Obama Report Card

musicismylife78

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -democrats[/quote]


I agree he was never going to close gitmo. Another example of how Bush and Obama are the same. I argued in another thread Bush and Obamas views on torture are essentially the same, except Obama was more militant. Stand by that, and this proves the point. Torture is wrong no matter what president stands idly by and approves it. Gitmo and all other detention centers should be shut down immediately.[/quote]


Torture is not wrong when it betters the country. Those aren't "speeders" and "pick pockets" being held at Gitmo.[/quote]

thats actually inaccruate. they are accused or suspected terrorists. And thats a hard thing to define because anyone could be a suspected terrorist. Every person or suspect should be given a lawyer, access to that lawyer, given their proper day in court, and should be told what they are being charged with. Thats not how it works at Gitmo nor at these other detention centers. Its beyond Orwellian to lock someone up and not tell them what they are being charged with beyond "suspected terrorist". Torture is pointless and ineffective. We all have a breaking point. If I am being tortured hard enough, especially if those torturing me are from a different country and speaking a different language and have no real grasp of the culture, its easy to understand why someone would confess to a crime they didnt commit. Lets be clear, the torture tactics are meant to do exactly as the name implies...torture the person in custody. Waterboarding from those who experience it, feels like you are drowning. Its clear in that situation, that you feel you may be drowned, to make it stop, you'd do the only thing that would get you out of the situation, which is to confess to something you didnt do. Thats the faulty nature of it. You torture until you get a confession. Its not lets feel this suspect out and figure out if they know the info. Its-they know and if we torture them enough they will reveal info. Beyond that Its unconstitutional and breaks the Geneva code. Its illegal.
In Boondock Saints theres a great scene with Chris Penn and he's being tortured and one of the guys says, "what if he really is innocent and we are torturing him for nothing".

musicismylife78

definition of outlawed torture as taken verbatim from Geneva Conventions

torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

Go Beavers

DS1119 wrote:

musicismylife78 wrote:

DS1119 wrote:

He was never intent on closing Gitmo. He just wanted it moved to the US. That's a fact. Gitmo serves a purpose and should never be closed. I don;t care where it is.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -democrats

I agree he was never going to close gitmo. Another example of how Bush and Obama are the same. I argued in another thread Bush and Obamas views on torture are essentially the same, except Obama was more militant. Stand by that, and this proves the point. Torture is wrong no matter what president stands idly by and approves it. Gitmo and all other detention centers should be shut down immediately.

Torture is not wrong when it betters the country. Those aren't "speeders" and "pick pockets" being held at Gitmo.

True that they aren't speeders and pick pockets, because you would need evidence via radar gun to get caught speeding, and you would need to be in possession of a stolen wallet to be a pickpocket. What evidence is required to get put in Gtimo?

Hugh Freaking Dillon

musicismylife78 wrote:

DS1119 wrote:

Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:

can someone explain to me why he was intent on closing Gitmo, but then did a 180 on the subject?

He was never intent on closing Gitmo. He just wanted it moved to the US. That's a fact. Gitmo serves a purpose and should never be closed. I don;t care where it is.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -democrats

I agree he was never going to close gitmo. Another example of how Bush and Obama are the same. I argued in another thread Bush and Obamas views on torture are essentially the same, except Obama was more militant. Stand by that, and this proves the point. Torture is wrong no matter what president stands idly by and approves it. Gitmo and all other detention centers should be shut down immediately.

ok, let me rephrase. did he not SAY he was going to close gitmo?

Hugh Freaking Dillon

musicismylife78 wrote:

thats pretty vague. Hoping for a better america and a changing of the guard could and does mean somethign different to every single person in america.

of course it was vague. all catchy slogans are easy, memorable, and vague. and being different to all and every american was the POINT, in my opinion. he wanted to appeal to the dreams and aspirations of everyone. every president has to do that in order to get elected. Politics is nothing more than self-marketing.

I honestly believe, no matter what people are saying about him now, that his intention was to be much different than his predecesor, and I do believe he is/was different than him. For one, he's 100 times more intelligent than GWB. Second, Bush Jr didn't give a fuck about foreign relations. He cared about one thing: making american feel as if, no matter what, they are superior to the rest of the world, which is why he appealed to so many people, because, for better or worse, that is part of american culture-to be the best at any cost. GWB did a lot for the collective ego of america after 9/11, with the help of Rudy. He brought them back up when they felt defeated and deflated.

I think Obama had a lot of lofty goals that were doomed from day one, since everything he wanted to do would have taken all houses of government to be democrat.

DS1119

Go Beavers wrote:

What evidence is required to get put in Gtimo?

Enough evidence to be put in Gitmo. The prisoners aren't detained there for no reason. To think the government just picks random people to detain and question there, quite frankly, is ridiculous. Since 2002 and of this past July, 779 people have been detained at Gitmo. Roughly 78 a year.

catefrances

DS1119 wrote:

Torture is not wrong when it betters the country. Those aren't "speeders" and "pick pockets" being held at Gitmo.

torture is ALWAYS wrong. it doesnt better a country/society. it debases the tortured and the torturer. and brings into question the morality of anyone who condones such actions.

DS1119

catefrances wrote:

DS1119 wrote:

Torture is not wrong when it betters the country. Those aren't "speeders" and "pick pockets" being held at Gitmo.

torture is ALWAYS wrong. it doesnt better a country/society. it debases the tortured and the torturer. and brings into question the morality of anyone who condones such actions.

So if a suspected terrosit was detained and questioned prior to 9/11 and gave the US information that prevented the thousands killed that day that would be a bad thing? I wonder how much good info the US has gotten from people at Gitmo? Perhaps even led to the killing of Osama? Perhaps even preventing situations in other countries? And for people to think the US is the only country doing this is ridicluous.

catefrances

DS1119 wrote:

catefrances wrote:

DS1119 wrote:

Torture is not wrong when it betters the country. Those aren't "speeders" and "pick pockets" being held at Gitmo.

torture is ALWAYS wrong. it doesnt better a country/society. it debases the tortured and the torturer. and brings into question the morality of anyone who condones such actions.

So if a suspected terrosit was detained and questioned prior to 9/11 and gave the US information that prevented the thousands killed that day that would be a bad thing? I wonder how much good info the US has gotten from people at Gitmo? Perhaps even led to the killing of Osama? Perhaps even preventing situations in other countries? And for people to think the US is the only country doing this is ridicluous.

you want to base your argument on retrospect?? what ifs arent a real solid basis on which to defend a point. tis like all those people who say well if i was on that plane or if i was armed whenever there is a shooting tragedy. the fact is the US govt did have information that someone was targetting the US and they didnt act. true they didnt have specifics but they made no effort to tighten security at airports(or anywhere else) just in case, despite the US having been the victim of a terrorist bomb not many years before so....what if theyd taken that threat seriously? would that not have saved thousands of lives too? oh and ive no doubt the US isnt the only country that tortures people.

stipe19

Where the hell is Ross Perot when you need him. I am sure he has a pie chart that could help me decide who to vote for.

Go Beavers

DS1119 wrote:

Go Beavers wrote:

What evidence is required to get put in Gtimo?

Enough evidence to be put in Gitmo. The prisoners aren't detained there for no reason. To think the government just picks random people to detain and question there, quite frankly, is ridiculous. Since 2002 and of this past July, 779 people have been detained at Gitmo. Roughly 78 a year.

So what you're saying is that you have no idea what kind of evidence is needed to get put in Gitmo. I don't think it's random, I think the threshold is extremely low. I guess you're more trusting and you think the threshold is high.

DS1119

Go Beavers wrote:

DS1119 wrote:

Go Beavers wrote:

What evidence is required to get put in Gtimo?

Enough evidence to be put in Gitmo. The prisoners aren't detained there for no reason. To think the government just picks random people to detain and question there, quite frankly, is ridiculous. Since 2002 and of this past July, 779 people have been detained at Gitmo. Roughly 78 a year.

So what you're saying is that you have no idea what kind of evidence is needed to get put in Gitmo. I don't think it's random, I think the threshold is extremely low. I guess you're more trusting and you think the threshold is high.

Threshold low? 779 since 2002? :? :fp: Your local county jail has more prisoners than that. I don't need to know the evidence needed to be put there and neither does any other US citizen. Let me know when the population of Gitmo gets to 3,000,000 or roughly less than 1% of the US population...then there may be an issue. Until then....keep questioning them.