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Here's an interesting thought experiment: Imagine you are Obama, newly elected president. Under what conditions would you reverse yourself and let Gitmo stand

by dhimes 14y ago

Here's an interesting thought experiment: Imagine you are Obama, newly elected president. Under what conditions would you reverse yourself and let Gitmo stand? What information would you have to become privy to that you weren't before in order for you to change your mind?

PavlovsCat 14y ago
That it's, among other things, what they wanted to hear to elect me, and that I'm elected now, and can't in any way be held accountable for idle promises, and that standing firm on that principle is more important to my handlers than a bunch of bleeding hearts.
- e40 14y ago
  But he was held accountable for his promise, he was elected again 4 years later. It didn't seem to matter.
- dhimes 14y ago
  I consider this the weakest possibility, and your writing smacks of bias such that I fear you are incapable of actually analyzing the problem.
acjohnson55 14y ago
The fact that you will have no chance of accomplishing your other policy goals if you do.
- dhimes 14y ago
  Interesting- I hadn't thought of that. It then begs the question: why would his opponents not want to close it down?
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    Because it makes them look weak. If the US president can close Guantanamo over the objections of sabre rattling congressmen who keep doing local town halls where they tell their constituents "we lock the bad guys up forever", then it makes clear to those local folks that their congressman are actually pretty impotent. There are plenty of "he wanted to close Guantanamo bay and let terrorists go, like Obama" commercials that aired during the election. As the parent said, doing this to congressman, be they republican or blue dog democrat, would make him completely and totally ineffective in getting bills passed. There is usually a broad difference between the posturing you hear about on TV, and the actual way they act in closed door meetings. In one case, they have to appear that way to keep their constituents happy. By and large, congressmen are not stupid (or at least, not egregiously so), they are just good at acting. If you do something that is going to seriously threaten their apparent power position, however, it will no longer be acting.
    - dhimes 14y ago
      sabre rattling congressmen who keep doing local town halls where they tell their constituents "we lock the bad guys up forever" That seems to imply that these same congressmen wouldn't be able to spin a 'US justice leads the world' story out of bringing terrorists to a fair trial? Maybe, but I'm still a little skeptical. Remember: some of these are the guys who convinced half the country that Iraq was behind 911. I think they would have no problem taking credit for solving a problem of injustice at long last, further "demonstrating that there is a real difference between us and the terrorists." And maybe blaming Obama for Gitmo being there in the first place.
utunga 14y ago
Great idea. Here's some ideas to toss around. Maybe.. - We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but should we turn them loose now we would lose a huge amount of face (but whose face would be lost under an incoming president?) - We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but now we have turned them into such dangerous killers, that, given their freedom they would now pose a significant thread (it seems unlikely to me that untrained non-killers could've learnt the skills of trade craft while under this type of detention regime). - We cannot have proper trial for these men because if we did then in the nature of an honest trial, certain secrets would come out and that can't be allowed.. (seems more plausible?) What else?
- dhimes 14y ago
  For me, I think your third point would do it if (and only if) I had been shown that the workings at Gitmo saved tens of thousands of lives. It would also be a secret worth keeping (from your enemies) that Gitmo was working to that extent.
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    I think you strongly misunderstand what drives the political system. You are nowhere near cynical enough ;) There is no real good and bad anymore. Doing good and stopping bad is not what drives folks in DC. I was once like this. I thought people in DC were, by and large, doing things for the right reasons, and they mostly just had better info than I did. After living in DC for 13 years, and being privy to a lot of the inner workings of some of this stuff, I no longer believe that. I've seen how too much sausage is made. I believe what you think would have been true once, but simply isn't anymore. That isn't to say there aren't young, idealistic folks in government. There are plenty. There just aren't any old, idealistic folks in power anymore ;)
    - dhimes 14y ago
      This saddens me and I hope you are wrong. For 40 years DC was the center of my life. I was born there and raised in the suburbs (went away a couple of times for school). I worked in the defense industry a bit between degrees. I taught college there for a decade. I left the area ten years ago, and I found the political climate there nauseating when I left. While I acknowledge that the population at large carries a spectrum of pathological traits, and perhaps DC tends to attract and keep those with certain types of pathologies, I still like to think that most people are trying to do the "right thing" but in situations that are enormously complex. Back to my thought experiment: You are Obama. You truly believe that torture is horrible and wrong. Yet when you are briefed on our operations you learn that information obtained as allowed us to derail a few large scale terrorist attacks. Do you close it down? If you do and a bomb goes off at the World Series killing thousands, how would you feel? Again, complex.
ankitml 14y ago
First, I would return my nobel peace .

by dhimes 14y ago

PavlovsCat 14y ago

That it's, among other things, what they wanted to hear to elect me, and that I'm elected now, and can't in any way be held accountable for idle promises, and that standing firm on that principle is more important to my handlers than a bunch of bleeding hearts.

e40 14y ago
But he was held accountable for his promise, he was elected again 4 years later. It didn't seem to matter.
dhimes 14y ago
I consider this the weakest possibility, and your writing smacks of bias such that I fear you are incapable of actually analyzing the problem.

acjohnson55 14y ago

The fact that you will have no chance of accomplishing your other policy goals if you do.

dhimes 14y ago
Interesting- I hadn't thought of that. It then begs the question: why would his opponents not want to close it down?
- DannyBee 14y ago
  Because it makes them look weak. If the US president can close Guantanamo over the objections of sabre rattling congressmen who keep doing local town halls where they tell their constituents "we lock the bad guys up forever", then it makes clear to those local folks that their congressman are actually pretty impotent. There are plenty of "he wanted to close Guantanamo bay and let terrorists go, like Obama" commercials that aired during the election. As the parent said, doing this to congressman, be they republican or blue dog democrat, would make him completely and totally ineffective in getting bills passed. There is usually a broad difference between the posturing you hear about on TV, and the actual way they act in closed door meetings. In one case, they have to appear that way to keep their constituents happy. By and large, congressmen are not stupid (or at least, not egregiously so), they are just good at acting. If you do something that is going to seriously threaten their apparent power position, however, it will no longer be acting.
  - dhimes 14y ago
    sabre rattling congressmen who keep doing local town halls where they tell their constituents "we lock the bad guys up forever" That seems to imply that these same congressmen wouldn't be able to spin a 'US justice leads the world' story out of bringing terrorists to a fair trial? Maybe, but I'm still a little skeptical. Remember: some of these are the guys who convinced half the country that Iraq was behind 911. I think they would have no problem taking credit for solving a problem of injustice at long last, further "demonstrating that there is a real difference between us and the terrorists." And maybe blaming Obama for Gitmo being there in the first place.

utunga 14y ago

Great idea. Here's some ideas to toss around. Maybe.. - We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but should we turn them loose now we would lose a huge amount of face (but whose face would be lost under an incoming president?) - We cannot have a proper trial for these men because many were actually innocent but now we have turned them into such dangerous killers, that, given their freedom they would now pose a significant thread (it seems unlikely to me that untrained non-killers could've learnt the skills of trade craft while under this type of detention regime). - We cannot have proper trial for these men because if we did then in the nature of an honest trial, certain secrets would come out and that can't be allowed.. (seems more plausible?) What else?

dhimes 14y ago
For me, I think your third point would do it if (and only if) I had been shown that the workings at Gitmo saved tens of thousands of lives. It would also be a secret worth keeping (from your enemies) that Gitmo was working to that extent.
- DannyBee 14y ago
  I think you strongly misunderstand what drives the political system. You are nowhere near cynical enough ;) There is no real good and bad anymore. Doing good and stopping bad is not what drives folks in DC. I was once like this. I thought people in DC were, by and large, doing things for the right reasons, and they mostly just had better info than I did. After living in DC for 13 years, and being privy to a lot of the inner workings of some of this stuff, I no longer believe that. I've seen how too much sausage is made. I believe what you think would have been true once, but simply isn't anymore. That isn't to say there aren't young, idealistic folks in government. There are plenty. There just aren't any old, idealistic folks in power anymore ;)
  - dhimes 14y ago
    This saddens me and I hope you are wrong. For 40 years DC was the center of my life. I was born there and raised in the suburbs (went away a couple of times for school). I worked in the defense industry a bit between degrees. I taught college there for a decade. I left the area ten years ago, and I found the political climate there nauseating when I left. While I acknowledge that the population at large carries a spectrum of pathological traits, and perhaps DC tends to attract and keep those with certain types of pathologies, I still like to think that most people are trying to do the "right thing" but in situations that are enormously complex. Back to my thought experiment: You are Obama. You truly believe that torture is horrible and wrong. Yet when you are briefed on our operations you learn that information obtained as allowed us to derail a few large scale terrorist attacks. Do you close it down? If you do and a bomb goes off at the World Series killing thousands, how would you feel? Again, complex.

ankitml 14y ago

First, I would return my nobel peace .