An American soldier should not say they oppose the war when held by the enemy, even if they do. But he shouldn’t expect an early release either. (Read the Code of Conduct.)
I’m not saying the detainees should say they oppose the Taliban’s side of the war. I’m noting that they don’t, and that’s just one more reason not to imagine the fiction that they’re innocents caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I don’t get my ethics from any of those bodies. But that’s not about my ethics, as I don’t believe anything the detainees say, including why they’re not eating.
It’s about those medical doctors and staff, who apparently don’t want those detainees to starve themselves to death. There seems to be some ethics involved in their making that decision.
Aside from the obvious, these guys have had tribunals, habeas legal reviews, and annual reviews. It’s in line with the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions (which people used to claim to care about).
It’s not that low a bar that you can fit any substantial number of people through.
We’ve captured tens of thousands (maybe 100,000 by now). Only about 800 were ever taken to Gitmo, and only 166 remain. This isn’t all that many, considering the scale of the war. It’s not something we should accept a big guilt trip over. And it’s not something you can compare to imprisoning any segment of the population.
I’m not saying they are all friendly people. I’m saying nobody is surprised to find them opponents of democracy; it seems not to have occurred to you that some might not think it excuses our treatment of them. Likewise for “torture”, their opinion of it can’t make it right - and by the way it is torture, without the quotation marks, which are a disgusting failure to appreciate what has been done.
[quote=“Ion, post:23, topic:2600”]
only 166 remain
[/quote] If the US is trying to keep up the fiction of being the good guys, any number greater than 0 is unacceptable.
Whether or not “enhanced interrogation techniques” are really torture, it doesn’t apply to most of these detainees. Only three were waterboarded. I think seven got really rough sleep deprivation. The overwhelming majority of these detainees weren’t tortured in any real sense that the word would could actually apply.
they are force feeding them ramen noodles whats the big story in that
We are the good guys.
I’m going by the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war. The Supreme Court ruled that it’s legal.
You are remarkably dismissive of these human beings’ suffering.
Legal prescriptivism and appeal to authority. Once again, unrelated to ethics.
Which type of suffering? I was responding to Chenille’s caution about my not wanting to use the word “torture,” as she is (quite rightly) opposed to torture. My point is that, even if she stridently believes enhanced interrogation is torture, she can still only say that a few were tortured. Most were not, and two of them aren’t even in Gitmo anymore.
Or, if your point is that I’m dismissive of the other rough techniques, that’s a different point, and one that Chenille’s point doesn’t apply, as she was talking about real torture in the legal sense.
We could talk about the lesser, but still harsh, interrogation techniques. But, like I said, those ended at Gitmo in 2003. And you shouldn’t be using my answer to Chenille to dismiss that point.
Fine, but I already noted that the detainees support their side of the war. It would be immoral to be releasing them while they’re willing and able to fight the Afghans.
We’re in the right legally, and morally.
What makes your side of this ‘war’ morally right?
Maybe you should ask them. They declared war on us a few years earlier. You might also ask the Afghans, although I think their reasons should be obvious.
Then there’s 9/11, an act of war any way you look at it. (That should be #1.)
There’s the cruel nature of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They use real torture that makes waterboarding look like something that people would volunteer to try out for themselves.
What makes you think Al Qaeda and the Taliban could be morally right?
9/11 wasn’t the start of anything.
I’m not claiming that Al Qaeda or the Taliban are in any way good guys (it goes without saying that they aren’t - but if you want me to say that I find them morally abhorent, I will). All I’m saying that is that if you want to be the good guy you’re meant to be better than the other guy. Tit for tat doesn’t cover it. Morally and legally dubious invasions of other countries, installing puppet administrations, torturing people and holding them without trial (regardless of whatever they’ve done) does not a good guy make.
To say we’re “installing puppet regimes” if way off. They’re not perfect, but they were U.N. monitored elections, and polls show that the majority of Afghans and Iraqis like their governments a lot more (or dislike them less) than the ones we replaced.
I’ll bypass the “torture” discussion for now.
As I said, holding people without trial (but with tribunals and legal reviews) is legal and moral in accordance with the laws of war. If you don’t support the laws of war, then you don’t support the Geneva Conventions.
There are actually good ways around the need for these tribunals, but it requires some cooperation with the enemy. We’ve had that in WWII, but we don’t have it now.
Well, rather than waste an hour or so reading the back and forth, I’ll just put my opinion up, knowing that it’ll be available for the rest of time.
Gitmo should be closed, I think everyone but the US Congress can agree with this.
It’s immoral to let a detainee/prisoner die because of their protest (this is my opinion, not a fact).
It’s immoral to force a muslim to break their fast during one of the days of Ramadan.
Since the force feeding “needs” (my opinion) to continue as long as the detainees hunger strike, then it is morally right to delay their force feedings until they are religiously allowed to eat.
Indeed.
http://www.prb.org/articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx
She finds that young black males without a high school diploma were more likely to be in prison or jail (37 percent) on any given day in 2008 than to be working (26 percent).
Had we not been force feeding them, only about two or three would be going through with it to the end. The rest would have been eating again by now.
If, as you say, they only had to wait out the hunger strike, why did the Guantanamo officials pursue force-feeding? Simple concern for the health and well-being of the poor souls in their care?
It’s a lot more than that. Even President Obama’s plan for “closing” Gitmo would really only be moving it to Illinois.
The detainees would be locked up there under pretty much the same legal conditions – meaning that they still wouldn’t be getting a full trial beyond the tribunals they’ve already had. (I’m not kidding; you can look it up.)
On the bright side, they wouldn’t be getting as much sun. That could mean more time for reading.
