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
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.
For anyone who actually understands politics, the failure to close Gitmo was not Obama's fault.
I disagree. For anyone that understands politics understands that things can get done by applying a significant political push. I think Obama symbolically tried, then threw his hands up in the air in defeat when he got some resistance from Congress. I assume this is because the political chips he would lose by pushing harder on closing Gitmo are chips he was not willing to lose.
Meanwhile, CISPA, which was already defeated once, is making its way through Congress again. It's a perfect example of "political push" (and if you read between the lines, that means "money").
For anyone that understands politics understands that things
can get done by applying a significant political push.
I've lobbied. A fair amount for an amateur. We had some small victories, but mostly lost ground.
The victories we had were because we packed the hearings with warm bodies.
Where are the people willing to pack the chambers over Gitmo? It absolutely should be closed. But Gitmo is not a motivating issue.
Down thread, you cite Obama's enthusiasm for gun control. What's the salient difference?
People are going to show up for gun control hearings.
If Obama et al truly felt that closing Gitmo was a priority, the news would be packed day after day with stories from the prison, humanizing the prisoners, and introduction of one legislation measure after another, all to drum up support (just like gun control). But that just isn't happening, which makes me conclude it's a lack of effort for whatever reason.
In your experience, the ground that you did lose, was it because of lack of support? Could you have tried again and how? (I don't have any political experience, so I'm kind of curious)
--
I worked on election integrity. Stuff like opposing internet voting, touchscreens, purging the voter registration databases, etc.
When we lost it was because we were a day late, a dollar short, outgunned, exhausted, ignorant, naive, internal strive, etc.
It's important to remember that our opponents have essentially unlimited resources. They also have the long view. You won this time? No biggie. They'll be back. They're happy with incrementalism, and will convert those inches into yards into miles.
A few years ago, remembering the prior overwhelming opposition to internet voting, they suspended the rules and fast-tracked the legislation. So no public hearings. The deed was done before we even noticed. This is why interest groups hire lobbyists; activism is not something you can sustain on a casual basis.
I will try again. Not quite done recharging my batteries.
Meanwhile, I'm working on better advocacy tools. So that future me and other activists have better data, tools, resources. A bit like the open government stuff from Sunlight Foundation. But more like the commercial legislation information systems that big lobbyists use.
--
Some non-political friends wanted to know how to get involved. The key is to show up.
I encouraged them to pick their local city council meetings and just start showing up. (Many are televised or available via web.) Just being present will change their behavior. And there's absolutely a current local issue that you have an opinion on. So once you figure out what's what, you should testify.
Obama is not an amateur.
Absolutely.
I make no defense of Obama, or any other elected. I just want to understand the game better, to play it better. So I'm more curious what it'd take to close Gitmo.
Not my issue, so I haven't looked. But key policy makers (blocking no votes) would have to be identified and moved. And that would take sustained years long local action, eg me and 100 of my friends camping in my Senator's or Representative's office. Ditto probably 40 other local groups. Hard to pull off.
Sen. Henry Waxman's book The Waxman Report relates how his office has worked on some issues for decades, what it takes to move the needle. Very pragmatic, so in a way very optimistic.
I'm currently chewing through The Politics of Attention, which melds Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium with social influence (power ranking). The basic idea is that policy makers have limited attention and stuff changes all at once when an issue rises above the noise.
Yeah, Obama doesn't have to do any of this. Maybe the "sustained years" part for some issues, but that's the limits of commonality between your tools and Obama's.
Nobody can say the President isn't trying hard enough in those cases, whichever side of the fence you happen to fall on. Yet, when we talk about basic human rights, the President somehow gets to just give up on the issue, and we should be OK with that? In my opinion, there is definitely a lack of effort by the President to do something about closing Gitmo, and I find that almost as disappointing as Gitmo being opened in the first place.
What would have had him do, specifically? He tried, it clearly wasn't happening. Maybe he should try again, but I can tell you the same exact thing would happen again. That would be your symbolic gesture.
For Obama to MOVE THEM would have required some kind of law to put them in Federal courts, or even standard Military courts. Also, congress threatened to EXPLICITLY tell the President no funds were available.
... Kind of like how the 1980 congress told Reagan there would be no funds available to trade for hostages. In 1980 Reagan just went ahead and BROKE THE LAW something Obama has too much respect to do. The issue was divisive enough That Obama couldn't count in his own slim majority to vote on his side. Because Obama doesn't RULE the Democrats like Cheney did.
In that stalemate, you negotiate. And the Congress certainly wants at least some of the prisoners to be tried in the US court system. So the President, in the absence of getting the funding to move them into the private court system, threatens to simply release them all back to their home countries.
The leadership here is that "we" as a nation don't deprive people of their liberty without due process on principle. And while we recognize the expedience of detaining people during war time, nearly everyone seems to be believe that the prisoner's at Guantanamo are not sanctioned "prisoners of war" per the Geneva Convention. Being neither duck nor fowl puts them in limbo.
The President promised to change that, he did not. He could have (not in a way that Congress approved) but the world in general would be much better off if you either shot these people in battle when they were shooting at you, or you charged them with a crime and tried them, or you let them go. When he left these people incarcerated, he removed another item where the US used to be 'different' from authoritarian regimes, and as a voter I've been working to change the regime through the institutions available to me to do so.
I recommend this Salon article by Glen Greenwald from July 2012
The Obama GITMO myth: New vindictive restrictions on detainees highlights the falsity of Obama defenders regarding closing the camp
I think that as much as in specific deliverables, "the Left" feels rather thoroughly betrayed, on that front.
In this specific instance, he should have called Congress out on their behavior.
People understand real compromise. They also understand that when the other party is completely intractable, there comes a time when you confront them on this. Or you lose power.
Or... your original position was actually different from what you projected.
It accomplished absolutely nothing.
Look, when you have an entrenched party, backed up by the ultra-rich, that has sworn to do anything in its power to make sure you fail, there's not much you can do, even if you are the President of the United States.
Due a lawsuit and illness and death the Democrats had a filibuster breaking majority for something like 58 days. And even then it would require every single senator to be in agreement.
I remember when we expected statemen to work out difficult conflicts. Now they just throw up their hands and say "He did it" while people cheer them on for "sticking to their guns". It isn't our fault, they are the ones that refused to compromise by accepting my proposal...
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
And finally, the US is the land of the free.
In other words, you come to HN for one aspect of the Political world , and not all of them?
Myself, I don't come to HN for ANYTHING in this thread. It's all interesting, in it's own right, but has little to do with 'hacking'.
But, then again, civil liberties are a set of issues that can broadly affect us all.. maybe that was the grand position of whoever thought this was HN worthy.
I don't know. Maybe it's beyond us all, and the OP has some insight as to how the whole GITMO situation can be solved with functional programming and 'high-availability clustering solutions', and he's just trying to nudge us into finding the solution.
One can be hopeful.
If HN's front page were open to anything and everything, and links were voted for based on their importance in the real world, the actual Hacker News content would be completely buried. The real world is far more important than most of what's on Hacker News, so paradoxically, if we want to maintain the quality and focus of HN, real world articles like this need to be excluded, even if we all agree they are very important.
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.
Your point about immigrants is interesting, though I'm not really in a position to comment on it. I can tell you, though, that a good portion of the US is very hostile to immigrants, and we have had a history of hostility (take a look at the Chinese Exclusion Act, for an extreme example). Our current political discourse is also very anti-immigrant, too, and the path to citizenship is very lengthy and difficult.
Seeing Americans in movies go "best country in the world!" sounds absurd to us, and "you can't do this to me, I'm an American" sounds ludicrous.
The fact that everyone considers their country to be the best really seems to me like an American generalization. I've lived in the UK and I've had friends from a multitude of countries, and not one of them considers their country to be the best, unlike my American friends.
We believe in a common heritage and we think that because our ancestors were pioneers in so many aspects, from mathematics to theater and from philosophy to commerce that the whole world owes us some (actually a lot) respect.
The mindset you're referring to is true but applies to the state. We all thing that the government in particular and the state in general is crap but as far as we're concerned as individuals or as a nation we walk in the footsteps of our glorious ancestors.
And it's exactly this mindset which have led to our recent problems, which are not only financial as many believe. If you keep thinking that you are someone special there's no reason to change anything.
That doesn't follow. The fact that some people say "we were civilized before you" doesn't mean they think it's the best country in the world. Not to mention that nobody even really says that, unless they're looking for a cheap insult. It's the equivalent to the American "we'll bomb the shit out of you".
That sounds absurd to most Americans too. I've only heard that kind of rhetoric spoken by politicians, and it's definitely not a view most of us espouse.
There are a large number of Americans who believe the U.S. has the most powerful military in the world, and there are a sizeable number of Americans who believe that the U.S. provides the most opportunity for poor people to become rich through hard work (the "American dream"), but there are at least as many Americans who disagree with both, and I've never heard anyone in real life state that the U.S. is categorically "the best country in the world." Interestingly, I think it's safe to say that almost all Americans hold one view in common: no one likes the central government. That might be true in most democratic countries--I wouldn't know. But I don't think I've ever in my life heard an American state that they were satisfied with the government.
As a person that lives in the Bible Belt, I can tell you that a significant number of folks that do not think America is the best. Many do believe it was at one time, but some of the strongest critics are in the Bible Belt now. The Tea Party movment, while arguably misguided, is a great example of that.
Where is the outrage in USA about Gitmo - which high-ranking officials have resigned in shame (or been thrown out for being shameless) about keeping these torture centers?
It's not as black and white as "USA bad, EU good".
The point was that whilst nowhere is perfectly just and or free, there is the perception that the USA promotes itself as being so.
In any case, in Guantanamo, the detention without trial is almost worse and more disgraceful than the torture. How can the democracies hold our heads up if this is how we behave?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Price
Though there are/were certain conditions on when it could be ordered such as when the inmate has an eating disorder or becomes mentally incapacitated:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/493713.stm
I believe that the inhumane treatment that went on in UK/NI was not systemic but a result of individuals acting of their own accord. Guantanamo Bay was chosen to locate the camp in order to allow these kinds of things to go on because American law does not apply there.
I do think a lot of the Northern Ireland stuff was institutional. Gerry-mandering of election results, police oppression, etc.
If they want to smear shit up the walls because they don't get Casual Friday then let them.
And civil liberties in the mainland were nowhere near as bad as this stupid war on terror.
The UK had internment without trial in the 1970s. The hunger strike episode was in the 1980s, and was started by people who had been tried and convicted. Not people being "rendered" illegally from other countries and certainly not random people handed in for bounty who never received trial.
Finally, the internment episode, which shows the UK in the worst light, is documented in this link in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius
The timeline is from 1971-1977. "Gitmo" has been going for twice that long already.
The idea with terrorism against democracies is to scare the living daylight out of voters in a country. The politicians in those democracies want to win the next election do everything to stop the terror.
Afaik, most every democracy that had a serious terrorist problem over years threw out the law book -- UK, Germany, Israel, Spain, USA, etc.
It is a reaction built into democracy, if you have a better way of organizing society that is well tested, please tell me. (That "well tested" is critical; failure modes for testing systems often kills millions of people.)
Can you precise?
I can talk about something I know. I'm french. France got problem with islamic terrorism in the 90's. France is having problem with terrorism for the last 10 years. France has done two wars in the last 3 years (Lybia, Mali and still do stuff in Afganistan). My country is not the best country in the world but we did not end up with some terrible thing like Guantanamo ... I would say the same about many others european countries and it should be the same for USA. If you believe in human rights and dignity, what ever enemy you have to fight, you should not forget the values you are fighting for.
Let me preface this by saying I'm a big fan of France. In fact, I think France was a good ally recommending caution with Iraq (precisely because they had the most recent experience with fighting a counter-insurgency in an Arab country).
But I take exception with your claim that France didn't end up with Gitmo.
Read 'A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962'. France pretty much invented torturing arab terrorists.
Look at the UK & Northern Ireland.
For UK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_of_Terrorism_Acts
Edit: This is about RAF in Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction#Trial_manipula... (But certainly, maybe the lawyers were guilty, etc.)
Edit: This is about ETA in Spain (not so strong, but still) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA#Human_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Spain#Basque_se...
afaik, India - which is one of the largest democracies in the world follows the legal process in almost all the terror related cases. The fact that they try to adapt their laws to keep up with terrorism is a different story.
France, as someone else noted, is also different. My model do seem to work for Europe (afaik re GB, Spain, Italy, Germany.)
If a country is aping the Israelis, it's failed as a democracy.
The IRA were bombing Britain all the time. There are still no trash cans in the London subway system today; they were taken out because the IRA might leave bombs in them.
The IRA even hit Downing Street and one of Thathcer's political conferences.
There might have been stepped up security in Northern Ireland itself, but security in London during that period was far less than during this stupid "War on Terror", and there weren't all these stupid "anti-terror" laws. The regular police didn't even carry guns back then.
Thatcher tried to use a regulation banning the voices of Sinn Fein from being put on air because they were advocating terror. The BBC just played the footage and used voice-over artists to say their words.
And this was how 80's Britain responded to the IRA, which was a large and well funded organization.
So I have an existence proof that you don't have to turn into a police state as a response to terrorism, because I grew up in a country that chose another option.
During the "War on Terror" an old man and anti-Nazi RAF veteran was arrested under "anti-terror" laws for holding an anti-Blair placard at a demonstration. During the IRA years, well ... Find me an example of "security" that egregious during the period I mentioned, I double dog dare you.
Stuff was blowing up all the time but the people simply did not get all paranoid. Business as usual.
By the way, your wiki link refers to laws that were put in place in the 70s. If I recall correctly, Britain tried full scale internment in the 70s and got bitch slapped in court by Ireland, and then stopped. That may be the reason Britain was acting in a saner way in the 80s, but I wasn't debating the history of it.
I was simply saying that 80s Britain was an existence proof of a society not responding to terrorism by turning into a police state. The IRA terrorism hadn't stopped in the 70s, by the way - it continued into the 90s making it far longer-lasting than Afghanistan.
And finally, the topic was Guantanamo Bay, where people have been held without trial for more than a decade. You are trying to compare that to British emergency powers that held people for one week?
You can post that wikipedia page a fifth and sixth time, it still won't change anything. It will just make you look stupider and more of a liar.
My claim was:
The idea with terrorism against democracies is to scare the living daylight out of voters in a country. The politicians in those democracies want to win the next election do everything to stop the terror.
Afaik, most every democracy that had a serious terrorist problem over years threw out the law book [...]
You argue that the Brits of the 1980s weren't that scared, Blitz-style. That might be true (your personal experience isn't that big support) -- but it is not relevant for my point, which is about politicians' reactions to scared civilians.
But you know that, troll.
For British response: I posted a link to the law above. Google site:hrw.org yourself, for more -- it was definitely harsher than pure criminality would need.
Congrats troll, you got another answer. Now you can lie more about what I wrote, to see if you get another...
Firstly, you come out with this stuff whenever an even tangentially related topic comes up on HN. So you are not making an observation about political science, you are engaging in advocacy. You are saying "Hooray for throwing out the rule book! That keeps us safe and stops the towelhead terrorists!". Like you did here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4474143
Secondly, you are engaging in the no true scotsman fallacy whenever I give a counterexample. Breivik wasn't true terrorism because he was just one guy. Well that's irrelevant. The size and scale of any terrorist attack ever made up to now has been insignificant next to the damage to civil liberties from "security" or even to the death toll from road accidents. The difference is whether the population get hysterical, as you are advocating, or maintain their sense of proportion, as I am advocating. Marinus Van Der Lubbe was also just one guy, but we got Hitler and the Nazis being given emergency powers as a result of the Reichstag fire, because the Germans in the 30s ran around screaming about how the scary, scary legions of communist barbarians (well funded by their Russian backers) were a serious threat to all of civilization, just like you keep screaming about how the scary, scary legions of islamist barbarians (well funded by their oil-sheikh backers) are a serious threat to all of civilization.
Well we don't have to treat this crap as natural. Any sane society, like the Norwegians today and unlike the Germans in the 30s, can just refuse to be scared, and put checks and balances in place to curb the politicians, like the European courts curbed the British government.
Politicians taking away liberties under the excuse of "security" is the oldest fraud in the book, as anyone can see from Julius Caesar's comments on Sulla. Nobody who grew up in a country with functioning schools and books has any excuse for not knowing better.
>>You are saying "Hooray for throwing out the rule book! That keeps us safe and stops the towelhead terrorists!".
>>The difference is whether the population get hysterical, as you are advocating
I have written that terrorism against democracies is generally to influence/scare the population. See quote in what you comment on, troll.
You are fully aware that I have never discussed the motivation for (/morale of) that reaction, just noted that it is the usual outcome.
(I only read a few seconds until I saw a couple of quotes to show that you lie, troll.)
Similarly, Tim McVeigh was a militia nut job, there are many others like him out there, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Republican_Army
However, these are white people, so when they blow something up they are just "one lone crazy person".
When 19 brown people bring down a couple of trade towers, suddenly it becomes "totally different"?
To be consistent with your logic, the Clinton administration should have carpet bombed Elohim City and suspended human rights in Oklahoma, including keeping innocent people locked up without trial, until they got every last Klan nut/ Church nut/Gun nut out there.
That makes the existing alQ 2001 at least a million times larger problem than Breivik in his cell 2013.
AGAIN, Breivik is only a member of a group in his own mind -- and in your mind. (I seriously wonder if there are more similarities.)
Usually at this point, I write "But you know that you're arguing nonsensically, troll".
I can't do that in your case, so instead:
I hope you're just a sad loser failing to troll and not such a hatemonger that you make bad arguments just to get some support for your conspiracies.
Edit: Clarity.
You also ignore that in terms of the domestic terror threat, according to the FBI organized jewish loons are a larger threat than yemeni moslem loons - and that jewish loons aren't being locked up indefinitely
http://forums.anandtech.com/archive/index.php/t-2135229.html
You also ignore that when the US was in a similar situation, during the McVeigh episode, the US did not respond towards the militiamen by locking them up without trial. They used normal law enforcement procedures. And McVeigh was not a lone wolf. That lot are organized and well funded
But if you didn't ignore these parallels, you'd be forced to see that there is an alternative called "the rule of law". And you wouldn't like that. You prefer the policy "lock up the towelheads and throw away the key".
And you call me a hatemonger.
1. Al Qaeda can be described as 19 brown people -- not thousands of members (and hundreds of millions in finances) with repeated attempts at mass murder through terrorism.
2. If the Western world wasn't racist -- Breivik should have gotten as much attention as al Q, despite his whole gang (he, himself) being in jail.
3. This attention of Breivik is merited because: Two groups of crazies in USA, which did some terror a few decades ago, might have similar opinions as Breivik (according to you).
(One of those groups even have a different religion and the other group's members could hardly find Norway on a map.)
I'm sorry, my position is still that you're either a really pathetic troll or some sick hatemonger. But I did stop laughing, your existence is too depressing.
Al Qaeda is a common name used by lots of different little local terrorist groups to make themselves seem menacing. eg if the Al Shabab boys in Somalia want to make themselves seem badass, they call themselves "Al Qaeda in Somalia"
But facts don't matter to you because you are a complete fraud.
So we'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and pretend that you are talking sense. We'll pretend that you were referring to Osama Bin Laden's organization in 2001. His actual organization, not the one in your fever dreams.
That organization had hardly any people outside of Afghanistan. And didn't use much money. Their entire budget for the attack was 19 air tickets and some box cutters.
The facts about the attack are also that it was small. Large for a terrorist attack, but small in the grand scale of things. 2 or 3 buildings knocked down, and about 3000 people killed.
We'll throw in the US embassy bombings and the attack on the USS Cole as well.
And you are saying this grand total justifies extraordinary rendition, suspension of habeas corpus and the Geneva conventions, the Patriot act etc etc etc. while the Korean war didn't?
Mao's China and Kim Il Sung's Korea put together, with their legions of commandos (and now their nukes) were a threat.
Are you trying to say a few thousand suicide bombers are a bigger threat? Such a bigger threat that we have to give up civil liberties for them that we did NOT have to give up when at war with China?
Are you really that stupid?
So I take it the description was accurate.
I note that you lie about what I wrote, which was: All (functioning) democracies tend to ignore human rights and laws when its citizens are threatened with terrorism.
I removed the rest and references. You phantasize something without me having to help anyway...
So, as usual, it was pointed out to you that Norway was a very different situation since Breivik was in jail, there is no big organisation that promise more terror.
Then you went troll and described 9/11 as "19 brown people" and started talking about unrelated crazies on another continent of Breivik -- decades earlier.
Edit: That you lie about what you wrote yourself means that you're an unusually sad troll and not a mental case. That makes me happy, believe it or not. Please get a life instead. If you go to a gym/psychologist it should be ok in the end.
ucee054 earlier also argued for jewish conpiracy theories, etc.
Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059752
Edit: Brevity, spelling error, link.
And if you keep doing[1] this - detaining innocents and keeping them in the vacuum for years without a trial and without letting them know what is their crime, if tall; and killing hundreds of children in one drone strike(even though your country's Sec.OS was against it) then you have got two clear choices -
(1). Either wipe out all those innocents, their supporters, family and non-innocents who get another reason(or show it to innocents) to hit you back. This is already happening in my own country on the northern/top tip - for decades.
(2). Or be ready for more aggressive attacks when you are no longer in a position to drone the shit out of entire villages of children and women at your whims(very soon). Well, in this case you might as well be looking for the collective wipe out. you and me together get perished in the shit that we let grow and multiply.
On a more gory(violence ahead) note I'll give a very far fetched but possible example - you might find your, on pre-college RTW trip, teenage son's neck slit by some disgruntled, frustrated, suicidal, lost kid who had lost his father or maybe entire family just the way above mentioned - only because he was born in the wrong geography. Of course your RTW kid was innocent too; as innocent as the kid who struck the blade!
It's a lot worse than the time of colonization, damn it!
Here this you can be me, you, your CIA top boss or just anyone.
[1]. By keep doing I want to say keep on accepting as a world citizen.
Hundreds of children? Why? When? How -- where they put in a pile?!
>>you are no longer in a position to drone the shit out of entire villages of children and women at your whims(very soon)
The point with drone strikes is that they are targeted, not like artillery which do wipe out villages, etc.
I stopped reading. Please increase your trolling quality.
Did you mean were? No, they were not. A drone strike is not a shot on a dart board by a marksman so they don't need to.
>>hundreds in one strike>>
My mistake. I was angry and I just mentioned it in flow - I originally wanted to portray remote strikes in general. But drone strike are not sniper shots either! Can I humbly ask you to go here[1] and you might be enlightened http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan
>>I stopped reading.
I believe that you've stopped reading - literally, especially after reading your last sentence.
I know more about UK & Ireland than others, but it's not hard to find other countries similar. France's national anthem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marseillaise ) is a song about overthrowing tyranny, the national motto of France is "Liberty, Freedom, Fraternity" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A9,_%C3%A9galit%C3%A9... ).
All countries claim to be the best.
Every country has people in it believing that, and songs accordingly. It is called nationalism, which is more common in some countries then others. If you would say those thinks over here, people would suspect you being a nazi.
This "America is the greatest country on earth"-slogan is pretty specific for the USA. It is so typical that it became a klischee, we call it "american pathos". It is the same category like beauty queens wishing world peace in a country leading two wars. It is the movie independence day with a american president being a jet fighter fighting aliens and saving the world, once again, and us thinking that this fits to the image the USA has of itself. It is right-wing nationalism as a political party (republicans) and 24h on tv (Fox News). It is "god bless america".
And there are those american politicians saying things like "we are the greatest country in the world" and "the land of the free". No other country has that, at least no democratic one and not with the same prevalence, to my knowing.
It is hybris, because in many objective ways, america is the worst countries in the world. Poverty, education, leading wars, prison system, death sentences, amount of guns per capita, killing and abduction of foreign civilians, torture of prisoners, broken democratic system, religious fanatism. No other country fails in so many ways so high, not even your beloved rogue states.
PS: Doesn't mean there are only bad parts, there are even great ones.
PPS: Your examples, "mother of all parliaments" and the tyranny-overthrowal in France, relates to historical events and facts. That is something else than a broad generic claim.
You say this is hubris, but you fail to mention that in many if not more objective ways America is the greatest country in the world. It has the largest amount of wealthy people, the largest amount of educated people, it has freed an entire continent of war, its justice system covers and protects an enormous amount of people, it holds individual rights to a very high standard, it is the largest true democracy in the world.
Then we haven't even mentioned the results of that great economy it has. It presents the world with a dazzling amount of technological progress, from computers to medicine. The fruits of american science have increased the quality of life and longetivity of a vast majority of people on this planet.
There's some subjective stuff too. It has in my opinion the greatest cultural industry, it produces the most impressive books, movies, music, paintings, whatever you like you're bound to find an expert in the US.
Yes guantanamo bay is a black mark on the US's grey slate, but it doesn't immediately disqualify it as a great state of this world.
One could argue about specifics. I agree more with your subjective part - i like many american movies and series, but i would disagree with the high standards of individual rights (that was maybe true in the period after the communist-hunt and before 9/11, though) and the true democracy (for one, a true democracy in a literal meaning, according to my education, is a direct one, and the usa has many issues with its democracy like the needed money for becoming a successful candidate to qualify as a true democracy in the strictes sense, even if we count a non-direct one as such).
> (As a Dutch person I believe The Netherlands is the greatest country of the world)
Why would you do that? For real now. It is highly unlikely that exactly the country one comes from is the greatest, bestestest, whatever, in total or only in any way.
As another dutch person, I don't agree with that. This isn't the greatest country overall by any stretch of the imagination. The problem is that for every axis that you come up with some things will be better, others will be worse. No country wins on all points.
>Why would you do that? For real now. It is highly unlikely that exactly the country one comes from is the greatest, bestestest, whatever, in total or only in any way.
No need to be so rational. I happen to have grown up in a way that's enabled by only a few countries in the world for which I am extremely grateful. I am sure you could be as happy in any other country.
Uhm, really? As another Dutch person I now suspect you to be a member of some extreme rightwing ideology (PVV?) because no sane Dutch person I've ever known would say such an absurd thing.
Also, viewing your country as great has nothing to do with rightwing ideology. I do not for a second think that past immigration laws have done anything to degrade The Netherlands as a great country.
Also, immigration laws (PVV's main issue) have nothing to do with rightwing ideology, it is merely associated with it due to conservationists often being right wing. Hitler for example was famous for his dislike of immigrants and also was a leftist.
Also, please don't post dumb assumptions over other peoples ideologies on public websites..
The nsdap had a left, socialist wing. Most of the members of that wing were executed, which is a good indicatior on how much Hitler himself agreed with them. He himself didn't had many political views one could describe as left, that there are similarities in the methods is mainly a coincidence. Your linked article is plainly wrong in that regard, the nationalization of industries for example didn't really happen after the Kapital agreed to cooperate (and ideologically, nationalization of industries in a facist regime is something else entirely than in a communist one).
For a good article about the subject, read http://www.h-ref.de/organisationen/nsdap/nazis-sozialisten.p.... Anyway, I don't think we should discuss this any further here, it is OT.
In fact that song I've thought was a good snapshot of where we (the US) are right now.
What people will say is, "This country is the best for me" or "We're not perfect, but I love it" or "We have our ups and downs, but I'm proud to be here." Often people will say, "My country is the best" in the same way they say, "My wife is the best."
When I came to the US I was shocked at how many people openly, earnestly, unconditionally claim America is the best, the greatest, #1, etc. "On any objective scale, especially morally, America is the unqualified best." It's crazy.
It really sticks out compared to everywhere else I've been, and I've travelled to/in 30+ countries now.
OTOH, many immigrants fly the flags of their home countries, I guess as a sort of badge of identity. For whatever reason, that's always seemed less ridiculous to me.
I suspect this Canadian flag-waving has more to do with our insecurities than it does with our comparative level of patriotism - we're not all that different from Americans, so we go out of our way to emphasize what differences we do have.
>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
This is effectively the definition of America's brand of Exceptionalism and it is that to which I was referring.
It is a far cry from simple nationalism or "thinking one's country is the best".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the...
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.
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.)
All with predictable results. This isn't to say they never used teleprompters in their life; just that when they were running for the nomination, it was a useful cudgel to bash Obama and implicitly Mitt. That's why they were known as pretty gaffe-prone candidates.
> (p.s. I think you may have misread the GP, who meant that McCain would not have gotten their vote instead of Obama.)
Yes, I did misread it, thank you.
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.
As every American should know, Congress holds the purse strings here and has denied said request. The President has no power here.
This is why the legal technicalities are irrelevant. The President has the ultimate bully pulpit, and it sure ain't getting used on Gitmo.
Please don't tell me that it's a reasonable (legally or ethically) argument for keeping them imprisoned for decades.
Gitmo is already shockingly illegal or dangerously unethical; I don't see any interest by the US government to end it and take some of the heat for that.
If a guy like Nixon can get a pardon so that the country can move forward, then we can certainly do the same for whatever ahats are culpable for setting up Gitmo in the first place. Pardon the military and politicians responsible for their misguided patriotism and then start treating these unfortunate souls like humans again as one small step towards making the US live up to its lofty ideals again.
Look up "sovereign immunity".
I am, frankly, surprised that that nobody in the House has offered articles of impeachment so far. (checks) Well almost, but it died q uiet death in the House Judiciary committee: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.CON.RES.107:
This is one of those cases where only Nixon can go to China.
1. Assassination American citizens without trial (drone program)
2. War in Libya without congressional approval.
Are you saying that the president should have authority to order spending of non-government money?
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.
They shouldn't be in any detention center – there is no legal reason to detain them.
They would immediately try take legal action against the American administration through any and every international court available. Having been detained without sufficient evidence there is a case to answer, the US and their cohorts (let us not forget that several governments including ours in the UK have been shown to be complicit in rendition actions that deliberately circumvented international law) can't try ignore the issue with the "enemy combatants" and other such reasons without looking like complete hypocrites given how loud they shout when someone they care to defend is detained without what they consider to be sufficient evidence (Iran holding several naval officers for instance). Even more embarrassing: some of the people they are refusing to let go home to face/demand their own country's justice are American - they don't even want their own legal system anywhere near this.
tl;dr: Just letting them go would certainly not be cost free, financially or in terms of local and/or international reputation.
Right now they still have "enemy combatant status" and are not in a position where they can push their defence any further or be helped by their own governments and/or legal systems (if said systems would in fact help: some would, some wouldn't). If they were freed without charge then they have a case for unfair detainment (where now any such claim will be replied to with "they haven't been charged yet, that might change") and if they were charged there would be something for them to try make a case against (where now it is someone's un-evidenced word against their's, neither side having much legal standing so the people holding the keys "win").
That totally ignores my immediate 'citation needed' urges and my shock about this opinion.
I believe there is a wide variation within those imprisoned: some are innocent and were captured by mistake or worse (e.g. rivals were turned in by jealous neighbours, or whatever), others are actually hardened fanatics. And it is very difficult to know who is what.
We're "protecting them" by keeping them locked up forever without charges?
This kind of moral prevarication disgusts me. You disgust me.
As far as I understand, this is quite a real problem: no country is willing to receive most of these prisoners, except countries to which the U.S. cannot reasonably send them. Public opinion in the U.S. is hostile towards accepting them as refugees. A few have been placed to Palau, because sending them home to China would be bad and Palau is in no position to refuse such a request. Is that fair? Hardly.
In the U.S., lots of people in principle like to close Gitmo but in practice want the prisoners go to somewhere else, not settle as their own neighbours.
Sorry, I don't have good advice for what to do.
Also, this definitely isn't hacker news but I'm glad it was brought to my attention anyway.
Refugee status was invented for such people.
There's always the nuclear option: threaten to release the detainees if Congress doesn't provide funding for another solution.
There is no nuclear option. Veto is not an option.
What people don't seem to understand is that this isn't a failure of democracy to act: this is what the American people want. We don't care that Guantanamo is open and we'd rather see it stay open than give these people a chance at a fair trial.
We are a government by the people, of the people, and the people have spoken.
Alas.
The fundamental civil liberties protections of the Bill of Rights and Constitution apply to all “persons,” not just citizens. For example, every person in the United States has the right to due process and equal protection; to criminal proceedings that afford a right to counsel, a jury trial and freedom from double jeopardy; to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment; to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and to freedom of speech, religion and association.
http://www.aclupa.org/issues/immigrantsrights/animmigrationg...
Now, the Supreme Court has decided that Congress has de facto legislative jurisdiction over Guantanamo (in an opinion comparing the historical treatment of Scotland, in which English habeas rights did not apply, to Ireland, in which they did): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush.
Scalia's dissent was the most legally sensible: 'Justice Scalia added that the Court's majority "admits that it cannot determine whether the writ historically extended to aliens held abroad, and it concedes (necessarily) that Guantanamo Bay lies outside the sovereign territory of the United States."[27] Justice Scalia pointed out that Johnson v. Eisentrager (where the Supreme Court decided that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over German war criminals held in a U.S.-administered German prison in China) "thus held—held beyond any doubt—that the Constitution does not ensure habeas for aliens held by the United States in areas over which our Government is not sovereign.'
But the Court stopped short of saying that foreigners in Guantanamo have the same habeas rights as U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, probably because of the strained nature of their conclusion that they had any habeas rights at all.
What it means now? Who knows.
You need funding to keep Gitmo going too. I seriously doubt that would be a problem.
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?
But, Congress has not only not supported closing down Gitmo and sending the prisoners "home" (to whatever home means), they have explicitly forbidden it in their defense appropriation bills going back for years.
And people here say that Obama should break the law he was elected to enforce this time, just not all the other times that the law is in their favor.
And either way, the first person he gives the direct order to break the law to will refuse to carry it out (since it's an unlawful order), and then that breakdown in command & control will be the end of Obama's Presidency. It must be nice being an HN commenter, there's a reason Obama's hair is rapidly turning gray.
This rings similar to the 'legalize marijuana' issue. Making it legal 'tomorrow' would be a massive undertaking because of all of the infrastructure that's in place with the assumption that it's illegal.
Sometimes decisions/actions seem 'easy' on the surface, while the devil is in the details.
| Are there any places here in the U.S.
| that would actually take and try the
| Gitmo detainees?
Let's all be honest: we don't think about Guantanamo. When people bring it up we'll hem and haw and say, "gee, that's just terrible," but we don't give a shit. Take it out of the spotlight and it may as well not exist.
Sad, and shameful, but true.
Most who read that article wil be outraged. They'll share it on FB. And forget it by Friday when the net big movie, sport event, or parade comes along.
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...
In a major rebuke to President Barack Obama, the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States and denied the administration the millions it sought to close the prison. The 90-6 Senate vote—paired with similar House action last week—was a clear sign to Obama that he faces a tough fight getting the Democratic-controlled Congress to agree with his plans to shut down the detention center and move the 240 detainees.
That's from 2009, but it's been an ongoing problem with defense funding bills since then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guant%C3%A1namo_Bay_detention_...
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?
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.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/20121014102...
Our ROE says not to shoot unarmed kids. So, the enemy puts suicide vests on kids and sends them at us.
Our ROE says not to shoot people who aren't carrying a weapon. So, they shoot at us, drop their weapon, and walk to the next building to do it again.
Our ROE says not to blow up a house if there are civilians inside. So they take a family hostage and shoot at us from upstairs.
My attitude is that we use these rules as a courtesy. We didn't bomb hospitals in WW2 because those hospitals weren't being used as shelter for soldiers. We didn't bomb orphanages because they didn't have IED factories in their basements. Today's enemy does that, and then people get butthurt when we blow up the orphanage. Well, stop putting bomb factories under there!
Laws of war only apply when both sides agree to abide by them.
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%...)
"The United States remained the world's largest bilateral donor, obligating approximately $49.6 billion—$31.7 billion in economic assistance and $17.9 billion in military assistance. By comparison, the United States obligated $37.4 billion and $14.5 billion, respectively, in FY2010."
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.
But your general point is a good one: Is someone who joins a not-very-nice local militia really a terrorist just because US troops or lackeys happen to be nearby? The US gov't is playing too many words games IMO.
- 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?
It would also be a secret worth keeping (from your enemies) that Gitmo was working to that extent.
There is no real good and bad anymore. Doing good and stopping bad is not what drives folks in DC.
I was once like this. I thought people in DC were, by and large, doing things for the right reasons, and they mostly just had better info than I did.
After living in DC for 13 years, and being privy to a lot of the inner workings of some of this stuff, I no longer believe that. I've seen how too much sausage is made. I believe what you think would have been true once, but simply isn't anymore.
That isn't to say there aren't young, idealistic folks in government. There are plenty. There just aren't any old, idealistic folks in power anymore ;)
While I acknowledge that the population at large carries a spectrum of pathological traits, and perhaps DC tends to attract and keep those with certain types of pathologies, I still like to think that most people are trying to do the "right thing" but in situations that are enormously complex.
Back to my thought experiment: You are Obama. You truly believe that torture is horrible and wrong. Yet when you are briefed on our operations you learn that information obtained as allowed us to derail a few large scale terrorist attacks. Do you close it down? If you do and a bomb goes off at the World Series killing thousands, how would you feel?
Again, complex.
Kill all terrorists -> no more terrorist attacks
Torture all terrorists -> learn enough to prevent attacks.
Nuke entire country -> nobody left in that country to attack you
Detain everyone you ever find on a battlefield -> unable to get back to battlefield
Trying to apply some cost benefit to these mechanisms is certainly complex, as you say, but that actually makes it worse here:
None of these complex cost-benefit tradeoffs are at all changed by Gitmo being there. There is no material difference in these tradeoffs between a prisoner in Gitmo and a prisoner in the US other than the legal rights being afforded the prisoner.
Instead, they try to say "well, they are in gitmo for a reason". This is actually completely irrelevant to preventing the next terrorist attack. Either you need to torture them/deprive them/render them/whatever or you don't. The fact that they are in Gitmo does not change this.
The only thing closing down Gitmo or not closing down Gitmo does is allow certain folks to try to play fast and loose with the legal and political realities around us having a constitution and being a nation of laws.
As an example: We find a guy. He may or may not have been complicit in terrorism (he was a driver for a bad person). He may know the location/time of the next terrorist attack.
Torturing him (or not), detaining him forever (or not) certainly presents complex tradeoffs. None of these tradeoffs change whether I put him in Gitmo or not.
The only thing putting him in Gitmo does is:
1. Often make us feel better
2. Allow you to try to deny him what would otherwise be various rights he would have if kept in the US
3. Keep him out of sight and out of mind, and enable you to more strongly control the public narrative about the guy.
As you can see, none of these are related to the complex tradeoffs involved in deciding what to do with them, only the legalities of those tradeoffs, and ability to convince the public of those tradeoffs. We should not play fast and loose with these legalities, we should be straightforward and clear, and accept the consequences.
So, if the argument is "well, if we close Gitmo, to get the same effect we'd have to make torture/deprivation/indefinite detention legal in some cases in the US" (which is what you seem to be saying), we've already got a problem, and it's not related to closing down Gitmo or not.
If we want to declare torture and indefinite detention is okay in certain cases, that should be a national discussion we have, because, as you said, it involves complex tradeoffs.
Right now, with Gitmo open, it enables a lot of folks to ignore having this national discussion, and thinking hard about which tradeoffs they are willing to accept.
This, of course, is why Gitmo is still open. It's the only available compromise position between the two currently extreme sides around what it is okay to do to in the situations you posit that doesn't involve either of them really losing.
almost anything can be prevented ... long as you involve enough people
I want to point out that I only mean prevention by obtaining actionable information, not the idea that by keeping a guy off of the street we keep that particular guy from doing something awful again.
Also, under your numbered list of The only thing putting him in Gitmo does you left off one that I think is important. You are actually telling the world that we won't play fair with terrorists. (This is also, I think, the point that a lot of people are debating: that, in fact, we should play fair and take some sort of moral high ground.) We're telling the players that we can be quite nasty too.
And I completely agree with you that having Gitmo open "enables a lot of folks to ignore having this national discussion" and this could be exactly why we do it. Also, the idea that if we do get the terrorist threat to a manageable place we can close it down and "wash our hands" of it without having changed our stance in an official way.
But mostly I wanted to say that I pretty much agree with closing Gitmo. The idea authority without oversight is dangerous. But, in all honesty, if I knew it was working, I'm not sure I could be the guy to close it either. But that would be the only reason to consider keeping it open, and I have no information either way.
If the US president can close Guantanamo over the objections of sabre rattling congressmen who keep doing local town halls where they tell their constituents "we lock the bad guys up forever", then it makes clear to those local folks that their congressman are actually pretty impotent.
There are plenty of "he wanted to close Guantanamo bay and let terrorists go, like Obama" commercials that aired during the election.
As the parent said, doing this to congressman, be they republican or blue dog democrat, would make him completely and totally ineffective in getting bills passed.
There is usually a broad difference between the posturing you hear about on TV, and the actual way they act in closed door meetings. In one case, they have to appear that way to keep their constituents happy. By and large, congressmen are not stupid (or at least, not egregiously so), they are just good at acting.
If you do something that is going to seriously threaten their apparent power position, however, it will no longer be acting.
That seems to imply that these same congressmen wouldn't be able to spin a 'US justice leads the world' story out of bringing terrorists to a fair trial? Maybe, but I'm still a little skeptical. Remember: some of these are the guys who convinced half the country that Iraq was behind 911. I think they would have no problem taking credit for solving a problem of injustice at long last, further "demonstrating that there is a real difference between us and the terrorists." And maybe blaming Obama for Gitmo being there in the first place.
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.
A document that might indicate who rights were considered to be held by is the Declaration of Independence, but it says "all men", which I would take to mean every human. Obviously not all the signers viewed it that way, given that slavery was still permitted. Since the US didn't exist at the time when these rights were already viewed as being operative, though, I think we can safely exclude that they were intended to apply only to US citizens.
Edit: spelling.
Your comment about the U.S. not existing shows a misunderstanding of the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution is essentially a contract outlining the delegation of powers to the federal government from the sovereign state governments. The rights therein were viewed as already operative, but not because they were viewed as rights intrinsic to humanity, but because they were rights already enjoyed by citizens of the several states. When the Constitution talks about "people" it is not talking about "people in general." It is talking about "the people"--the body politic of the several states which combined to form the union. Those are the people who have rights under the Constitution.
No disagreement there; I only brought it up as something that "might indicate" what the framers were thinking when they failed to grant any rights in the Constitution.
On the rest, I'm no constitutional scholar; you may well be right on how this was viewed then.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
But by that point my account had been super-ultra-hellbanned. I couldn't even post. It wasn't until another user's complaint about being hellbanned made the front page that my primary account was promoted to merely being dead.
The point is: people use throwaway accounts because the HN community has demonstrated that it is simply not safe to use your primary account to say something controversial unless you have tens of thousands of karma.
Making anonymous statements is essential in some situations, but in my personal opinion, I find it completely unnecessary in this particular one. If they had just gone with paragraph 1 and 3, then it'd be a perfectly fine comment. Instead it has a decidedly different feel and attitude which is then 'shielded' via a throwaway.
If you didn't use a throwaway, I'm sure you'd also do a much better job at making your comment a little more eloquent instead of just aggressive and angry.
Posting with a throwaway shows me that you probably don't even 100% believe what you just said.
There was a perfectly fine point buried in his original comment, and I personally believe if he had posted with their own account, then they would have taken the time to proof-read and remove the unnecessary emotion and ire from the comment.
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.