--- In [email protected], "seekliberation" <seekliberation@...> wrote: > > I assume it was a naive impulse simply because there seems > to be this tendency to think that we are imprisoning these > people for no reason at all.
Nobody thinks that. > A lot of Americans don't seem to accept the fact that there > really are people out there plotting to kill us, and > succeeding at it sometimes. Everybody accepts that there are such people. I don't know where you come up with these wild ideas. > When I say I don't know much about Gitmo, I'm only saying > that I haven't done much research to look at the people > imprisoned there and done any form of background check to > confirm who, what, & why they are there. Nobody disputes that there are bad guys among the prisoners. But it's become quite clear that a good many of them were innocent of any terrorist-type activity to begin with. They've released quite a few of those men, but there are still some left. > But I do not distrust the decision to keep them there, > nor do I look at congress and think they are stupid for > having that prison in existence. "Stupidity" isn't exactly the issue. The issues are human rights, the Geneva Conventions, and the Constitution, especially habeas corpus. Guantanamo was established as the prison for "enemy combatants" from Afghanistan and Iraq because it was outside U.S. legal jurisdiction, meaning there were no restraints on how prisoners detained there could be treated, including torturing them; and no legal limits on how long they could be detained without being charged, tried, and convicted. Those who believe Guantanamo should be closed think this is profoundly anti-American. Another excellent reason for closing Guantanamo is that the unlawful treatment of the detainees has become a recruitment tool for terrorist groups. Plus which, it is considered a terrible stain worldwide on this country's reputation as a bastion of freedom and democracy. There is *zero* reason why the detainees cannot be transferred to a high-security prison in the U.S.-- except that then we would have to observe the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions in dealing with them and prosecute them according to U.S. law (as we've done very successfully with other terrorists who weren't captured in Afghanistan or Iraq). It's a very complicated topic, but there's plenty of information available. If you're at all interested in the reasons for the controversy, I'd suggest you start with the Wikipedia article and then follow up with some of the sources it lists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
