On Feb 19, 2009, at 1:58 AM, David Cake wrote: > At 10:23 PM -0700 18/2/09, Chris Gehlker wrote: >> On Feb 18, 2009, at 9:27 PM, David Cake wrote: >> >>> Charles is right. The 88% figure is an upper bound on the >>> number of Gitmo inmates who were innocent. >> >> History is replete with examples where imprisoning moderate opponents >> of a given regime radicalized them. > > True. I guess it depends on what he meant by "returns to". > Given that you'd have to be more or less insane to reconnect with a > covert terrorist network when you've just got out of Gitmo (no matter > what your commitment to the cause, you'd have to conclude you are > going to get undue interest from security services), I suspect what > he means is 'goes back to working for the Taliban', which is what > most of them were doing before they were picked up. > It is certainly possible that some of them used to just > casually hang out with the Taliban, and now are hard core terrorist > for the Taliban, but it is pushing it. > But I think there is way too much emphasis on examining the > numbers inplied by an off-hand remark from the prince of darkness -- > my point was that even if he is right, Gitmo was still unjustifiable, > so why argue about exactly to what extent he is right? > >>
This is what he means. "Freed by the U.S., Saudi Becomes al Qaeda Chief" <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/middleeast/23yemen.html?_r=1> "The emergence of a former Guantánamo Baydetainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year." I guess if you all think that the 80+% are innocent then your respective governments should have no problem accepting them as refugees. Last I heard, part of the problem is that almost none of the detainee's governments want these people back and, again, almost no western government wants to accept them either. Quoting Vijay Padmanabhan ( who served until August of this year as an attorney adviser in the State Department with responsibility for detainee issues) "Tell me about that type of negotiation. What do third countries say when the United States approaches them on the resettlement issue? Well it's been a very difficult process. The State Department over the past few years has approached almost every country on the globe and asked them to take Guantánamo detainees for third-country resettlement. " Somehow I doubt that the military would go though the expense and bother of snatching someone up and transporting them to gitmo without some reason. (Yes I know that it *has* happened, but I think that is the exception not the rule and more likely done by CIA types not soldiers.) Unlike the military, the CIA and other TLA's are not known for behaving rationally. From a military commander's point of view it would be illogical to expend the resources to snatch someone up all that if simply shooting them or ignoring them was easier. If you ask me what to do, I'd grant Castro's wish to have Gitmo returned to Cuba. Just tell him, BTW, we left the jail doors open so you might want build some mosques soon'ish. After all, we do owe him for the boat people invasion when he emptied his prisons and let them all raft north. Tit for tat sounds like a workable diplomatic policy to me but that's why I don't run things. =c= _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
