cochise Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Yet this fact is unescapable...before 2001, the US touted itself as the primary guardian of human rights...after 2001 it has become the primary violater, by it's own measure, of human rights. It tossed it's values up in the air at the slightest of provocations...what is it only skin deep? The question has to be asked...for it has been shown to be shallow. After seeing American values flushed down the toilet so fast in a scurry of reaction and fear...the scales dropped from my eyes and civilisation and barbarity were revealed. Those that are recentl civilised, from those that are new kids on the block to those who have been around for a while...and thos who are ancient...and it has nothing to do with oft touted material, physical or scientific superiority. It is not about superiority period. For there is no such thing. There is only that which is true and that which is false. Fill this axiom set if you will. This is your life.
Lurker Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Great to see this. Hopefully this will also set the trend of doing things efficiently and not putting so many barriers everywhere. It is taking freaking forever these days to do anything from travelling to renew visas.
THX_1138 Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Will take a year for dissipation of the inmates. Some of the countries have rejected US requests to accept their citizens, and most european nations have turned them down too. The world, as it seems, is waiting for the US to start the cycle by accepting a few inmates herself. Might happen, but the republicans introduced a bill that would put an injunction on such a move.
triam Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Fantastic move! You know why? Simple. If you wish to step onto the battlefield, do so with all your values intact. If you do not do so, and give up your values at the slightest threat, you have already lost the battle. For you have lost yourself. So Gitmo was for the US. A festering malignant sore eating away at it's perceived morality as it had projected. Time for it to go. Top post, if you fight, fight on your terms and values, and if your values are based on honor and integrity, just cos your enemy does not have those values dont lose them. In the end, win or lose atleast you have honor and integrity.
cochise Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Exactly. In the west, the internal reality is ignored. It is the internal reality that gives rise to the external action...and by action you also reveal the internal reality. This is the intimate connection of Karma. Thought and action are intimately wed. One reveals the other. So, things are revealed. And the essence of things whittled out.
suraj Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Yea, thats right, thats what we should do, bite the hand that feeds us There are torture cells in Pakistan, but they are the first to cry about the "innocent muslims" ..... cough, cough, cough, *taliban fighters* in guantanamo, when, very next door, you have the Taliban committing much more horrendous acts in broad freaking daylight without so much as a squeak from anyone Some people, ........ :mad: :mad::mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: Yea, lets shut down Pakistan / Afghanistan; Who's with me? ...... me me:two_thumbs_up::two_thumbs_up:
kumble_rocks Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 You just wasted 15 mins of your time typing all that explanation KR, because I already agree with most of what you've written there. I never said US govt. is the only abuser of Human rights, nor did I ever say the Indian govt. or the Thai govt. or the Muslim govt. are the beacons of human rights. This thread was about Gitmo, so I restricted my comments to the US govt. That does not mean I give a clean chit to the other govts. you mentioned.You've immediately assumed that just becuse I have not mentioned those names here does not mean I am in tacit agreement of what they do. No, I DONT. You had made a hard hitting statement MM. Having this extra-judicial detention centre in the middle of nowhere, outside the purview of all legal treaties was the worst thing the US could have possibly done. When you make a statement like this , you are implying that Geneva conventions were not upheld as regards to prisoner's rights. Their are two aspects about Gitmo which could be construed as illegal . First , is the fact that no formal charge had been filed against inmates before the supreme court ruling . If you find this objectionable , I would agree with you. My take would have been , charge the inmates and try them in a military court . Second charge is , human rights of prisoners were compromised. Here , I have an issue and hence my 15 min mumbo jumbo. So with due respect , why do you care if 9-11 mastermind Khaleed Sheikh gets tortured or not ? The government claims that in only a few instances did interrogators used coercive techniques. And why apply geneva conventions ? They are not enemy soldiers fighting in a battle field.
cochise Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Have you seen those pictures? The sensory deprivation? Eyes covered, ears covered, mouth covered, hands shackled....total disorientation and loss of time and space...darkness fills the mental universe...for how long do you think this went on for? Just try to imagine yourself under these circumstances for days on end? How would your mind be? Is this a human thing to do? Even to your cruelest enemy?
Lurker Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Have you seen those pictures? The sensory deprivation? Eyes covered, ears covered, mouth covered, hands shackled....for how long do you think this went on for? Yes thats the first thing that came to my mind too. Pile of naked mens with a female American dressed in Military attire smiling and giggling. Gitmo had to go.
kumble_rocks Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Have you seen those pictures? The sensory deprivation? Eyes covered, ears covered, mouth covered, hands shackled....for how long do you think this went on for? Just try to imagine yourself under these circumstances for days on end? How would your mind be? Is this a human thing to do? Even to your cruelest enemy? If the roles were reversed and they were the perpetrators , you wouldn't be having a head !
cochise Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 I am not a pacifist Boss, and do not mistake me for one. I am not a criminal either. Fight the good fight, or fight not at all.
cochise Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Sure but why dont we put that question of what is a good fight and what isnt to those that just lost their family and some any little livelihood that they had ? Sure...put that question to them. What do you think their answer would be? Torture or swift justice?
graphic23 Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 It wont certainly be letting them go in a neighbouhood near them (read Pakistan/Afghan) BTW is Barrack Obama ready to rehabilitate them in a Chicago neighbourhood he came from ? Lets ask him to do that and then see how the temperature rises. I'm not sure if this argument is a good one. From the point of view of the United States President, a prison that tortures its prisoners is an element of hypocrisy when the US claims that they are the leaders of the free world. If the US mainland is attacked, then he will prevent it from happening again. But because some prisoner is a threat to India, he's not going to sacrifice the image of US to keep him in a prison that violates human rights.
graphic23 Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Speaking about Human rights .... where were all the usual suspects when a decorated Army officer got thrown in a jail for months without access to a lawyer nor a chargesheet ? Ditto for the Sadhvi . Not a pip-squeak was heard from the usual suspects who are now having a collective group orgasm. Not aware of this. Links please? :(( As far as your hypothetical situation goes, it is not the responsibility of India to maintain criminals who haven't harmed Indian citizens. If they have, then they'll be in Andaman. Similarly, there are several people who haven't harmed the US mainland who have been tortured in Gitmo. If they are going to release them to Afghan or Pakistan, I think India will need to ask for the criminals to be tried in Indian courts if we know they have somehow planned any attacks or were previous suspects, etc. What Obama has done will put the US in good light as far as human rights are concerned. If there are criminals who are guilty then the US courts will try them, etc. If they are not, they are being released. Being an independent nation who's sovereignty is being questioned and attacked, we ought to ask the US to give the criminals to us because they are suspects in several terror attacks. We'll kill them or do whatever the hell we want to them because I'm not claiming to be "the leader of the free world" and asking every other goddamn nation to follow human rights (i.e. no hypocrisy).
Ram Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 You had made a hard hitting statement MM. When you make a statement like this , you are implying that Geneva conventions were not upheld as regards to prisoner's rights. Their are two aspects about Gitmo which could be construed as illegal . First , is the fact that no formal charge had been filed against inmates before the supreme court ruling . If you find this objectionable , I would agree with you. My take would have been , charge the inmates and try them in a military court . Second charge is , human rights of prisoners were compromised. Here , I have an issue and hence my 15 min mumbo jumbo. So with due respect , why do you care if 9-11 mastermind Khaleed Sheikh gets tortured or not ? The government claims that in only a few instances did interrogators used coercive techniques. And why apply geneva conventions ? They are not enemy soldiers fighting in a battle field. Yes I do care, because, how do you know He WAS the mastermind with 100% assurance? In this case, he did turn out to be guilty and if everything works out fine, but what about the innumerable cases of innocent civilians who get locked up in there, undergo torture without proper trial? Remember KR, Human rights laws are strict for one reason; To make it as hard as possible for innocents to be targeted.
triam Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 For everyone who supports torture and Guantanamo. Please read the following, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec05/torture_12-02.html This is an interview with two people 1. Neil Livingstone is a terrorism expert and a former intelligence officer. 2. : Jack Cloonan is a 25- year veteran of the FBI and investigated al-Qaida in the United States. Second is an academic peer reviewed paper where the author decomposes the data and forms an argument against torture. If any of you can provide a similar peer reviewed paper with supporting data towards torture feel free to do so. The paper can be downloaded from this location for who is interested, (warning: the explanations of torture is quite brutal, no pictures or anything) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=820467 I quote from this paper mentioned above The first assumption is that torture is only used against individuals whom the government has clearly estab-lished have strong ties to terrorism—i.e., we have good reason to believe that those we are torturing are either terrorists or have some connection to terrorism. Second, those who believe the myth assume that the infor-mation possessed by those who are being tortured is important. In other words, if the detainee being tortured confesses, then lives will be saved or attacks averted. Finally, the third assumption underlying the myth is that physical pressure is highly effective; if you torture the terrorists, they will give up the goods. and one more quote from the same paper. Joseph Lelyveld, who interviewed interrogators ranging from the former chief interrogator of the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet, to retired FBI agents found there to be little support for the efficacy of torture: If I press my question about violence in these and other conversa-tions, the most invariable answer, as if learned by rote in the same school, was that too much violence produced unreliable information because people will say anything, admit to anything, as a way of gaining surcease from unbearable pain. Torture, in other words, is a useful tool for gaining confessions when the facts are deemed not to matter.60 Researcher John Conroy had similar results when he spoke with Don Dzagulones, who both witnessed and participated in torture as an inter-rogator during the Vietnam War. Dzagulones reported that he could not recall a single incident in which torture had been effective. If it happened, I'm certainly not aware of it. Like prisoner X comes in, you beat the living snot out of him. He tells you about a Viet Cong ambush that is going happen tomor-row, you relay this information to the infantry guys, and a counter-ambush and the good guy wins and the bad guys lose, all because you tortured a prisoner. Never happened. Not to my knowledge.
veer Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 its all good on paper... morality hero and all.. but fact remains is that Bush's tactics protected US.. yes mistakes were there.. but to close it down entirely?? not a good idea..
Ram Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 its all good on paper... morality hero and all.. but fact remains is that Bush's tactics protected US.. yes mistakes were there.. but to close it down entirely?? not a good idea.. You couldnt be more wrong.
Brainfade Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 I'll admit - I am genuinely on the fence on this move. I agree with the "moral high ground" argument. On the other hand, I see that this move is fraught with dangers. For instance, if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is among the detainees freed due to lack of evidence - and one has to admit that high-ranking Al-Qaeda sumbichs like him would leave no trail of their crimes - it will only increase the chance of more deadly attacks. They don't play by our rules. Rock and a dadgum hard place. Having said that, kudos to President Obama for sticking to his campaign promise. No waffling here. One can only hope we don't regret it one day.
Brainfade Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 You couldnt be more wrong. The proof is in the pudding?
Recommended Posts