once again, debate related. sorta. gitmo, short for guantanamo bay, was just on c-span, where the nat.'l security advisor stephen hadley said that most people wish there weren't any gitmo's, but that they are in fact necessary to the war on terror. if we have any policy debaters on here whatsoever, what's your stance on granting POW status under the resolution?

I don't see how stripping people of their right to a trial as being necessary to the war on terror. I would argue that it creates more fuel for the enemy and may even create more enemies overall.

that's precisely why the affirmative has the advantage on this side, because giving them their right to due process, while not required and certainly not deserved (seeing as it's a civil liberty, not human, applying to citizens only) is said to up our soft power and hegemony. everyone loves that nye 99 card. but in negation, would we not be violating internat.'l law by giving them status that under the geneva convention they don't qualify for? and, in addition, would we not have to change their status in order to ensure said due process?

As the unofficial "leader of the free world" we should lead by example. How we treat the prisoners there will reflect our moral standards in the eyes of the world and give us more or less influence to promote freedom or democracy (or whatever we are trying to export).

I fail to see why these people do not deserve or why we are not required to give them their right to due process.

first, it's because under international law they do not qualify for the POW status that would be required to ensure their due process rights. second, there is absolutely no h.r. abuse at gitmo, i have cards for it in my crate. what you have to realize is that it would be the biggest possible waste of the government, court system, and legal official's times to go through the process of changing their status, and then giving due process to over 600 people because they were picked up on the battlefield as enemy combatants firing at american soldiers so taking them through the court system would be an absolute waste because there's no way they could prove themselves innocent! they were caught in the act and that shows the lack of need to give them the chance to show otherwise.

Once they were put on trial and most likely sentenced to death or life in prison, people would complain that they didn't have fair trials. They wouldnt be tried in the civilian court system. They would be tried in a military court under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).

In order to assume that only terrorists are being held at any of these bases you have to believe that the government is telling you the truth. Unfortunately, a fact the the goverment downplays all the time, is that most of the combatants in a given battlefield senario, are not terrorists. They are insurgents that don't want americans in thier country. People that lived there long before we showed up. These people are pissed because we destroyed their electricity and their ability to make it(to this day they have no electricity), We ruined all the drinking water and allow people like Halibuton to make billions importing bad water, And we shot off 2000 metric tons of Dirty bombs in our invasion. They see that Bush went in for one reason and is in there now for the 5th or 6th other reason. The Iraqi Government is still corrupt, has death squads, and we did nothing so far to help the iraqi people towards their freedom. These insurgence are the ones being caught on the battle field. How could these people possibly not deserve rights?

So what do they qualify as then?
Kidnap victims?

I find it interesting how we refer to the "RIGHT of due process", but then we talk casually of denying it to the gitmo prisoners.
Precisely how long can we hold these prisoners without charging them?
Indefinitely?

Are we, as a people, okay with that?
And where is the reason in denying them the right to due process.
I can understand HOW we can legally and logistically due it, but WHY are we doing it?
Wouldn't there come a stage where we have all the information we can get from a prisoner, and then we should just charge him and send him off to jail as part of the logical progression?


HR abuse is in the eye of the beholder.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060216/.../un_guantanamo
"U.N. Report Equates Gitmo to Torture"
The very title says it all...

And quite frankly, I don't know about you, but I feel a little unwilling to trust an administration which has BLATANTLY REFUSED to simply sign a piece of legislation which says that the U.S. doesn't torture...


Giving them due process would be "the biggest possible waste" of time???
Tell me.

What's the alternative?
Do we just hold them in jail indefinitely?
Without a trial?

What is the alternative to giving them "due process"???
What ARE we going to do instead of granting them "due process"?


I just don't get that line of reasoning AT ALL.
They were caught in the act. Speaks to guilt, right?

How the heck does being guilty suddenly make somebody less worthy of due process?

And on another level, I just can't help but think that we, as a nation, pray that these same standards that we apply to other people is not some day used against the U.S. That some country that we have a military action against doesn't find themselves in custody of a few hundred U.S. soldiers, and that country decides they don't qualify for "due process"....

Would ya be so kind to enlighten me with some recent events related to this subject where the U.S. Government "downplayed"?? Since they do it all the time three examples will do.

I refer to my own post quoting a news story.

Since shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel. The campaign was begun by the White House, which set up a secret panel to coordinate such operations by the Pentagon, other agencies and private contractors.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the military operates radio stations and newspapers, but does not disclose their U.S. ties. Their reports sometimes credit the "International Information Center."
The Lincoln Group says it has planted more than 1,000 articles in the Iraqi and Arab press, and placed editorials on an Iraqi Web site, Pentagon documents show.
For an effort in neighboring countries, its proposals included an antiterrorist comedy based on The Three Stooges.
Army psychological-operations units sometimes offer TV stations money to run unattributed segments, or contract with writers of opinion pieces, military officials said.
"We don't want somebody to look at the product and see the U.S. government and tune out," said Col. James Treadwell, who ran psychological-operations support at the Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla.
The U.S. Agency for International Development also masks its role. AID finances about 30 radio stations in Afghanistan. There and in Iraq, it has distributed tens of thousands of iPod-like devices that play civic messages-- though a contractor that pledges "no U.S. footprint."
Message-makers who are wary of identifying their role can cite findings by the Pentagon, pollsters and others underscoring fundamental problems of U.S. credibility abroad.
Defenders of influence campaigns argue that they are appropriate and can have impact. "Psychological operations are an essential part of warfare-- more so in the electronic age than ever," said Lt. Col. Charles A. Krohn, a retired Army spokesman and journalism professor. "... If you're going to invade a country and eject its government and occupy its territory, you ought to tell people who live there why."
But covert information battles may backfire, others warn. An Iraqi daily newspaper, Azzaman, has complained that the paid information campaign is a U.S. effort "to humiliate the independent national press." Many Iraqis say that no amount of money spent on trying to mold public opinion is likely to have much impact, given the harsh conditions under the American military occupation.

http://defendingthetruth.com/about1188-0-asc-45.html

Please check out the link for the whole thing.

How's 1200 reasons? That is how many member this group has. The media is trying to sway public opinion about this war and I hate to say that you are a prime example of why it is working.