The Glade 4.0

As I see it, the argument is that these people are being denied due process (I'm not sure I agree that is the case), correct? People's human rights are being violated because it's inconvenient? This position is being defended, seriously?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I'm going to go with overly optimistic. He even said after becoming president that he was closing it in a year. So either he had too many yes men telling him what he wanted to hear, or wasn't listening well enough to realize his goals weren't realistic.

From my standpoint, as long as he is maintaining meaningful forward momentum on closing it down, then it's less critical exactly when it closes.

I'm not sure if you're directing that to me, but I'm certainly neither stating that position or defending it.

Specifically what meaningful forward progress is he making?

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure. This issue has dropped off my radar and I haven't kept up with it. The last I heard was that they were slowly working through getting the guys being held trials, and for those that they are ok releasing they were working to find them places to be released to. As far as I know that is still happening.

Aizle, you're defending Obama breaking a prominent campaign promise. It seems to me that you are using convenience (political convenience at that) as the reason it is being broken. If I am incorrect, please explain the basis of your defense of Obama's (and those in control of Congress) inability to make this happen.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

It's not convenience. As I understand it the prisoners there fall mostly into 3 main groups.

Those who need to be released
Those who need to be tried
Those who are validly being held

The ones needing to be released in some cases don't have anywhere to be released to. We don't want them in the US, and other countries have been unwilling to take them, including their own home countries. We are working on trying to find these people some place to go.

Those needing trials are having them as I understand, but there is a long back log and it takes time to process them. There are some concerns about housing these people in normal prisons, etc. which poses a problem with moving them from Gitmo.

Those being validly held still need to be held somewhere, and I understand that there are the same concerns with holding these prisoners at other facilities.

I don't think any of these are things that could somehow be solved instantly via fiat or just diverting funds/efforts.

Being black, and president.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

It's convenience. The order Obama made to send them to Thomson, Illinois was not funded by the Democrat controlled Congress. Whether these peoples' country of citizenship wants them or not has little to do with the fact that they should be sent there, or alternately, if they should be released because they are innocent, they can be given a one way plane ticket wherever they want to go. Those who are serving out their sentence can be shipped to a detention facility, along with those awaiting trial. There is no reason these things aren't being done except for political expediency i.e. so people can get re-elected.
It was politically convenient to rail against Gitmo when your man wasn't in office, but it's also politically convenient to quietly keep the prisoners there now that he is (note: the "your man" isn't directed specifically at you) in office.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

While I'm sure that some people are resisting the desires of the President due to political expediency, I don't believe the President is guilty of that.

Perhaps that is where we aren't seeing eye to eye. You seem to be laying the fact that other politicians are being political at Obama's feet and somehow blaming him for that. IMHO the only criticism is that Obama was overly optimistic that he would get buy in from other political entities that he needed in order to be successful.

Exactly. Like many of Obamas "promises" they were outside the scope of his authority, or made to appeal to popular sentiment. He played on the ignorance of his supporters, and never thought that he would actually be held to the promises. Politicians are slowly learning that the people are becoming better informed, or at least can call up the politicians statements with a few presses on a phone.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Aizle, if the President were truly convinced that these peoples' rights were being violated, the only things stopping him from acting on those convictions and ordering the military to release them are?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

C-130 + parachutes + Afghanistan overflight = Solved.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Why bother with the chutes? Just LAPES them out the back?

Edit:
I guess that still requires a parachute, eh? :p

Looks like it requires 3

hehe

Actually, I think a C-70 might be better.

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Holy shitsnacks!

The sames things I've already listed, which you apparently don't feel have merit. I'm not really sure that this discussion is going anywhere anymore.

Anybody remember when Monty was here declaring "Mission Accomplished!" on Gitmo? That was good times.

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The Dude abides.

This is unacceptable. If he were serious about it, he would have bought their release in another Country, or would at least be seriously lobbying to have them released in the states.

He's given up because it's too hard. These are people that should be released for Christ's sake, sitting in prison because it's too hard.

**** him.

His team has been doing both those things Arathain. You just don't like him and use this as a canard to try and justify your dislike.

I haven't heard anything about it. I know he's made some token moves, but he should be done by now. Christ, he backed off on the trial in New York like he was Michael Vick's mailman with milkbones in his trowsers.

You just like him and are making excuses for him.

None of those things could stop the CiC from making that order, they just make it politically inconvenient for the President to act.


That just seems to be a guess you're making now:


If he were working so diligently, as you assume he is - without any certain knowledge, he would be shouting from his bully-pulpit, as he did regarding health care. He gave 54 speeches on healthcare reform over the course of one year. How many did he give regarding the basic rights of these prisoners held in a place he vowed to close?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Even if none of our existing federal penitentiaries want to/are capable of housing them, that's hardly any barrier. Building a new facility specifically for housing them would not be an insurmountable obstacle for the president. We're not talking about a vast population, here. We build much bigger high-security facilities all the time. And it's not like the detention center at Gitmo itself is exactly a high-tech supermax facility...

If Obama really wanted to give these people a trial (kangaroo or otherwise) before sending them back to prison, "but we don't have anywhere to put them" is a flimsy excuse.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

It's apparent that we aren't going to agree on this matter.

Translation: "He's my boy so I'm going to defend him even though I know he is busted on this issue"

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I wouldn't go that far.

I see Aizles point on the actual issue. The rest of us are slamming O-Diddy on how he pontificated earlier and is now squirming to not default on yet another of his promises.

It's like the middle school class president who runs on the pledge of making Coca-Cola come out of the water fountains. When he was running, the idea was so wonderful that noone focused on if the promise was even possible. I'm saying that with a stroke of the pen, Obama should be able to do this based on Obamas rhetoric during the campagin. However the reality of the situation is that Obama was ignorant. Some wish to cut O-Dawg some slack. I'm holding him accountable for what he said. It's not what he intented to do, its what he is doing. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill