Do think that the release of Gitmo detainees has been beneficial to our security and world opinion about us?

I just wish I knew who to hate. I am so confused.

We’d better lock up all people of middle eastern residency and/or descent in gitmo now.
It’s the only way to be sure.
I’m sure a few of them are terrorists.

Maybe they should randomly nab you off the street without any warning, throw you in Gitmo, refuse you any rights or contact with the outside world, beat you to a pulp every weekend because you look pretty, keep you there indefinitely, and see how you feel about it?

I’m more afraid of our own government than terrorism. They all need to be released, and we need to start over…if we can ever figure out how to run a prison.

All that article indicates is that maybe the U.S. and U.S. intelligence needs to get it’s shit together. The most fundamental human right is that a person not be deprived of life or liberty, or I suppose property for that matter, without due process. The detainees at Guantanamo are people whose guilt or innocence has yet to be determined. They should be tried or let go. If they are determined to be guilty of something then they should be given an appropriate sentence. You can’t imprison people for what you think they might do.

It’s kind of like the messed up economy he inherited. The Gitmo mess is another massive example of Bush incompetence. We had a prefectly good legal system in place and yet he insisted on inventing his own, and even refused to turn to experts in the Justice Department and FBI on how to interrogate them. Instead, he brought in a couple of psychologists with no experience in criminal justice and cooked up the torture program. It gave us zero actionable intelligence, but hundreds of detainees who could no longer be tried in our legal system because of how evidence, if any, was obtained.

Thise we can try, the Obama Administration will move to the criminal justice system and prosecute. But there are others where the only legal avenue open is to return them to their home country to either be imprisoned there or released, as that nation sees fit.

Bush isn’t the only one to blame. I say Cheney is even more responsible.

@kevbo Thanks. Good article. I think the key word here is “rare”.

Mohammed offers the rare opposite of a one-time detainee who instead of hiding from the Americans or openly despising them, now works for them

@plethora That is not the only case. Perhaps it is “rare” because we are keeping a ton of people locked up on vague suspicions of future crimes and refusing to actually give them a fair trial.

Innocent

Another innocent—and How they get you to proclaim guilt

Another innocent

Yet another innocent

82 more innocent, yet held anyway

And this is on ONE PAGE of Google hits out of thousands.

Do your research—then form an opinion. “Rare” is a subjective, baseless term that would no doubt enrage thousands of people who have suffered directly or indirectly as a result of this madness.

@plethora, I think we do plenty to balance the equation.

@kevbo LOL! I apparently need to catch up on my news. I thought we had only killed Al Queda’s Number 2, like maybe 6 or 7 times by this point. I didn’t know we were up to the 89th time already. Edit: And that was in 2008. We must have killed a whole bunch more of Al Queda’s #2 leaders since then. I feel really, really safe and secure.

@lillycoyote, we’ve gotten a few Taliban #2s, too. It’s so hard to keep track!

maybe if we changed “release” to “full release” we’d have fewer problems

firstly Guantanamo bay belongs to Cuba not America,
so on that premise, American occupation of Cuban territory is a gross violation of Cuba’s sovereignty, the irony being that America condemns Cuba for it’s so called curtailment of human rights yet has constructed a concentration camp in Guantanamo for detainees who may or may not be engaged in violent activity meted upon America or American interests…...and those detainees have no access to family, limited legal council, subjection to physical punishment/dubious interrogation methods, followed by junk food and no obvious Judicial procedures in order to determine their release.

You couldn’t make this stuff up, maybe this behaviour appeals to you, personally i find it inhumane and unbecoming of a Democracy.

So release who you got to release, charge or clarify the status of the remaining prisoners, but most of all do it on your turf and not Cuba’s.

But @mammal, what about all the great one liners from “A Few Good Men”? If we didn’t have Gitmo, they wouldn’t have enriched American pop culture for the past 15 years.

@kevbo shhh…i like a few good men :)

No, and no. We have released a bunch of people who are going to turn around and orchestrate more unkindnesses, and now the world is going to find something else to hate us for.

The detainees are being held illegally according to our own rules. That they have been held without due process is just proof to US citizens that they are paying (taxes) for completely illegal activities perpetrated by US leadership.
Screw what the world thinks about us, why haven’t the American people forced the release of the illegal captivity of these detainees years ago?
They obviously weren’t terrorists.

@mammal The US claimed Guantanamo Bay in 1903. Castro claimed Cuba in 1959.

We have the prior claim.

It’s not so much about the release, but giving them a trial. Yes, the civilized world welcomes this.

@mattbrowne Not as much as the uncivilized world does.

My guess is there are other extenuating reasons that a detainee may be released other than lack of evidence or presumed innocence. A very special deal, favor or special op may be at play to tender their release, the kind of stuff we will never know about.

@cruiser: and that is the way legal systems work. Don’t you watch “Law and Order”?

@susanc No I haven’t watched TV since they took Married with Children off the air.

@Factotum Well said…:)

Removed by me…....