Simply put, in America the military is a cult/religion, and almost anything done in the name of "national security" can be excused. Look no further than the Navy SEALs that had their charges dropped for war crimes - as long as they're on "our" side Americans don't really care what atrocities the military complex commits.

I can think of one giant threat to national security that apparently they can do nothing about at the moment.

SEALs are backing that one.

The pardoning of Navy SEALs is not being excused at all. Trump has been receiving enormous and extraordinary amounts of backlash not just from both sides of the political spectrum, but also from inside the military itself.

You can excuse anything in the US if you scream "patriotism", "terrorism" or "freedom" loud enough.

Not enough upvotes for this comment. So true.

How is it possible that people weren't held accountable for this? Because they work for the government.

And how come the US government still hasn't tried to remedy the situation? Because it's the government.

Are those people going to be held in captivity with no charges until their death? Probably, because of the government.

Note: Nothing was done during Obama's tenure. Neither a Republican nor a Democrat government is going to do anything about this.

At least Obama tried to bring them to them mainland and house them old prisons etc which would've brought the inmates under the jurisdiction of non military courts and thus they would've gotten their day in court, a fair trial not military court bs. Sadly no one wanted to do this, talks of "I'm not going to let terrorists anywhere near my home!" were prevalent and the plan was dead. There is no easy way of choosing Guantanamo Bay given the military industrial complex.

Wasn't it also because the republican senate stonewalled quite literally anything Obama tried to do, good or bad?

Because in the wake of 9-11, you would have been very pressed to find any US adult who didnt support torturing terrorists in custody to prevent more attacks. The Patriot Act passed almost unanimously.

You have to remember the _emotional_ impact of 9-11 to properly judge the people in charge at that time.

> Because in the wake of 9-11, you would have been very pressed to find any US adult who didnt support torturing terrorists in custody to prevent more attacks

That's quite a bold statement. Even among my conservative leaning co-workers in the mid-west at the time, quite a number continued to be against torture, though only a few of us were also against the (second) war in Iraq.

And, as others have said, it's pretty easy to find people standing against torture in the public discourse at the time.

> You have to remember the _emotional_ impact of 9-11 ....

We remember it well. Even so, many of us were not so blinded as to abandon our principles.

My country* was repeatedly bombed by terrorists, explicitly supported by Americans (but probably not the actual USA government). I always get incredulous at the hypocrisy when Americans talk about how 9/11 made them feel angry.

I'm not saying my country didn't do things to deserve this. Or that we were innocent victims of unprovoked foreign aggression. But then, can the USA say the same? Was 9/11 really unprovoked?

*England, bombed by the IRA for over 20 years, who raise(d) the vast majority of their funds from "patriotic" ex-pat Irish Americans.

>My country* was repeatedly bombed by terrorists, explicitly supported by Americans (but probably not the actual USA government). I always get incredulous at the hypocrisy when Americans talk about how 9/11 made them feel angry.

Really?!

You guys treated the Irish like crap for generations. It should come as no surprise that there was no shortage of ex-pats willing to send a buck to help them wage war on you.

>I'm not saying my country didn't do things to deserve this. Or that we were innocent victims of unprovoked foreign aggression. But then, can the USA say the same? Was 9/11 really unprovoked?

You can certainly make the argument that 9/11 is a response to our prior actions in the region but whether that is true or not will not make the people who feel attacked feel any less attacked. This is a complex issue about which reams upon reams have been written and I doubt anything we say here will do it justice.

I think both of your responses here apply to both situations. Your comment about how people who felt attacked won't feel any less attacked applies to the British as well when it comes to the IRA. Your comment about how the British treated the Irish poorly applies to the US in the Middle East as well. Maybe not quite to the same degree, but still.

There were lots of people arguing against it, in public discourse.

I assume the guy who voted against the Patriot Act suffered the same emotional impact. It didn't prevent him seeing the long term deleterious impact of such laws, and he wisely voted against it.

Judgement lapses happened obviously, but emotional impact is a lame excuse for judgement lapses in any steward.

Also one has to acknowledge the simple fact another attack of 9-11 scale or even close never happened again on US soil.

That was the main mission during the 2000s and even well into Obama era (at least till Osama was killed). Another 9-11 like attack is ticket to one term presidency or political death.

We never had an event of that level of devastation BEFORE 9/11 either. They used the tragedy to push a surveillance and war agenda. In the end, most of the people in the countries we bombed to hell and back as a result didn't even know 9/11 had occurred.

first source on google - https://www.stripes.com/news/among-many-afghans-9-11-remains...

Nothing justifies torture.

> We never had an event of that level of devastation BEFORE 9/11 either.

I understand there's some nuance to what you're saying, so I'm not necessarily disagreeing with it, but I will bring up the attack on Pearl Harbor as an example of a surprise event with a similar loss of life.

Somewhat further afield are civil war battles where the losses were even higher.

I don't mean to minimize the gravity or impact of the 9/11 attacks, and I fully agree everything else you said.

You are correct, however, you're referencing conflicts between nations with nation-level resources to bring to bear for said conflict. 9/11 was particularly devastating because it was executed by so few, with so little resources, and harmed so many.

All true.

That's called erosion of rights, and it only goes in one direction. That's why we should be very doubtful about these kind of laws/acts/&c.

15ish percent voted nay in the House.

They can't be tried, because their torture would become an issue in the trial.