I'm afraid I disagree with your basic thrust here.
It's not a concentration camp. The residents get treated fairly well. What it is, is a POW camp. The problem with that, and the whole reason why the Supreme Court has been brought into it, is that we haven't declared war, thus they are not technically prisoners of war, and there is confusion over what constitutes an enemy combatant.
Far more troubling is when the government turned the Superdome in New Orleans into a prison during Katrina. Or the other FEMA camp that held refugees pretty much against their will (I can't recall where it was now). Or the network of secret compounds that has been under construction for decades. THOSE are, or are designed to be, concentration camps... and not for legitimate prisoners, but political prisoners, or just anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Yeah, POW camp, concentration camp, in this situation basically the same thing. A camp designed to detain those that disagree with the political views of the US. Some have committed verifiable acts of terrorism against the US, others haven't. Regardless of which catagory they are in they still deserve legal status and recognition under the US court system.
Excuse me, but "concentration camp" and "POW camp" are not necessarily equivalent terms to me! The former implies inhumane treatment (and that's putting it mildly). The terrorist suspects in Gitmo are not being treated like Jews at Auschwitz, not even close. Implying it is a slander. I have a lot of gripes with the US Government but they are not Nazi Germany.
Yes, they do deserve to have their legal status clarified. SCOTUS just did so. I'm a bit nervous about the consequences of that decision, but then, I think the opposite decision would have had unpleasant consequences as well. Our mistake was in not declaring war, which is the result of an overinflated Presidency (no matter who's in office) and a weak Congress, the erosion of our constitutional system, which goes back a long way.
What scares me more is that the Party of Traitors now is considering an amendment to the Constitution to ensure that the pesky right of habeas corpus need never interfere.
It scares me too. I was quite happy wen it was recently restored for the general population. To see them talking about suspending it again for anyone is just wrong and needs to be stopped.
closing gitmo will have not that much of an impact with bagram being the far bigger detention center by now. and I dont see why people would start caring now while they didnt for the past seven years.
I believe, and while I'm putting words into particle_man's mouth here, that the entire US Government's practices involving "extraordinary rendition" and detaining non-citizens in concentration camps without trial is the offending practice.
"Gitmo"/the Guantanamo Bay facility is just shorthand for a whole range of practices that we, as a "free" society, should be (and some are) disgusted by.
I'm not sure that people didn't care or that they just haven't been expressing their opinions about how they feel. Yes that's allowing it to happen through silence but I'm an eternal optimist that still holds out hope that even those that have been silent will no longer be because they're waking up to it all. I know though from the history of Germany how easily the general population can be coerced and brainwashed into accepting what's going on or at least into silence because of fear.
Up to one third of the detainees are innocent or of no intelligence value. I'm afraid that throwing innocent men in prison forever and torturing them (more than just waterboarding, surprise surprise) qualifies in my eyes as "Concentration Camp."
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It's not a concentration camp. The residents get treated fairly well. What it is, is a POW camp. The problem with that, and the whole reason why the Supreme Court has been brought into it, is that we haven't declared war, thus they are not technically prisoners of war, and there is confusion over what constitutes an enemy combatant.
Far more troubling is when the government turned the Superdome in New Orleans into a prison during Katrina. Or the other FEMA camp that held refugees pretty much against their will (I can't recall where it was now). Or the network of secret compounds that has been under construction for decades. THOSE are, or are designed to be, concentration camps... and not for legitimate prisoners, but political prisoners, or just anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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Yes, they do deserve to have their legal status clarified. SCOTUS just did so. I'm a bit nervous about the consequences of that decision, but then, I think the opposite decision would have had unpleasant consequences as well. Our mistake was in not declaring war, which is the result of an overinflated Presidency (no matter who's in office) and a weak Congress, the erosion of our constitutional system, which goes back a long way.
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That scares me. That, to me, is crazy talk.
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"Gitmo"/the Guantanamo Bay facility is just shorthand for a whole range of practices that we, as a "free" society, should be (and some are) disgusted by.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.html
Up to one third of the detainees are innocent or of no intelligence value. I'm afraid that throwing innocent men in prison forever and torturing them (more than just waterboarding, surprise surprise) qualifies in my eyes as "Concentration Camp."
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