules and conventions of "civilized" warfare, they were bearing arms for the purpose of trying to kill American and coalition soldiers. We have ample "reason to keep" those individuals for the remainder of their natural lives or until the Global War on Terror has achieved enough success that they can be released without reason to believe that they'll return to their terrorism.
American political leaders like Sen. Biden who refuse to recognize these facts become the useful fools upon whom the terrorists base their best hopes for eroding America's willpower to protect itself and the civilized world. By speaking of the detainees like they were juvenile delinquents picked up for loitering on the mall parking lot, Sen. Biden fuels the very "perception that exists worldwide" which he purports to lament.
"Let [them] go," says Sen. Biden. In response to which suggestion, Beldar asks: "With or without the AK-47s and RPGs they were carrying when they were captured?"
"Cheap shot, Beldar!" those on the left might cry. "Biden said 'Those that we have reason to keep, keep,' not that we should let them all go!" Well, then, responds Beldar, Sen. Biden should say that participating in armed attempts to kill American and coalition soldiers on the battlefields of Afghanistan is ample reason to keep these detainees.
Change the "perception that exists worldwide," Senator, by focusing on the facts, not by closing Gitmo.
Posted by Beldar at 08:40 AM in Global War on Terror | Permalink
TrackBacks
Other weblog posts, if any, whose authors have linked to Joe Biden, useful fool for terrorists and sent a trackback ping are listed here:
» Never at a loss when it comes to.... from Media Lies
Tracked on Jun 6, 2005 5:30:41 PM
» Detainees and the Geneva Convention from EagleSpeak
Tracked on Jun 15, 2005 12:02:19 AM
Comments
(1) Norman Rogers made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 9:37:08 AM | Permalink
Beldar, you're not alone. Joe Biden is in love with the sound of his own voice and is generally clueless.
Here's today's WSJ editorial:
The Koranic Excesses
June 6, 2005; Page A10
So the Pentagon has now released the unhorrifying details of its inquiry into the mishandling of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. It found only five cases, including one in which a detainee complained that his Koran had been kicked, and another in which urine from a guard relieving himself accidentally blew into an air vent and onto a Koran below.
That's it. With hundreds of different guards watching as many as 600 prisoners and some 28,000 interrogations over three years, that's what the hullabaloo prompted by Newsweek's false report about Koran abuse comes down to. In the case of the wayward urine, the report says the detainee was issued a new Koran and a fresh uniform, while the guard was reprimanded and kept away from prisoners for the rest of his Guantanamo duty. It should be noted that the prisoners only have Korans in the first place because the U.S. military has provided them -- some 1,600 in all.
These facts won't end the political jihad against Guantanamo, because the opposition to detaining prisoners there has little to do with the Koran, or with concern about the U.S. "image" in the Muslim world. The campaign is all about repudiating the Bush administration's approach to the war on terror.
The critics have never accepted that the mass murder of civilians by non-uniformed combatants requires special detention or military-justice practices. The Pentagon could close Guantanamo tomorrow, and the critics would quickly find other anti-terror policies to deplore: military commissions, or the "rendition" of terror suspects to third countries, or interrogation techniques, or something else. Their goal is to accord terrorists the same legal protections as everyday criminals.
Someone in the administration ought to point out that these measures are designed to prevent the next terror attack -- which, if it ever comes, could prompt a bipartisan crackdown on civil liberties that would make Guantanamo look like summer camp.
(2) RiverRat made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 3:12:21 PM | Permalink
It would be just as effective to rename Gitmo "Centro Turistico de Cubano", Joe.
(3) The Drill SGT made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 4:59:38 PM | Permalink
Another thought that you might care to comment on. Don’t you find it interesting that the ICRC, the Media and the Left, (I apologize if I’m being redundant there) spent the last half of the 20th century arguing that people that castrated Village chiefs and set off bombs in markets were not criminals but rather soliders in “wars of National Liberation" and needed to be handled like POWs rather than being tried and then lined up against the nearest wall and shot.
Now, the polarity has been reversed and the Left’s argument is that you can’t handle people that castrated Village chiefs and set off bombs in markets as POWs. but you must set them free if you don’t have enough witnesses to bring them to trial.
me thinks there’s more than a little hypocrisy there.
(4) Boger made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 10:12:23 PM | Permalink
Thank you, Beldar!
Biden: typical political CS from a purported future aspirant to the WH. Follow up for Senator Biden: If you were President, Sir, exactly where would you move them? Continental US? Elsewhere? While we are at it, please tell us your position on whether or not the 'detainees' are POW's covered under the Geneva Conventions, or are they un-uniformed, stateless combatants? What is your plan/policy for adjudicating them?
For that matter, anybody who knows the answer to that, please respond to this post. I want a yes or no. If you run some jive nonsense at me, then the answer for this citizen is that they are not covered under Geneva and in view of the fact that we are the aggrieved party, the rest of the world can butt out. And my fellow sappy citizens can just suck it up and accept that some people don't love us. (Until the next time they need us, of course). What we need to be doing, is releasing the ones that the best available info substantially clears. The others we need to be having tribunals on, and if found guilty hand out sentences, to include executions where the facts warrant. (IE, anybody proven to be an Al Queda trained terrorist. Period. Direct connection to 9/11 not required). The tribunals can be videotaped for posterity, the defendants will have counsel, and the results will speak for themselves.
(5) SemiPundit made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 10:22:53 PM | Permalink
The fundamental problem is, and has been all along, the purposeful absence of responsible international oversight. But I suppose that for many of us that is a difficult concept to grasp.
How can we expect anyone else in the world to believe anything we say now or in the future after our leaders have been guilty of lies and deception on a grand scale.
It baffles me how so many people can be so naive and so imbued with a country-club mentality on matters like this. When our behavior has been questioned, we deny that there is a problem and then appoint a commission of our own people to look into it.
We are giving our opponents more than they need.
(6) SemiPundit made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 10:29:02 PM | Permalink
p.s.--Why are we not holding them in, say, Alabama or New Jersey?
(7) pat made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 11:02:05 PM | Permalink
Semi-pundit: If we held unlawful combatants on US soil they would become subject to US law. That would not be good in today's PC climate.
I think we should shut down Gitmo. It should be replaced by a policy of extracting all useful information from terrorists using any means that work and then shooting them. The first step in implementing that policy should be summary military tribunals to assess the status of each Gitmo terrorist followed by their immediate execution or rendition to places that don't much like terrorists or Amnesty International.
(8) Birkel made the following comment | Jun 6, 2005 11:51:11 PM | Permalink
pat,
The Sturm und Drang would be deafening if there were summary executions or show trials. In fact the show trials would be directly compared to the kangaroo courts of the old Stalinist Soviet Union.
SemiPundit,
International oversight? Hey Beldar, didn't you post back in the fall of 2004 about Senator Kerry's "global test"?
So the answer to our troubles is to let others have authority over us? Hmmm!?!
***************
Quite clearly this is a case of political opportunism. The Left won most of the battles from the late 30's to the late 70's. Since then they've been steadily losing electoral ground and now they're just flailing like a small child in a grocery store whose mom said "NO!" Only Joe Biden is better dressed (and has a better combover) than the children in the grocery store and it's the voters saying "NO!"
(9) SemiPundit made the following comment | Jun 7, 2005 12:09:37 AM | Permalink
As a reluctant Kerry supporter (the idea was to get Mr. Bush and his cohorts out of office), I had no trouble understanding what was meant by a global test. It did not in the least mean that we would seek permission to exercise military force if needed. It did, however, refer to the systematic consideration of the scope of our actions and consequences. The inability to do so has been vividly demonstrated by our current crop of leaders, several who have already trotted down the rope to the wharf (Feith and Wolfowitz, for example).
I'm sure somebody here can help me understand how we decry Saddam's atrocities, including torture and summary execution, how we ship prisoners around the world to other venues to be tortured, how we support and nurture brutal dictatorships, and then in the same breath talk about spreading democracy, freedom, and promoting human rights.
(10) Where's The Beef? made the following comment | Jun 7, 2005 1:39:50 AM | Permalink
>> help me understand how we decry Saddam's atrocities
Because his was bad behavior. He has to stand in the corner until he says, sorry, and promises to never, ever, do it again.
>> how we ship prisoners around the world to other venues to be tortured
So we should not move the captured enemy from the field? Where do you imagine a POW camp might best be operated on a global campaign to hunt down and neutralize these creeps?
And the way you talk, it is as if you allege that the purpose of capturing and flying these creeps to secure locations is to, you know, inflict pain and suffering on them. Is that the purpose you allege?
>> how we support and nurture brutal dictatorships
The enemy of our enemy is our friend. But that friendship is not unconditional.
>> talk about spreading democracy, freedom, and promoting human rights.
Its a pretty big project and it is to the credit of our President, Congress, Military, diplomatic corps and the electorate that so much progress has been made with relatively low losses both amongst ourselves and our allies. Blood has been and will be shed for these improvements in security and freedom.
What is the alternative? Close Gitmo and release these enemy operatives? Will that increase democracy, freedom, and human rights even one whitlette?
(11) Boger made the following comment | Jun 7, 2005 4:10:05 AM | Permalink
Semi Pundit: Here is your assignment: Read the two quotes below over and over and over, until the meaning of the English language sinks in.
Semi Pundit: "I had no trouble understanding what was meant by a global test. It did not in the least mean that we would seek permission to exercise military force if needed." (What do you mean "if needed"? If our government is seeking permission or consensus to use force, then by definition, our government thinks it is needed.)
Kerry: "But if and when you do it [use military force], Jim {Lerher], you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons." (The world, Senator? Which countries constitute the world, constitute the global test; how many, all of them, just specific ones, a unanimous vote by the UN Security Council, Senator?)
The real problem with you SemiPundit is that you don't have the courage of your convictions. You really do feel that, like Kerry, the US has to cross some ambiguous threshold of world opinion before we go to war. Thus what you really should have said is, yes, Kerry belives in a global test of consensus on legitimacy before military action by the US is undertaken, and I happen to agree with him. For the following reasons......
That I can respect as honest discourse. But not your transparent, sophmoric, confused nonsense.
(12) pat made the following comment | Jun 7, 2005 8:46:29 AM | Permalink
Birkel,
Show trials are not the same as trials held under US military jurisdiction. If there are genuine innocents at Gitmo, they should be released. I suspect that all those who fit that category, and some that don't, have already been released. The advantage of US miltary trials, especially if they are open to the media and international observers, is that the world will learn that most of the prisoners at Gitmo are war criminals.
The US has done a poor job of explaining the nature of the detainees. Are they innocent foot soldiers swept up from the battlefield, as the Left would have us believe, or hardened Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives and leaders?
(13) Patrick R. Sullivan made the following comment | Jun 7, 2005 9:39:03 AM | Permalink
Biden is showing why he graduated in the bottom 10% of his law school class.
However, it is an interesting question what should be done with those Gitmo residents whose value as intelligence sources is long gone. Why should we incur the financial burden of feeding and housing them?
What would the Karzai government do with them if we turned them over.
(14) Hale C made the following comment | Jun 7, 2005 9:46:25 AM | Permalink
You're sure right about Biden. Somebody else is right too -- Dick Morris says Bush needs to fight back against the Left's Gitmo offensive, before they manage to reframe the issue of the war in terms of how mean the US is being to prisoners, rather than how evil Al Qaeda is.
(15) SemiPundit made the following comment | Jun 7, 2005 10:09:59 AM | Permalink
Beef:
Yes, I do allege that the reason for shipping prisoners from a presumably secure facility like Guantanamo to other foreign locations is for the purpose of torture. You know this, too.
I imagine a good location for a replacement would be as I said--somewhere in Alabama or New Jersey. Or Nebraska, or Florida, or a long list of other possibilities. We have a good one here in Tennessee, at Brushy Mountain.
Even Machiavelli would urge caution in the matter of making friends of our enemies' enemies when such friends listen every day to our President's proclamations that their days are numbered. They cannot reasonably be expected to be complicit in their own downfall.
As for closing Guantanamo, I would not only recommend doing so, but would turn it back over to Cuba, and set a course on improving relations with our neighbor. I am optimistic that Cuba will know democracy eventually, and we should begin setting the stage. My grandchildren will vacation there someday.
Boger:
The term "if needed" means exactly that, as opposed to "whenever whim dictates". How about "warranted", and "for legitimate reasons".
I suggest that you, rather than I, are having difficulty with the concept of global considerations. We don't need anybody's permission, least of all the U.N., if the situation warrants it. We just have to have thoroughly considered the broader impact of what we are about to do. I'll believe we don't need the rest of the world when we can grow our own bananas in Kansas.
Kerry's nomination was an unfortunate outcome, and Hillary Clinton would be no better. Considering the thin margin in the election, my choice, Bob Graham, I believe would be in charge now and we would be much better off.
(16) Where's The Beef? made the following comment | Jun 8, 2005 3:11:05 PM | Permalink
>>> Semi-Pundit said: "I do allege that the reason for shipping prisoners from a presumably secure facility like Guantanamo to other foreign locations is for the purpose of torture. You know this, too."
So it is not shipment *to* Guantanamo that concerns you, but shipment out of Guantanmo to other destinations.
I do NOT know that they are shipped out of detainment for the purpose of torture.
Perhaps you say this due to some concrete knowledge of these movements?
(17) Dimdale made the following comment | Jun 8, 2005 7:18:32 PM | Permalink
Biden and his ilk are indeed "useful fools" of the terrorists and foreign propagandists in the Middle East and Europe.
In his zeal to "get" Bush, Biden conciously or unconciously (conveniently?) forgets that the terrorists probably have a better internet connection than I do, and can listen to his rants in real time. He is doing their work for them. This includes the inept Newsweak and its incendiary untrue story. And the ones that go overseas to trash the President and the U.S.? Decorum prohibits my commentary on them.
Biden never misses a chance to get fact time on network news, which is seen all over the world. He portrays the U.S. as divided, and a house divided against itself is necessarily weaker than one that is not divided.
I am beginning to think that it is time for the U.S. to keep its critics and their criticisms, good or bad, within the U.S., but it probably can't be done anymore unless they do it themselves. I get the impression that Biden and Newsweak et. al. just don't care, and would quickly defend themseleves with the classic Nurembergesque "I was just doing my job" defense. One wonders where the line is drawn between "doing you job" and outright sedition.
It is certainly unpatriotic, if you measure them against the reporters of WWII.
(18) SemiPundit made the following comment | Jun 9, 2005 9:10:12 AM | Permalink
Beef:
Contrary to your inference, I do oppose shipment of prisoners to Guantanamo (perhaps my suggestion on closing it would support that idea?).
On the assumption that all of them we have captured are either al Quaeda or fighters who support them, then they should be brought back to the U.S. for detention and assessment of their intelligence value, which for most of them is practically zero by now. They should not be tortured and their care should be openly monitored by outside parties not connected with the coalition engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have damaged for years to come our standing to criticize other countries for human rights violations.
As far as concrete knowledge of such movements (renditions) is concerned, "you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows". How about this: stretch your imagination and give me all of the reasons you can think of for putting a prisoner on a plane and sending him to any other country at all.
Dimsdale:
Are you suggesting government censorship and isolation of dissidents? This sounds chillingly familiar.
Why did the Newsweek story spark widespread riots when the Pentagon's announcement that the Koran had been urinated on fail to set off the same reaction?
(19) Where's The Beef? made the following comment | Jun 9, 2005 11:28:41 AM | Permalink
Semi-Pundit, so you have nothing concrete. You depend on your imagination.
(20) El Jefe Maximo made the following comment | Jun 10, 2005 3:48:26 PM | Permalink
All this gassing Biden and the other useful idiots do about Guantanamo and prisoners in general is bound to lead, eventually, to a truly dreadful, and presumably unintended, consequence, namely, a reluctance by the military authorities to take prisoners.
If the intelligence people can't interrogate them, and if they serve as propaganda for our enemies once in captivity, so much easier for the military to conclude, however unofficially, "no prisoner, no problem."
(21) Greg Wythe made the following comment | Jun 11, 2005 8:12:04 AM | Permalink
I take heart in knowing that the very same Biden performance that so outraged friends to my left have created an equal reaction to those to my right. Tells me he's on to something. Apparently two who agree are Senator Mel Martinez and President George Bush. Really makes one wonder how far to the right the Gitmo defenders really are, doesn't it?
Still more ironic that someone who can see liberal bias in the media cannot see how Joe Biden can also be misreported in the Washington Post (not that liberals will claim Biden as one of their own and not that right wingers will ever acknowledge how moderate the Washington Post really is in its coverage - but I digress).
Beldar, you suggest that Biden was lacking in nuance for whom should be set free and whom should be imprisoned elsewhere. Check the reports of the appearance and - shock - he addressed those issues on the show. But who cares about piddly little missed details like that when we can point out the factual errors in the MSM instead?
;-)
(22) palaeologi made the following comment | Jun 11, 2005 11:06:32 PM | Permalink
Two points for Senator Biden:
1. I'm interested in how even the parameters of this debate are basically controlled by leftwing ideas. I keep hearing "Constitutional this" and "Unconstitutional that" when referring to some Gitmo Afghan prisoner or a Syrian terrorist captured in Iraq. But the Constitution was never written or meant to apply to non-citizens: really, read it! Its rights extend to members of the private club called America, no one else.
2. We are at war with an enemy that fights by no rules: the only way to win such a war is to jettison all rules. I wondered why, on September 12, 2001, our media and our government did not ask a simple question: how have wars against Muslim insurgencies or terrorism been won in the past? We did not ask, because we did not like the answer: by something called counter-terrorism, like old Black Jack Pershing in the Philippines, or even the French (actually the Paras, the only real men in the whole country) in Algiers.[*]
Are my views extreme? Well, I ask how can we have a Democracy when one political philosophy (leftism) defines all the rules and boundaries of discussion?
[*] Their army won but French politicians surrendered.
(23) Jim Rockford made the following comment | Jun 13, 2005 12:16:30 AM | Permalink
Well, the latest Time Magazine article detailing the "torture" of one of bin Laden's closest aides, a guy who Mohammed Atta (remember him) was waiting for when he was turned back by Immigration and reported directly to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one Mohammed al-Qhatani.
Torture consisting of: playing Christina Aguilera music, a woman getting in his face (like Mariska Hargitay does on Law and Order SVU), being made to look at pictures of the 9/11 victims, and being made to watch a satirical puppet show lampooning his Al Qaeda activities.
Yep. Biden, Feinstein, Boxer and the rest called it horrible torture and called for Gitmo to close. Because this "20th hijacker" was offended. Biden wants to release him. Guy hinted he had a big story to tell but Rumsfeld revoked his authorization to question him after Abu Graib broke.
My question to SemiPundit is how many American lives are you willing to sacrifice to keep your moral vanity? Are you willing to have another 3,000 Americans die in another mass casualty attack so you can pretend your country will never do anything that anyone anywhere could object to? How about 10,000? Or 100,000? Three million? How about six million?
Let's not be stupid. Pressure (which this is not torture) works. Heck torture works. Stalin's torturers were VERY efficient at extracting information out of captured Nazis. They tortured like heck and were not ashamed of it. Every POW in almost every war (ironically the Nazis did not torture our guys much) has undergone torture and it generally worked.
al-Qhattani knows vital information that could be the difference between thousands of Americans living or dying. You'd rather they just die, Semi-pundit, than have your moral vanity offended.
That's OK. I look forward to Biden, Feinstein, and Boxer explaining they put the possible offended nature of a hardened al-Qaeda killer over the lives of thousands and perhaps millions of Americans.
(24) SemiPundit made the following comment | Jun 15, 2005 8:05:09 AM | Permalink
Dick Cheney has looked into it and is happy to report to the rest of the world that everything is really OK. As long as we are convinced of that, then there is no longer any need for concern.
(25) Where's The Beef? made the following comment | Jun 22, 2005 8:18:27 PM | Permalink
A Gitmo veteran's comments
http://www.hughhewitt.com/#postid1729
As a recent veteran of Guantanamo Bay, I've been troubled by the willingness of some (namely this editorial page) to make uninformed inflammatory statements about the detention operations at GTMO. I believe that if any one of them had the opportunity to visit GTMO and witness the operation first hand, they would change their tone, if not their minds altogether.
Not only are the detainees treated humanely (top-notch medical care, hearty meals, recreational facilities, full access to religious observance, etc..) but I personally witnessed instances when detainees did not want to leave. It was not uncommon for my platoon to guard an airfield for hours in preparation for sending a detainee home, only to turn around and bring him back to the detention facility – because he refused to leave! These detainees are not stupid—they know that real torture and inhumane treatment await them at home. And while I know they’re not happy to be in GTMO, they rest assured that they will be treated well because Americans play by the rules.
(26) Jack Foupe made the following comment | Jun 25, 2005 8:47:21 AM | Permalink
SIR, You wrote - "The detainees at Gitmo are there because they were captured while engaging in war against the United States. Disdaining uniforms, disdaining all the rules and conventions of "civilized" warfare, they were bearing arms for the purpose of trying to kill American and coalition soldiers. We have ample "reason to keep" those individuals for the remainder of their natural lives or until the Global War on Terror has achieved enough success that they can be released without reason to believe that they'll return to their terrorism."
I suppose "war" is in lower case because this is/was not a legally declared War? David Hicks is an Australian who has been in CampX for going on three years, and Australia's conservative John Howard Liberal-National Parties coalition of the (all too-) willing (c.o.t.w.) government has knowingly acquiesced in his 'detention'.
Of course, IF Hicks was to be returned to Australia's own good care, he would be charged with precisely what in our law he is guilty of - Nothing, ZIP !!
Hicks (a Muslim convert zealot it seems) was detained in Afghanistan, and he was apparently in flagrante delicto, but if America has to detain people such as he in a contrived legal-limbo, also because they cannot be lawfully detained within either mainland USA (or in this case in Australia), then I observe that that is why some people actually hold the coalition of the willing in utter moral/legal contempt.
Others simply have grave concerns for what may have become of foolishly pedantic conventions such as habeas corpus ...
And after years in detention 'assisting authorities in their enquries', it seems that the USA cannot as yet concoct formal (lawful) charges against Hicks.
(I happily do acknowlege that another Australian, Mamdou Habib formerly detained, has been returned from CampX to his family in Australia, and is now under very close-watch by our security services. [But charged with Nothing.] And incidentally Habib claims he was tortured in/by the A.R.E., before being kidnapped into CampX's legal-limbo.)
Australia's own policies of Lawfully detaining Refugee-Status-claimants for periods running into years BOTH off-shore (e.g., in the Pacific at Nauru, and just outside Australia's 'migration zone' at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean) AND in on-shore Detention Centres (such as Baxter, S.A.) curiously contrast with your/our c.o.t.w. CampX limbo.
(27) Where's The Beef? made the following comment | Jun 28, 2005 12:44:40 AM | Permalink
What's on menu at Gitmo?
Some food for thought, to say the least.
---
What's to be witnessed at Gitmo?
You are right to worry about inhumane treatment taking place at GITMO. But your concern should be for the dedicated, well-trained, highly professional American men and women who are subjected to a daily barrage of feces, urine, semen, and spit hurled at them along with vile invective as they implement a humane, enlightened system of confinement on men who want nothing more than to kill Americans. These quiet professional Americans, who live under the motto “Honor Bound for Defense of Freedom,” deserve our utmost respect and concern. Shame on anyone who slanders or disrespects them for short-term and short-sighted political advantage.
[...]
Of the estimated 70,000 battlefield captures that were made in Afghanistan, only a tiny percentage, something on the order of 800-plus, were eventually evacuated to GITMO. These were the worst of the worst. More than 200 have been released back to their home country – if the U.S. is assured that the detainees would not be tortured by local authorities upon return. These men were freed because they were deemed by ongoing official military review processes to no longer pose a threat, or to possess no useful intelligence. And this process has proven too generous at times: more than 10 released GITMO detainees have been killed or recaptured fighting Americans or have been identified as resuming terrorist activities. Still, the process is up and running for review of cases, and if a Washington DC circuit court approves a government appeal, the system for military tribunals will get started. All mechanisms are in place and ready to go as soon as DoD gets a green light.
(28) Where's The Beef? made the following comment | Jun 28, 2005 12:45:45 AM | Permalink
What's on menu at Gitmo?
http://www.house.gov/hasc/pressreleases/2005/GTMO-menu.pdf
What's to be witnessed at Gitmo?
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18572
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