4 ms·

I find it so odd that every single gitmo detainee was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were thousands of people who got detained in Iraq and Afg

by vxNsr 4y ago

I find it so odd that every single gitmo detainee was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were thousands of people who got detained in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only a select few got brought to gitmo. I’m more inclined to believe that the people of the US military bureaucracy were acting in good faith, and had a legitimate reason to believe these people were working for the enemy vs hearing the same story you hear from 100% of unrepentant convicted felons. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, they have the wrong guy” I’d also like to remind people who don’t believe the people of US bureaucracy were acting in good faith that it’s these same people who will be working in whatever new giant gov service you want created. Might want to consider that next time you argue for government mandated/required/etc anything. If you don’t trust them to do the right thing in this case, why do you think it’ll be different in your case?

mc32 4y ago
In all likelihood those guys are actual bad-guys and did what we think they did and more. The problem is we ought to follow certain principles when we incarcerate people. Provide evidence, prove it in court and allow the defendant to defend themselves against accusations. Otherwise we're in kangaroo-courts/Soviet show trial-land.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  There likely was a trial, or something like it, but until we can ensure the safety and protection of the people who helped us convict these people it’s been deemed more prudent to keep it secret.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    > There likely was a trial, or something like it Horseshit. Even the officials in charge don't claim this. Even if they did, you can't have a "secret" just trial. The task of keeping it secret makes it impossible for the defense to have any sort of decent representation, much less gather evidence in their defense. Any "secret" trail is inherently one-sided, but again literally no US official has claimed they've been granted that much, in fact the lack of any trail has been acknowledged and even cited as a reason they can't be moved to a facility in the US.
    - vxNsr 4y ago
      This type of hyper aggressive response doesn’t lead to constructive conversation. Please reconsider the tone of words/punctuation you’re using and remember the humanity of the people you’re talking to. If you wouldn’t talk like this in a face to face discussion with a stranger try using different language in your online dialogue as well.
      - trs8080 4y ago
        You're scolding this person for their impassioned comment but should also maybe self-reflect a bit. Maybe this person is upset because you're casually throwing out baseless, unsubstantiated claims. If you want to have a constructive conversation about real life events, you may want to have more evidence for your claims than "I’m more inclined to believe" and "There likely was..."
        vxNsr 4y ago
        I’m scolding them for using profanity in the first word of their first sentence. There is no way to have a constructive dialogue with someone when they show that much anger off the bat. That sort of hostility just breeds more venom which won’t lead anywhere productive. If we’re just hear to air our grievances. Then it’s fine, be angry, show that emotion. Feats of strength are next. Someone can bring out the festivus pole. But I don’t think that’s what this forum is about. If his problem really is my lack of evidence he should say that instead of spewing obscenities.
        trs8080 4y ago
        > Then it’s fine, be angry, show that emotion. Feats of strength are next. Someone can bring out the festivus pole. ?
        vxNsr 4y ago
        https://youtu.be/HX55AzGku5Y?t=161 https://youtu.be/HX55AzGku5Y?t=161
yodsanklai 4y ago
> I’m more inclined to believe that the people of the US military bureaucracy were acting in good faith "Acting in good faith" isn't an excuse to torture people.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  I generally agree with that statement.
Broken_Hippo 4y ago
....hearing the same story you hear from 100% of unrepentant convicted felons. I wouldn't put too much into dismissing such things. Have you seen the how the US locks folks up using fake "science", and then refusing to reverse the charges when evidence proves them innocent? Sure, not everyone is innocent, but enough folks are wrongfully convicted, it seems, that anyone saying this might just be telling the truth. We (Americans) should be more prudent when locking people up. Considering this, yeah, I think the US has locked up innocent folks for years on end without trial. Sure, some are guilty, but probably not guilty enough for a decade or so of actual torture.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  The line is the mantra of criminals since time immemorial. It’s not a US invention. But, I would invite you to spend some time in any US court house where criminal proceedings are being held. You will find that 99.999% of convicts are very guilty (with proof anyone in the room can verify and would agree is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt) of the crimes they’ve committed. While I agree that .001% is still too high a percentage when talking about convicting innocents. It’s truly the height of hyperbole to claim there’s a chance it might be true for anyone who says it.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    I’m going to go ahead and disagree with this. The failure rate of the court isn’t whether or not convicts are guilty. It’s whether or not the constitutional rights of the accused have been violated. That rate is significantly high and totally unacceptable. You cannot just detain people without a trial indefinitely just because they’re “probably guilty”. You cannot force false testimony of children because “probably guilty”. You cannot being junk science like bite marks, lie detectors, “I smelled weed”, etc. because “probably guilty”. You cannot force a guilty plea by threatening someone’s life with an intentionally harsher sentence or death because “probably guilty”. This is royally fucked up and a multiple daily occurrence in the courts.
    - vxNsr 4y ago
prmoustache 4y ago
Them having a legitimate reason to believe anything doesn't change the fact that the detainee should have been released with their passport of origin if no charge has been filed and/or they haven't been declared culprit.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  If you’re the informant who provided the evidence against one of these guys at what point are you ok with the US publishing the court documents publicly so that his friends can come after you?
ZainRiz 4y ago
Remember the kid who was thrown into gitmo at age 14?
Volundr 4y ago
> I find it so odd that every single gitmo detainee was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Literally no one is claiming this. It's safe to assume some, probably even most are indeed guilty. That doesn't justify imprisoning them indefinitely, without trail. It definitely doesn't justify torture. It doesn't justify a black site in Guantanamo to skirt US and international law.
Beltalowda 4y ago
> I’m more inclined to believe that the people of the US military bureaucracy were acting in good faith, and had a legitimate reason to believe these people were working for the enemy vs hearing the same story you hear from 100% of unrepentant convicted felons. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, they have the wrong guy” They probably had a reason, sure. But you can be mistaken, or the information may not be correct. Some people really are just "in the wrong place at the wrong time", including at least a chunk of former Guantanamo detainees. I don't know how many of them exactly because everything is secret and classified, which makes demonstrating your innocence really hard (how can you provide an alibi if you don't know what evidence was used?) That this is also used by some guilty people is besides the point. Taking denial of having committed a crime as being "unrepentant" is a really dangerous thing to do because of course actual innocent people will claim their innocence. Even with the best legal system with all sorts of legal protections that are biased strongly towards the prevention of convicting innocent people even if it means letting some guilty people go free, innocent people still end up in jail. When you remove those protections and add the fog of war that number shoots up quite fast.
aiProgMach 4y ago
Do you know who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? It's the genocidal army of USA being thousands of Kms away from the US. If there is a criminal it's those children killers, and anyone who hide this fact. The US army and gov are in no place to punish even a legitimate criminals like the Al-Qaeda (their previous allies). In an ideal world the whole military of US would be dismantled and punished in Guantanamo (or any prison of your choice) for crimes against humanity.

by vxNsr 4y ago

mc32 4y ago

In all likelihood those guys are actual bad-guys and did what we think they did and more. The problem is we ought to follow certain principles when we incarcerate people. Provide evidence, prove it in court and allow the defendant to defend themselves against accusations. Otherwise we're in kangaroo-courts/Soviet show trial-land.

vxNsr 4y ago
There likely was a trial, or something like it, but until we can ensure the safety and protection of the people who helped us convict these people it’s been deemed more prudent to keep it secret.
- Volundr 4y ago
  > There likely was a trial, or something like it Horseshit. Even the officials in charge don't claim this. Even if they did, you can't have a "secret" just trial. The task of keeping it secret makes it impossible for the defense to have any sort of decent representation, much less gather evidence in their defense. Any "secret" trail is inherently one-sided, but again literally no US official has claimed they've been granted that much, in fact the lack of any trail has been acknowledged and even cited as a reason they can't be moved to a facility in the US.
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    This type of hyper aggressive response doesn’t lead to constructive conversation. Please reconsider the tone of words/punctuation you’re using and remember the humanity of the people you’re talking to. If you wouldn’t talk like this in a face to face discussion with a stranger try using different language in your online dialogue as well.
    - trs8080 4y ago
      You're scolding this person for their impassioned comment but should also maybe self-reflect a bit. Maybe this person is upset because you're casually throwing out baseless, unsubstantiated claims. If you want to have a constructive conversation about real life events, you may want to have more evidence for your claims than "I’m more inclined to believe" and "There likely was..."
      - vxNsr 4y ago
        I’m scolding them for using profanity in the first word of their first sentence. There is no way to have a constructive dialogue with someone when they show that much anger off the bat. That sort of hostility just breeds more venom which won’t lead anywhere productive. If we’re just hear to air our grievances. Then it’s fine, be angry, show that emotion. Feats of strength are next. Someone can bring out the festivus pole. But I don’t think that’s what this forum is about. If his problem really is my lack of evidence he should say that instead of spewing obscenities.
        trs8080 4y ago
        > Then it’s fine, be angry, show that emotion. Feats of strength are next. Someone can bring out the festivus pole. ?
        vxNsr 4y ago
        https://youtu.be/HX55AzGku5Y?t=161 https://youtu.be/HX55AzGku5Y?t=161

yodsanklai 4y ago

> I’m more inclined to believe that the people of the US military bureaucracy were acting in good faith "Acting in good faith" isn't an excuse to torture people.

vxNsr 4y ago
I generally agree with that statement.

Broken_Hippo 4y ago

....hearing the same story you hear from 100% of unrepentant convicted felons. I wouldn't put too much into dismissing such things. Have you seen the how the US locks folks up using fake "science", and then refusing to reverse the charges when evidence proves them innocent? Sure, not everyone is innocent, but enough folks are wrongfully convicted, it seems, that anyone saying this might just be telling the truth. We (Americans) should be more prudent when locking people up. Considering this, yeah, I think the US has locked up innocent folks for years on end without trial. Sure, some are guilty, but probably not guilty enough for a decade or so of actual torture.

vxNsr 4y ago
The line is the mantra of criminals since time immemorial. It’s not a US invention. But, I would invite you to spend some time in any US court house where criminal proceedings are being held. You will find that 99.999% of convicts are very guilty (with proof anyone in the room can verify and would agree is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt) of the crimes they’ve committed. While I agree that .001% is still too high a percentage when talking about convicting innocents. It’s truly the height of hyperbole to claim there’s a chance it might be true for anyone who says it.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I’m going to go ahead and disagree with this. The failure rate of the court isn’t whether or not convicts are guilty. It’s whether or not the constitutional rights of the accused have been violated. That rate is significantly high and totally unacceptable. You cannot just detain people without a trial indefinitely just because they’re “probably guilty”. You cannot force false testimony of children because “probably guilty”. You cannot being junk science like bite marks, lie detectors, “I smelled weed”, etc. because “probably guilty”. You cannot force a guilty plea by threatening someone’s life with an intentionally harsher sentence or death because “probably guilty”. This is royally fucked up and a multiple daily occurrence in the courts.
  - vxNsr 4y ago

prmoustache 4y ago

Them having a legitimate reason to believe anything doesn't change the fact that the detainee should have been released with their passport of origin if no charge has been filed and/or they haven't been declared culprit.

vxNsr 4y ago
If you’re the informant who provided the evidence against one of these guys at what point are you ok with the US publishing the court documents publicly so that his friends can come after you?

ZainRiz 4y ago

Remember the kid who was thrown into gitmo at age 14?

Volundr 4y ago

> I find it so odd that every single gitmo detainee was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Literally no one is claiming this. It's safe to assume some, probably even most are indeed guilty. That doesn't justify imprisoning them indefinitely, without trail. It definitely doesn't justify torture. It doesn't justify a black site in Guantanamo to skirt US and international law.

Beltalowda 4y ago

> I’m more inclined to believe that the people of the US military bureaucracy were acting in good faith, and had a legitimate reason to believe these people were working for the enemy vs hearing the same story you hear from 100% of unrepentant convicted felons. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, they have the wrong guy” They probably had a reason, sure. But you can be mistaken, or the information may not be correct. Some people really are just "in the wrong place at the wrong time", including at least a chunk of former Guantanamo detainees. I don't know how many of them exactly because everything is secret and classified, which makes demonstrating your innocence really hard (how can you provide an alibi if you don't know what evidence was used?) That this is also used by some guilty people is besides the point. Taking denial of having committed a crime as being "unrepentant" is a really dangerous thing to do because of course actual innocent people will claim their innocence. Even with the best legal system with all sorts of legal protections that are biased strongly towards the prevention of convicting innocent people even if it means letting some guilty people go free, innocent people still end up in jail. When you remove those protections and add the fog of war that number shoots up quite fast.

aiProgMach 4y ago

Do you know who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? It's the genocidal army of USA being thousands of Kms away from the US. If there is a criminal it's those children killers, and anyone who hide this fact. The US army and gov are in no place to punish even a legitimate criminals like the Al-Qaeda (their previous allies). In an ideal world the whole military of US would be dismantled and punished in Guantanamo (or any prison of your choice) for crimes against humanity.