Obama needs to get real about Guantánamo

"Yet at a time when American casualties in Afghanistan are rising and an American soldier has been captured by the Taliban, our interrogators may not touch or even threaten any al-Qaida or Taliban prisoners in an effort to extract information."

Good, if "touching" means "inhumanely torturing" then Obama's doing nothing wrong here in closing GNB.

Which is torture. I doubt you've ever been through the stress technique positions, otherwise you wouldn't be defending it.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Practical considerations are extremely important during any conflict. However, surely the very values that your nation are built upon cannot be viewed as mere 'abstractions'? By disregarding habeas corpus and torturing suspects the US is fundamentally altering its much celebrated identity.

Ah but if I was hatching a plot to kill thousands of innocent people, then I would expect the govt to do that to me. It doesn't leave no lasting damage, I have read up on it. It is just simulated drowning and a medical doctor is present during that time. It's very well controlled and helped save so many lives.



So something minor as sleep deprivation to a guy who has plans to kill thousands of innocent people and is not telling you the plots, is unacceptable?

Thank God the American Govt was more determined to protect thousands of people across the globe.

Well I suppose it could be considered cruel and unusual punishment which is one act I think.

However it wasn't done on US soil so no law is broken.

P.S-The US swears to defend freedom, democracy, equality. The forebearers built the nation on this. I would say these stress techniques were to defend these values as this was a declaration of war on America.

Ah but if I was hatching a plot to kill thousands of innocent people, then I would expect the govt to do that to me. It doesn't leave no lasting damage, I have read up on it. It is just simulated drowning and a medical doctor is present during that time. It's very well controlled and helped save so many lives.

This article is reprinted from Newsday.com

Michael W. Lewis, an associate professor of law at Ohio Northern University School of Law, is a former Navy fighter pilot and co-author of “The War on Terror and the Laws of War: A Military Perspective.”Barack Obama’s first act as president was to boldly declare that the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay would be closed within a year. He also suspended the military commissions that were in the process of trying some detainees, and he prohibited the use of any interrogation methods not specifically delineated in the Army Field Manual.

To implement this break from what so many had declared the misguided and unconstitutional policies of the Bush administration, he signed executive orders creating three task forces. They were to provide recommendations for the disposition of the prisoners at Guantánamo, review the procedures being used by the military commissions, and determine whether the United States could use additional interrogation techniques under any circumstances.

Last week, the deadline for these task force reports quietly passed. A five-page memo from the disposition task force stressed the importance of trying prisoners in American criminal courts when possible, but did not explain how “possible” is to be defined.

Although even Obama has come around to supporting the idea that some detainees may be held indefinitely without a formal trial, the task force could not bring itself to define who those people might be. The files of each of the 254 detainees were to be reviewed to see if any of them could be approved for release. That process is about halfway complete and the number approved for release remains around 70 – which is where it was when Bush left office. Of those, fewer than 20 have been repatriated since Obama took office – or about three per month, which is lower than the repatriation rate under Bush.

Although Obama has made it clear that some form of military commissions will be necessary, the task force has had little success in developing procedures that are significantly different from those that were being used by the commissions Obama suspended. The Bush administration, Congress and the Supreme Court all weighed in on striking a suitable balance between fairness to the defendant and the protection of classified material.

The end result will certainly lie somewhere in the narrow gap between the procedures used for trying American servicemen and those used by the military commissions when they were suspended.

Considering that even many critics of the military commissions generally regarded the trial of Osama bin Laden’s driver Salim Hamdan – which resulted in a conviction, sentence and release for time served – to have been fair, it’s hard to imagine why a further six months is required to fashion new procedures. Unless it is simply too politically unpalatable to create commissions that look very similar to those that were suspended six months ago.

But far more troubling than the inactivity on Guantánamo and military commissions is the two-month extension requested by the interrogation task force.

No one can seriously contend that the limits imposed on interrogations by the Army Field Manual represent the absolute limitations on interrogation techniques imposed by international law under all circumstances. At the time that the task force was created, CIA Director Leon Panetta clearly indicated that he expected the approval of some enhanced techniques.

Yet at a time when American casualties in Afghanistan are rising and an American soldier has been captured by the Taliban, our interrogators may not touch or even threaten any al-Qaida or Taliban prisoners in an effort to extract information.

Academics often confront real world difficulties with abstractions that remain grounded in the aspirational rather than the practical. But the presidency of the United States is not an academic position. This administration was elected on the politics of aspiration, but it will only survive if it understands that practical action must follow.

Torture is wrong, full stop.

THIS IS MY OPINION EXACTLY, and why I prefer former president George Bush before Obama. I am 100% against the closing or altering of Guantanamo Bay. Human Rights doesnt/shouldnt and couldnt apply to people who disregard it. Too many people are happily jumping on the Obama Bandwagon and frankly not thinking. In my opinion Obama not only needs to get real about Guantanamo but everything else related or indirectly related to his foreign policy; I mean who the **** is willing to negotiate with Iran's president Ahmadinejad? OBAMA. This is one of many vital errors and precisely relates to your latter retoric. Obama does not realise that his position is not like any other. You cannot become a succesful President solely thorugh obtaining an immaculate education and being black. YOU NEED MORE! I mean... if Obama had all of Bush's qualities and bive versa then maybe both of them would have been/be more succesfull. Nevertheless its early days for Obama (relativly) and he has a chance to trun things around and become more like Bush on these matters.

If you want to challenge any of my opinions and im guessing mostly about being in support of Bush then, I am more than willing to but dont be childish about it.

cool

Why else do you think it isn't on US soil?

And you think the individual involved cares about all that? It's extremely distressing and still classes as torture.

Let's not sink into total barbarism. A real sense of morality is only possible if there are certain things we must refuse to do under any circumstances (the C.I). Why is it okay to do things to terrorists (convicted or merely suspected) that it's not okay to do to other types of criminals or to prisoners of war? I know you'll probably produce the "vital knowledge" argument but to torture a human being for specific, "vital" knowledge that that person is thought to have is immoral and degrading.

Suppose for example, the 14 year old boy is the nephew of a terrorist and happens to have information by accident, but the terrorists have threatened him and the rest of his family with torture and death if he reveals it. Do we torture the information out of the boy? Where's the difference?

I hate the consequentialist argument. It's ridiculous. If we follow this way of thinking the govt must be prepared, under no alternating circumstances, to torture a 10 year boy if we believe that it would lead to "good" consequences.

Stree techniques were only carried out on people who were proven to be hiding information and people high up on the al qaeda ladder-it's not a question of information they are thought to have, it's info that they know for sure.

So this boy wouldn't be subjected to it.