Poll: Gitmo Detainees - Involved In 9/11?

No, not about the poll.

Waste of time to vote on this nonsense.
AlQuida hates you & wants to destroy your freedom & your lifestyle don't you forget it. It's not some made up lie from the Bush Administration.
But what about the USS Cole?
BTW, our neighbors to the south are having serious issues not being covered by our liberal new outlets. Did you hear?

Sure, we don't like them much and don't care much for their supposed "plight", but the anger and vitriol these days is directed mostly toward those who would defend these people on the basis of some theoretical/philosophical injustice of Gitmo and the POW/Captured-Combatant system in general. People are mostly angry that there are people who would see this scum tried in our civil courts as if they were common criminals and not the captured enemy combatants, terrorists, enemy militia, and enemy sympathizers they are. People who would see these people set free (or put in the hands of countries that would soon free them) while our troops are still in danger. People who would give these people and their sob stories more credence than our own military who captured them in the first place.

Good example, Obama tried to postpone all military tribunals for 120 days shortly after sitting down at the big desk. Why? And I ask that on two lines of thought. 1) Postponing their tribunals does nothing more than put them back into the much decried "held without trial" status. 2) There have been at least two efforts by the congress and the prior administration to come up with agreed upon tribunal procedures, what is Obama going to do to make the process better that should prevent ongoing trials from occuring?

The first set of new procedures for these trials was, I think, tossed by a judge, maybe in a case before the USSC, can't remember. Might have been the Hamdan case. Second set still stands and in both cases they passed with strong bipartisan support. If Obama wants to change the procedures, go ahead and propose something, but don't step on the rules that many worked on to put in place to assuage the concerns of many.

And what happened either today or yesterday? Obama got his wish and the tribunal underway for Nashiri was suspended after a second judge overruled the first one that denied the suspension. Nashiri is one of the masterminds of the USS Cole bombing.

Back to the poll, that's at least one who is directly responsible for a major terrorist attack on the US being held at Gitmo. 9/11, no, but only a short while before then, and up to 9/11 it was the most devastating terror attack on the US to that point.

President Barack Obama, defender of the rights of terrorist scum from the rules and procedures put in place by a second bipartisan act of congress in representation of the people. Attaboy, Barry.

pvolcko wrote:the anger and vitriol these days is directed mostly toward those who would defend these people

That anger is misplaced. You are venting it at some people (like me) who are not defending these Gitma detainees, but defending our Constitution & OUR rights as human beings. If a bunch of people can be imprisoned anywhere, in our name, with no way of proving their innocence simply on the basis of an accusation, then we all are potentially at risk that WE may be next. This is a very simple basic concept & goes back to the Ben Franklin line that says "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."
Because I defend our Constitution, do not paint me as an Al Quieda supporter! I am not & resent the implication.

Devil505. You are drawing the anger because you get off on it. You are disrespectful to the military, the victims of 9/11, and everybody here. You like to make trouble. As far as I'm concerned they can execute every Muslim scum in Gitmo tonight.

Dann757 wrote:Devil505. You are drawing the anger because you get off on it.

I like debate, not drawing misplaced anger , am not disrespectful of the military or any member here but admit to not knowing when to stop sometimes...back to coal for my BP's sake.

The detainees at gitmo are not simply innocent goat farmers swept up by mistake. The military and CIA know exactly who everyone of them are and what they've been involved in. Could they prove it in every case using the rules of evidence as defined in our legal system? Probably not and that's why it is critical they not be brought here and tried in our courts. Some *censored* scum sucking lawyer looking to make a buck and name for himself would get evidence thrown out due to the way in which it was obtained. We don't need any of these detainees tried here and released. Let me repeat something from an earlier post. The constitiutional protections afforded US citizens doesn't extend to these enemy combatants. These are al queida who are dedicted to killing as many of us as they can. I know Devil knows that. Time seems to have made him forgetfull however. He's not alone. When we haven't been struck here in 8 years, it's easy to get complacent. Based on past history and time frames, I wouldn't be surprised if we were struck here any day. Bin Laden's MO is careful, patient planning and escalating impact. The next attack will attempt to make 9/11 seem trivial. If that attack had already occurred, we wouldn't be having this debate about gitmo.

As for the motvation of those who are so anxious to close gitmo, I believe it's in large part because it was a Bush/Cheney idea and the hatred of those on the left for them is driving this. It's symbolism and they can't wait to crush it. The one dirty little detail is Obama now knows for sure that these detainees cannot be released. There's too much attention on them know for rendition so that's probably out for this group. But that's what's in store for those that come after them. That part of the story wasn't played up by the media. Devil didn't even know it and I'm pretty sure he's a news hound.

It doesn't matter whether a bunch of coal nerds think these guys were involved in 9/11. I think we all know they were involved in acting, plotting and planning against us and our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. They are bad folks and don't deserve your concern. In no way does this threaten OUR rights as US civilians.

Devil505 wrote:

pvolcko wrote:the anger and vitriol these days is directed mostly toward those who would defend these people

That anger is misplaced. You are venting it at some people (like me) who are not defending these Gitma detainees, but defending our Constitution & OUR rights as human beings. If a bunch of people can be imprisoned anywhere, in our name, with no way of proving their innocence simply on the basis of an accusation, then we all are potentially at risk that WE may be next. This is a very simple basic concept & goes back to the Ben Franklin line that says "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."
Because I defend our Constitution, do not paint me as an Al Quieda supporter! I am not & resent the implication.

With respect, you cut off the operative part of that statement:

pvolcko wrote:the anger and vitriol these days is directed mostly toward those who would defend these people on the basis of some theoretical/philosophical injustice of Gitmo and the POW/Captured-Combatant system in general.

Which is exactly the argument you just made. I'm not saying there is an easy solution to the issue of detained combatants, but the fact of the matter is that congress and the Bush administration went three rounds on the issue and came to a set of procedures and rules that got bipartisan support and so far have withstood civil court scrutiny. The system put in place was working, finally, respecting the need for state secrets, the circumstances in which the people were captured, and the need to provide the accused with legal protections and their chance for justice.

You speak as if things were no better than in 2005 with regard to the detainees and their processing through the system. I believe that is demonstrably false.

What would you have us do that we were not doing before Obama, in his infinite wisdom, decided to stop tribunals while he and his crack team "review" things, forcing the dismissal of charges and stopping the tribunal of Nashiri and others? Note, they are not being released or tried in another court. They are just being denied justice through further delay, while Obama does what? Preen for his ACLU supporters and then decides to move all trials to civilian courts where they will be summarily dismissed and set free due to the incompatibility of civilian rules of law with the military circumstances of their capture, the lack of clean chains of evidence, and a justified desire to keep certain evidence and its sources secret from those being accused (not to mention the rest of the world)?

My anger with Obama and those who would support him in what he has done here and what I fear he will do is not misplaced, it is exactly where I want it.

pvolcko wrote:My anger with Obama and those who would support him in what he has done here and what I fear he will do is not misplaced

Exactly

KLook wrote:I will not vote for the same reasons stated above. I have no idea what they did to get there. It is not for us to judge actually.

Kevin

I have to disagree. I think in a country that alleges to have a government "of the people, by the people, for the people" don't you think it's our RESPONSIBILITY to know how and why our government does things?

The Federal government is the EMPLOYEE of the people. If you owned a business, would you take a hands off approach to running it? Just say, "I don't care what you do or how you do it?"

Too many people share your sentiment to all of our detriment.

Well Jeff, I would encourage you to run for office if you want to run this business call the United States. Unfortunately, there are things that have been done, being done, and will be done in the future that you and I and the rest of these coal jockeys have no business judging because we don't have all the relevent information to make the decisions. And for obvious reasons we will not have that info. I guess we should just conduct the national business on the evening news and announce to the world what we know, how we know it, and what we intend to do about it.
All our rules of conduct apply to fairness for our citizens and the rights that we enjoy. When it comes to national security in a world that is not more safe then it was 200 years ago,(I would argue it is more dangerous) I am in favor of taking the gloves off.

Kevin

KLook wrote:Well Jeff, I would encourage you to run for office if you want to run this business call the United States. Unfortunately, there are things that have been done, being done, and will be done in the future that you and I and the rest of these coal jockeys have no business judging because we don't have all the relevent information to make the decisions. And for obvious reasons we will not have that info. I guess we should just conduct the national business on the evening news and announce to the world what we know, how we know it, and what we intend to do about it.
All our rules of conduct apply to fairness for our citizens and the rights that we enjoy. When it comes to national security in a world that is not more safe then it was 200 years ago,(I would argue it is more dangerous) I am in favor of taking the gloves off.

Kevin

One, what makes you think I haven't at least looked into public office? I have, and will probably run in the future. Money is of course the limiting factor. That, and the laws which specifically make third parties nearly impossible.

And if you think it's time for the gloves to come off, then why not just level places like Iran and North Korea? We obviously have the ability. When did proactive war become acceptable to the general public?

The problem with the opinion you hold is that it places decisions that profoundly affect you into the governments hands. And I for one, don't trust those lying a$$holes. Most of them can't pay their taxes, avoid hiring illegal immigrants, or refrain from taking kick backs from the groups they allege to regulate.

Those are the people you trust with national security? We'd be better off broadcasting our intel on the nightly news.

Also, I think you should look around before you talk about the rights of the citizens. They are disappearing rapidly and, in fact, have largely disappeared entirely. You just haven't been a target yet.

Honestly, I think things are too far gone to ever get back to the Constitutional Republic that we started out with. The only thing to do now is hold on for the eventual crash.

1: I did not comment about you having previously run for office, just that you should if you think you will do a better job.

2:I am not the general public. I would tell the Arabs in general that the next major attack on innocent people on American soil would cause a city to be name later to be destroyed. Not nuked, we can do it with conventional methods just as well. It does not take much to knock down mud houses. We cannot find/control the terrorist but the Arabs could/would with the right motivation.

3: As to my opinion about Gov. It is about the same as yours. But you sound young and idealistic, probably just out of college. You still think you can make a difference. Good luck, I hope you can. But I have seen our government in action and it is illogical and maddening.

4: I did not talk about our rights, I commented on giving those protections to foriegn criminals/terrorists. They do not have them. Period. If you give them our rights, we have to release them. Give them some hush money and send them to Disney.

I think you take me for a Liberal! Ask a few in here how rediculous that is! I am a registered Independant, own my own business, avid hunter/gun owner, don't like unions, think the gov. is to intrusive. We will never return to the freedoms of the founders. It is natural human nature to create rules/laws to try to make everyone conform to the perceived "norm". As in, "there ought to be a law". This country is polarized between country conservatives and city liberals. That may be simplistic, but it describes the last election to a t. Which are you going to be when you get in? Or are you going for the god complex like I did in #2 above?

I am sorry if this really upsets you, you seem very serious. But every great country imploded by the same means. We are just the latest to tread the path.

KEvin

KLook wrote:1: I did not comment about you having previously run for office, just that you should if you think you will do a better job.

I dipped my toe in the water by running as a delegate for Ron Paul, just to give you an idea of my political persuasion. I next contacted the Republican party leaders in my state and was given every reason under the sun why I SHOULDN'T run. I suspect it had something to do with my RP support.

KLook wrote: 2:I am not the general public. I would tell the Arabs in general that the next major attack on innocent people on American soil would cause a city to be name later to be destroyed. Not nuked, we can do it with conventional methods just as well. It does not take much to knock down mud houses. We cannot find/control the terrorist but the Arabs could/would with the right motivation.

Sounds a bit like the school yard busy. This attitude does more to radicalize people than anything else. I suspect you are of the opinion that it is better to be feared than respected.

KLook wrote: 3: As to my opinion about Gov. It is about the same as yours. But you sound young and idealistic, probably just out of college. You still think you can make a difference. Good luck, I hope you can. But I have seen our government in action and it is illogical and maddening.

Thanks for the compliment. I'll be 39 next month. I never did know when to quit banging my head against the wall. If everyone thought like me, it WOULD make a difference.

KLook wrote: 4: I did not talk about our rights, I commented on giving those protections to foriegn criminals/terrorists. They do not have them. Period. If you give them our rights, we have to release them. Give them some hush money and send them to Disney.

The 14th amendment says:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

What needs to be established is the meaning of the part I put in bold. That is the part that allows illegal immigrants to receive trials for crimes committed in the US. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the current interpretation, but that's how it is.

And, I don't think you're a liberal. I've read enough to know you aren't. I typically agree with you. Just not on this particular issue.

jpete wrote:

KLook wrote:I will not vote for the same reasons stated above. I have no idea what they did to get there. It is not for us to judge actually.

Kevin

I have to disagree. I think in a country that alleges to have a government "of the people, by the people, for the people" don't you think it's our RESPONSIBILITY to know how and why our government does things?

The Federal government is the EMPLOYEE of the people. If you owned a business, would you take a hands off approach to running it? Just say, "I don't care what you do or how you do it?"

Too many people share your sentiment to all of our detriment.

Like it or not jpete........I agree with you 100% here. "We The People" have the ultimate responsibility for things done in our name.