Guantanamo Closure Called Obama Priority

Was just browsing the web till I found this interesting topic.

www.washingtonpost.com...

How do people feel about Obama making plans to close Gitmo a priority and what will happen to the detainees who couldn't be put on trial?

The worst President we had was Jimmy Carter. He quickly gave away the Panama Canal, and then granted amnesty to the Vietnam era draft dodgers, many who had left the country. Had Hillary given Carter one of her balls, they'd have both had one apiece.

This new guy is just hell-bent on making some stupid decisions.

I suppose another four or five thousand years, it won't matter that much, but it will suck to be us for the next few years.

reply to post by dooper


What does your post have to do with this thread?
And how exactly is Obama closing Guantanamo Bay a stupid decision?
I just want to know why you are saying that.
It sounds like a completely ignorant thing to say to me but I am totally open to hear other points of view.

reply to post by difsjf


How is it a good idea? What would you like to see done with the all the people held there that are suspected of being terroists? You want them moved to the states and be put in our prisons? You want our US legal system to be available to them? What exactly is the upside to this?

Giving these prisoners rights beyond what is required for POWs is a bad precedent. Consider if there is a war in the future POWs from said war could sue to be tried in US civilian court.

Close the place, but give them military trials and repatriation to thier home countries if found innocent. The should never set foot on American soil and should never be tried in civilian courts.

reply to post by jd140


Regardless of how 'evil' they are, under constitutional law they should get the same right to a trial that all of us other citizens get.
If you're so sure that they're guilty, why are you afraid to give them the right to a trial anyways?

And it's not like Obama is just going to open the doors and let everyone free. He is just going to make sure that EVERYONE there who is an American citizen gets their basic American right to a trial.
The law applies to all so we all should be tried fairly, regardless of whether or not we have evil intentions.
Since not everybody is convinced that everyone there is really a terrorist, I would say it's a fantastic idea.
It sounds like a good plan to me.

Oh, and I guess if they're not American citizens then they wouldn't get American trials, because that doesn't make sense.
But there are American citizens there and they need to be treated just like any other American criminal would be.
Sorry for not thinking of that when I posted my earlier post, I just thought of it now after reading DarkStormCrows post.

Originally posted by DarkStormCrow
Giving these prisoners rights beyond what is required for POWs is a bad precedent. Consider if there is a war in the future POWs from said war could sue to be tried in US civilian court.

Close the place, but give them military trials and repatriation to thier home countries if found innocent. The should never set foot on American soil and should never be tried in civilian courts.

Don't give them repirations. Where are the reperations for that poor soldier who was beheaded? How about the others who were beaten, tourtered and finally killed only to have their bodies mutilated and drug through the streets? Nowhere in the Geneva Convention does it say anything about reperations. They are treated a million times better then our POWs have ever been treated. Even with a few exceptions of humiliation and very few exceptions of waterboarding. I imagine if faced with the choice of being treated like our POW's or waterboarded they would choose waterboarding.

Their reparation is that if founded innocent they go home. Possibly a little worse for the wear, but they get to go home after a fair trial and not pushed infront of a camera and brutaly beheaded.

repatriation= to send back (a person) to the country of his or her birth or citizenship

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reply to post by difsjf


I'm all for American citizens to be tried in a US court of law. But I'm sure we can agree that is a very small percentage that is being held there. What would you want done with the majority that aren't citizens?

reply to post by DarkStormCrow


My bad, I read it wrong.

We agree then.

reply to post by jd140


I would agree with what you are saying except that I have no reason to believe that that terrible place is anything but a torture camp for mostly innocent individuals.
I have no reason to trust that George Bush and his terrible administration when they say that that place is making us safer.
We have passed new laws that are letting us torture people there - c'mon, maybe we've been treated worse but America is finally sinking to the level of all those countries who treated us worse in the past by allowing torture like this.
When you think about it, the idea is a complete lunacy, to lock people up who may be innocent and then if you find out they are innocent, expect them to not be pissed off as hell at you for torturing them and then not giving them any sort of reparation.
America has sunk so deep to even go to the point of torturing prisoners off shore to stay away from the legal ramifications of doing it here, especially since we DON'T EVEN KNOW if all those people were terrorists.
They were caught on 'suspicion' and that, to me, is not the justice that America the great is supposed to be doing to others.
It's not right, and that place is terrible.

does this really matter? As soon as this prison ceased to be secret, it became nothing more than a political liability. Of course Obama wants to close it to look better; he can ship people to one of the other prisons that remain secret. Nothing to see here, people.

I can think of a few bad possibilities. One being what if the "terrorist" isn't an American citizen and they get convicted then after they serve their time, what happens to them when we try to extradite them and no country will have them? Then we have convicted p-o'd terrorist on American soil.

Another issue I have with it is where are we going to put all these "terrorist"? First you have to remember that these are enemy combatants, that is way different then if you commit a crime here on American soil and get caught.

What should happen is he should keep it open and and they should be cared for as regular prisoners are, no torture because it doesn't work. Then held before a military tribunal for all non US citizens.

I don't feel comfortable with a bunch of terrorist being held somewhere with in the 50 states. That just seems like a bad idea. There are lots of different ways to handle the situation with out closing it down.

-Edit-

Not to mention Cuba is a strategic position and allows us to keep a close eye on the goings on over there, seeing how Cuba is close with all the countries that hate us.


[edit on 12-11-2008 by Hastobemoretolife]