You can be certain that if Americans were being treated in this manner there would be outrage on a grand scale and those prisons in question would be stopped at any cost. But according to Commander Lippold holding brown people without charge in a prison that couldn't exist anywhere else except the shores of Cuba is okay.

Sorry Commander. Those days are over, and for good reason. In no way do I want to diminish the tragedy of the USS Cole incident or trivialize the pain and suffering of the families, but Guantanamo is not the answer. It's immoral, it's illegal, and it's wrong.

I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean they don't have any rights at all.

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

I suspect you of being a terrorist.

Rev.K: TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean they don't have any rights at all.

THIS

That's nice... then he has no right to biatch and moan the next time one of our servicemen or civilians is treated in a manner less than human by a foreign group...

Hero?

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

You sound suspicious.

Rev.K: TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean they don't have any rights at all.

I'm not saying they have no rights. I'm just saying they joined their Al Queda, they got their training, they knew what they were getting into. I say let 'em burn.

lrosu79
Rev.K: TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean they don't have any rights at all.

THIS

This works for me.

You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else that you get is a privilege.

- U.S.P. Alcatraz, Rules and Regulations

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: Rev.K: TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean they don't have any rights at all.

I'm not saying they have no rights. I'm just saying they joined their Al Queda, they got their training, they knew what they were getting into. I say let 'em burn.

I suspect that you are a member of Al Qaeda. Are you ready to burn?

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Why the fark not... No trial even?... innocent until proven guilty, correct?

Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?

/Get 'em up against the wall

WaltzingMathilda: I suspect that you are a member of Al Qaeda. Are you ready to burn?

is there not a difference between how the government is required to treat US citizens or people on US soil and how it is required to treat suspected terrorists in yemen?

I agree with him!

Human rights should be assumed in all of our policy decisions, so they shouldn't be the basis of any choices.

That's what he meant, right?

friendinpa: lrosu79
Rev.K: TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean they don't have any rights at all.

THIS

This works for me.

You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else that you get is a privilege.

- U.S.P. Alcatraz, Rules and Regulations

Except that those regs would now be deemed to violate the 8th amendment.

The leadership at Alcatraz also tortured prisoners. Does that work for you as well?

They're not "values" when you don't stick to them because it's hard.

They're hobbies...

OlafTheBent
Why the fark not... No trial even?... innocent until proven guilty, correct?


Consider the extremely small number of people involved. The fact that the US has gone to all the time trouble and expense of keeping them alive and flying them halfway around the world. Add the unconventional way in which our enemies choose to engage us and I am going to give the benefit of doubt to the US in this matter and feel fine that these are actual enemies and not just some falafel salesman that got a bag thrown over his head in the middle of the night.

thomps: WaltzingMathilda: I suspect that you are a member of Al Qaeda. Are you ready to burn?

is there not a difference between how the government is required to treat US citizens or people on US soil and how it is required to treat suspected terrorists in yemen?

i'm sure there is, but I suspect "indefinite detention" is probably too low of a standard for non-citizens merely suspected of terrorism, much less setting them on fire. ever hear of the guy who was held for like 5 years with no access to anyone simply for being a suspected driver of al qaeda big wigs? common sense would say he was some poor schlep looking for a job to feed his family, knew pretty much next to nothing, and ended up detained for almost a decade thousands of miles away, subjected to god knows what.

friendinpa: Consider the extremely small number of people involved. The fact that the US has gone to all the time trouble and expense of keeping them alive and flying them halfway around the world. Add the unconventional way in which our enemies choose to engage us and I am going to give the benefit of doubt to the US in this matter and feel fine that these are actual enemies and not just some falafel salesman that got a bag thrown over his head in the middle of the night.

... like Maher Arar... who has been proven innocent.

There but for the Grace of God.

/America, you reek of hypocrisy... and the rest of the world knows it. If Russia treated American "terrorists" who were thrown in jail for helping Georgia, without a trial, for years, would you feel as justified in your position?

"We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups," retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kurt Lippold said in a telephone interview.

I'm not defending the guy's larger point, but I think this deserves to be clarified. He's not saying "rights" but "advocacy groups."

To my thinking, the Constitution makes all one big human rights advocacy group.

thomps: is there not a difference between how the government is required to treat US citizens or people on US soil and how it is required to treat suspected terrorists in yemen?

Oh, there's a difference.

But due process, speedy trials, and habeas corpus are the dead minimum that should be afforded to anyone for any reason.

"We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights"

Look, he used the word right there, then completely ignored it in the rest of his comment.

friendinpa: OlafTheBent
Why the fark not... No trial even?... innocent until proven guilty, correct?


Consider the extremely small number of people involved. The fact that the US has gone to all the time trouble and expense of keeping them alive and flying them halfway around the world. Add the unconventional way in which our enemies choose to engage us and I am going to give the benefit of doubt to the US in this matter and feel fine that these are actual enemies and not just some falafel salesman that got a bag thrown over his head in the middle of the night.

Ask Maher Arar about that. Admittedly, he didn't sell falafels, but he was an innocent tortured because of the Bush administration's incompentence and willful indifference to the life and safety of most Muslims

Here's a full quote:

"We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups."

He's still completely wrong, but it's not quite as disgusting in the TFA as the headline makes it out to be. Inappropriate use of the hero tag though.

Hero, my ass. F*ck that guy.

"We should consider what is best for the American people..."

How about not perpetrating the image of Americans as hypocrites that has helped fuel anti-American sentiment around the world?

So much for America being a model for Democracy.

RIP USA: 1789-2001

I guess now the cops can torture people because of suspicion. I can has dangerous precedent?

aren't pretty much all of the policy positions we founded our nation on based on what we perceived to be human rights?

burndtdan: aren't pretty much all of the policy positions we founded our nation on based on what we perceived to be human rights?

You mean those truths that we held to be self-evident?

The guy's career ended with that attack (?)

BritneysSpeculum
Except that those regs would now be deemed to violate the 8th amendment.

The leadership at Alcatraz also tortured prisoners. Does that work for you as well?

Would they? How is that exactly? Everyone at Alcatraz was convicted, many of them several different times.

It doesn't matter as the prisoners at Gitmo are not US Citizens they are military prisoners. If they were arrested in DC and sitting in a federal pen right now, they I would agree with you about their 8th Amendment rights. This seems to be a more logical argument to have, should they be tried under Civilian or Military law?

Really? You are going to use the in for a penny in for a pound argument on me? Because I don't think that prisoners are entitled to a lot of perks then I must be ok with torture? Bit of a stretch don't you think?

BritneysSpeculum: You mean those truths that we held to be self-evident?

nicely played Sir!

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

Amendment 14, Section 1, Clause 3
"no State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

There is nothing in there that says non-Americans don't get the same rights to due-process as American citizens.

hillbillypharmacist: Oh, there's a difference.

But due process, speedy trials, and habeas corpus are the dead minimum that should be afforded to anyone for any reason.

i would tend to agree with that, and so would Odah v. U.S and Reid v. Covert.

friendinpa: Would they? How is that exactly? Everyone at Alcatraz was convicted, many of them several different times.

It doesn't matter as the prisoners at Gitmo are not US Citizens they are military prisoners. If they were arrested in DC and sitting in a federal pen right now, they I would agree with you about their 8th Amendment rights. This seems to be a more logical argument to have, should they be tried under Civilian or Military law?

Really? You are going to use the in for a penny in for a pound argument on me? Because I don't think that prisoners are entitled to a lot of perks then I must be ok with torture? Bit of a stretch don't you think?


The rights of pre-trial detainees are protected and informed by the 4th amendment not the 8th. As for the evolution of the 8th amendment from the 1930's to now, it would take a little time to explain and I am supposed to be writing a FRCP 60(b) motion right now.

First turned over to the CIA in 2002, he was held until late 2006 in secret detention by the CIA, which has acknowledged that it subjected him to waterboarding during that time. Obama's attorney general-designate, Eric Holder, told Congress during his confirmation hearings that he considers waterboarding torture, which is illegal under U.S. and international law.

Nashiri told a military board reviewing his status as an enemy combatant in 2007 that he had confessed to involvement in the Cole attack only because he'd been tortured.

Under the current military commission structure, such a confession might be admissible

Really?

Threads like these usually fill me with great hope and simultaneously crush me with tremendous disappointment.

'We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups,' retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kurt Lippold said in a telephone interview.

They are called human rights because they extend to all humans, not just to Americans. Obama closed Guantanamo because of the human rights violations, not because he caved under pressure from the advocacy groups.

As far as the legal advocacy groups go, I don't know enough about the legal rights they wanted to extend to them to comment on that.

Ryan2065: As far as the legal advocacy groups go, I don't know enough about the legal rights they wanted to extend to them to comment on that.

Pretty much that just want the right to Habeus Corpus, due process, presumption of innocence till proven guilty, etc.

Kurt Lippold is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear.

/veteran

ScubaDude1960: Kurt Lippold is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear.

/veteran

Wow. Care to tell us the story there? Or is that inspired by the content of the article?

Lippold's own pronouncements in the case are ironic. A Navy inquiry questioned whether Lippold had taken appropriate measures to prevent an attack on the vessel. No one was in the ship's command center when the suicide boat rammed into the Cole's side, there were no lookouts on deck, and no planning had been undertaken for such an eventuality.


So, why does anyone care what Captain Dumbfark thinks?

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

lolwut?

Diogenes: "We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups," retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kurt Lippold said in a telephone interview.

I'm not defending the guy's larger point, but I think this deserves to be clarified. He's not saying "rights" but "advocacy groups."

To my thinking, the Constitution makes all one big human rights advocacy group.

Right, but putting the word 'groups' in the headline doesn't make it trolly enough to whip people in a refresh frenzy. Gotta pay the bills!

Under the threat condition in Aden -- bravo, the third highest -- the ship's crew was required to follow at least 62 separate measures. But investigators found that the commander, Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, failed to follow about half of those procedures, including 12 that might have prevented or mitigated the explosion. Link(p)

Oh Hell, yeah...this guy's got "HERO" written all over him.

Lionel Mandrake: Oh Hell, yeah...this guy's got "HERO" written all over him.

Actually maybe he had something to do with the attack. In fact I suspect him of aiding the people who did it. As a suspect he should be held without any legal rights for 8 or 10 years and tortured whenever the Detroit Lions lose a football game.

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

troll or should I farky you?

He's pissing on the graves of the 17 men who died under his command.

Or does he think that protecting the Constitution isn't part of the mission of the Navy?

friendinpa: Everyone at Alcatraz was convicted, many of them several different times.

And the people at Gitmo haven't been convicted of anything. They are currently "pre-trial."

It doesn't matter as the prisoners suspects at Gitmo are not US Citizens they are military prisoners were picked up as suspects and haven't been tried yet.

FTFY

Rev.K: It's immoral, it's illegal, and it's wrong.

Not illegal. But denial of due process and access to the courts is absolutely Un-American, immoral, and wrong.

I suspect each one held in GITMO is guilty. I also can see no reason to waterboard (torture or not) or to deny charging them and trying them.

America is based on ideals. One of those is that we'd rather 100 guilty go free than an innocent man be improperly incarcerated or worse.

Further, when trying to take the moral high ground, as we are in a battle with true savages, you have to literally take the moral high ground. You can't justify your actions by saying we are still not as bad as them. We shouldn't be doing anything that requires justification.

"You don't hold the door for her because she is a lady. You hold the door because you are a gentleman."

You don't treat them well because they deserve some special treatment. You do it because we are Americans, and Americans are better than that. We stand for something much more important or impressive than a country that employs oubliettes.

TeddyRooseveltsMustache: I completely agree. Suspected terrorists should not have the same rights as Americans.

And what if the suspected terrorist IS an American?