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At its peak Guantanamo Bay has 750 detainees and prisoners. Now it's 150. I kind of have a hard time taking anything said about the conditions inside from the

At its peak Guantanamo Bay has 750 detainees and prisoners. Now it's 150. I kind of have a hard time taking anything said about the conditions inside from the detainees at face value. They have every reason to exaggerate and lie - and no reason to tell the truth... Because comparing it to the types of prisons in the 3rd world that do have truly horrible living conditions and real absolute torture, is just dishonest. In most of those places you don't even get paper to write on, nor have a personal lawyer, nor get special religious treatment, nor have media walk-throughs, nor doctors on call 24/7, nor TVs, and so on and on.

tphyahoo 13y ago
You have an incredible lack of compassion. Pray that you nor someone you love rots in a dungeon like this. Pray that you never have to eat those words as you sit in silent darkness slowly losing your mind. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to you.
DanBC 13y ago
The US should be aiming higher than some developing nation hellhole for its prisons. "We're not as bad as that poor nation, with the dictatorship, and all the corruption" isn't a ringing endorsement of the freedoms that the US wants the rest of the world to have.
andrewfelix 13y ago
"They have every reason to exaggerate and lie..." As opposed to the US Government.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mjn 13y ago
Perhaps that's true, but I have no way of knowing what the conditions are like. I'd have more confidence that my country is operating such facilities in a manner that meets at least basic standards if they didn't seem to be taking overt steps to avoid our own legal system's oversight. Congress has been generally sympathetic, and passed laws giving law-enforcement agencies and the military substantial deference, so it's not as if they risk oversight by some hostile foreign power, or the UN or something. And yet still the military is operating some kind of weird extra-territorial prison, which it's trying to keep our country's own courts from overseeing. What are they hiding, and why? On a basic level, we operate a prison in an area that the U.S. fully controls in perpetuity, a permanent U.S. facility that no other country exercises any control over, either now, for about 100 years into the past, or at any point in the foreseeable future. It is in effect a U.S. territory, in the sense that it is under the permanent control of the U.S., and has been for many decades. But we're claiming that it is nevertheless "in a foreign country" due a technicality, and therefore not subject to U.S. courts' jurisdiction, or indeed the jurisdiction of any other country's courts (not even those of the country that we claim has sovereignty over it). That sure seems shady, and like something is being hidden. If the USSR or any other country had claimed such an arrangement, "but look, it's not in the USSR, technically, just a perpetual lease to the USSR", we would have ridiculed it as a quasi-legalistic farce. It doesn't necessarily prove that the people operating Guantanamo are engaged in illegal activity, but the fact that they have gone out of their way to base their activities in some kind of legal no-man's land that isn't subject to any country's domestic jurisdiction doesn't give one great confidence that they are complying with American legal and ethical norms.
Zigurd 13y ago
Here is a good example: The New Yorker reports that 53 sets of remains were recovered from unmarked graves at a Florida youth incarceration facility called The Florida School for Boys. Now go find a third world hellhole that can top that. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/prosecutors-are-failing-the-victims-of-floridas-notorious-reform-school.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/prose...
rhizome 13y ago
Because comparing it to the types of prisons in the 3rd world that do have truly horrible living conditions and real absolute torture, is just dishonest. On what are you calibrating your gauge of dishonesty?
retrogradeorbit 13y ago
Your comment sickens me.
Zigurd 13y ago
Look at the numbers for US prisons. Compare them against your favorite place with notorious prisons. Except for China's, which is still significantly smaller than the US prison system, you will find the US numbers so vastly mindbogglingly larger that you might hesitate to take the bet that the US brutalizes and unjustly imprisons fewer people.
Myrmornis 13y ago
Do you only watch Fox News? Do you not understand that many of these people were just picked up in Afghanistan or Pakistan without any clear knowledge that they were engaged in any paramilitary or "terrorist" activity, and then held for a decade or until their deaths in jail, with no trial?
PavlovsCat 13y ago
> They have every reason to exaggerate and lie - and no reason to tell the truth... And how does this not apply to those holding them capture? Also, what is "real absolute torture"? I might as well say Al-Quaeda isn't really at war with the US, because "real absolute war" means tanks rolling into a country.
hobolobo 13y ago
There's a very good reason it's in Guantanamo and not upstate New York (and it's not because of the climate).
gadders 13y ago
It's amazing that every detainee in Guantanamo is innocent of any crime. Statistically, you'd expect some to be terrorists/enemy combatants/Taliban, but they all seem to be innocent tourists and farmers.
- mcherm 13y ago
  I have never heard anyone (other that you) claim that every detainee in Guantanamo is innocent of any crime. What I HAVE heard people claim is that SOME of those detained there are innocent of any crime. And the government's official position on the matter agrees with this claim: they admit that some of the detainees have committed no crime. For other detainees, the government position is "a crime has been committed but we don't feel like saying so in court".
paul_f 13y ago
What's wrong with what this commenter said? So we downvote opinions we don't like? What happened to the free exchange of ideas? HN comments section apparently is becoming a echo chamber and quickly losing all relevance.
- andrewfelix 13y ago
  It's not the opinion or the idea. The argument is incredibly weak.
- Myrmornis 13y ago
  Yes, defending Guantanamo in any way is disgusting and that is obvious to intelligent people in most parts of the world. Some views are so abhorrent per se that down voting may occur even if the comment is internally consistent, doesn't personally insult anyone, etc.
  - powertower 13y ago
    > millions of people are being tortured at Guantanamo My argument against this consisted of: 1. Factual figures on detainee numbers, which proves Guantanamo had an incredibly small head-count from the start, and has also been downsized significantly since then. 2. Factual representation of conditions at Guantanamo that show nothing to support claims of wholescale torture (aside from a few detainees being isolated). 3. A logical assertion that detainees have no reason to tell the truth and every reason to exaggerate and lie. And I did not even bother with the fact that some of these detainees are so radical and violent that their own countries (that are opposed to the USA) DON'T WANT THEM BACK. Your counter-argument is what's abhorrent... That you would call your closed-minded group-think emotional response an intellectual one. Your entire position is "I support the discussion of ideas and point-of-views ... as long as they agree with me".

tphyahoo 13y ago

You have an incredible lack of compassion. Pray that you nor someone you love rots in a dungeon like this. Pray that you never have to eat those words as you sit in silent darkness slowly losing your mind. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to you.

DanBC 13y ago

The US should be aiming higher than some developing nation hellhole for its prisons. "We're not as bad as that poor nation, with the dictatorship, and all the corruption" isn't a ringing endorsement of the freedoms that the US wants the rest of the world to have.

andrewfelix 13y ago

"They have every reason to exaggerate and lie..." As opposed to the US Government.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mjn 13y ago

Perhaps that's true, but I have no way of knowing what the conditions are like. I'd have more confidence that my country is operating such facilities in a manner that meets at least basic standards if they didn't seem to be taking overt steps to avoid our own legal system's oversight. Congress has been generally sympathetic, and passed laws giving law-enforcement agencies and the military substantial deference, so it's not as if they risk oversight by some hostile foreign power, or the UN or something. And yet still the military is operating some kind of weird extra-territorial prison, which it's trying to keep our country's own courts from overseeing. What are they hiding, and why? On a basic level, we operate a prison in an area that the U.S. fully controls in perpetuity, a permanent U.S. facility that no other country exercises any control over, either now, for about 100 years into the past, or at any point in the foreseeable future. It is in effect a U.S. territory, in the sense that it is under the permanent control of the U.S., and has been for many decades. But we're claiming that it is nevertheless "in a foreign country" due a technicality, and therefore not subject to U.S. courts' jurisdiction, or indeed the jurisdiction of any other country's courts (not even those of the country that we claim has sovereignty over it). That sure seems shady, and like something is being hidden. If the USSR or any other country had claimed such an arrangement, "but look, it's not in the USSR, technically, just a perpetual lease to the USSR", we would have ridiculed it as a quasi-legalistic farce. It doesn't necessarily prove that the people operating Guantanamo are engaged in illegal activity, but the fact that they have gone out of their way to base their activities in some kind of legal no-man's land that isn't subject to any country's domestic jurisdiction doesn't give one great confidence that they are complying with American legal and ethical norms.

Zigurd 13y ago

Here is a good example: The New Yorker reports that 53 sets of remains were recovered from unmarked graves at a Florida youth incarceration facility called The Florida School for Boys. Now go find a third world hellhole that can top that. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/prosecutors-are-failing-the-victims-of-floridas-notorious-reform-school.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/prose...

rhizome 13y ago

Because comparing it to the types of prisons in the 3rd world that do have truly horrible living conditions and real absolute torture, is just dishonest. On what are you calibrating your gauge of dishonesty?

retrogradeorbit 13y ago

Your comment sickens me.

Zigurd 13y ago

Look at the numbers for US prisons. Compare them against your favorite place with notorious prisons. Except for China's, which is still significantly smaller than the US prison system, you will find the US numbers so vastly mindbogglingly larger that you might hesitate to take the bet that the US brutalizes and unjustly imprisons fewer people.

Myrmornis 13y ago

Do you only watch Fox News? Do you not understand that many of these people were just picked up in Afghanistan or Pakistan without any clear knowledge that they were engaged in any paramilitary or "terrorist" activity, and then held for a decade or until their deaths in jail, with no trial?

PavlovsCat 13y ago

> They have every reason to exaggerate and lie - and no reason to tell the truth... And how does this not apply to those holding them capture? Also, what is "real absolute torture"? I might as well say Al-Quaeda isn't really at war with the US, because "real absolute war" means tanks rolling into a country.

hobolobo 13y ago

There's a very good reason it's in Guantanamo and not upstate New York (and it's not because of the climate).

gadders 13y ago

It's amazing that every detainee in Guantanamo is innocent of any crime. Statistically, you'd expect some to be terrorists/enemy combatants/Taliban, but they all seem to be innocent tourists and farmers.

mcherm 13y ago
I have never heard anyone (other that you) claim that every detainee in Guantanamo is innocent of any crime. What I HAVE heard people claim is that SOME of those detained there are innocent of any crime. And the government's official position on the matter agrees with this claim: they admit that some of the detainees have committed no crime. For other detainees, the government position is "a crime has been committed but we don't feel like saying so in court".

paul_f 13y ago

What's wrong with what this commenter said? So we downvote opinions we don't like? What happened to the free exchange of ideas? HN comments section apparently is becoming a echo chamber and quickly losing all relevance.

andrewfelix 13y ago
It's not the opinion or the idea. The argument is incredibly weak.
Myrmornis 13y ago
Yes, defending Guantanamo in any way is disgusting and that is obvious to intelligent people in most parts of the world. Some views are so abhorrent per se that down voting may occur even if the comment is internally consistent, doesn't personally insult anyone, etc.
- powertower 13y ago
  > millions of people are being tortured at Guantanamo My argument against this consisted of: 1. Factual figures on detainee numbers, which proves Guantanamo had an incredibly small head-count from the start, and has also been downsized significantly since then. 2. Factual representation of conditions at Guantanamo that show nothing to support claims of wholescale torture (aside from a few detainees being isolated). 3. A logical assertion that detainees have no reason to tell the truth and every reason to exaggerate and lie. And I did not even bother with the fact that some of these detainees are so radical and violent that their own countries (that are opposed to the USA) DON'T WANT THEM BACK. Your counter-argument is what's abhorrent... That you would call your closed-minded group-think emotional response an intellectual one. Your entire position is "I support the discussion of ideas and point-of-views ... as long as they agree with me".