Gitmo Is Killing Me

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/hunger-striking-at-guantanamo-bay.html

by bcn • 13 years ago

1333 521 13 years ago

lbarrow2• 13 years ago

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.

skyraider3• 13 years ago

I hope that the defenders of the legal theories that allow people to be held without trial for many years get their fair share of the blame. Gitmo itself is bad, but the legal theories that let almost anyone be held there without due process are worse.

I understand that it looks bad if people released from custody in Gitmo return to action in 'violent non-state actor' groups. But is looking bad in the media worth human dignity? There's a reason that US citizens have rights like due process (and you can see why everyone should get them, including Gitmo prisoners): If you can't prove it but refuse to let the defendant maintain the freedom that should be associated with presumption of innocence, you get incarceration of the type described in the original posting.

lbarrow2• 13 years ago

I hope so, but it doesn't seem to be happening: after John Yoo finished his work at the Bush DoJ, he got a cushy position at Berkeley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo

twoodfin4• 13 years ago

I understand that it looks bad if people released from custody in Gitmo return to action in 'violent non-state actor' groups.

Just for the record, if you're a victim of one of these released prisoners, it would be more serious for you than simply bad press.

rayiner13• 13 years ago

What do you mean "almost everyone?" The only people in Guantanamo are foreigners. The Supreme Court struck down the other "theories" in a series of cases starting with Hamdi v. Rumsfeld: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld.

mattkopecki• 13 years ago

> But is looking bad in the media worth human dignity?

Of course not. But, is you looking bad in the media worth someone else's human dignity? That's a much easier sell.

cmsmith• 13 years ago

I'm not defending gitmo, but why wouldn't we remember its defenders the same way we remember those who have suspended habeas corpus in previous eras [1]?

[1] Abraham Lincoln : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_Sta...

wyager2• 13 years ago

Lincoln was not the man we make him out to be. The Emancipation Proclamation was purely political. Lincoln wanted to split the country and pick up the bigger half.

I suspect that, if not for the Emancipation Proclamation, we might call Lincoln a bad president.

r0s3• 13 years ago

Maybe Civil War is a slightly different context, just throwing that out there.

rayiner13• 13 years ago

People barely even register Japanese internment, and those were actual Americans.

richardjordan6• 13 years ago

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.

droopyEyelids• 13 years ago

I wonder if this indicates a change in the NYT's moral leadership, or if Washington is ready to close gitmo and wants to drive public opinion in a way that'll make it more acceptable politically.

I suppose we'll be able to tell by whether the NYT starts asking the hard questions on drones in the next few months.

And by the way, I'm all for hypocrisy when it means moving against the cruelty and injustice of the past.

cjh_• 13 years ago

In this case I think the hypocrisy is positive; I would much rather NYT be hypocritical by speaking out against Guantanamo rather than holding their old position.

richardjordan6• 13 years ago

Yes this is a great point. One thing that I don't want to fall into the habit of doing, and I got close to in my initial point, in my disgust for their hypocrisy is something I see as a problem in modern politics. Hypocrisy isn't the greatest sin in the world, but we sometimes act like it is and make the consequences of hypocrisy (or changing your mind) so great (electoral defeat) that people will hold onto a bad policy and continue bad or harmful action in favor of not flip flopping or being hypocritical. So you make a good point, and it's better that they at least attempt to remedy some of the harm they have contributed to, than hold onto a morally bankrupt position.

natrius2• 13 years ago

The events you've outlined don't require intellectual dishonesty at all. It's possible to have thought war was a prudent course of action in 2003, then to have changed one's mind by 2013.

richardjordan6• 13 years ago

I think it's pretty well documented by now that the NYT advocated for positions which they knew to be false and passed on information they knew the source of but failed to notify the reader of in ways that deliberately misled readers, during this period. So, while you're right that one can hold one position then the other, I think that doesn't invalidate their mendacity.

Also hypocrisy is still a valid description of advocating a position which created this suffering then pointing out that this suffering is terrible and that someone should do something.

However, I do think (see my comment later in the thread) that it has to be remembered that hypocrisy isn't the worst sin one can commit, and if they can be as effective in moving us to the next phase in all of this as they were in pushing the agenda forward which led to this situation in the first place that's a net good thing.

cma• 13 years ago

Not to mention the question of whether a newspaper have "a" mind...

mynameishere• 13 years ago

Eh, false memories. I distinctly remember the day after 9/11. Real people greeted it with maybe a sad shrug. I remember talking to a janitor who predicted war with Iraq. (He knew guys in the military who got phone calls right after.) Shrug. Whatever. It was only the media that kept up the hysteria.

The janitor and the New York Times were on the same page. Shrug. I still don't care that much. Those guys at gitmo at this point could seriously prove embarrassing, either through talking or blowing themselves up. That doesn't effect me, but TPTB are risk-averse.

jebblue3• 13 years ago

>>The newspaper which did so much to whip up hysteria during the years of the Bush administration

I lived through those years, I don't recall people running around the streets of American cities in a state of hysteria.

richardjordan6• 13 years ago

We all lived through those years - or anyone old enough to be commenting on here did - and I disagree. I think the media climate, which is what we're talking about when we are discussing newspapers, was absolutely one of hysteria. The march to war and the support for remedies such as Guantanamo. If the American media landscape and political climate was not one of hysteria when we made such terrible choices then it speaks far worse of us than the alternative.

asveikau2• 13 years ago

I remember those times as well. I remember how they convinced so many people that the biggest issue facing the United States was Saddam Hussein ... Even liberals were buying it, or prefacing their statements with "I know he's a bad guy who has to go right away, but..." It was pretty crazy.

Or, how about that they successfully convinced the American voter to elect more Republicans in 2002 because ... Saddam. Makes no sense right? But it worked. It was successful enough to convince the opposition party to also support the war.

Let's not forget that Dick Cheney's office leaked a fake story to the New York Times, then cited that story as a reason for going to war... People forget that now, and just how fucked up it is.

unclebucknasty4• 13 years ago

Sure there was hysteria, right down to color-coded threat level alerts and people duct-taping their windows to protect themselves from chemical and biological attacks.

Even prominent or well-known people were afraid to speak out for fear of reprisal (a valid fear: see Dixie Chicks and Bill Maher).

raganwald2• 13 years ago

The hypocrisy of the New York Times in printing this is shocking.

As opposed to thinking it but refusing to print it because it would involve conflicting with something they printed four or eight or twelve years ago?

I would hope that a newspaper could be trusted to reverse the opinions it prints.

ncallaway2• 13 years ago

A) It is not hypocritical to change ones opinions given time and new information. Hypocrisy is doing something you advocate against while you are an advocate against it. Believing otherwise is to argue against the scientific method itself.

B) Is it even a conflicting opinion to think a certain war may be just, but some actions taken as part of that war are unjust? One example of such a situation may be the Japanese internment camps in WWII. Many people argue that the war itself was just, and worth fighting, while the Japanese internment camps were a grave mistake.

Perhaps they thought the Iraq war was righteous thing, while thinking the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay far from just.

C) To be Orwellian is to deny the past. Has the NYT ever claimed they didn't take a stance that they did? Have they denied printing those words that supported the war? If they haven't rewritten history they haven't been Orwellian.

Please don't cry wolf on things like this, because we need to credibly make these arguments when something really is Orwellian.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

Maybe because I am British I have a very, very low opinion of the media, newspapers in particular, but...

Welcome to the world of the media and press.

thornjm• 13 years ago

Reading things like I can't help but understand why some groups of people can hate America. (I am Australian)

biesnecker• 13 years ago

It's the entire Western sense of superiority (I'm American). Gitmo is America saying that the rules we hold ourselves to don't apply to "others." It's hypocritical bullshit, and we deserve what we get because of it.

But it's not just the US (or just Gitmo) -- read about the treatment of refugees in Australia (tl;dr: it's better than Gitmo, but not good by a long shot -- http://mitahungerstrike.wordpress.com). And I don't mean to pick on Australia, because the Australian government is no more (or less) guilty than the governments of much of the developed world, I just want to make a point that we all are having terrible things done to other human beings in our names.

It's a damn sad state of affairs.

femto2• 13 years ago

On the subject of Australia and Refugees, a relatively recent book called "The People Smuggler"[1] is a fascinating read. It's the story of an Iraqi man, called Ali Al Jenabi, and how he ended up ferrying people from Indonesia to Australia.

[1] http://www.thepeoplesmuggler.com/

astrec• 13 years ago

I don't think it's better than Gitmo at all.

Refugees, including children, are held in prisons. Sometimes for many years. All without trial. Why no trial? Largely because they have not committed any crime -- it is quite legal to seek asylum.

This is wedge politics, pure and simple.

NewAccnt• 13 years ago

Good, we could use more enemies. Gitmo is a very expensive way to manufacture them. It's only effective if it pisses off a lot of people.

mathieuh• 13 years ago

It doesn't take a propagandised population to hate Western people, it takes a propagandised population to be surprised at that hatred.

pixelcort• 13 years ago

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.

skyraider3• 13 years ago

Build better proxies/tools of resistance, generally fight authority, just be a hacker and be on the lookout for ways to empower the downtrodden.

The hacker instinct is to get around the system and fight authority. There's another hacker instinct, too, which is being totally and absurdly pedantic. Maybe there is an idea here.

Sometimes the first world chooses leaders who are, at day's end, okay with a some of the horrors of barbaric legal systems (usually in exchange for increased security or the illusion thereof). One solution might be to be politically pedantic (seriously!) and not let them get away with even a bit of it.

nwh• 13 years ago

Unfortunately if people can go to jail for increnting a variable in a public URL, any effort of this nature is sure to draw the fire of United States law.

I don't even live in the place, and it still scares the crap out of me.

atsaloli2• 13 years ago

If you're in the US, pixelcort, may I invite you to consider the Downsize DC effort? (http://www.downsizedc.org/)

Here is a quick summary of what DownsizeDC.org is about:

We believe the federal government has grown too centralized, too intrusive, and too expensive. We believe in constitutional limits, smaller government, civil liberties, federalism, and low taxes. We want to end laws and programs that don't work, cause harm, and violate the Constitution. We want to restore the full force of the 9th and 10th amendments, which reserve most social functions to the people and the states.

The strategy of Downsize DC is to leverage technology to make it easier for people to make their voices heard to the State. They make it easier to contact your Senate and House representatives regularly.

The primary bill DownsizeDC is advocating is the Read the Bills Act -- make it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law. That action alone would slow down the legislating machine.

The other one is the One Subject at a Time act -- make each bill deal with one subject at a time, instead of bundling subjects, which would make it very clear about politician's positions on various issues, and let each issue stand on its own merit.

carbocation• 13 years ago

Isn't this topic -- the question of how to close Guantanamo Bay -- a prime counterexample to the virtues of "mak[ing] it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law" and "mak[ing] each bill deal with one subject at a time"?

Wouldn't such requirements make politically unpopular things, such as touching Guantanamo Bay in any way, even more difficult to handle?

This article doesn't strike me as fertile, favorable ground for this topic at all.

Not that one would say this, but if the counterargument were to be, "this movement would have prevented Guantanamo in the first place," then (1) but I live in the world we have now, not a hypothetical world that we don't actually have, and (2) maybe so, maybe not.

peterwwillis3• 13 years ago

make it law to read aloud each bill before signing it into law

Not only is this the stupidest solution to a complex problem i've ever heard, it's depressing that some people take it seriously.

stellar678• 13 years ago

It's pretty overwhelming at times because it seems so big, far away, impenetrable. But there are some contributions you can make pretty easily:

1. Financial support to the organizations fighting for whatever your believe in. (See: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International)

2. Talking about it. If our politicians think we don't care, there's no pressure to do anything.

vpeters252• 13 years ago

Tell me about it, I grew up in Pinochet's Chile and it worries me deeply how our government is ignoring the constitution and bullying its way around the same way Pinochet did back in the 80's.

With its treatment of gitmo detainees and persecution of wikileaks' Julian Assange, the US is lowering itself to the constitutional level of a run-of-the-mill banana republic.

ck23• 13 years ago

Obama could order it closed tomorrow.

Congress could refuse to fund that action but it would still be ordered closed and his hands would be a tiny bit cleaner.

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.

BHSPitMonkey2• 13 years ago

Closing it would mean having the prisoners moved elsewhere, but not a change to how they are being dealt with. That's the real issue; the location isn't what matters.

skyraider3• 13 years ago

He could also order due process to start tomorrow.

Maybe there are a few issues with sending people back to their countries, but certainly not in all cases.

jacquesm3• 13 years ago

> the location isn't what matters.

The location is what allowed it to exist in the first place. It matters a great deal.

lignuist• 13 years ago

If there is no clean accusation: let them go where ever they want to go and compensate them for the time in jail. That would be the normal way democracies should deal with such things. If there is a clean accusation, they can be brought to any other jail in the US.

natmaster3• 13 years ago

It costs money to run Gitmo, not to stop running it. How would closing it require more money?

snprbob86• 13 years ago

Not necessarily more, but it would require a different distribution. Money would need to be spent to relocate the prisoners. Congress has blocked that reappropriation.

Quoting Wikipedia:

On May 20, 2009, the United States Senate passed an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R. 2346) by a 90-6 vote to block funds needed for the transfer or release of prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[14] President Obama issued a Presidential memorandum dated December 15, 2009, ordering Thomson Correctional Center, Thomson, Illinois to be prepared to accept transferred Guantanamo prisoners.

On January 7, 2011, President Obama signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill, which, in part, placed restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the mainland or to foreign countries, thus impeding the closure of the facility.[17] U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates said during testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on February 17, 2011: "The prospects for closing Guantanamo as best I can tell are very, very low given very broad opposition to doing that here in the Congress."[18] Congress particularly opposed moving prisoners to facilities in the United States for detention or trial.

/quote

In short, congress passes bills to prevent Obama from closing Gitmo. Obama signed one or more of those in order to balance other political agendas. The annual Defense Authorization Act is a particularly politicized bill that congress is known to use as an offensive weapon.

techsupporter• 13 years ago

January 22nd, 2009:

"EXECUTIVE ORDER -- REVIEW AND DISPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT THE GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE AND CLOSURE OF DETENTION FACILITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Guantánamo) and promptly to close detention facilities at Guantánamo..."

- http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana...

"The bill also prohibits any spending on detention facilities in the U.S. for present-day Guantanamo detainees."

- http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=741&sid=2226350

ck23• 13 years ago

So if that is a standing order - then they are operating Gitmo in clear defiance of a direct order by the President of the United States?

Gitmo is a prison run by the military, and he is the Commander-in-Chief, so every day any soldier performs any duty there - they are in clear violation of command?

Seriously? How does a country operate like this?

waffle_ss• 13 years ago

You're leaving out the part where he restarts military trials again, a few months after your referenced executive order stopped them: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8052999.stm

SoftwareMaven• 13 years ago

Gitmo was the first thing that clued me that I had made a mistake voting for Obama's promises (not that McCain would have ever gotten it instead!). It was such a complete reversal that I immediately knew his promises were completely worthless.

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.

As a country, in many ways we deserve the disdain directed at us.

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.

dublinben2• 13 years ago

Congress deserves as much or more blame for this situation. They've prevented the President from carrying out his intended solution to this problem. Without their support, he is powerless to release these people.

lwat• 13 years ago

What was his solutions? Moving the detainees to another facility? Or did he actually want to give them trials and send the innocent ones home?

mattstreet• 13 years ago

Well I think he could put a bit more public pressure on them then. I really don't hear him bringing it up too often.

mudil• 13 years ago

dublinben:

Can you substantiate your claim that Congress is responsible for this?

Seems like Obama is the Commander in Chief and is the head of the Executive branch...

trimbo• 13 years ago

Guantanamo has nothing to do with congress. It was effectively authorized in this 2001 executive order:

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/mo-111301.htm

iconjack• 13 years ago

This is absolute nonsense. The US president, wrapping himself in the role of commander in chief, does just about anything he wants if it's even loosely connected to war or security, with or without congressional approval. Surveillance. Torture. Black sites. Assassination. Drone murders. Infinite detention. If he wanted Gitmo closed, he could close it. Congress won't give him the budget? Fine, he could order the closing as a military operation. He doesn't want to take the political heat. I voted for him (2008), but he is without testicular fortitude on this issue.

r0s3• 13 years ago

It's more likely he's apathetic to the issue.

Locke16894• 13 years ago

The problem is that to close Guantanamo, you need funding to a least move the prisoners to another facility. Introducing them to the justice system would require the same.

As every American should know, Congress holds the purse strings here and has denied said request. The President has no power here.

Zak5• 13 years ago

It seems unlikely that Congress micromanages the budget of the Department of Justice to the degree that it could not initiate prosecution of detainees in the civilian legal system. Whether that would be a reasonable solution is debatable, but it's certainly within the President's authority to attempt.

There's always the nuclear option: threaten to release the detainees if Congress doesn't provide funding for another solution.

r0s3• 13 years ago

The President has the power and the obligation to publicly speak against this on the world stage.

dantheman2• 13 years ago

The president can pardon them, the president can use private money to move them. The president can be on the news every night making this an issue.

gilgoomesh• 13 years ago

You don't need funding. Just send them home.

They shouldn't be in any detention center – there is no legal reason to detain them.

dodyg• 13 years ago

No, you don't move them. You release them, all.

You have not charged them with any crimes for the past 10 years and have not put them on trials. The problem is not the location of the prison. The problem is you are shitting on Habeas corpus.

spot2• 13 years ago

Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp.

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/

white_devil• 13 years ago

> The problem is that to close Guantanamo, you need funding to a least move the prisoners to another facility

You need funding to keep Gitmo going too. I seriously doubt that would be a problem.

adam74• 13 years ago

Yet they are willing to spend millions on upgrades to the place.

ollysb• 13 years ago

There is another option, keep them in Guantanamo but improve conditions to at least normal prison standards in the US. I can't believe that would be more expensive than maintaining their current regime.

brown9-24• 13 years ago

It's continually amazing how many people, especially Americans, think that the President is a king.

ThrowawyAcctLOL3• 13 years ago

> not that McCain would have ever gotten it instead!

How are you so sure of that? McCain's neither a saint nor a philosopher-king: his personal narcissism seems to rival Obama's, and he often seems to be successfully flattered and managed by those around him. But he erratically takes stands on principle, and he also has personal experience of both torture and prolonged imprisonment. And in fact he took an anti-torture position which, while it wasn't absolute, was well out ahead of other Congressmen and presidential candidates and was hardly calculated to win votes.

There's also the fact that whatever about McCain's personal inclinations, he or any other Republican president would have been under much sharper pressure from others on the issue. The people and institutions who were shouting so much about detention and torture and drone strikes under Bush and then became silent or muted under Obama (or indeed rushed to bestow on him a Nobel Peace Prize) would have continued shouting under McCain.

gruseom3• 13 years ago

his personal narcissism seems to rival Obama's

I realize that the view of Obama as a tremendous narcissist has become a right-wing meme, but it seems so odd (kind of like the related view that he's a know-nothing who can't speak without a teleprompter, though that one seems to have died down since the election). I'm curious: how did the narcissism meme get started, and what evidence is cited for it, other than that major politicians tend to have major egos?

I'm not trying to make a political point. I don't follow the sources on this and would like someone to explain to me how the people who believe this came to believe it and what arguments they advance for it.

(p.s. I think you may have misread the GP, who meant that McCain would not have gotten their vote instead of Obama.)

aaronbrethorst• 13 years ago

This would be the same McCain who, just in December, shot down the idea that Gitmo prisoners could be transferred to the United States, right?

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/11/84379.html

Shivetya• 13 years ago

The real reason there would have been a chance under McCain is that the press, the Democrats in the Congress, and rights groups currently co-opted by the current administration would be all over his ass to close it.

Instead we have a deafening silence from all these groups that used to squawk daily about Gitmo and other government abuses while the other guy was in office.

jacquesm3• 13 years ago

> That said, we are not only Gitmo, and we actually do a lot of good things for the world.

Indeed, it is not just Gitmo, if only, and it's not just the US. Lots of EU governments are complicit in the whole rendition (what a word, kidnapping would be the appropriate term) program as well and there are/were more places in the world where people are being held without any sort of process, to be tortured and disposed of, either by killing them or by turning them loose years later without even an idea of who their captors were.

davedx• 13 years ago

But those other countries do not claim moral high ground in the same way the US does on so many other issues, or claim to lead the world with respect to values such as freedom and democracy (of which the right to a fair trial can be considered a part).

mtrimpe• 13 years ago

I've been following the advice of another front-page story (don't follow the news) for a while now so I'm really curious which / how EU governments are complicit in this. Do you have some pointers for more information on that?

hmottestad• 13 years ago

On days like these the US is Guantanamo Bay. The US is poverty and regular people without a home. The US is bad health care, as in only the rich can afford it. The US is drones, fired at civilians in the dead of night. The US is oil, as in that they want it all. The US is guns, like the ones likely to be pointed at you if you get robbed. The US is x-rays at the airport.

And finally, the US is the land of the free.

facorreia2• 13 years ago

This is not the kind of content I come to Hacker News for.

tpainton• 13 years ago

The US is the computer and internet that complete you.

mseebach• 13 years ago

Yes, you're right. The US is not perfect, which makes it exactly like a prison full of extraordinarily rendered un-tried suspects.

sfjailbird• 13 years ago

No, Obama is cool! He plays basketball and does reddit AMAs! And he's black, too!

zamryok2• 13 years ago

> The double standard of what human rights mean if you are a US citizen and if you aren't makes me physically ill.

I also think that is profoundly unjust, and unfortunately it is not simply a question of being a US citizen or not: US citizens who are arab or muslim are more likely to be suspected of acts that could be considered to lie within the vague legal category of Terrorism. So it seems that non-muslim and non-arab people (whether US citizens or european citizens or otherwise) are less likely to be subjected to exceptional treatment, to be detained without trial or be killed in extra-judicial assasinations etc. It seems the divide is more on a racial/ethnic line than a US-citizenship line.

gitmothrow5• 13 years ago

Why is it unjust to spend limited FBI resources focusing on high risk groups?

Do you think they should be monitoring bridge games at nursing homes?

Do you think that Arab and Muslim Americans have never been involved in domestic terrorist operations?

rayiner13• 13 years ago

It is absolutely not a racial/ethnic thing. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld.

They found a Saudi who was a U.S. Citizen (born in Louisiana), fighting in Afghanistan, and took him to Guantanamo. The Supreme Court ordered him released, and the government complied.

gitmothrow5• 13 years ago

I think it's funny that you vote for Obama because you think he's a good guy with a good vision for America, then when he gets into power and makes a decision you think is morally contemptuous, your first though is that 'he wasn't who I thought he was'.

What the fuck do you know about national security, SoftwareMaven? You're a programmer on Hacker News. You're not privy to the shit that Obama is privy to.

How do you know your idea of what is moral is also what would be good for society as a whole? How do you know that Obama isn't simply responding in a reasonable way to the reality that you have no conception of.

Also, throwaway so I don't get called a fascist nazi or whatever.

smokinjoe4• 13 years ago

> Also, throwaway so I don't get called a fascist nazi or whatever.

Don't worry, I just consider you a coward for that.

If you seriously want to call someone out, do it from your account and stand by your words.

dhimes9• 13 years ago

Here's an interesting thought experiment: Imagine you are Obama, newly elected president. Under what conditions would you reverse yourself and let Gitmo stand? What information would you have to become privy to that you weren't before in order for you to change your mind?

PavlovsCat3• 13 years ago

That it's, among other things, what they wanted to hear to elect me, and that I'm elected now, and can't in any way be held accountable for idle promises, and that standing firm on that principle is more important to my handlers than a bunch of bleeding hearts.

acjohnson555• 13 years ago

The fact that you will have no chance of accomplishing your other policy goals if you do.

utunga2• 13 years ago

Great idea. Here's some ideas to toss around. Maybe..

- We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but should we turn them loose now we would lose a huge amount of face (but whose face would be lost under an incoming president?)

- We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but now we have turned them into such dangerous killers, that, given their freedom they would now pose a significant thread (it seems unlikely to me that untrained non-killers could've learnt the skills of trade craft while under this type of detention regime).

- We cannot have proper trial for these men because if we did then in the nature of an honest trial, certain secrets would come out and that can't be allowed.. (seems more plausible?)

What else?

ankitml6• 13 years ago

First, I would return my nobel peace .

utunga2• 13 years ago

This is not a situation where we should be outraged at a president breaking his promise (yawn), but a case of an executive order not being carried out.

We should not gloss over the fact that Obama's 'promise' (or rather, executive order) to close Gitmo came after the election. One of his very first acts as president in fact. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/20/obamas-first...

The question we must ask is why did it not close? And, if Obama can't close this abomination, then who can?

sigzero4• 13 years ago

The same people that prevented it from closing, Congress.

rayiner13• 13 years ago

The double standard is Constitutional. The Constitution was never contemplated to give rights to foreigners not on U.S. soil. Indeed, every society has different rules for "its people" versus "other people." It's one of the things that makes war possible.

randallsquared3• 13 years ago

> The Constitution was never contemplated to give rights to foreigners not on U.S. soil.

Or to anyone. The Constitution is supposed to limit what the federal government can do, not grant any rights at all. When it was written, the assumption was that those rights were already held.

at-fates-hands2• 13 years ago

>>>>>>>>I appreciate that there may be anger outs people in Gitmo, but they have every right to a trial I have.

It's really not that easy considering most people say these people should be covered under the Geneva Convention and given a military tribunal to determine their guilt. Unfortunately, the convention was really adopted for conventional warfare, not the sort of loosely organized terrorists we're currently fighting.

Also keep in mind a large percentage of these people who claim to be innocent have returned to the battlefield after being released from Gitmo:

"A declassified document made public Tuesday showed that up to 25% of all former detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, subsequently engaged in terrorism or insurgency"

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/07/guantanamo.detainees/index....

And here's a list of other Gitmo prisoners who have been released and involved in terrorist attacks:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/327926/gitmo-detainees-...

>>>>>>As a country, in many ways we deserve the disdain directed at us.

No, not really. Considering when something bad happens anywhere in the world, nobody calls Canada, nobody calls Turkey, nobody calls Sweden. They call us to fix it. They call us to send billions in aid. They call us to take care of their crazy saber rattling neighbors. You think we deserve the disdain, but can you imagine the world without the billions in aid, without all the military aid we give other countries?

mebassett• 13 years ago

>>No, not really. Considering when something bad happens anywhere in the world, nobody calls Canada, nobody calls Turkey, nobody calls Sweden. They call us to fix it. They call us to send billions in aid. They call us to take care of their crazy saber rattling neighbors. You think we deserve the disdain, but can you imagine the world without the billions in aid, without all the military aid we give other countries?

Citation needed, please. There's a lot of countries and a lot of people outside the US, and the idea that they are all calling on the US to solve their political and international relations problems sounds a bit silly to me. Did you know France has had military operations Mali since 2012 without the advice, consent, or involvement of the US, for instance? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Mali_conflict_%282012%...)

DannyBee4• 13 years ago

1. I would "return to the battlefield" too after being treated like they are, even if i had done nothing before. What makes you think Gitmo is not the cause?

2. If the convention is outdated, update it. It's not like the US is pushing the Hague and others to convene treaty proceedings to get this done. Until the US actually takes any steps to try to fix this "problem", i take it as just a BS excuse.

3. You have a very strange view of what happens, one I can only imagine is contributed to mainly by local media. They do in fact, call Canada, Turkey, Sweden, and others. These are rarely, if ever, unilateral actions. Due to some folks i'm friends with, i've actually occasionally traveled with some of these kinds of delegations, and I assure you, none of this is "better call big brother US to beat these guys up".

4. They would never declassify a document that shows them having been wrong until at least 20-25 years after the fact.

pinwale• 13 years ago

A 25% recidivism rate is pretty good considering that many might have gone to the "battlefield" as payback for their improper imprisonment. Also, it is disingenuous to conflate terrorism with insurgency as both have different motivations and "scope of battlefield."

So-called insurgents were only a threat to local presence of Americans and not interested in sticking overseas or be a part of a broader movement against America. Just because they are fighting for their country from their perspective doesn't make it right to say they are the same as terrorists.

You also have to take into account for the loss of goodwill and reputation across the world for hosting Gitmo; particularly when it has possibly radicalized more people simply by having something to point to when a terrorist recruiter propagandizes about the 'evilness of the US' and the merits of attacking us.

Just to compare, a quick google search shows that the U.S. recidivism was around 70%. It might have improved or not since the study period, but it does perspective on the issue.

Source: http://bjs.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm

parfe5• 13 years ago

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana...

Obama's second full day in office. How is that a reversal? Congress then blocked any and all money which the administration would need to take action to close the base. http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/senate/1/196

enraged_camel4• 13 years ago

I never understood why people got mad at Obama for not closing Gitmo. The president is not the king. He/she still needs approval from Congress to get most shit done. In the case of Gitmo, his initiative got blocked by politicians who were too worried about what voting yes would mean for their own political careers.

For anyone who actually understands politics, the failure to close Gitmo was not Obama's fault.

Wonderdonkey• 13 years ago

This is the closest he's come to keeping his campaign pledges to reverse the idiocy of the Bush era, but he failed, and then he even reversed his own executive order in 2011. Like suspension of habeas rights, like warrantless wiretaps, like drone warfare, like the TSA, President Obama didn't make these things, but he still chooses to use them. A lot.

Obama was the only hope people like me saw for reversing the 9/11 death spiral, and he blew it. End the war in the Middle East? Naw, let's escalate it instead. Reform the Patriot Act? How about I reauthorize it as-is. End indefinite detention of Americans without trial? No, continue indefinite detentions without trial and/or execute Americans without a trial. Transparent government? How about secret laws instead. Stop rousting foreigners? Nope, let's ICE record numbers of immigrants. Veto NDAA? Sign NDAA! Veto CISPA?

The trends in the Obama administration are the exact opposite of what people voted for. His legacy is more power for ICE and TSA; more power for national security agencies; more intrusive government; more war; more unprincipled, reactionary policy making. Zero upside.

I get why people defend their candidates in the face of conflicting evidence. Obviously people believe their candidate, no matter how bad, is better than the alternative. But Obama's a lame duck. There's no reason to shield him or blame this on someone else who's already out of office, though don't get me wrong here: Bush was a truly horrible President. It doesn't solve the core problem, which is the we need a leader in 2016 who will lead us out of this spiral. Unfortunately neither party is worth a damn right now.

siphor• 13 years ago

Below shows that Obama can indeed take action to take prisoners of gitmo to trial. any reason he hasn't done any of this?

It looks like the document 'blocking money' in fact describes what the president would need to do to bring people to trial and even free them.... Am I missing something? Why hasn't he done this it seems pretty straight forward... I know hes a busy guy but I would put this shit high up there on my priority list...

(Found in the full bill at http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/senate/1/196, I just did a search for 'Guantánamo', its at the bottom (the 11th appearance of the term)

--------------------------------------------

c) None of the funds made available in this or any prior Act may be used to transfer an individual who is detained, as of the date of enactment of this Act, at Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, or the District of Columbia, for the purposes of prosecuting such individual, or detaining such individual during legal proceedings, until 45 days after the plan detailed in subsection (d) is received.

--------------------------------------------

Subsection d goes on to list what is needed.

(1) The findings of an analysis regarding any risk to the national security of the United States that is posed by the transfer of the individual. (2) The costs associated with transferring the individual in question. (3) The legal rationale and associated court demands for transfer. (4) A plan for mitigation of any risk described in paragraph (1). (5) A copy of a notification to the Governor of the State to which the individual will be transferred or to the Mayor . R. 2346—63 of the District of Columbia if the individual will be transferred to the District of Columbia with a certification by the Attorney General of the United States in classified form at least 14 days prior to such transfer (together with supporting documentation and justification) that the individual poses little or no security risk to the United States

kunai• 13 years ago

Don't waste time pushing the blame on Presidents, they're but sock puppets for Congress.

The real problem is the legislature. Fill Congress with enough third-party seats, and maybe, just maybe we can get out of this mess and take back our country from the filth that runs it right now.

rdtsc• 13 years ago

For me it was Obama's vote to give retroactive immunity to telecom companies that spied on Americans illegally. He wasn't even running for president.

Also as a general rule, look at a man's actions not his words and promises (more so if they are in politics) <- should be obvious.

Now as you say -- big deal, what are other alternatives? There are not viable alternatives. So I just didn't vote.

hawleyal• 13 years ago

Unrealistic expectations.

tamersalama• 13 years ago

As a non-American - can I ask an American to submit a white-house petition. Perhaps as a form of the least that can be done.

Zak5• 13 years ago

It's been tried. Somebody should probably try again.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/close-guantanamo-d...

laurent123456• 13 years ago

It's strange that the result of the petition is apparently not public. I would expect this kind of petition to largely meet the signature threshold.

pekk4• 13 years ago

That's not a formal petition, it's a post on a website

jebblue3• 13 years ago

When I first saw the title I thought "git", this must be some derivative of git and the author didn't like it.

jchimney• 13 years ago

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.

pekk4• 13 years ago

Did you know that due process was violated in WW2 and WWI and many other major wars?

linuxhansl• 13 years ago

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.

Gitmo is the same. Most inmates have not been tried, some have been tortured (and are hence considered "untriable").

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.

elliptic2• 13 years ago

Witch hunts were primarily a phenomenon of the early modern period, not the middle ages, during which both the political authorities and the Church repeatedly cautioned against blaming e.g poor crops on supposed witches.

Also, I believe about half of witchcraft trials ended in execution - I'm not sure what the comparable rate is for Gitmo (although obviously there are no trials).

eric-hu• 13 years ago

Perhaps witch hunts were just performed under a different name. See also:

the Medieval Inquisition (1184–16th century)

the Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834)

the Portuguese Inquisition (1536–1821)

the Roman Inquisition (1542 – c. 1860)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition

jpxxx2• 13 years ago

Hi, future generations!

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.

Love, 2013

gitmothrow5• 13 years ago

Dear future generations,

Clueless middle class Western programmers on Hacker News believed everything some guy in prion said and thought they understood national security realities better than the president of the US.

And they made a bunch of brave comments. Much karma was exchanged.

Love, 2013

Andrew_Quentin• 13 years ago

Now you guys invent a time machine and come to tell us which of these two commenter is right.

Although technically they both can be right, what we are interested to know is if you future guys, like us, consider the right to a free trial as a fundamental and unbreachable right in any circumstances.

Sure, we believe you can kill enemy combatants, but if they surrender, we believe they have a right to a free trial within 60 or 90 days of detention.

So come back and tell us how our government is able to flounder the most fundamental rules and principles of law.

sequoia4• 13 years ago

'Someone deserves the right to a defend himself in court and face specific charges before being thrown in a dungeon for life, being tortured and denied even the right to die? Ha- what a naive perspective.'

It must make you feel very clever and worldly-wise to dismiss people thus.

rthomas6• 13 years ago

"Dear 2013,

Nostalgia tells me that your time was a simpler time, when people cared about politics/kids had morals/people were nicer. Also I learned in history class that Barack Obama was a great president who took the first steps toward universal healthcare. They talked about Guantanamo Bay for part of one day. The necessities of war are horrible sometimes; too bad they had to do that."

Seriously though, this is just one of the things that will be glossed over and never really talked about by future generations, similar to former practices such as the US's sterilization of minorities, or engineering bloody coups in Latin America to instill brutal dictators. Or our injustice to Native Americans.

jpxxx2• 13 years ago

I can put up with your smug, cowardly, evil war nerd horseshit, but not when it's from a throwaway.

Fuck you, fuck this encroaching Reddit-flavored nonsense, thank you HN, and goodbye HN.

arrrg• 13 years ago

This is the most obvious of obvious human rights violations. It’s blatant. How anyone can defend it is beyond me. Holding someone for years without trial is barbaric and disgusting.

redblacktree• 13 years ago

Not much of a secret, is it?

samholmes• 13 years ago

What does this have to do with hacking?

jussij4• 13 years ago

So much for the Declaration of Independence:

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.

josscrowcroft• 13 years ago

The missing amendment: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Americans are created equal..."

jussij4• 13 years ago

All me/women are created equal but in reality some are more equal than others.

As always history repeats :(

Edit: It truly disappoints me how human rights always run a long second to personal interest.

nullc• 13 years ago

> "that all Americans are created equal..."

Except the ones the executive branch orders to be assassinated: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/us-targeted-killing...

rayiner13• 13 years ago

The declaration of independence is a document with zero legal force. It's a bunch of nice sounding words to justify our attempt to separate from the British, nothing more.

gfodor• 13 years ago

It may not be a legal document but it certainly more than just a "bunch of nice sounding words." I hear this argument get trotted out all the time as if the only way to value a document and how it should inform policy is if it is a legal one.

jussij4• 13 years ago

> It's a bunch of nice sounding words

I suspect the founding fathers put a lot of thought into those nice sounding words in the hope they would define a nation.

Those nice sounding words where powerful enough to start a civil war over the topic of slavery and basic human rights.

However, in a way I think you are right. Those words may well have lost there meaning and been devalued by big business and big money :(

Maybe today they are indeed just words, but the end result will be the USA has lost a lot more than just a bunch of words :(

andrelaszlo• 13 years ago

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.

vxNsr11• 13 years ago

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.

What do they say about a prisoner and his crime? oh yeah: there's no such thing as a guilty prisoner in Jail.

sgpl2• 13 years ago

From the article:

"I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial."

There haven't been any charges brought against him, and his life for the past DECADE (10+ years) has been stuck in a fucking limbo.

The US Government won't even let him commit suicide by way of hunger, so in essence he has absolutely no hope or choice as it currently stands.

vxNsr11• 13 years ago

Once again these are things he is claiming, I haven't done any research into his situation and I doubt anyone here has either. All I'm saying is that taking the word of someone who is in prison for possible terrorism is a mistake.

Clearly there was someone who felt this dude was dangerous or else they wouldn't have flown him halfway around the world to "sit in limbo" there are prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq and it's MUCH cheaper to keep prisoners there, the only ones flown to cuba are those deemed "a higher security risk".

A hint at possible charges is hidden in the third paragraph of his plea for attention: "Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden..." he of course qualifies this by saying it's not true. But if true is fairly serious because it would imply he was highly trusted if he was a personal guard for OBL.

Again I haven't done any actual research into his situation but he most probably doesn't deserve nearly half the self-righteous indignation that everyone here is displaying.

pavanky2• 13 years ago

You know who else did hunger strikes ? Some old chap named Gandhi.

vxNsr11• 13 years ago

Nice!

Gandhi also preached and practiced something called "Peaceful Protest" this guy is accused of "associating with"/guarding UBL.

lifeformed• 13 years ago

It doesn't matter if he's guilty or not, he could be Hitler for all I care. He should be charged and tried, not tortured for 10 years.

vxNsr11• 13 years ago

Should he be?

What are the official laws regarding a POW? Certainly not that of naturalized citizens...

After skimming the UN Laws for POWs[1] and reading the parts that seemed to deal with internment and time length, it's not really clear to me why he should have to be tried.

Once he's be associated with the enemy he can be held until the end of Hostilities at which point the "host" country can decide when and how to exchange him with "ex-enemy" . That last part will be a little difficult because I don't think Al-Qaeda takes many prisoners.

That said, they might be violating laws regarding torture but that's a whole nother ball of wax.

[1]http://www.un.org/arabic/preventgenocide/rwanda/text-images/...

pekk4• 13 years ago

Being in prison is not the same as being tortured.

You may be thinking of Abu Ghraib

madebylaw2• 13 years ago

It doesn't look like anyone on this thread has even tried to look for what this man is accused of doing and why he's in Gitmo in the first place. You can find a dossier from the US DoD of this man at the NYTimes' own website:

http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/43-samir-na...

tl;dr: Member of al-Qaida, bodyguard of Osama, fought in the front lines against US and coalition forces, consistently lied to interrogators.

I'm not sure what kind of court he would be 'tried' in considering he's not a US citizen.

yardie2• 13 years ago

> I'm not sure what kind of court he would be 'tried' in considering he's not a US citizen.

I wasn't aware that to be tried in court citizenship is a requirement.

joshuaheard• 13 years ago

Why does HN link to this propaganda?

andrewfelix2• 13 years ago

Dissent is a powerful and useful thing.

If you feel this is article is a lie and part of a wider political strategy, then present your case. Making sweeping statements without context or reason will not win you friends on HN.

FYI HN doesn't control the links, its users post links and vote on them.

davidw4• 13 years ago

Political articles are off topic on Hacker News.

sytelus• 13 years ago

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.

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.

cynwoody2• 13 years ago

> 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.

Bureaucratic considerations are of no consequence. The reputation of the United States of America is at stake.

It's 2013. These cases need to be resolved. The innocent should be sent home with apologies and fat Treasury checks. The guilty should be executed. And Gitmo should go back to being a Caribbean naval base with a cheap annual rent[2].

I can't say if the current case is valid, but I am reminded of the case of Ahmed Errachidi[1], Guantánamo Prisoner 590, who turned out to be a London chef who had journeyed to Pakistan in 2001 and was kidnapped by crooked Pakis and sold to the credulous US for $5000. Errachidi was finally sprung in 2007. But you have to wonder how many similar cases there are.

[1] http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2011/09/16/ahmed-errachidi-...

[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=atTyCI8ZwboC&pg=PA243&#...

gokhan• 13 years ago

>Lot of things mentioned here are not that easy.

It's US' burden to solve the Gitmo issue, whether it's easy or hard. America can't keep telling people that it's the land of democracy and freedom, and ignore Gitmo at the same time.

>To legally bring citizens of other countries in American justice system...

Gitmo is 100% American. If you think what US did there is outside of jurisdiction, it's fuckin politics and not reality. Stop ignoring the facts and face it.

>The next best thing however might be have them as prisoner of war...

Either there's no war or it's already over. Those people in Gitmo are there because US don't know how to clean up it's own shit without facing international humiliation when the press arrives at the door of the released prisoners.

>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...

So you're OK with a system if military or let's say a central authority decides if someone is guilty or not, without giving the man his right to defend himself. Where do you draw the line? Is it OK if military tells you that your friend is a terrorist? How about you father? "it is hard to imagine that military doesn't do any accounting of these people", after all.

EGreg• 13 years ago

You can read the history of Obama's and Congress' battle here:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/pr...

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?

patrickaljord• 13 years ago

> 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.

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.

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.

ncallaway2• 13 years ago

"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."

And this is enough to condemn him to an indeterminate amount of time in prison without a trial? If we have compelling evidence of wrong-doing then we should grant him a trial. Let the actual judicial process decide his punishment, rather than an arbitrary declaration.

If we don't have enough compelling evidence then we should release him. The entire point of habeas corpus is to prevent people from being held for extended time on the mere suspicion from arbitrary authorities.

What's the point of having a judicial system if we can send arbitrarily selected people around it and deny writs of habeas corpus? What will you do if one day an authority finds something you've done suspicious and throws you in jail? The protection afforded by writs of habeas corpus should apply to all of us, or it's a meaningless protection.

cskau• 13 years ago

> 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

While it might sound "insane" to you because of the stark contrast to your own life, you fail to put yourself in his shoes.

You know, not everyone was born into your (or my) privilege, freedom and education here in life.

If you've lived your whole life in poor, rural Yemen with only limited local media as your one window to the world, maybe Afghanistan, a fellow Arabic/Muslim state isn't such bad a place.

I'd say it's equally insane for, say, a Frenchman to travel to the United States while they operate secret military prisons with complete disregard for human rights.

natrius2• 13 years ago

Nitpick: Afghanistan isn't an Arabic country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtun_people

CleanedStar• 13 years ago

> extremely insane cruel anti-woman Islamist totalitarian regime

Afghanistan was under the secular, socialist leadership of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan until the CIA launched Operation Cyclone and began funding Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda and Taliban predecessors, in order to overthrow that secular, socialist government. Sylvester Stallone made action films like Rambo 3 where he fought alongside Islamic jihadists to overthrow the secular Afghan government. Now some poor guy trying to make a living you pontificate about because he went to a country which was exactly like how the US tried to make it? But they're totalitarian...I guess whisking people off to detention centers with no evidence, no recourse to trial is the democratic way.

jbattle• 13 years ago

The world is so hard in many places that people actually flee to Yemen.

http://www.unhcr.org/50f5377e11.html

yoster• 13 years ago

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

davepage• 13 years ago

Subject's DoD dossier: http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/43-samir-na...

moconnor• 13 years ago

This is a fascinating insight into what the DoD thinks the story is, and a frightening example of why fair trial and due process should be required to incarcerate people.

beedogs2• 13 years ago

It's time to release these innocent men.

America, this is fucking shameful.

Shinkei• 13 years ago

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.

darxius• 13 years ago

I totally agree with you. However, I can easily see how those physicians can justify their actions to themselves. "Do no harm" can be extrapolated in many ways by cruel people suffering from delusion.

raganwald2• 13 years ago

Atul Gawande covers something very much like this in his book "Better."

WHo are the medical personnel assisting with executions? WHat are the arguments for and against participating in the death of a human being?

goggles99• 13 years ago

What did you expect him to say? I am guilty of contributing to terrorism and the purposeful killing of innocent woman and children civilians?

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.

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.

tripzilch2• 13 years ago

> I like how everyone here takes this guys word for everything.

It's not very different from the alternative, which is taking the word of whoever put/keeps him there without trial.

Now one of these parties is well-known for enacting cruelties on human beings in situations exactly like these, and the other we really don't know anything about, at all.

Therefore the only right and humane thing to do is to give the latter some benefit of the doubt.

> After all, the US government likes to round up random people around the world and put them in max security detainment

Well yes, such fuck-ups have happened before, as a matter of fact:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jan/14/usa.germany

And that's just the first example I pulled from the top of Google. There's many more. So truly, there is ALL the reason to assume at least some of the Gitmo prisoners are innocent and kept simply because they are the result of a fuck-up nobody wants to own up to.

> but I also wouldn't bet money on a Gitmo prisoner's "honest" word either.

Why? What do you know about why they are there? There's been no trials, they are only prisoners because the people keeping them say they're guilty of something. So you can't use the fact they are prisoners to decide their honesty, that would be circular reasoning. Both parties have an interest in lying that is almost completely independent of guilt: One has been kept in a secret prison for 11 years subjected to inhumane treatment, and the other side wants to keep a lid on the whole Gitmo thing (maybe even especially if they weren't guilty).

Also, 11 years, man. As I said, you don't know what he did, you don't even know what he's being accused of. Stepping aside from the (very real) possibility of him being completely innocent, what if he did do something, maybe it was terrible, or maybe it was something small and stupid that in no way warrants being locked up in Gitmo for 11 years. And in a year from now you'll have to argue that all those people are guilty of a crime that warrants at least 12 years in a terrible prison, and the year after that, and after that, etc. All the while not having a single clue what these people did, what they are accused of.

It's pretty obvious that at least one of the sides here is guilty.

guelo2• 13 years ago

Your comment is what happens when you let authority be your truth instead of letting truth be your authority.

spin2• 13 years ago

> "I am guilty of contributing to terrorism and the purposeful killing of innocent woman and children civilians?"

How do you know this? Has he had a trial?

Citation needed.

vpeters252• 13 years ago

If he is guilty then why hasn't he been tried? 11 years is an awful lot of time for the prosecution to get their case together.

D9u• 13 years ago

"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..."

brazzy• 13 years ago

...so I told them "Hey, you forgot about the Iranians, and I can tell you where they are!"...

ritonlajoie• 13 years ago

'MURICA as it's finest ! Well done !

arbuge• 13 years ago

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?

sigzero4• 13 years ago

I understand what the author is saying. However, the title is wrong. He is killing himself with the hunger strike. Gitmo isn't doing that.

spin2• 13 years ago

Proud to be an American.

scrapcode3• 13 years ago

I know for a fact that much of these claims are completely wrong and, being told by a detainee, are completely biased.

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.

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.

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.

zethraeus• 13 years ago

Publicity for their situation - which is terrible.

A prisoner's attempt to get publicity does not influence the morality or legality of practices at Guantanamo Bay.

ucee05416• 13 years ago

Yeah it's for their own good, the same way Bradley Manning had to be naked in his cell for his own good. Yeah right </sarcasm>.

spacemanaki• 13 years ago

You know this for a fact? Not to be too cynical here, but do you have a citation for any of your claims? Who is able to review these taped feedings in order to confirm that they're being carried out in a humane way? Could I, as a citizen do this? Could a reporter for the NYT? The absurdity of the censorship at the KSM trial makes me think your claims would be hard to verify. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/01/secrec...

And frankly, your nationalistic sign off makes me less inclined to believe you without references. "We are still the good guys" is kind of vapid.

konstruktor• 13 years ago

This starts with a false assumption. There is absolutely no justification for force feeding a non-consenting person who is aware of the consequences of their actions.

scrapcode3• 13 years ago

So you'd let the guy die? So that the NY Times could blow that up into a bunch of bullshit, too? Right. That makes you a better person.

As for citations... Are people required to cite first hand accounts?

WesternStar• 13 years ago

Nobody wants these people. 15 American lawyers went to Yemen to expose the lie that Yemen didn't want these people back. No one from the Yemeni govt would meet with them. We haven't gotten rid of them because we don't know anyone who is willing to accept them. Go ahead and read it in the Yemeni Observer. http://www.yobserver.com/front-page/10012301.html

scrapcode3• 13 years ago

This is correct.

timini• 13 years ago

This is disgracefully inhumane.

ankitml6• 13 years ago

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.

US is a disgrace to human rights, a hypocritical country who brings democracy to the world

jonaldomo• 13 years ago

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.

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.

sequoia4• 13 years ago

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 explicitly 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!'

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.

EDIT: I'm probably wrong here in my first paragraph ^

parfe5• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milita...

Fair disingenuous so say the President started wars without congressional approval.

sequoia4• 13 years ago

My statement that wars were started "without congressional approval" may be wrong. That said, I still do not believe that it's outside the president's power to shut down gitmo. As many other commenters here have pointed out, he could simply order marines to free those prisoners with no charges to Cuban soil; this would cost no money at all; congress would not be able to prevent it. Could the president not do this?

Furthermore, he promised to do so repeatedly during his campaign. Was the president, a constitutional scholar, merely mistaken about his powers as the executive?

I apologize for muddying the waters with discussion of other presidential actions.

anuraj• 13 years ago

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.

tibbon5• 13 years ago

I make no apologies for Obama- he should have closed Gitmo.

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.

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.

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 that hard...

pstuart• 13 years ago

It's not like he's getting full cooperation from congress on this.

digitallogic• 13 years ago

Presidential candidates have been getting security briefings since Eisenhower: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

So it's not the case that there was a huge cache of information that he didn't have access too until entering office. It could have been the case that there were some details that weren't made available to him, but that seems unlikely to amount to anything that would lead to a complete reversal of policy.

tibbon5• 13 years ago

Oh interesting. Well that blows that theory out of the water.

cpursley• 13 years ago

Wait, didn't Obama close Gitmo?

Oh, that's right. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

sq10202• 13 years ago

Another example of the hypocrisy of our goverment which claims to champion ideals like freedom and equality before the law.

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.

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!

redeemedfadi• 13 years ago

The leadership of this country is made up of citizens of this country. I think John Q. average tax payer would do the same thing if he were in office. Our leadership is a representation of us. The government is made up of US Citizens. We can't just blame the government for it's bad decisions, because in truth it is our decisions.

If we want to change the government, we must first change ourselves. How kind are we to our neighbors, who live across the street?

sq10202• 13 years ago

Listen, people in office have a much greater responsibility than you or me to make the right choices because their decisions affect all of us and that's also why it's incumbent upon us to make these crooks accountable for their actions and to criticize them because, in the words of Howard Zinn "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

It's a shame that the president of our country is out throwing lavish birthday parties for himself inviting useless celebrities and paying a guy $100,000 to play the music. Are you freakin kidding me???? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/obamas-birthday-bas...

verve• 13 years ago

I posted a new We the People petition about this issue: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/close-guantanamo-b... .

weareconvo• 13 years ago

What's the full story? Why was he detained? Is he actually a terrorist? There can't possibly be absolutely no other side to this story.

varjag• 13 years ago

    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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12...

ed_blackburn• 13 years ago

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?

tomohawk• 13 years ago

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.

Here is what happened to some German non-lawful combatants during WWII: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius

About 1/3 of detainees released have gone right back to the fighting: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/03/latest_gitmo_...

And these were the low risk ones.

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.

norswap• 13 years ago

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).

Gitmo Is Killing Me

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