THE HOUSE TAKES A HOLIDAY
Due to some internet connectivity issues (the fault of Comcast), I am not going to post anything original today.
I would like some comments on whether or not you think we should close the Guantanamo Detention Center in light of both the UN report and the recent National Journal cover story on who is really being held there.
Probably Monday, I’ll let everyone know what I think - if you haven’t guessed already.
Meanwhile, enjoy some oldies but goodies from the archives:
Your own Personal Disaster Relief Associate
What does a snowstorm in Chicago have to do with Katrina?
“Race, Class, and Baloney in the Big Easy”
Star Trek’s “Scotty’s” death on the anniversary of the moon landing
Never close the Guantanamo Dentention Center!
Do rational Americans pay attention to the UN? And I’m not sure I’d bet our future on the opinion of the National Journal!
Leave it open as retirement cells for Teddy, Chucky, et al, the sooner the better for them and their ilk..
Comment by ExPreacherMan — 2/18/2006 @ 3:15 pm
While I have no personal animus against the UN. I do not believe that our security should be subject to UN scrutiny and modification.
To the extent that the UN has encourage terrorist activity, I believe that it has made the world less safe. Wish I had an answer. Meanwhile, alive with an Imam, and with copies of the Koran, and halal food. I suspect that they are material better off in every respect except freedom of movement. Oh, by the way, I don’t recall anyone from the US forcing them to take up arms against the “great satan.” Until we come up with a better answer we need to keep Gitmo operating.
Comment by Tigger23505 — 2/18/2006 @ 3:37 pm
We should keep Guantanamo up and running and keep reminding the uninformed that this jail is run in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.If we treated unlawful combatants (without uniforms) like normal prisoners of war, then there would BE no agreed-upon ways to treat combatants.
Re the UN–I suppose it has some uses–who knows they are? As a blogger wrote somewhere recently, most of the so-called countries in the UN consist of a corrupt capital city with a neglected hinterland.
I would love to know how much I personally pay to support the UN. One dollar per year? OK, I support it. Twenty dollars per year? Nope, that’s too much.
Comment by Promethea — 2/18/2006 @ 4:05 pm
Bolton said we could lop off the top 10 floors of the UN building, what say we convert them to cells instead? That way Kofi can visit daily to be sure everyone has their every desire.
Comment by Mark H. — 2/18/2006 @ 6:23 pm
You know that I generally look to the National Journal and the United Nations, not to mention the entrails of chickens, to dictate how I would run our foreign policy, but in this case I have to make an exception and listen to the Grand Poobah of detainee torture Donald Rumsfeld who said yesterday that Annan is “dead wrong” on this one–for, among others, the reason that neither the Secretary General nor any of the Human Rights Commission had accepted the invitation of the US military to go and visit the facility and consequently they really don’t know what they are talking about. And I would be willing to bet that the editors of The National Journal haven’t been there either–which is slightly less germaine because I write about lots of places I haven’t been, but this seems different because they’re accepting the faulty UN report without questioning its veracity because it suits their purposes. And that’s another thing–while something like the Saddam tapes suit the conservative purpose and no one would be happier than I to see a smoking WMD gun (figuratively) emerge, as you pointed out earlier, these tapes are no such thing and should be treated with caution. The NJ should treat the UN report the same way. But instead they’re sticking it on their cover.
Now to be entirely fair, the Human Rights Commission has been very busy abusing human rights around the world, so maybe they didn’t have time to go and inspect one place where human rights weren’t being abused?
Back to the chicken entrails…
Comment by AcademicElephant — 2/18/2006 @ 6:26 pm
I think I misunderstood about the nature of the National Journal article–mixed it up with The Imperial Presidancy. So just scratch that and I’ll stick by the UN stuff. And the chicken entrials.
Comment by AcademicElephant — 2/18/2006 @ 6:29 pm
Close Gitmo for what? So the lawyers in the U.S. can bleed billions of dollars out of the taxpayers. That’s the one and only reason they are screaming to close it. Get the terrorists in the U.S. and it will cost a minimum of $50 million each per year for legal fees. Haven’t the idiot left wingers figured it out yet. You are being used by a group of crooked lawyers (is there any other kind?). It’s simple, check the cost of keeping one person on death row per year. All sucker money and the taxpayer is the sucker, as uaual.
I vote to get the U.S. out of the U.N. (joke) and the U.N.(Joke) out of the U.S.
Keep them terrorists suckers out of this country or execute every one of them tomorrow.
Comment by scrapiron — 2/18/2006 @ 6:39 pm
As far as Gitmo is concerned, I don’t see the issue of closing the facility. That is a minor point. At some point in the future Gitmo will close. The real question is what do you do with the inmates. I see 3 distinct possibilities.
1) Just open the doors of the cells and let the thugs out. Give them $5.25 for busfare to Havana and call it a day. Let the cubans deal with them.
2) Send them home. Send the Saudis to Saudi, Yemeni to Yemen, etc. Now stand back and whatch them scream bloody murder, ’cause they will not want to go. They know what awaits them when they get there.
3) Kill them. If they did not deserve consideration on the battlefield, and you could have done away with them right there, why give them any consideration now.
Personally, I like #2 myself.
Comment by SShiell — 2/18/2006 @ 11:37 pm
The UN report falls into the category of a bad joke. The commission refused to visit because they would not be allowed to interview detainees. In the light of Lynne Stewart passing information from her terrorist client, this one is a no-brainer. The Red Cross has and is monitoring the conditions at Gitmo and has not complained of abuse or mistreatment of detainees.
I read the National Journal article (or a synopsis, I wasn’t sure which) and, frankly, I don’t care who these people are and who picked them up. In a shadow war with stateless terrorists, there will be large areas of gray. The government has decided to detain these people, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s a favor for Pakistan in order to keep them happy and helping. Or maybe these guys were caught leaving the sinking ship. Too bad. This is like rounding up a bunch of wolves after your sheep have been attacked. Are all of the wolves the actual attackers? Does it really matter? Those wolves won’t be attacking anything.
This whole issue boils down to appearances. A lot of people just don’t like that we are operating an open-ended detention center for purported enemies of the U.S. Again, too bad. SShiel gets to the gist of it. We had these guys, and we had to do something with them. That something is Gitmo. Now that they’re there, there really are only those choices about what to do with them.
Comment by Chris — 2/19/2006 @ 6:40 am
I think the UN and Kofi need to get their own house in order. Oil for food? UN officials raping children. I could go on and on. The UN is useless! It serves the US no useful purpose.
Comment by Debbie — 2/20/2006 @ 10:48 pm