President Obama is in a no-win situation and is going to pay a high price for any solution he comes up with.
Although I have opposed the use to which the facilities at Guantanamo are being put for years, the plans which the Obama administration is developing to deal with the remaining terrorists held there present problems which they seem not to have considered and which may be unresolvable.…
Article comments
76 - roger nowosielski
It is a two-way street, aint' it?
77 - roger nowosielski
What philosophy are you referring to? I don't think she supports the 1917 revolution or any of it's hybrids.
The anarchism movement has been, relatively speaking, benign and local. It didn't cost many lives (except at the hands of few individuals - the assassination of the Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the bombing of the Science Institute in London (the subject of Joseph Conrad's book, "The Secret Agent," few other incidences perhaps.) The loss of life has come mainly from attempts to suppress it.
78 - roger nowosielski
"The same people that routinely distort the Constitution are the same people insisting that the Geneva Convention applies to terrorists. It doesn't."
Archie. I'll tell you what's the problem with this statement. Years ago it might have been valid. No longer. We've lost our moral superiority and, along with it, our right to judge all those who trespass against us. We're no longer the judge, the jury and the executioner.
Besides, if there is a trespass, it's against humanity. And America has long lost its once (some might argue) privileged position to speak on behalf of humanity.
Let the world and the international community render the judgment. The Hague should be the proper venue.
79 - Cindy
Dave,
Bush and Rumsfeld stated clearly and with absolute 'stare-you-in-the-eyes' conviction in 2002 that Guantanamo only holds the worst of the worst.
Therefore they must be so. Otherwise we might suspect that this was some understood ploy to get Americans to go along with a lie, by wrapping it up in a flag. The sort of lie we are conditioned to accept--like the ones in advertisements. We might think they only said 800+ human beings were the 'worst of the worst' so that American's would be afraid and proud and would not have to bother being concerned with the deprivation of the rights of these alien creatures or whether they were tortured--as coincidentally these things were in the plans.
No going back now Dave. Now that we don't need the lie we can't just all develop ADD and forget it.
I'd disagree with your pronouncement Dave but I know you're not talking about anarchism. You're just trying to call me a communist again.
...someone who claims allegiance to [both] a philosophy [and a government] which has historically been responsible for more terrorism than any other.
So, there you go Dave, now that pronouncement works with you in mind.
80 - M a rk
(I was wondering how long our editors would wait before putting this article 'above the fold'. The pattern continues.)
81 - Jeannie Danna
Cindy, Well said (The best way to prevent terrorism is to stop engaging in it.)
I watched some of our fear-mongering news while my computer scanned. Glad it's over!
Remember no one will be whining about money today because North Korea is TESTING! You know how much we spend on testing? I don't but I bet we could do a little domestic spending...around here
82 - Dave Nalle
The US hasn't done a live test of a nuclear weapon in 13 years, so we spend exactly 0 on nuclear testing.
Dave
83 - M ark
Sophistry
84 - Jeannie Danna
Dave, Show me a link that says that please...and we certainly spend bundles on our own nuclear defense system don't we?
85 - Jeannie Danna
Dave, What is liberty in the GOP? Does it mean the GOP is free to do what ever they want but no one else is? I'm not trying to be facetious I am just curious?
86 - Dave Nalle
Look up the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1996 on Google or Wikipedia. And a defense system against nukes is not the same as nukes themselves -- quite the opposite, really.
Dave, What is liberty in the GOP? Does it mean the GOP is free to do what ever they want but no one else is?
That wouldn't be terribly popular. It means that our goal is to make the GOP into a party which champions individual and civil liberties as one of its main agenda items, along with smaller, more responsible government. You can think of us as Goldwater-Teddy Roosevelt-Lincoln Republicans.
Dave
87 - Cindy
Campaign funding by weapons systems manufacturers has switched to favor Democrats. Coincidentally, Democrats have increased the pentagon budget 10% and have fought to keep up this increased funding of the military-industrial complex by arguing to continue purchases of sophisticated and expensive weaponry (like aircraft) that has been declared by the masters of war to be unsuitable for current use.
No one is innocent. No one is looking out for citizens. No one is fighting for big causes or real changes. It's a big country club of cronies--liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican.
88 - Jeannie Danna
Dave, We are in a much larger population now, You do not really believe Government should go back to the 1800's do you? Really Dave? Lincoln Republicans....
89 - Dan(Miller)
Dave, a very good and insightful article. However, you did miss at least two viable alternatives:
This article may, inadvertently, offer the basis for one solution. Bring the Gitmo detainees to the United States and put them on the Federal bench. I seem to recall that even a position on the Supreme Court is likely to open soon, and there would be no Constitutional ground for rejecting any (or, indeed, all) of them. With their ample practical experience and doubtless great empathy toward the poor, oppressed and violent, they obviously should be considered. Surely, exposure to the Washington social scene would induce even the true cream of the crap to abandon some of their allegedly wicked ways, and perhaps they could enlighten us all on the fine points of due process and justice, from an appropriately empathetic perspective.
Either that or offer them to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in exchange for . . . . . well, in exchange for just taking them off our hands.
Dan(Miller)
90 - M ar k
A very funny satirical comment Parenthetical Dan. I thought this was a particular crack-up: Dave, a very good and insightful article.
91 - Jeannie Danna
#89, ISH..
92 - Cindy
We are in a much larger population now, You do not really believe Government should go back to the 1800's do you..
I think Dave just might and if he does I'd have to disagree with him. I think gov't should go back to being what it was in the US circa the 15th century.
Warning, this is a trick question:
In what year was America discovered?
93 - Dan(Miller)
Cindy, since I have no first hand information leading me to know otherwise, it must have been discovered at the same time I was born, in 1941.
Dan(Miller)
94 - Bliffle
Dave notes:
"The US hasn't done a live test of a nuclear weapon in 13 years, so we spend exactly 0 on nuclear testing."
True. But we have been doing accurate simulations of test shots with a huge bank of supercomputers. They are quite expensive. But the value of those simulation results and the code that develops them is a tremendous national military asset. In fact, it allows us to be waaayyy ahead of anyone else, especially when we can browbeat them into not testing. This is a very valuable negotiating advantage. IMO it is well worth the expense.
95 - Cindy
Jeannie, I have to admit it was Noam Chomsky (the quote). You might like him, if you've never read/seen him. (Shut up Dave :-)
(I just want to make sure you saw my message to you at #38 --because the rest of my messages weren't quite as mushy...I'd hate to leave such an overall an unmushy impression.)
96 - Irene Wagner
Neither would I Jeannie, though I haven't written any mushy comment to you, because our first encounter was...nevermind. Consider yourself mushily welcomed to BC by me, too, a little belatedly.
97 - Dave Nalle
Cindy, like a lot of people who are driven by their agenda rather than objectivity, you seem to have trouble telling the difference between an opinion which may have since proven to be incorrect and a deliberate lie.
No going back now Dave. Now that we don't need the lie we can't just all develop ADD and forget it.
You don't make the rules, Cindy. We have the freedom to adjust our viewpoints and not get stuck in some sort of ideological prison. It's about using the rational faculties you were born with. Get out of the rut and start thinking about things.
I'd disagree with your pronouncement Dave but I know you're not talking about anarchism. You're just trying to call me a communist again.
Not really. Communist ties to terrorism are mostly relatively recent. Anarchism has a much longer and more substantial history of terror as a core element of their program.
Dave
98 - Dave Nalle
Dave, We are in a much larger population now, You do not really believe Government should go back to the 1800's do you? Really Dave? Lincoln Republicans....
Sure, why not. Basic principles remain the same. Strip away the garbage of the last two centuries and let's focus on basic rights and liberties and simple, functional government. We could do it. We're strong enough.
Dave
99 - Cannonshop
Jeannie, something of a point of order issue here-the portion of the Geneva Conventions protecting irregulars and non-uniformed combatants that was passed in the seventies, was never ratified into U.S. Law by the Senate (who oversee all treaties binding to the United States).
Under the version that IS applicable to the U.S. by treaty obligation and law, those prisoners at GITMO have ZERO rights, as they are non-uniformed combatants and under U.S. military regs, fall under a different, harsher definition than the Amnesty International folks want to even imagine.
Non-Uniformed Combatants under the applicable regs are already under a death-sentence, and have no protections under the statutes that apply to the United States.
The only reason there's ANY argument in government circles about the 'rights' of these prisoners, is that there are Judges in American courts who think the Senate was wrong-and minus serious challenges placed in front of higher courts, they can legislate from the bench to 'rectify' something they personally feel squeamish about-often without examining more than the allegations. International Law is established by Treaty, Treaties are ratified or not ratified by the Senate in this country. If the treaty isn't ratified (like Kyoto wasn't, and like the amended sections of the Geneva Conventions weren't), it Doesn't Apply no matter how popular it may be internationally.
Added to that, is the reluctance of nations-of-origin to accept many of these prisoners back. We can't turn them loose on U.S. soil (though it might be amusing to house them somewhere where they'll have lots of support-like Berkeley California or the Hamptons), we can't hold them indefinitely in the U.S., and we can't send them Home to face the courts in their nations of origin (and many of them, we can't afford the domestic political backlash if we did-many of the nations of origin for these guys openly employ methods that would make the typical Yank, Euro, or Aussie want to puke and hide their eyes. Not everyone is as humane as we are...)
The question Obama has to deal with is a very real one- "What do we do with them?"
If we try them under U.S. law, the odds of conviction are high, but not so high that you're not releasing them to...where? (I'd suggest Greewich Village, Berkeley, Santa Monica, Malibu, Hollywood, the Hamptons and other such places where they have many vocal supporters, but that's on account of I'm a bastard, and really don't want them shipping terrorists to the midwest, Southern, or Mountain states, and I don't think Michigan needs that much punishment...)
We also can't force their nations-of-origin to take them back if they don't want them. (maybe release them in Munich or Geneva? it's a thought...but you'd have to be able to force Germany or Switzerland to accept them across the border...)
Maybe we should turn them over to the Canadians or the English? They won't be noticed in England (much-that country's already shown a lack of backbone where Radical Islam is concerned), or France?
It's really kind of funny-the Regime that pushed for the amendment to Geneva the hardest in the seventies was the Soviet Union-a state that had no problem shooting dissidents who got too troublesome without a trial. (it was done so that they could protect insurgencies THEY were funding.) We can't be like the Soviets and just start executing them-well, we could, but it's an un-acceptable option even in the most Hawkish circles. We can't release 'em (we already have plentiful examples of how well "Rehabilitation" as practiced in the U.S. fails to work-and these guys are a lot more motivated than some drug-dealing street urchin), we can't execute them, and we can't afford to hold them (Politically un-acceptable in the U.S. and most Western countries), and we can't turn them over to states that refuse to take them back.
100 - Montanan
The prison at Hardin, Montana is not a "maximum security" facility. It is a minimum security jail. Most of its prisoners would be held in 8-24 bed dormitories. It would have a staff of low paid amateurs.
101 - Jeannie Danna
(We could do it. We're strong enough.)
cold
102 - Dave Nalle
Montanan, the plan for the prison appears to be to use $1 billion in federal money to upgrade it to be suitable to house the GITMO prisoners.
Dave
103 - roger nowosielski
You should change your pen name to Martin Eden. Why the hell not?
I love Jack London, and that novel in particular. I've seen an excellent movie rendition when still in Poland. He was much more popular in Eastern Europe than in the U.S.
104 - Cindy
Has anyone noticed that there seem to be comments missing everywhere today?
Dave, I have a reply to you. But it's at home half finished. In the meantime I'll just make growling noises to hold me over until I can post it.
Jeannie, Maybe we can give Mark some encouragement to write something. I'd really love to read something he wrote.
If you like Alfred Hitchcock movies, you can always read the work of Mark's 'Secret Sharer', John B.--right Irene? John B. isn't half the Mark Mark is though. Roger is busy creating a third one. Probably won't be a third the...haha...nevermind. I'm amusing myself.
105 - Jeannie Danna
Hi Cindy,
I just looked at the fresh comment widget or what ever you call it. I wish I had seen it a week ago!
Cindy I would like to read some of your writing also....:) Where?
106 - Cindy
Jeannie,
The fresh-comment widget is not nearly as good at the fresh-comments page.
My writing is under Tolstoy's Cat.
107 - Cindy
Just in case you didn't press the link for more comments yet. Anyway, I put a bookmark button on my browser for the fresh-comments page. It really makes life easier.
108 - Cindy
Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'
"Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged."