"Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I am with you. I'll buy it for sure, it's just a matter of for how long I will be playing it..."
- Silvast, Battle.net forums
quote:
Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Blindy. absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
Well I think step one should be to at least file charges against them.
What for? They weren't arrested; they were captured in combat. It's perfectly legal to hold enemy combatants for the duration of the conflict. All we need to do is change the rhetoric a bit and probably upgrade their mail privileges and we can point to the Geneva Convention itself as legal authority to hold them indefinitely.
These are not criminals in the standard sense; they are people waging war against the US, and who may, incidentally, also be guilty of war crimes. There is no prima facie right to a lawyer or judicial review of status or anything else.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Bloodsage had this to say about Duck Tales:
What for? They weren't arrested; they were captured in combat.
Captured UNLAWFULLY for commiting NO CRIME and denied DUE PROCESS. There's a million reasons for that bomb strapped to his chest, he didn't actually blow anyone up so it's not right for you to assume that was what he was going to do and take away his FREEDOM.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Anakha's PS3 screamed this from the crapper:
Thats a good question, what gives Parcelan supreme executive power?
I believe that, in the course of a farcical aquatic ceremony, a moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at him.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
Of course, since I'm already el presidente, I'll just give myself the right to make law by decree and seek indefinite term limitations. Also, I'll ban and imprison anyone who runs against me, since I've just declared that anyone who opposes me is breaking the law.
And now, I'm still mod, everyone exists to serve my whims and we did it all by the will of the people.
Gracias.
quote:
Nina had this to say about the Spice Girls:
Caps are so pedestrian. Real men use italics.
What would you know about what real men do?
quote:
Bricktop painfully thought these words up:
Captured UNLAWFULLY for commiting NO CRIME and denied DUE PROCESS. There's a million reasons for that bomb strapped to his chest, he didn't actually blow anyone up so it's not right for you to assume that was what he was going to do and take away his FREEDOM.
Yeah, I didn't have anything worthwile to add to this debate either.
*types up a bunch of strawmen*
oh I did it wrong, these aren't strawmen at all 
Chavez has the classic repression of free speech and politics, but Mugabe has been pretty hard to beat with his cholera conspiracies. Then there's the good old favorites in the Middle East.
quote:
Bricktop enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
What would you know about what real men do?
That was the joke. 
quote:
Verily, Mr. Parcelan doth proclaim:
I'm not sure who my favorite dictator is after this week.Chavez has the classic repression of free speech and politics, but Mugabe has been pretty hard to beat with his cholera conspiracies. Then there's the good old favorites in the Middle East.
Zair fucked around with this message on 12-13-2008 at 02:33 PM.
quote:
Quoth Zair:
It is a good thing we offered BOUNTIES to the citizens for every TERRORIST they lead us to. Surely this won't lead to INNOCENT people being rounded up, especially since we have QUOTAS to fill, and anyone who HATES their neighbors can easily get the AMERICAN soldiers to take them away.oh I did it wrong, these aren't strawmen at all
Not sure where you get your information, but almost all of that is pure bullshit. So, yeah, not even a strawman.
While there are indeed bounties, you're smoking rope if you think there's no vetting that goes on besides someone being denounced by a neighbor before they're rounded up in the dead of night and hauled off to Gitmo. There are other camps and other processes for that kind of local thing.
Sorry to interfere with your wet dream about evil American terrorism abroad.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Bloodsage said:
Not sure where you get your information, but almost all of that is pure bullshit. So, yeah, not even a strawman.While there are indeed bounties, you're smoking rope if you think there's no vetting that goes on besides someone being denounced by a neighbor before they're rounded up in the dead of night and hauled off to Gitmo. There are other camps and other processes for that kind of local thing.
Sorry to interfere with your wet dream about evil American terrorism abroad.
You should probably learn to read critically at some point in your life. It might save you from signing up for a bad mortgage some day.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Verily, Bloodsage doth proclaim:
Yes...because we should believe everything these guys say. After all, they have no reason to lie and we obviously make no effort to check out their stories. And you can bet your bottom dollar any "ex-CIA officer" agreeing to blanket statements like that has an axe to grind of his own.You should probably learn to read critically at some point in your life. It might save you from signing up for a bad mortgage some day.
"Screw multiple sources! I can make some excuse for why each one is unreliable!"
Because the CIA is such a reputable organization and we should assume they never do anything shady Zair fucked around with this message on 12-13-2008 at 04:50 PM.
quote:
Zair startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
"Screw multiple sources! I can make some excuse for why each one is unreliable!"Because the CIA is such a reputable organization and we should assume they never do anything shady
Try not to be any more stupid and gullible than you have to be. Do you really think it's legitimate to simply take the word of the inmates just because it meshes with your own ill-informed prejudices?
I'm almost as big a fan of CIA as I am of DoS or the UN, but that's got nothing to do with the discussion.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
According to the Pentagon, 95% of them were not captured by the Americans themselves.Some 86% were handed over in Afghanistan and Pakistan after a widespread campaign in which big financial bounties were offered in exchange for anyone suspected of links to al-Qaeda and the Taleban.
The US lawyers quote the text of one of the notices the Americans handed out: "Get wealth and power beyond your dreams... You can receive millions of dollars helping the anti-Taleban forces catch al-Qaeda and Taleban murderers.
"This is enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life."
So, according to the figures supplied by the Pentagon, it looks as though more than 440 men out of the total of 517 at Guantanamo were handed over to the Americans in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a direct result of these bounties
How does that address the point that it's perfectly legal to hold these people indefinitely as POWs, should we choose to do so?
Edit: you're also leaping to the unwarranted conclusion that just because bounties were offered that everyone turned in is an innocent shoe clerk turned in by a jealous neighbor. Bullshit. Bloodsage fucked around with this message on 12-13-2008 at 05:11 PM.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
quote:
Bloodsage spewed forth this undeniable truth:
So?How does that address the point that it's perfectly legal to hold these people indefinitely as POWs, should we choose to do so?
When did I even address the central issue you guys are talking about?
Initially, I was specifically quoting Bricktop's post and addressing the idiocy it contains. I know he was at least half kidding, but there are people who actually think that way, and assume everyone in gitmo are caught-red-handed terrorists, so who cares about their human rights.
I never got into discussing our legal rights towards holding them indefinitely, and I don't really have the motivation to start now. Zair fucked around with this message on 12-13-2008 at 05:19 PM.
quote:
Zair had this to say about pies:
Initially, I was specifically quoting Bricktop's post and addressing the idiocy it contains.
I'm sorry. We can't all be domestic terrorists in training.
quote:
Bricktop had this to say about Duck Tales:
I'm sorry. We can't all be domestic terrorists in training.
Stop trying to get me on a no-fly list
quote:
Bloodsage thought about the meaning of life:
I'm almost as big a fan of CIA as I am of DoS or the UN, but that's got nothing to do with the discussion.
As the only other person on this forum who's actually dealt with the CIA on a professional basis, I have to concur. The guys I met from the Agency were about the biggest bunch of dipshits I ever had the misfortune to meet. I think the last guy working in the agency who knew what he was doing was probably Gust Avrakotos, and they tried to run him outta town on a rail.
Although, the guy who restocked the desserts in the Agency cafeteria seemed to have a decent handle on things, so I might have ammend that statement.
Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA
It was on Time's top ten nonfiction list for 2007.
edit:
quote:
But Weiner, a New York Times correspondent who has covered intelligence for years, cannot be accused of kicking the agency when it is down. It is his thesis, amply documented, that the CIA was never up. He paints a devastating portrait of an agency run, during the height of its power in the Cold War years, by Ivy League incompetents, "old Grotonians" who lied to presidents -- an agency that, more often than not, failed to foresee major world events, violated human rights, spied on Americans, plotted assassinations of foreign leaders, and put so much of its energy and resources into bungled covert operations that it failed in its core mission of collecting and analyzing information.
To compare some of the agency's antics revealed in this book to the Keystone Kops is to do violence to the memory of Mack Sennett, who created the slapstick comedies. My personal favorite is an episode in Guatemala in 1994, when the CIA chief of station confronted the American ambassador, Marilyn McAfee, with intelligence, as she recalled, that "I was having an affair with my secretary, whose name was Carol Murphy." The CIA's friends in the Guatemalan military had bugged McAfee's bedroom, Weiner reports, and "recorded her cooing endearments to Murphy. They spread the word that the ambassador was a lesbian." The CIA's "Murphy memo" was widely distributed in Washington. There was only one problem: the ambassador was married, not gay and not sleeping with her secretary. " 'Murphy' was the name of her two-year-old black standard poodle. The bug in her bedroom had recorded her petting her dog."
Zair fucked around with this message on 12-13-2008 at 08:42 PM.
