No funds to close Gitmo

[heckofajobbrownie]

I guess we'll have to disagree on this one too.

 

You have noticed the complaints from the left on a few of Obama's recent decisions, haven't you? I think this argument that it's all simply about abusing Bush doesn't hold much water, and is best left to Steve.

 

We even got some ACLU bashing in there. Cool.

 

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

From the speech today:

 

"We see that, above all, in how the recent debate has been obscured by two opposite and absolutist ends. On one side of the spectrum, there are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and who would almost never put national security over transparency. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who embrace a view that can be summarized in two words: "anything goes." Their arguments suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means, and that the President should have blanket authority to do whatever he wants – provided that it is a President with whom they agree.

 

Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right. The American people are not absolutist, and they don't elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems. They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty, and care, and a dose of common sense. That, after all, is the unique genius of America. That is the challenge laid down by our Constitution. That has been the source of our strength through the ages. That is what makes the United States of America different as a nation.

 

I can stand here today, as President of the United States, and say without exception or equivocation that we do not torture, and that we will vigorously protect our people while forging a strong and durable framework that allows us to fight terrorism while abiding by the rule of law. Make no mistake: if we fail to turn the page on the approach that was taken over the past several years, then I will not be able to say that as President. And if we cannot stand for those core values, then we are not keeping faith with the documents that are enshrined in this hall."

[heckofajobbrownie]

On why closing Guantanamo is a good idea:

 

"There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. Indeed, part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law – a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected. Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter-terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.

 

So the record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That is why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign. And that is why I ordered it closed within one year."

 

[Mr. T]

You don't house prisoners of war with your own citizen prisoners.

 

Again, nobody is worried they will get away.

 

People just don't see the need.

 

PR?? LOL

 

 

The prisons are full of black muslims right now, what do we want to create? a recruiting center for extremist, muslim terrorists.

 

I dont see any benefit by doing this, we can see this has not been thought out very carefully.

[heckofajobbrownie]

That's so true.

[heckofajobbrownie]

BTW, the four Muslim men arrested in NYC for plotting terrorist attacks in New York City - where should they go? Can they be trusted in our prison system? Doesn't Obama know that these people are superhuman terrorist geniuses that need to be separated from the regular prison population?

 

[Westside Steve]

On why closing Guantanamo is a good idea:

 

"There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. Indeed, part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law – a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected. Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter-terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.

 

So the record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That is why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign. And that is why I ordered it closed within one year."

 

Well golly; I guess if David Axelrod says it's a good idea.....

 

WSS

[ballpeen]

Actually McCarthy was after communists and sympathizers when the communists were the actual enemies of the US.

 

 

WSS

 

 

 

LOL.....great point!

 

[Westside Steve]

BTW, the four Muslim men arrested in NYC for plotting terrorist attacks in New York City - where should they go? Can they be trusted in our prison system?

 

Great point.

Hmmmm US criminals captured here, uhh, enemy combatants captired on a foreign field of battle, uhhh, nope.

I can't tell the difference either.

 

Doesn't Obama know that these people are superhuman terrorist geniuses that need to be separated from the regular prison population?

 

Obama? Heh. No, probably not.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Where did Jose Padilla go? He was an American citizen captured in Chicago.

 

And what did we do with him when he got there?

 

And did he turn out to be planning a dirty bomb attack like the government alleged when it captured him?

[Westside Steve]

And your point?

 

WSS

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Pad...eged_terrorist)

[Westside Steve]

Steve your such a pisser ,you must be a joy to be in a band with,lol

 

 

Why? Does Jose Padilla play guitar?

 

But what response did you want?

"Oh no!! Jose Padilla???

Close Gitmo NOW!!"

Or what?

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

The point is clear, or at least it should have been. You said that the distinction was that American citizens who are arrested on terrorism charges go into the American court system, while foreigners captured overseas do not. But that's not true. Padilla was American, captured in America, and instead of being afforded his Constitutional rights as an American citizen (due process, the right not to be tortured by your own government, the right to an attorney, etc.) he was whisked away to Gitmo and tortured, so much that he's apparently not all that sane anymore.

 

This is precisely the type of behavior we want to move away from. Because it's illegal. Among other things.

 

And if there had been more Jose Padillas, where do you think they would have gone? The reality is that there really aren't that many homegrown threats in this country, and the ones that we have seen so far have been really amateurish.

 

Except we're supposed to accept the premise that people who subscribe to this ideology who aren't from this country are such a threat, and are so brilliant and crafty, that we can't even think of devising any sort of system to process them that aligns with our legal and moral traditions. We simply have to think anew like Dick Cheney and John Yoo have.

 

We housed just under half a million Germans/Nazis in this country during World War II. I think we can handle 18 jihadists.

 

That's what I don't get about Republicans - for all the talk about how strong they believe we are, they always act as if we're weak and entirely vulnerable.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Fighting with Harry Reid for dumbest comment on the issue so far:

 

“The American people don’t want these men walking the streets of America’s neighborhoods,” Sen. John Thune, R-S. D., said Wednesday. “The American people don’t want these detainees held at a military base or federal prison in their backyard, either.”

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

Try this one:

 

"[Obama] said that the last thing he thinks about when he goes to sleep at night is keeping America safe. That’s a big difference with Vice President Cheney — when it came to protecting Americans, he never went to sleep.” - Mitt Romney

 

That guy makes your head spin.

[ballpeen]

Reids comment wasn't well thought out, but there is nothing wrong with what Thune said...and that isn't a political jab...I think the vast majority of all citizens would rather not have these people anywhere inside our borders

[Westside Steve]

I could start a whole new thread about how pissed off I am over the credit card bill,what a joke that is.

Lobbyist need to go,they are destroying this country.

 

Go for it. Sounds like a good topiuc.

 

Cheney is running his mouth more now than when he was the PO...uh I mean VP ,he is absolutely no help to Republicans that man is pretty much the face of where Americans are focusing their blame right now,he shouldnt be out there but then again let him talk........

 

I like Cheney. He's got a lot more more gravitas and real world experience than the president.

And he's no less intelligent and quite possibly more.

WSS

[Westside Steve]

Cheney,

My beef with him is and this goes back to something I heard in that Ventura interview is that he is the type of guy that would stand by your side and start a fight with someone and tell you to go get em and he will hold your coat.

Its about respect,

The whole deferment thing verses the image he portrays just screams bullshit.

Walk it like you talk it.

 

 

And once again not Obama Clinton nor FDR served but sent kids to war.

 

So if you dislike Cheney for that....

WSS

 

[Legacy Fan]

On why closing Guantanamo is a good idea:

 

"There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. Indeed, part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law – a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected. Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter-terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.

 

So the record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That is why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign. And that is why I ordered it closed within one year."

 

Ok. Looks great on paper. Probably sounded awesome too. Doesn't lay out any specific quantifiable advantage to integrating terrorist prisoners into our penal system. Gitmo isn't the reason those guys hate us. Moving KSM from Cuba to Leavenworth isn't going to earn us a letter of apology from Al Jazeera, with OBL handing his sidearm over to Gates.

 

If the notion that "gitmo was set up so as to be beyond the law" then clearly that needs to be addressed. But, it's a personnel problem, not location problem. Our penal system would give these guys a masters in criminal activity rather than keep them isolated & insulated from that. If they want to learn how to disrupt our government & our way of life, let their own shitty people continue to train them. Don't offer C.E. courses by integrating them in with the shitbags we've already got behind bars.

 

I can't do anything but laugh at this: "the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.

 

So the record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security." Only likely, but let us be clear. Is RAC writing his speeches now?

 

So here we have it, if we close Gitmo, Obama gets OBL's Luger. I hope he'll let me fire it.

[heckofajobbrownie]

"Moving KSM from Cuba to Leavenworth isn't going to earn us a letter of apology from Al Jazeera, with OBL handing his sidearm over to Gates."

 

No one is saying it will. You can do better than this argument, Leg. It's silly.

 

But I think you're fooling yourself if you don't think our allies want this, and the recent willingness of countries to step up and take some of these detainees has nothing to do with the fact that Obama has promised to close this facility and move past this chapter in our history.

 

If you want to talk about the concrete things it might accomplish, or the less concrete but still important things it might accomplish, or disagree that it will, that'd be one thing.

 

If you want to hold up unrealistic goals that the policy isn't designed to achieve and dismiss it because it doesn't achieve the goals you made up, that's a bit of a waste of time.

 

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

Also: "Doesn't lay out any specific quantifiable advantage to integrating terrorist prisoners into our penal system."

 

I don't know about quantifiable, as I don't know if there's something to quantify. It's not like he can say, "Doing this will make you 23% safer." Maybe I'm missing what quantifiable benefit you're talking about.

 

What he did do is lay out why he thinks it's a good idea, and why he thinks it will help, not hurt, the war effort - mainly by strengthening the ties to our allies, who resoundingly oppose the prison and what went on there, and by creating a legal framework that can pass Constitutional muster and function a lot better than the one we have now.

 

The first part is probably much easier to fix than the latter, but he can only deal with the hand he's been dealt.

[DieHardBrownsFan]

The point is clear, or at least it should have been. You said that the distinction was that American citizens who are arrested on terrorism charges go into the American court system, while foreigners captured overseas do not. But that's not true. Padilla was American, captured in America, and instead of being afforded his Constitutional rights as an AmeriPcan citizen (due process, the right not to be tortured by your own government, the right to an attorney, etc.) he was whisked away to Gitmo and tortured, so much that he's apparently not all that sane anymore.

 

This is precisely the type of behavior we want to move away from. Because it's illegal. Among other things.

 

And if there had been more Jose Padillas, where do you think they would have gone? The reality is that there really aren't that many homegrown threats in this country, and the ones that we have seen so far have been really amateurish.

 

Except we're supposed to accept the premise that people who subscribe to this ideology who aren't from this country are such a threat, and are so brilliant and crafty, that we can't even think of devising any sort of system to process them that aligns with our legal and moral traditions. We simply have to think anew like Dick Cheney and John Yoo have.

 

We housed just under half a million Germans/Nazis in this country during World War II. I think we can handle 18 jihadists.

 

That's what I don't get about Republicans - for all the talk about how strong they believe we are, they always act as if we're weak and entirely vulnerable.

 

 

You are spreading disinformation Heck. Padilla was NEVER held at Gitmo and torutured, he was held at the U.S. Navy Brig in Charleston, S.C. Never was in Gitmo. Quit spreading lies.

[Legacy Fan]

Quantifiable doesn't necessarily need a number. "Yes it will work," or "No it won't work," is quantifiable. "It's likely to work," is not. The bullshit alarm should be going squealing.

 

You're attacking my sarcasm & exaggerations as my argument is a weak method - and something you get on Steve about endlessly. My argument is & has been that it's a people problem & not a facility/ location problem. When Obama was elected, our allies & almost-a-allies were more willing to work with of us because of a personnel change (and the ideas/ideals of the admin), not because we moved the country to Canada. Our allies "willingness to take some detainees recently" has more to do with what Obama represents & not his campaign promises (ask Daniel Choi). So again, replace the sophomores you have as prison guards (Abu Ghraibs bunch that were the problem all had less than 2 years out of boot-camp. --Who were the biggest assholes during hazing at your frat? If I had to guess, they probably the guys who got it the year before. Same with lacrosse - the 2nd years were the ones screaming "Chug it rookie!!")

 

This is why are prisons are divided into sections - it's logistics. Integrating these prisoners is a monkey wrench and you know it. As for the NY4, treat 'em like Timmy McVeigh. Domestically grown morons.

[Mr. T]

Obama should resign as president and go work for the ACLU since that seems to be his whole purpose of being in DC. He cares more about the rights of terrorists than he does about Americans.

 

Whats next? Free HBO? new gym memberships? and all you can eat pizza on saturday night for all terrorists locked up in Gitmo. May they sprinkle plenty of sausage on the pizza.

[heckofajobbrownie]

You're right, DieHard. I had that wrong. Padilla went to Charleston. Hamdi was the one who went to Gitmo, but then had to be brought back to the states when his citizenship became clear. But the rest about Padilla is correct - he was denied his Constitutional rights and tortured there, and eventually the Supreme Court stepped in and said that the Bush administration had no right to declare him an enemy combatant. And when they had his mental competency hearing, the judge ordered that the videotapes of Padilla's interrogations be produced as evidence. The CIA's response? Uh, we lost them. Just like they mysteriously "lost" other interrogation tapes. They later had to admit they'd destroyed 92 different tapes of interrogations.

 

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

"Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.

 

Detained in the supermax facility in Colorado are Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993; Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Ahmed Ressam, of the Dec. 31, 1999, Los Angeles airport millennium attack plots; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, conspirator in several plots, including one to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Wadih el-Hage, convicted of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

 

Inmates in Florence and those at the maximum-security disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., rarely see other prisoners. At Leavenworth, the toughest prisoners are allowed outside their cells only one hour a day when they are moved with their legs shackled and accompanied by three guards."

[ballpeen]

Again, why is it so important where they are held?

 

Don't talk PR.....lol

[heckofajobbrownie]

Why does PR make you laugh? There are giant firms devoted to PR. Every government, firm, and corporation does PR. Because PR is important.

 

But that's not the only reason to close Guantanamo, as we've discussed. There are concrete benefits to it.

 

You'd like to keep them in Gitmo and change the rules for what goes on there. That's fine. I can see that argument. I just don't think it's a better strategic alternative than to close it down and move those hard cases to American jails.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Here's Gates on PR:

 

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two top Bush-era officials on Friday rejected ex-vice president Dick Cheney's scathing criticism of US President Barack Obama, saying the country's national security was not in jeopardy.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served in the same post under former president George W. Bush, and Tom Ridge, the former head of homeland security, both voiced disagreement with Cheney a day after he attacked Obama's performance as the new commander-in-chief.

Gates said in an interview that opponents of Obama's decision to close the "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo were engaging in "fear-mongering," a reference to Cheney's stance on the issue.

Defending the president's decision to shut the detention center at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Gates said the prison was damaging America's image and served as a propaganda tool for Al-Qaeda.

"The truth is, it's probably one of the finest prisons in the world today. But it has a taint," Gates told NBC television's "Today" program during a visit to New York.

"The name itself is a condemnation. What the president was saying is, this will be an advertisement for Al-Qaeda as long as it's open," he said.

...Gates sought to counter arguments from Cheney and other Republican critics of the move to close Guantanamo, saying opponents were engaging in scare tactics and that convicted terrorists have been held at high security prisons in the United States for years.

"The truth is there's a lot of fear-mongering about this. We've never had an escape from a super-max prison. And that's where these guys will go, and if not one of the existing ones, we'll create a new one," he said.

The defense secretary also criticized plans by some members of Congress to try to prohibit the transfer of detainees in Guantanamo to the United States.

"I mean the real issue is -- do you close Guantanamo and put them in a prison in the United States in some way, or somewhere, or are you forced to keep Guantanamo open because all the other possibilities are closed off legislatively?"

 

 

[ballpeen]

It doesn't make me laugh. My wife owns a company that represents 20 or so hospitals, and PR is her gig....all I am saying is PR and national security??? LOL