Gitmo was the first thing that clued me that I had made a mistake voting for Obama's promises (not that McCain would have <i>ever</i> gotten it instead!). It was such a complete reversal that I immediately knew his promises were completely worthless.<p>I appreciate that there may be anger outs people in Gitmo, but they have every right to a trial I have. The double standard of what human rights mean if you are a US citizen and if you aren't makes me physically ill.<p>As a country, in many ways we deserve the disdain directed at us.<p>That said, we are not only Gitmo, and we actually do a lot of good things for the world. We just need to get our government to respect our borders.
Hi, future generations!<p>Political prisoners are being raped with food intubators to prevent themselves from committing suicide in America's secret torture prison, with the express consent and approval of President Obama, the American Congress, and the numerical majority of the American people.<p>Love,
2013
Guantanamo Bay is like the witch hunts in the medieval ages in the sense that when somebody was accused of being a witch there was no meaningful recourse.<p>Gitmo is the same. Most inmates have not been tried, some have been tortured (and are hence considered "untriable").<p>For a country that claims to follow the "rule of law" this is a strange affair to be in.
The "rule of law" way of out this is to bring these people to the US, and try them. If they cannot be convicted they are free. I believe that the long term cost/risk of not doing this is higher than any potential damage the inmates could do.
The defenders of Gitmo in this era will be remembered by our descendants with the same shame and disgust we feel when remembering the slave holders and segregationists of the previous eras.
The hypocrisy of the New York Times in printing this is shocking. The newspaper which did so much to whip up hysteria during the years of the Bush administration now trying to raise concerns about the inmates of Guantanamo is shockingly cynical. It's a shameful state of affairs that our political process is so broken we cannot deal with this situation in a civilized fashion, with investigations, trials and an end result. Instead we live in an Orwellian state of perpetual war, one which the New York Times was happy to goad us into back in the days when they actually sold newspapers and profited from a nation's feelings of hurt and lust for vengeance.
Obama could order it closed tomorrow.<p>Congress could refuse to fund that action but it would still be ordered closed and his hands would be a tiny bit cleaner.<p>But he likes his drones and gitmo now, so that's pretty much it until Hillary becomes president and I think she likes the idea of gitmo too.
In Canada we remember with shame the WW2 Japanese internment camps. Gitmo will be this generations great shame. Marriage equalization, and reasonable pot legislation are happening... But gitmo remains a black mark. Due process should not be malleable.
With this story of Guantanamo Bay and the story of children born into prison camps in North Korea, as a mere software engineer, it makes me feel hopeless as to how to help.
Somehow it strikes me as odd that the executive can go around starting wars, one of the most costly (blood & gold) behaviors a gov't can engage in, and one that <i>explicitly</i> requires the approval of congress, without congressional approval, but when it comes to closing a torture dungeon it's 'well gee whiz I'd love to but mean old congress won't let me. Sorry- my hands are tied!'<p>horseshit. There's more than one way to skin a cat and with the unchecked might of the US military (which is basically what the executive commands these days with our spineless-vis-a-vis-war congress), I do not believe the president couldn't figure out a way to dissolve Gitmo if he wanted to. He doesn't want to, this torture happens because Obama wants it to happen.<p><i>EDIT: I'm probably wrong here in my first paragraph ^</i>
So much for the Declaration of Independence:<p>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I know for a fact that much of these claims are completely wrong and, being told by a detainee, are completely biased.<p>Detainee's that refuse meals are required to receive their nutrients in liquid form. They have the option to drink this themselves. When they refuse, they are put in the feeding chair which restrains their arms, legs, and waist. It does not restrain a detainees head whatsoever.<p>When a detainee refuses to drink the liquid themselves, and refuses to go to the restraint chair themselves, they're carried to the chair by a Forced Cell Extraction team. ERF is a term that the detainee's created themselves. There are 6 guards, not 8, and it is for the safety of the detainee, as there is one guard to handle each body part (2 legs, 2 arms, head), and then one at the door to ensure that the detainee does not escape. Every FCE is video taped to ensure that safe and humane practices are being followed.<p>They do this for this exact reason. Publicity. We wont send them back to Yemen because we don't want their heads to be severed by their Government. No one wants this place to be open. Don't be foolish, America. Don't be gullible, America. We are still the good guys.
Who are these "medical personnel" performing these acts? I am a physician and I can tell you that force feeding these people is against our code of ethics. The physician overseeing their treatment should be 'outed' so that we can report this behavior to his/her licensing board.
> When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.<p>Sorry but this account is troubling. He went to Afghanistan during the Taliban extremely insane cruel anti-woman Islamist totalitarian regime and expected a better life? That's like someone saying he traveled to Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime and expected a better pay as he didn't know anything about Cambodia at the time. This alone takes the credibility away from this story for me.<p>The rest is an account about how they are force feeding him because of is voluntary hunger strike. Anyone knows how hunger strikes are handled in other penitentiaries? Not sure they can just let the prisoners die.
You can read the history of Obama's and Congress' battle here:<p><a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/177/close-the-guantanamo-bay-detention-center/" rel="nofollow">http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/pr...</a><p>This is very sad ... but what do you think is the reason they can't close this center since 2008? Who is responsible for this state of affairs and what can be done?
I make no apologies for Obama- he should have closed Gitmo.<p>Yet, there's one tiny tiny possibility that I have considered for why he hasn't. Before becoming president, you make promises, have goals, and overall think you know what you're going to do on day one.<p>However, after inauguration you go for your first big debriefing with the CIA, FBI, etc... The things you learn there completely change the course what you want to do, or can do. You find that we were constantly in significantly more danger than any citizen could have anticipated.<p>Now, I don't find this to be likely, but just something I've considered. Why in the world would have Obama gone from wanting to close Gitmo, to being pretty much against it? Politics alone don't seem to cover it, since pretty much everyone wants it closed. Logistics? It doesn't seem <i>that</i> hard...
Who cares whose fault this is? It has to end now. If you feel overwhelmed but still want to do something, the least you can do is to support Amnesty International.
Lot of things mentioned here are not that easy. To legally bring citizens of other countries in American justice system and have them fair trial you need to have respect various treaties - many of which may simply require sending them back to their respective country to be handled by their own governments which usually is not the best thing especially for terrorist suspects. The next best thing however might be have them as prisoner of war kept out side of US justice system.<p>What is missing here is other side of the coin, however. Keeping people in Gitmo takes money, planning, book keeping and plenty of other administrative hassles. Even though there was no trial it is hard to imagine that military doesn't do any accounting of these people and they are just kept there, fed, clothed every day without any justification or reasoning. I know govt can't be trusted from wasting taxpayer money but it looks over the top that such a high profile place will keep people for 11 years straight without any convincing reasoning. Without response from govt to this story we only know one side.
I just sent my congressman an email outlining that I would like to see everybody given a trial and either deported or moved to a federal prison.<p>I would recommend that others reach out to their representatives and do the same. I imagine that if we, the people, do not make any noise about this then we are going to get more of the same.
"First they came for the Yemeni, but I was not one so I thought nothing of it.
Then they came for the Afghani, but I was not one, so I didn't mind.
...
Then they came for my neighbors, and I hid.
...
By the time they came for me there was no one to stop them..."
I think the most important part about this OpEd is the comments appearing here and elsewhere:
Lots of righteous indignation for this poor fellow who claims that he's completely innocent of any charges brought against him and if he could only talk to someone they would understand. He feels the need to kill himself to prove a point, such conviction.<p>What do they say about a prisoner and his crime? oh yeah: there's no such thing as a guilty prisoner in Jail.
Legally, these guys are non-lawful enemy combatants. They have put themselves in a legal grey area, not by committing crimes, but by committing acts of war. Many, if not all of them have been trained, if captured, to try to disrupt the legal system by any means necessary. They are fighting a war.<p>Here is what happened to some German non-lawful combatants during WWII: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius</a><p>About 1/3 of detainees released have gone right back to the fighting: <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/03/latest_gitmo_recidiv.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/03/latest_gitmo_...</a><p>And these were the low risk ones.<p>According to the US Constitution, it is Congress that establishes courts (except the supreme court) and decides what their purpose is. The President does not get to decide this. Military commissions have been accordingly established by Congress to try the detainees. The current President halted this process. Thus the detainees are in legal limbo until either Congress establishes a different court to hear the cases or the President decides to comply with the current law.
I posted a new We the People petition about this issue:
<a href="https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/close-guantanamo-bay-detention-camp-end-2013-and-either-transfer-or-release-remaining-prisoners/wZlM5BG8" rel="nofollow">https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/close-guantanamo-b...</a> .
Here goes my respect for obama, for democracy which he stands for, for the whole nobel peace prize community. Now I know why Gandhi never won it. He would have felt disgraced today.<p>US is a disgrace to human rights, a hypocritical country who brings democracy to the world
<p><pre><code> In 1971, while in Lefortovo prison in Moscow (the central KGB
interrogation jail), I went on a hunger strike
demanding a defense lawyer of my choice
(the KGB wanted its trusted lawyer to be assigned instead).
The moment was most inconvenient for my captors because my case was due in court,
and they had no time to spare. So, to break me down, they
started force-feeding me in a very unusual manner -- through my nostrils.
</code></pre>
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700018.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12...</a>
Another example of the hypocrisy of our goverment which claims to champion ideals like freedom and equality before the law.<p>As long as there are innocent people like this suffering grave injustices in gitmo, as long as drones are killing innocent Pakistani villagers, as long as the U.S. brazenly continues to financially and militarily support Israel, the president and every member of congress have blood on their hands.<p>Let me tell you something, these clowns in office couldn't care less about your or me or the homeless guy on the street. They care about being famous, having money and power and going on free vacations paid for by John Q. average tax payer!
It mystifies me why this is still going on. I'm sure the President sees the injustice of what's happening. If he doesn't have the political capital to shut the entire operation down, can he at least let selected detainees go free?
What concerns me is that as I understand it, my own country (UK) has been complicit with these detentions. I'm also concerned that the UK and other developed nations have similar black-ops illegal detention centres too, Guantanamo is public knowledge. Are there other centres?
I am always puzzled about the cognitive dissonance between this and all the (justified) outrage over the Shoah. It's still happening, even in the United States (let's not even talk about Africa, North Korea, etc).
rule of law, right to fair trial, upholding dignity of human kind and the farce of democracy. Feed the rabble with trivia they need to know and all is well.
What did you expect him to say? I am guilty of contributing to terrorism and the purposeful killing of innocent woman and children civilians?<p>I like how everyone here takes this guys word for everything. It is all a government conspiracy that has put him in there. After all, the US government likes to round up random people around the world and put them in max security detainment as kind of a boredom fighting game right? Go on death row in any detention center in the world and you'll get the same story from about 95% of the inmates there. The government set them up. They are all innocent.<p>I think that it is always wise to look at everything that your government does with a certain level of suspicion and cynicism, but I also wouldn't bet money on a Gitmo prisoner's "honest" word either.