Going Home

January

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 7:04 am by Matt Davies.
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21 Responses to “Going Home”

Joe January 23rd, 2009 at 8:56 am
Matt, I really have to give you credit for consistently coming up with the most ridiculous and offensive concepts.
This should be a terrorist emerging from Gitmo with Obama holding the door open for him.
What is he planning to do with these terrorists? Are they free to go back to the battlefield and kill more Americans, like the scores who have already been released have done?
Are they to be tried in criminal courts? Then they will be free anyway – they were captured on the field by soldiers, not arrested by police. They were not given Miranda warnings, there were no search warrants, so they will not be convicted. His first day in office, and Obama has already made this country less safe.
BULLDOG January 23rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
I gotta agree with Joe on this one Matt. Obama appointed
the Governor of Arizona as the head of homeland security.
This woman has a history of being an open border’s advocate and an amnesty lover. What a terrible decision. Every terrorist in the world is loving this. I didn’t care for McCain but he would have at least gone after these dirt bags and killed them. Obama is either going to put them on trial or let them go. What a joke. Mark my words there will
be another attack under his administration.
Pete January 23rd, 2009 at 10:38 am
As much as I hate to feed the trolls, you guys are nut jobs. Nice work, Matt, keep up the good the work.
BULLDOG January 23rd, 2009 at 10:58 am
The nut jobs are in Guantanamo Pete. Please tell me where we’re wrong!!! Maybe they should be released into your neighborhood.
JO January 23rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Nice work! Love this.
Matt Davies January 23rd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Bulldog, the problem with Gitmo prison, is we have to “trust what the Govt. tells us” about the inmates. That is exactly the kind of secretive garbage the founding fathers didn’t want to put up with in their Govt. And it sets off all kinds of alarm bells with me too.
Lalas January 23rd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Trust us… just don’t ask for proof.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200901230002
Well, I just can’t be made to trust anything Bush EVER told me and in regards to the military, truth is the first casualty—just ask Pat Tillman’s family.

Gitmo is a perfect example of why you should adhere to the laws. Otherwise you set up this nightmare scenario: Dozens of people detained on their neighbor’s paid say-so, tortured for information that is unreliable and then the detainees are unprosecutable and unreleasable.
BULLDOG January 23rd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Good point Matt i don’t trust most politicians at all. Do
you think Oabama is honest Abe? He will keep things from the
public and lie also. It goes with the job. What’s the solution Lala’s don’t detain anyone anymore? Nice of you to
take that chance at my expense.
Lord Baltimore January 23rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Joe/Bulldog – your posts here seem threatening to me. Please proceed to the nearest police station and lock yourselves up for the next six years. Maybe then you’ll have had a chance to calm down and won’t be a threat. If not, we’ll keep you for as long as is necessary, likely forever. After all, you’ve been deemed a threat.
BULLDOG January 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Lord Baltimore where in these posts do you see anything
threatening you personally? I’m not saying that 100% of these people are guilty because mistakes are made but i would have to think they must have done something here or
abroad to be locked up like that just like prisons here.
Don’t lean to far to the left buddy you may lose your balance and fall down.
Matt Davies January 23rd, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I dunno Bulldog…His royal highness, Lord Baltimore is drawing a perfect parallel. He feels threatened by you (doesn’t matter if you are actually threatening to him) so he demands you go to jail. And he’s a Lord, so he’s got more power than us serfs, which means you go to jail – Just because he decides you’re threatening to him. Terrifying thought if that were, you know, real, huh?!
Joe January 23rd, 2009 at 8:19 pm
So Matt, are you saying al Qaeda is not an actual threat, or that Bulldog and I are actual threats because Lord Baltimore is deranged?
Matt Davies January 23rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Joe, of course al Qaeda is a threat. I think we just disagree a little on how we go about managing that threat.
Also at this point in time, I think we’re all deranged, as it’s a Friday night, and we’re still posting online…
DebS January 23rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Guys,

As I read these posts, 2 things occur to me:(1) great thread,(2) Matt, Lord Baltimore, Pete, Lalas – you’re all beating up on BULLDOG & Joe w/out giving them a fair hearing.

BULLDOG & Joe (it seems to me) are thinking in real time, & on Main Street, not in some -ical, -ological realm.

I’m NO fan of Gitmo or suspending habeas corpus. I’m elated that Pres Obama’s closing it down w/in a yr.

BUT, Matt, Lord B & you guys are thinking in theoretical, socio-political, philosphical, terms. In reality, the US does need to protect itself from terrorists.

Could we maybe get you 2 groups together: defend the ideals we cherish & that Gitmo tramples on, & keep the country safe by not releasing potential mass murderers?

If you come up w/a solution, bring it STRAIGHT to D.C.
Joe January 24th, 2009 at 9:58 am
How about today’s story that a Gitmo release is now an al Qaeda chief? Reality is somewhat inconvenient.
We cannot treat a war as a criminal investigation. These people were taken off a battlefield, in arms against the US. They are not entitled to POW status because they are unlawful combatants – not in uniform, not serving in recognized army of a nation signatory to the Geneva Conventions. In prior wars they would have been subject to summary execution.
Instead we put them in a prison where they get fat and are treated better than they have ever been treated in their lives, where they receive better treatment than our own soldiers in the field or prisoners in US prisons.
The definition of torture seems to mean any discomfort whatsoever. Exactly 3 people were waterboarded 5 years ago. It is not torture because it causes no extreme pain or permanent injury. If it results in intelligence that saves lives it is worth it.
We are coddling terrorists that would kill us in a second, while our captured soldiers are tortured and beheaded.
Matt Davies January 24th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Joe, I did see that disturbing story. Outrageous. More proof that whatever secret extra-judicial process was invented for Gitmo was a complete waste of time. How did they let an avowed terrorist get away?

So based on your thoughts re: Gitmo, it seems we agree that the place is of no use in protecting us.
McGriff January 24th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
There’s also a possibility that Joe is ignoring. What if this guy who has joined al-Qaida was completely innocent when he was picked up by the U.S. and thrown in Guantanamo for years. Wouldn’t most people be so angry at the injustice of being held without any opportunity to prove their innocence that they would want to join the fight against the U.S.? Whose to say we aren’t creating new terrorists down in Cuba?

Joe assumes that every person in Guantanamo is guilty, and not just guilty, but the worst of the worst like Dick Cheney likes to say. But the U.S. offered bounties for terrorists. It’s quite likely that some prisoners in Guantanamo were wrongly imprisoned just for the money by an opportunistic neighbor. Remember, Bush has already released hundreds from Guantanamo. Even he realized some mistakes.
Joe January 24th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
That’s why I say better safe than sorry. Keep them all locked up till this is over. Maybe forever. I don’t fancy extending full constitutional rights to these people. It is unprecedented and dangerous.
McGriff January 24th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I think you are missing the point. There have been innocent people imprisoned at Guantanamo. There are probably more in the 250 still there. We need to prove their guilt, and then we can keep them imprisoned forever if you want. But we need to prove their guilt first. That’s what America is all about.
DisasterMan January 25th, 2009 at 10:54 am
This is SUCH a muddy issue, but let’s just clear up one thing. ‘Unlawful enemy combatant’ does NOT mean ‘terrorist’.
Some of these people MAY be associated with terrorism, but that isn’t even the claim.
I dunno, but people GENUINELY believed to be terrorists don’t tend to be treated like this (‘better than they have ever been treated in their lives’ WTF? Have you read the autobiographies they’ve been writing in Gitmo? What do we know about their lives?), they get killed, and no one tends to bata an eyelid (barring ‘collatoral damage’).

If they are not POWs then they should be dealt with under civilian law. The excuse that they are outside the law so can be dealt with as such is fatuous in the extreme. Common criminals act outside of the law, but are dealt with within the law. Thus the rule of law is upheld and civilized peoples can claim some kind of moral ground for their actions.

The bottom line is, Gitmo, extraoridnary rendition, shadow prisons, ANY form of torture (which is NOT defined simply as causing pain or injury) and the like are illegal in US and under international law, are counter-productive and highly detrimental to the standing of the US globally, only feeding extremism.

Better safe than sorry? I can think of more than a few 20th Century titans who have used, adn continue to use this priniciple to lock up, terrorise and murder anyone they believed was a threat to the state. I don’t believe they are the kind of regimes anyone wants to live under.

I don’t advocate the removal of constitutional (or any other) rights from anyone. That, while sadly not unprecedentad, is truly dangerous to anyone who seeks to live in a free and just society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came…;
DisasterMan January 25th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Hmm, that link doesn’t seem to work for some reason. Well, I’m sure you can look it up if you don’t get the reference, otherwise the last line covers things:

“And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

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