The suspected terrorist went to a federal pen?
by: Divorced one like Bush
So, we can’t bring the Gitmo crowd here because they are dangerous and would create an inviting situation for further terrorism, but we can take the suspected Northwest Airline man to a federal pen just outside of Detroit? A suspected terrorist, in a federal pen?
What? Does the government really think that we don’t need the auto industry now so – so what if Detroit get’s all blown up? How could they do this to Detroit, risking all our money after helping GM and Chrysler?
Hope everyone remembers this when the super patriots come screaming again about how dangerous it is to close Gitmo and bring them to a federal pen. At this point in the game, one is suppose to call Bull S#$t.
You might as well give up trying to be sensible about “terror”. As long as the US is glued to Israel and obedient it will be fighting a war vs Islam. And yes, very like Spain waged war all during the reign of Philip II and that of his successors against the Protestant heresy. And see what the result of that turned out to be.
PS Only fools and nations led by fools try to stamp out a religion by military means. Oh but that is far, far too difficult for most people to understand. They think you can shoot everything dead, even religions.
Another “heretical” thought: If the US ever gave up (wised up I would say) and stopped fighting Israel’s wars for it, where would Israel be? There are about 6 million Zionists in Israel. There are over a billion Muslims in the world, although not all of them are around Israel. How long do you think Israel could survive? I am unable to guess.
If you are saying that Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) are disingenuous with their “it’s too dangerous” argument then I agree with you. Most of the GOP never wanted to close Gitmo because they do not want to treat terrorists the same as common criminals. The Democrats, on the other hand, are just (hypocritically) covering their butts with their NIMBY constituents. Neither group wants Gitmo prisoners placed in Federal Prisons, but at the same time neither group really believes that doing so would put the US at great risk. If anything, you can at least say the GOP is being consistent with their position; the Dems have just flip flopped for political reasons.
If you are also arguing that it makes sense to handle terrorists as conventional criminals then I have to disagree.
Of course if we weren’t fighting Israel’s wars for it we wouldn’t have the “terrorist” problem. But most Americans are too duped or dumb to figure that out.
Here is how the US treats Israel: a tsk tsk or tiny slap on the wrist at most:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1238875/Israeli-plans-build-700-apartments-disputed-east-Jerusalem-spark-U-S-criticism.html
All settlements are illegal of course. But the US doesn’t really mind. Does it?
This is just one minor little “gift” Israel gives us for being its hitman in the Middle East:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1238802/The-boy-grew-bomber-Flight-chaos-investigators-check-London-links.html
Not to mention of course the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the trillions they will add to our debt burden, not the many thousands of young Americans killed and crippled in these wars. So many nice gifts from Israel.
Who says the US is trying to “stamp out a religion”?
Al Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11. Islamic terrorists are scheming to attack the US right now. Radical Islamists want to create a new caliphate and take the muslim world back to the 14th century. None of this has much to do with Israel except that this is the excuse (yes, excuse) that Jihadis use to justify mass murder (which as it happens is primarily the murder of their fellow muslims).
The US is not an expansionist Imperial Theocracy, so your comparison to the Spanish Empire makes no sense. (It might if you were making a claim about the unsustainability of our fiscal situation…)
Finally, your apparent obsession with Israel mearly marks you as an ignorant biggot. The US involvement in the middle east, including Israel, has much more to do with ensuring a stable supply of oil, which just happens to power the entire global economy and is necessary to the survival of billions of human beings, most of whom are poor and live in third wolrd countries. Perhaps one day in our lifetimes this will not be true, but right now it is.
If there were no oil in the middle east the US support for Israel would be about the same as it is for the Africans in Darfur, i.e., our leaders would pander to us and blather on about “the need to do something” and then they would go back to their offices and hide behind their doors while they reviewed the results of the latest focus group surveys and poll results.
No doubt this is Israel’s fault too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/mar/03/afghanistan.lukeharding
The Jihadis are deranged. Your preoccupation with Israel is misguided.
Your point about the budget deficit is well taken, but sadly the cost of these “overseas contingency opperations” is now just a minor contributor to the impending bankruptsy of the US.
When you tell the truth about Israel you get all sorts of angry ignorance displayed. Most Americans have so little knowledge of Middle East history, including the creation of Israel and the US’s relations with the Muslim world that getting them up to speed would take a year of instruction. They never comprehend that we had no problems with the Muslim world before Israel came into the picture, nor what Saddam Hussein’s goals were, nor the control Israel exercises over our policies. A good starting point would be the largely ignored book by Mearsheimer and Walt on the Israel Lobby and the works of the Jewish historian, Norman Finkelstein. But so much reading would tire their brains so they never bother. Too bad.
Since Israel has dominated our foreign policy for years, has been the root cause of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I fail to see how this is just a silly “obsession”. Nor how it is bigotry. Of course if you tell the truth about Israel you are branded an “anti-Semite” as a matter of course and told to shut up. Oil is NOT why we are in the Middle East as Mearsheimer and Walt explain. We can get all the oil we need without going to war for it, just as the Chinese do without going to war for it. Such stupidity is amazing.
PS You know nothing of Imperial Spain nor do you understand that the US is the premier world imperial power. Quite a few others DO understand that, however. Chalmers Johnson, for instance. Calling Spain an “Imperial Theocracy” is silly. However the US war vs Islam bears many resemblances to Spain’s war on Protestantism. Americans seems not to understand that how our VICTIMS perceive what we do is the crucial thing; not how WE perceive (in our self delusion) what we do. What the Nazi’s did to the Jews should be seen from the Jewish viewpoint, not the Nazi.
People need to acquaint themselves with Dr. Finkelstein and his opera if they want to understand Israel, etc., etc. And realize that he is the bete noir of the Israel Lobby that hounded him out of his job in Chicago and pursues him with an unrelenting venom. Why? He tells the truth and worse even is a JEW himself, son of victims of the Holocaust. Wicked wicked man.
Forgot the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein
Sorry to post so much but there is so much to say. One of the funnies is that Mearsheimer and Walt’s book is called “amateurish” by some Zionist critics. That takes on its humor when you know that one is a chaired full professor at Harvard and the other likewise at the University of Chicago. Rank amateurs both, evidently. LOL
You are correct that I was sloppy and incorrect in calling Philip II’s Spain a “Imperial Theocracy”, which is was not.
And I DO understand that there are some similarities between Spain’s wars in Europe with the current predicament of the US, and that many perceive the US to be an expansionist imperial power.
I fail to see, however, why (a) you are so angry and (b) everyone else must be stupid or a dupe. I did call you a bigot, which is my fault, but I am not reflexively pulling the PC card (i.e., end conversation with accusation of “racist” / “sexist” / “anti-semite” / etc.). It is just that all your posts come back to Israel…every time. To me this indicates (a) a clear preoccupation on your part and (b) some bias.
So far you have not defended your claim that the US is trying to “stamp out a religion” with military force, nor have you provided an explanation in your own words why oil is not a critical aspect of our in invovlement in the Middle East.
Refering to some professors’ opinions does not count. Even if they work at Harvard.
Divorced one like Bush,
They did Richard Reed (the shoe bomber) in Cambridge and no one has blown us up so far.
Angry ignorance indeed.
What I can tell you is that my little brain is VERY tired of this pointless conversation
Since you know everything (from your extensive reading, clearly) and you are not angry, then why bother posting here at all?
It clearly is not for discussion but just to whine, presumably to a freindly audience.
Why not just go to the University Student Center or the local coffee shop instead?
One of our better comics has a joke about himself and his little boy.
One day his little boy asked him, “Daddy, why are your shirts lighter at the top and darker at the bottom?”
“Well, it’s because the lighter colour makes my shoulders look wider, and the dark colour makes my belly look smaller.”
The boy looked critically at his father and then said, “Daddy. It’s not a magic shirt.”
Nor are these magic prisoners. This fear of the Gitmo prisoners is sheer magical thinking. There are people in US federal prisons who would scare senseless the worst of the Gitmo prisoners. Heck, there are people on American streets who could do it.
Besides, if these guys were really magical, would they still be cooped up at Guantanamo? No no, they would have teleported to New York by now.
Noni
One of our better comics has a joke about himself and his little boy.
One day his little boy asked him, “Daddy, why are your shirts lighter at the top and darker at the bottom?”
“Well, it’s because the lighter colour makes my shoulders look wider, and the dark colour makes my belly look smaller.”
The boy looked critically at his father and then said, “Daddy. It’s not a magic shirt.”
Nor are these magic prisoners. This fear of the Gitmo prisoners is sheer magical thinking. There are people in US federal prisons who would scare senseless the worst of the Gitmo prisoners. Heck, there are people on American streets who could do it.
Besides, if these guys were really magical, would they still be cooped up at Guantanamo? No no, they would have teleported to New York by now.
Noni
Respectfully, I think you are missing the point of the political “debate” about these prisoners.
I don’t think anyone really believes they are too dangerous to hold in Federal Prison; that is just a focus-group tested excuse for a political position that is advantageous to the holders of that position for different reasons. (GOP for some reasons, Dems for others)
To take the argument at face value is to let the politicians get away with treating us like we are stupid (and I am not insinuating anything here by the way).
The real debate is this one: do we treat terrorists like traditional criminals, or do we treat them differently?
There are arguments for both sides, but the whole “too dangerous for Prison” is not one of them. In fact, it is specifically a way to AVOID talking about the real issues.
Guest you should know that while Angry Bear allows a lot of give and take, ‘Guest’ is not in fact an acceptable screen name (Yes we know it is the default). This rule is not rigorously enforced but will be if it is accompanied by such ad hom’s as “ignorant bigot”.
Choose a screen name or dial back your language, preferably both.
Fair warning.
Noni no one in the Bush Administration or the Republican Party was ever scared that the Gitmo prisoners would escape or be rescued. Instead they needed a larger version of CIA black prisons and picked one of the few places they could say was not under the jurisdiction of either the ‘host’ nation’s law or U.S. law or the law of the country where they were captured. To which they added a legal opinion that such combatants were not protected by the Geneva Conventions. In Gitmo the law was whatever the President said it was guided only by whatever legal counsel he choose to take, which counsel was itself sheltered by extreme claims of executive privilege.
The Bushies and the Republicans simply didn’t and don’t believe that suspected terrorists have any due process rights at all whether or not those suspicions have any basis in fact. If you get sold by tribal rivals to the CIA you are fair game to have whatever information you might have extracted even if it has nothing to do with your purported crime. As long as you are a detainee at Gitmo you are a non-person. Gitmo detainees are in practical terms slaves of the US government.
Slavery is illegal in the United States and so once those detainees are moved to America they become actual people again subject to the laws of the United States. Current Republicans don’t want that, there operating pricinple throughout these wars has been “Kill them all and let God sort them out”, hence their total indifference to collateral damage from night bombings on Afghan villages.
This has been clear from the very beginning, there was no way that pilots could have reliable intelligence of who was in any given house at any given moment, those designating the targets could not possibly be close enough to know that, instead they showed they just didn’t care. Bomb an Afghan wedding party and despite irrefutable photo evidence that it happened simply deny it outright. Bomb Canadians carrying out a planned firing operation in a designated training area. No problem. Shoot up a car carrying a rescued French hostage killing the agent who freed her? No problem (in fact you might get bonus points for bagging the Frenchman).
The PNAC Vulcans who staffed all important foreign policy posts in the Bush Administration took American Exceptionalism to new heights, acts designed to transform the world into the New American Century were by definition outside the rule of any law except that determined by the Arbitrary Executive.
None of that was driven by fear, all of it was driven by the Will to Power. Nietzsche would be proud to see his teachings being taken up by a new generation.
No the real debate is whether someone is in fact a “terrorist” based solely on the fact they were picked up near a battlefield and delivered to military or CIA custody by persons whose motives are unknown.
The United States arbitrarily decided that all its agents and proxies were equipped with magical Terrorist-Dar that works just like Gay-Dar, they just know. And even if they are shown to be wrong it serves to spread fear among the actual terrorists just as some random Gay bashing of some guy that turns out to be straight sends a useful lesson to teh Gays.
It is the Ledeen Doctrine extended:
“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
– Michael Ledeen, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute”
You just need to replace “little country” with “brown skinned wog”, the dynamic doesn’t change. “You are a terrorist because I say so”.
We’ve had one successful terrorist attack on US soil under GW Bush and three (3) in the first year under Obama. Two of them were successful and deadly. The third we were just lucky it wasn’t deadly.
And, you folks want to talk about the need for Gitmo or Fed prisons? Why not discuss the difference in policies that are making us appear weaker and thusly easier targets? Oh, sorry, I guess we may have just been doing that.
I think the work of foreign policy experts at U of Chicago and Harvard are worthy of respect and indeed and I fail to see why their work doesn’t “count.” The “terrorists” believe that the US is trying to stamp out their religion and it is their opinions that do matter since it is their beliefs we have to confront. I also suspect that, as I said, what we are trying to do is better understood by our victims than by us the perpetrators. My posts often (not always) center on Israel since I think our connection to it is the root cause of most of our difficulities in world affairs. Mearsheimer and Walt give the reasons why oil is not the cause of our involvement in the Middle East. I suggest you read it. In sum they point out that if we have wanted more oil from the Middle East we would have financed more exploration by the Saddam Regime, not crushed it and stopped production completely. You also ignore my point that other nations that are dependent on Middle East oil don’t seem to think it necessary to go to war for it and most don’t approve of our wars in the region. I think you need to do a lot more reading about Israel, its history and the Muslim world from which it has stolen its land, before you go on.
Why are you posting here? I presume we both have opinions to air. I have very definite opinions re Israel. This is a good venue in which to air them, I think. I know they will upset people. But opinions should come from knowledge. I don’t know everything by any means, but I do think I know more about the Middle East than most Americans and also can view things from a Muslim perspective. If you can’t see things from the other side’s point of view you often stumble in constant error.
Yes Gitmo was put in Cuba so we would be free to use torture, etc., on the prisoners. Just as we delivered other Muslims to be tortured by other nations for us. One of the darkest, most evil and murky affairs to ruin out reputation for justice and fairness. None of this has really been aired out, or investigated. Even the Obama administration has prohibited lots of documents and pictures about it to be made public. It is not dissimilar to things done in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany as well as other places on earth where evil is at work.
Of course from the Muslim viewpoint the terrorists are freedom fighters against US and UK neo colonialism. Terror is the word the US and the West uses to conceal the fact that what we are at war with is Muslim Liberation. Because the Muslims don’t have the military forces we do, they do what guerilla warriors always do, use “terror” tactics. But it isn’t terror that is our enemy. it is Muslim Liberationists.
I don’t think we are viewed as “weak” but rather overwhelmingly strong. That however is no obstacle to those who fight for a cause and their beliefs. That is why so many of them are willing to give up their lives to attack us. That is the ultimate commitment that we can’t really understand in our smug and comfortable lives as would be rulers of the world. And as the article in the Daily Mail to which I linked said, there are many many more willing to keep up the attacks as long as necessary. That kind of unending commitment is also something we don’t get. It defeated us in Vietnam.
Again, sorry for posting so much. This I hope will be my last. But since we are discussing American understanding of the Middle East and the Muslim world I thought it would be useful to offer my hypothesis re what Saddam Hussein was thinking when he invaded Kuwait. One must understand that uniting all the speakers of one language into one nation is often the goal of visionary politicians. The prime easy example is Bismark’s uniting all or almost all German speakers into modern Germany that was really an expanded Prussia. Saddam was, I believe, trying to be the Bismark for the Arab world. He hoped to start a process by which Iraq would expand and incorporate all the adjacent Arab speaking countries. This was never ever mentioned in the US media. But Israel understood what was up and got Bush senior convinced it had to be stopped. Israel feared a untied Arab world just as Margaret Thatcher tried, quite hopelessly, to prevent German reunification for fear a united Germany would be too powerful for the UK to bear.
Detroit is used to dealing with crazy killers, most are home grown though.
Margery, it will not matter. The narcissists and sociopaths that are at war with the U.S would do so regardless of our policy towards Israel. Also, why not be allies with Israel? Many of their citizens are also U.S citizens.
Margery said, “What the Nazi’s did to the Jews should be seen from the Jewish viewpoint, not the Nazi.” I agee with you, even though that was not your point. I do not care why the sociopath kills; they do it because they can!! They will because they can!! Now, I believe that we should not be beholden to Israel, but that is clearly not why we went to war in Afghanistan. Revenge better sums up why we invaded Afghanistan if you want a simplistic reason.
My question is simple, since putting in all this money and time to make Gitmo essentially a supermax prison, why close it? The prisoners have access to the Redcross/Redcressant they have no access to normal prisoners to which to radicalise and it is on an island. It is cheaper to keep it on an existing military installation rather than retrofitting a preexisting prison and they are now treated pretty well.
Haredi are deranged.
Do you have any better proof of your assertion than I do of mine?
Too many settlers are believers in Greater Israel and would wipe non Jewish inhabitants off the map. Where is the moral difference between Jewish eliminatiinism and that of Mr I’m A Dinner Jacket? Between the latter and Kahane? Or Goldstein? Or Amir?
“…Bruce Webb : “Noni no one in the Bush Administration or the Republican Party was ever scared that the Gitmo prisoners would escape or be rescued”
Quite right, I should have made it more clear — this is being sold by encouraging magical thinking. The evasion of the law by confusing different domains, that’s the real reason, as you say.
MM, in what mosque do you worship? Once we can research that, ethn maybe we can determine how much of your rant(s) is feeing, how much is from one-sided teachings, and how much maybe from real historical evidence. The evidence has bee really short on presentation in your writings. They are overwhelmingly emotional and press articles. The press is at the very least questionable as a source of anything but a need to sell papers.
So help us here if you are trying to educate us.
MM, in what mosque do you worship? Once we know that we can research whether it is a radical or moderate source of info. Then maybe we can determine how much of your rant(s) is feeling, how much is from one-sided teachings, and how much maybe from real historical evidence. The evidence has been really short on presentation in your writings. They are overwhelmingly made up of emotion and press articles. The press is at the very least questionable as a source of anything but a need to sell papers.
So help us here if you are trying to educate us.
The issue boils down to a question of policy. Are we figthing a criminal act? Or, are we fighting a war? We try criminals and we hold prisoners of war till the end of the war.
Looking just above we have MM, obviously a Muslim, giving the Muslim answer: “Of course from the Muslim viewpoint the terrorists are freedom fighters against US and UK neo colonialism. Terror is the word the US and the West uses to conceal the fact that what we are at war with is Muslim Liberation. Because the Muslims don’t have the military forces we do, they do what guerilla warriors always do, use “terror” tactics. But it isn’t terror that is our enemy. it is Muslim Liberationists.“
Earlier I made the case that we have had three attacks under the Obama administration which is fighting a set of criminal actions, versus none since 9/11 under the GWB approach of fighting a war on their own territory. If Muslims think they are fighting a war, why do we not?
One approach has already proven to be superior in terms of those killed in our own country. You may use other measurements, but at least have the honor to explain it to the families already hurt and hurting from incidents on our soil.
I cannot resist posting this link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091229/ap_on_re_af/af_airliner_attack_internet_postings
that is a perfect example of how the US media attempts to shield Americans from understanding the ideological commitment of the “terrorists”. It is all because they are “lonely” or “deranged” or something that a good psychologist could cure. Very comforting lies for the public.
This guy was a known radical muslim/jihadist. He should have been screened a bit more carefully than the average passenger. More profiling please!
You know, if George Washington had been able to go to a good New York shrink he could have adjusted to living in the British Empire and the rest of the American “terrorists”. Hitler would not have gone to war if he had also been treated by a good Manhattan shrink or by Freud, in his case. So sad that these crazies didn’t have the benefits of modern US medicine.
CoRev that is a bullshit cheap shot along the lines of claiming that anyone opposing Bush’s policies on Iraq in 2003 was objectively pro-Osama and had forgotten 9/11. Assuming the worst possible motive and demanding your opponent refute thar is a totally dishonest and frankly despicable move to be rhetorical prosecutor, judge and executioner.
For example I could demand what school of wife beating you attended so that we could evaluate your answer to “When did you stop beating your wife”
Make a case, because pulling the anti-semitism card is a cop-out in the same way the BDS card was.
Gitmo is a symbol of American contempt of internatioanal law and our obligation to observe treaty obligations and our responsibilities under the UN Charter.
Christ even before they firmed Gitmo into a prison it’s very existence was an affront to international law, any body seen a Status of Forces Agreementthat allow it to stay on Cuban soil?
Bruce, why all the anger? Many of MM’s comments have been references to MSM articles and opinion. It is a valid request to determine her/his basis for the opinion. I usually discount nearly all MSM articles as they are written to sell papers, not necessarily to tell the truth.
CoRev we are not at war. The GWOT is a metaphor akin to the War on Drugs. After 9/11 Congress authorized the President to go after thos who attacked us, within a year that President professed he was “truly not that concerned about” the chief architect of that attack and instead insisted he had authority to attack a concept. Congress never declared War on Terror nor is it clear they had the power to declare war on a non-state actor.
Bush took a metaphor and insisted that it meant he had unlimited powers subsequent to Article II Sec II to which his followers simply followed without question.
After all the Constitution is just a God Damn piece of paper, and not something you swear to uphold and defend
Bruce,
What is the controlling authority for international law and who is supposed to enforce it? There is not world police force or army. So what the hell is this?
SOF with Cuba re: Gitmo? Not likely. We lease this space in perpetuity (IIRC).
Ah yes, here are the soldiers who are going to take over our war on the Taliban. They are so eager to please us.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6907290/Afghanistan-soldier-shoots-dead-US-serviceman.html