On Feb 20, 2009, at 8:44 PM, David Cake wrote: > At 8:14 AM -0700 19/2/09, Chris Gehlker wrote: >> On Feb 18, 2009, at 11:58 PM, David Cake wrote: >> >>> For the most part those in Gitmo were those picked up >>> actually in Aghanistan, but exactly what they were doing there is >>> another question. There are certainly organisations which proclaim >>> humanitarian goals that Cheney at least would consider terrorist. >> >> I agree that the absolute numbers don't matter all that much. What >> does matter is the quality of the evidence that the administration >> used to justify incarcerating these people in the first place. >> 'Evidence' obtained through 'confessions' extracted under torture and >> from paid informants is no evidence at all. Cheney is arguing that >> the >> fact that he has 'good evidence' that 12% of those incarcerated were >> back in the "business of being terrorists" somehow proves that they >> were all terrorists before they were incarcerated. > > Not particularly. > >> Apparently you and >> Chuck find this argument convincing. > > No, I merely find your arguments against it irrelevant and > pointless. US forces would have to be massively incompetent not to > pick up *some* captives with a direct connection to Al-Qaeda.
US forces apprehended a very small percentage of the captives so their competence is not relevant. > > Speculating about what exact percentage of those incarcerated are > completely innocent, what percentage of inmates were actively > involved in terrorist activity, and what percentage are somewhere in > between , based mostly on a single remark of the deeply deceitful > Cheney, seems like a pointless exercise. > >> I'm merely asserting that it says >> nothing at all about the 88% that didn't engage in terrorist acts >> subsequent to their release and is not even conclusive concerning the >> 12%. They could well have been radicalized during their >> incarceration. > > Well, many of them were picked up working with Taliban > forces. I don't think we need to rely on Cheneys say so to assume > that many of them were radicalised before being captured, given they > were willing to, in many cases, travel to Afghanistan to support the > Taliban. But radical isn't the same as terrorist, except in Cheneys > world. You seem to be confusing the Taliban, an indigenous group, with al- Qaeda. > > >> I think it has been documented that the majority of those >> incarcerated >> weren't doing anything at all that a rational person would consider >> terrorism and that the US personnel in Afghanistan knew it. > > Many of them were, by Cheneys definition, illegal combatants > (ie troops of the Taliban, a non-state actor). I still contend there > is no such category in any meaningful legal sense, but in > Cheney-world virtually all Taliban troops were in that category. > >> Very few >> were actually apprehended by US or allied forces. The vast majority >> were turned in by rival clans for the reward of $1,000 which was >> riches by local standards. There are even documented cases of local >> sheiks driving into villages populated by rival clans, scooping up a >> few men and then driving to the local NATO base, stopping to fire a >> few mortar rounds toward the base, and turning their captives in as >> the ones who fired the rounds. > > Of course relying on such a system of rewards is a bad idea, > of course many people picked up were not actually guilty of what was > claimed in such a system. > But as I said, the issue is that the system is > indiscriminate, and is prepared to grab a few innocent along the way > -- the exact percentages are a foolish argument, especially as > guilt/innocence is in large part defined by legal sophistry. > > You mentioned the Stuarts, and how they became unpopular > through overuse of paid informants - of course, the US isn't > operating in Afghanistan the same way it is in its own country. The > US under Bush/Cheney just straight out didn't give a crap whether > anyone in Afghanistan *liked* them - possibly in part due to the same > sort of massive disconnect and arrogance that made them think that > the people of Iraq would automatically welcome them as liberators. You seem to be missing the point that even Rumsfeld understood. We can agree that from an abstract ethical perspective it doesn't matter whether the percentage of people swept up and detained by the US was large or small. But from the standpoint of effectiveness it matters a great deal. Every time the us detains a non-terrorist, they run the risk that he and/or his friends, family and clan members will become radicalized. This raises the fundamental question or whether US policy resulted in a net increase or decrease in terrorists. You seem to be arguing simultaneously that you find this question pointless, that you are sure the US was to competent to pursue a policy that resulted in a net increase in terrorists, and that Cheney didn't care whether the policy was counter-productive because he doesn't engage in popularity contests. I do find the question of whether the policy was productive interesting and I find the low percentage of detainees who engaged in terrorism pose incarceration dispositive. That so few were clearly members of the Taliban after their incarceration argues that very few were Taliban members before incarceration. This argues that the policy may well have caused an increase in the numbers of Taliban and, indeed, the Taliban is larger now than ever before. -- For blocks are better cleft with wedges, Than tools of sharp or subtle edges, And dullest nonsense has been found By some to be the most profound. -Samuel Butler, _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
