Understand the law when it comes to detainees...Bush so screwed up the evidence against these men

[Windy]

and by using torture to corece confessions, gain information, etc., even if they are guilty and/or dangerous, they would be let out on a technicality under our system. Please think things through before judging Obama's actions so harshly when you don't have the full picture.

[AllentownJake]

1. This Bush screwed things up so badly is only going to play so long

With the left wing of the party, and the American people in general.

[stray cat]

10. So when is Obama expected to take the blame for the results of the last 8 years

I'll blame Obama for any new wars or new screw ups he starts - not what he had dumped on his lap

[AllentownJake]

13. Change we can believe in!

[Windy]

18. The law is the law.... He can not be blamed for that. nt

[H2O Man]

29. "The law is the law" .....

except when one group is allowed to escape any consequence for openly breaking the law. Then, there is no law, only lawlessness.

[leftofthedial]

43. if "the law is the law,"

cheney would be in jail.

[bemildred]

2. What's your point?

Bush/Cheney fucked things up, so Obama has to keep fucking things up?

[AllentownJake]

3. In Obama's defense

Our other party leaders like Harry Reid are showing soooo much courage on this issue now that they are in power.

[aquart]

9. Obama's defense is that he is as gutless and shortsighted as Harry Reid?

You really want to make that your position?

[AllentownJake]

12. When the entire Senate

Has a vote against moving the detainees out of Gitmo, despite a majority of them complaining about Gitmo for the past 6 years, there is only so much he can do.

We still do have this separation of powers thing and the Senate is filled with weak, cowardly democrats.

[bemildred]

14. I'm not attacking Obama. I'm saying continuing to fuck things up will not fix it. nt

[AllentownJake]

15. Oh I agree

However, on the detainee issues, I put the blame on our shitty senators.

[bemildred]

16. I'm OK with that too. nt

[Windy]

20. What part of "tainted evidence", coerced confessions, chain of evidence violations

do you not understand? Under our system, criminals are let off every day based upon their due process rights and fuck ups by law enforcement. Quit being ideologues and look at the facts.

[AllentownJake]

23. I know us troublesome ideologues

demanding real banking reform, real health care reform, following our international treaties, ending the Bush wars of aggression, investigations into the past administrations crimes etc.

We just need to be patient, practical, stop whining, look at the facts, etc.

[Windy]

24. Yes, you do need to give the man more than a few short months to fix 8 years of monumental screw ups

You also have members of congress blocking reform. Try pinning some of the blame on them. How about our glorious congress critters not voting for the funding needed to close gitmo...

[AllentownJake]

25. Ahem

:eyes:

I believe my first post in this dialogue is that in Obama's defense our democratic senators are cowards.

[Windy]

27. roll your eyes all that you want. Your comments are reactionary, short sighted and no better than

that simple-minded right wing commentators.

[AllentownJake]

28. This is why I stopped going to OFA meetings

The Kool aid kids are almost as difficult to talk to as the damn freepers.

[Windy]

32. Wow... kool aid now. Incredible. Hint...Dennis Kucinich will never win an election. nt

[AllentownJake]

36. Hint the GOP will be back in power in 4 years if we fail to produce results

I know he's pretty and all.

[BzaDem]

49. You have got to be kidding me.

Poll after poll shows that a majority/plurality of Americans do not support closing Gitmo, do not want to prosecute Bush/Cheney for torture, and many polls suggest that a majority/plurality believe Bush's interogation policies were justified.

And here you are, saying that if we don't close gitmo/prosecute Bush/release terrorists/etc/etc/etc, the GOP will be back in power in 4 years?

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

37. You make a good point. Congressional leadership is not standing with him.

They all should be ashamed of themselves.

/oops

[pearl]

4. Thank You

This is what I have been wanting to say so often but it's been hard to put into words. You did well.
There was a story that came out shortly after he took office. Saying that the files on these detainees were non existent, spread across the vast bureaucracy of the federal gov, they have had to start from scratch. And with a Justice department that has to be put back together from the massive politicization. I'm cutting him a lot of slack.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Thank you. Those who have studied this agree. The others are dramatically outraged...

But less well informed.

It's a shame really, because they join the ranks of Hannity, O'Reilley, et al, in their ignorant rants.

:patriot:

[aquart]

11. Of all the nerve...

Really.

[EFerrari]

35. You mean, like Russ Feingold? You've been insulting posters that disagree with you

for days now. That's not an argument.

[billyoc]

6. Then they must be released, PERIOD.

[Windy]

21. Do you think that our soldiers who bled and died didn't get any bad guys???? wow... nt

[billyoc]

26. Our soldiers have no fucking idea who they "got", but if they're bad, show us why.

Or let them go.

[Mechatanketra]

7. Here we go again.

If I had three wishes from a genie, I would think very hard about using one to erase the word "technicality" from the American vocabulary.

There is no such thing as a technicality in the TV sense, i.e. a random lottery prize for hardened criminals who get away scot free. What's going on in our legal system is that we realized a long time ago that certain actions (such as torture) make it relatively trivial to convict innocent people, and therefore their use renders the results of the so-called investigation unreliable.

In layman's terms, for the cheap seats, you don't know they're guilty.

If you can't prove the case in court, you can't prove the case. You don't know they're guilty.

Conversely, if you actually could be certain of their guilt, then you must have evidence that would be admissable in court. (Being tortured doesn't invalidate the whole case, just what you said under torture. And if you think someone is a criminal just because they said so while being tortured, then presumably you also believe that Salem was beplagued with witches in the direct service of Satan.)

And anyone, f***ing anyone, who suggests that it is in any way acceptable for a person not actually guilty of a given crime to be held in prison indefinitely is, to be blunt, a monster that reasonable people need to be protected from; the concept of a judgement too harsh for such a person does not exist. (Cf. Justice Scalia's similarly insane assertion that "factual innocence" was no reason to cancel an execution.)

[Windy]

22. Have you seen any shred of even circumstantial evidence about those detained?

And FYI... as you are obviously not familiar with the legal system in this country much less the criminal justice system in specific, many criminals are let loose on technicalities and turn around and commit violent crime. Wake up.

[neverforget]

42. That's because law enforecement fucked up and the "criminal" is set

free. That's the law. It's not a technicality to follow the law.

No one is guilty until proven in a court of law. Innocent until proven guilty.

[noamnety]

31. Thank you!

It's absurd that "having no evidence" is being euphemized into "a technicality."

[aquart]

8. I get that. IT IS NOT RELEVANT.

It does not improve us or the situation or any future situation to hold ANYONE without trial. Have we radicalized possibly innocent men into terrorists? I'm damn sure we have. Are they, at the very least, propaganda magnets for future terrorist recruitment? You betcha.

The damage done is NOT going to be undone. The only hope we have is to behave as if we mean to obey the law at long last. The only hope we have is for Obama not to be perceived, after such a relieved greeting as he received worldwide, as a completely untrustworthy hypocrite.

We signal policy change BY CHANGING THE POLICY. If our laws of evidence require these men to be freed, FREE THEM. Send. Them. Home. There is nothing they can do to us as bad as what we do to ourselves by keeping them.

[csziggy]

17. I wonder if reparations could be used to help the men who have been held unjustly

Let them loose, set them up in a household, give them an annuity - if they live a good life. The annuity should be enough for them to live like princes in their communities. But if they associate with terrorist organizations or extremist groups, they lose that income.

Basically, turn them into consumers dependent on the US to support that life.

I am not sure if I mean :sarcasm:

[aquart]

44. I think that would get them killed.

Aside from giving Congress shrieking fits.

[csziggy]

45. What I keep remembering is that some of the detainees were turned in for rewards

And may not have had any link to Al Qaeda or terrorists but just been disliked by someone. So we're willing to give money to dubious snitches and not willing to give reparations to the people we cannot prove were terrorists.

There will be categories of these guys:
1) people who are terrorists and evidence that can used in court exists
2) people who are terrorists but cannot be tried because there is no evidence or the only evidence is tainted
3) people who were not terrorists but who have been radicalized by their mistreatment in detention
4) people who were not terrorists that will just be happy to be let free

Category 4 should get reparations for the disruption to their lives. Category 3 might be influenced to at least be neutral if given reparations - but if they get reparations, there should be strings attached.

Category 1 is the easiest - we try them, presumably if the evidence is good, they are convicted and incarcerated. Category 2 are the ones we have a problem dealing with and there are probably no good solutions for how to handle them.

[aquart]

47. Naive. They've been together.

When you have been arrested and persecuted for something, whether it be true or no, you are bound to it.

Not one of them flew a plane into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. NOT ONE OF THEM.

And what evidence exists of any crime whatsoever is beyond belief tainted.

Send them home. We have no hope to redeem the past. We MUST show that the future will be different. Now is the time to do that. It may be the only time.

[csziggy]

48. Well, that is why reparations come to mind

We locked people up, denied them the rights that our own Constitution gives and that we have agreed to give by treaty. We allowed them to be at best mistreated, at worst tortured and let to hear some of their fellow prisoners and family tortured and possibly tortured to death.

We, as Americans, owe these people something. A return to their former lives will not be possible, but reparations to help them rebuild their lives might give them a better regard for what Americans should be.

And we OWE them and the world thorough investigations and prosecutions into how we as a nation allowed this to be done by our leaders. That is essential. If we let the people responsible for Abu Gharib and Guantanamo and the illegal war in Iraq to go home and live with the wealth the never deserved, we are as guilty as they are.

[bullimiami]

19. sorry. the law is the law. if we screwed up they go free. it happens here all of the time.

the full picture im seeing is that obama is failing the test of his morality and I am saddened.

[noamnety]

30. After "thinking things through"

I've decided we're a country of sick bastards if we justify torturing people and keeping them locked up indefinitely because they "might" be guilty of something we have no evidence for.

Salem Witch Trials, Part II.


Seems some folks are confused about who the "terrorists" are in this scenario. I'm thinking the terrorists are the ones kidnapping people for ransom and torturing them.

[Windy]

34. Sorry, its not that black and white. do a little research. nt

[Bjorn Against]

38. Some of us have done research and we disagree with your opinion that torture is a technicality

[noamnety]

41. I've done more than "a little research"

I'm from the intel community.

[EFerrari]

33. Throwing out charges because of torture is not a technicality.

Maybe you should think through how you are minimizing TORTURE.

[leftofthedial]

39. So our system of justice is precious and should be restored,

except for the part where it means that if we can't prove guilt legally we have to let them go...

I see.

Are there any other American legal principles that do not apply under these political circumstances?

Oh yeah, there's also the part where the President or his subordinates or the DOD or some staff sergeant on a round-up of "insurgents" mission in Afghanistan or a CIA torturer or someone--who it actually is isn't very clear--has the power to decide which people fit into this "special" category in the first place.

Anything else?

Well, of course, there is the special permanent detention facility that comes under no known current jurisdiction.

Did I leave anything out?

Maybe the part about legal representation?

Yes, Obama sure does have a tough job. It's *hard work*.

[mmonk]

40. And please understand even the military said many detainees at Gitmo

were not engaged in terrorism or took up arms against the United States.

[kentuck]

46. What could Obama do, even if he wanted to ?

Does he not have to get any approval from Congress? He can do it just because he wants to? What is he - a unitary executive??