Today the infamous prison in Cuba turns ten!

I remember clearly how I first saw pictures like this one:



I know that for me personally, it changed my views of the US a lot. Setting up a prison on foreign soil to make sure that you do not have to follow your own legal system was more than weird for me. By now we know why it was "necessary" as the military and intelligence agencies probably did not dare to torture within the US.

Obama promised to close it and received the Nobel peace prize "up front"... since then did he (probably) stop the torture, but did not manage to get decent trials for any of the prisoners. Some were released, some new ones brought in and many were declared "too dangerous to be released but too little evidence to be trialed"... and there is a never ending political story behind it. In short did the republicans over the last years continuously raise the bar when it comes to requirements for closing the place and blocking the "normal" trial of the inmates on US soil. In short: No matter who wins the elections, I am sure the camp will stay some more years.

I personally just think that the US loses so much more than it gains by giving these few guys not the same rights any other POW enjoys. It is for me simply a symbol for double standards and torture. I think the people in it managed to harm the US more by being there than what they did for the Taleban or bin Laden.

I wonder how the American EF users feel about it as it seems to be an important topic in US policies...

Think of it another way; most of these prisoners are brain washed warriors, they were captured after active service against the west. The USA is looking after them and keeping them safe. If it released them they would all be dead within a few months, killed in action against the west. A few mistakes were made, nothing is perfect.

I would rather have an active Guantanamo with it's half guilty prisoners than another 9/11 or 7/7 with completely innocent people maimed and killed. If these prisoners had stayed in their villages, living as farmers or honest merchants, they would not be now in Guantanamo.

Are we talking about the same prison, the one where people are held in cages without roof and the majority of inmates were tortured?

Valid point. However, as the Wikileaks files showed:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/04/25/...-just-in-case/


I think that's an important point: Did the prison made the world a safer place?

I personally have the feeling that if there were guys in there that were clearly guilty... why not trial them? After all were plenty of Al Quaeda terrorists trialed in the US. The shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the "other guy" from 9/11. The US justice system seems to be very able to deal with terrorists.

If the people in guantanome arent terrorists but some sort of soldier caught in action, they should be in a normal POW camp, no? Enjoying the same rights all other POWs have including the right to not get tortured.

It is too bad that Guantanamo prison got its celebrity status among other similar places which get ignored by the public. These are not just a few guys in Guantanamo. But people seem to like symbols...

This was in the news last Saturday - Afgan investigators claim that 2700 people are held without a trial in a prison outside Bagram Air Base. Afghan investigators accused the American military of abusing detainees.
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120...as_afghanistan

This is an article from 2005 by The Washington Post. A covert prison system was set up by the CIA in 2001 that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...110101644.html

None of these people are terrorists. Some of them are suspects. But even a terrorist deserves the same basic rights including the right to not get tortured...

If you go to Bern and walk around embassies and consulates of different countries, take a look at the US embassy, how much it is guarded compared to others. This is a model of the US place in the world -- unsafe.

What would you say if the Taliban was doing the same to the American soldiers? They are also brain washed warriors, they would be captured after an active service against Afganistan. Would you see holding Americans under such conditions as just "keeping them safe" too?

Sure, but that wasn't my point.

I can understand the underlying problem with the Taleban: Before, you had two types of guys: Soldiers and criminals.

Soldiers enjoy a special status with a lot of rights. But those rights come at a price... and the Taleban did not pay it. A soldier is a soldier because he wears a uniform that makes him clearly distinct from civilians. He has to fight in a way that he prevents unecessary civilian casulties otherwise he is not only a soldier, but a war criminal. A soldier has a rank and when captured has to state his name and some information on his position in a regular army... The Taleban are no regular army in that sense. (And before anyone jumps at it: yes, regular wars were not exactly nice all the time and no, not everyone was always playing by the rules... I am desribing the principle, nothing more)

So what are they? Criminals? Then they should be trialed by criminal courts in the country where they comitted a crime... try that in Afghanistan just after the invasion... are they terrorists? Some, maybe. I guess that bombing market places and terrorizing the innocent Afghans does very well count as terrorism even if we leave all the claims that every 14 yr old in Guantanamo "knows something" about 9/11.

In short: The rather bureaucratic US government had suddenly a large group of captives with which they didn't know what to do. I understand that they didn't want to import them to the US. I also understand that they wanted to get the most dangerous ones out of Asghanistan to a place where they could not be freed by some attack during the invasion. But keeping people in some legal vacuum for a decade is just wrong for a power that wants to have the moral high ground. (Let alone the torture... or the apparently high number of innocent prisoners)

Sorry to keep going on this ... but this is my point. There is no such thing as a criminal before the trial. Before the criminal procedure the person is called a suspect and is considered innocent until proven guilty. These people are innocent.

Well, no. That's exactly the problem: It is perfectly legal to capture enemy soldiers and keep them in a prison for the length of a war. You don't need any trial or judge for a POW.

Those Taleban were not criminals, but fighter. They run the country and fought against an invading army. So they should be POWs. But they did not meet the requirements to be considered soldiers according to international law and the Bush administration therefore did not want to grant them the POW status with its connected rights. That is the core of the problem.

So I can understand how the US got into the mess, but I really don't get how they cannot find a solution for it within a decade. After all is it a damn visible symbol that the US has double standards and in doubt bend the laws - simply cause they can. That this is more negative for the US as a country than having a couplpe of trials on its soil should get into the hardest tea party head... so I just don't get why the strong right of the republicans is blocking any possible solution. Just to show that Obama was not able to keep his word (without their support)?

I wouldn't.

Agreed. These people are are either POWs or innocent. I just do not like them being called terrorists or criminals.

About the double standards -- there are more prisons like this so the US has to either eliminate all of them or to be not so shy about the symbol. I think this is why Obama could not keep his word and close Guantanamo -- because he would be forced to look at the other prisons as well.

Guantanamo - Men in Red

This article from the NY Times is worth a read.

One of Obama's fails has been his election promise of closing down Gitmo. I feel that every inmate interned there is just because keeping a detainee out of sight is easy than admitting foreign policy errors and McCarthy-like paranoia.

You actually state that you prefer to save US innocents at the price of torturing foreign-innocents. Quite a moral issue here.

You can also see it from another point of view: you've been brain-washed by the Bush-administration policy to believe such arguments.

Do we have proof they are innocent?

Tell that to the families of those innocent people, civilian as well as military, killed by terrorists.

If you have a look outside Switzerland you will see that there are a lot more countries who need to wrap themselves in 'cotton wool' and protect themselves from terrorism, take a look at the UK or next time you fly out of Zurich ask yourself why you are only allowed 150ml of liquid or why you have to take your shoes off going through security.

And we wonder why the world is in the state it is with terrorism, well its down to far too many people having the same sorry attitude as yourself when it comes to terrorists I am afraid.

Sorry about the off-topic ... where on the forum could I read about these points that I can see on my control panel and seem to collect from other EF users as their opinion of some of my posts? I would also like to present some users with these points, how do I do this? Just trying to intergrate

Habeas corpus: proove they are guilty;
at guantanamo you have to proove you are innocent and this under torture.

The admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks is hardly McCarthy-like
paranoia.

Do we need any or do we need proof that they are not? And before we discuss the proof, we would actually need to know what they did... which is exactly what the US is not telling. Just as posted above: The wikileaks documents show nicely that people who are considered dangerous for some vague hints are locked up, not the ones you have hard facts against.

Can you tell me what state the world is in with terrorism? How big is the problem really? What are the most common reasons to die an untimely death and is crime and terrorism really represented according to its relevance in the media?

no we don't! never did and I hope will never need to have