Should freed Guantanamo detainees be compensated?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ May 16 2006, 03:38 PM) [snapback]256431[/snapback]</div>

I know how you feel - we see J. Murtha all over the news as though he is the only vet with an opinion. That sickens me too.

And you would never torture anyone under any circumstance? You would hold us to a standard that no one else is held to even though it endangered your own citizens? Not even in that nuclear nightmare scenario you would not employ torture to save millions???

No, make them comfortable. Get as much info as possible, make sure they can do no harm to us again. As long as they are impotent and comfortable - cool. The pictures of us torturing people also sickened me btw. The NY Times putting the wrong picture of the guy in the hood hooked up to the electrodes also sickened me. The press disclosing secret programs designed to protect us sicken me. My fellow citizens being beheaded sicken me too. Treating women like cattle or worse sicken me. Lots of stuff sickens me - I just try to keep it in perspective.

I would prefer mindless nationalism that mindless anti-americanism especially from fellow americans - i can understand it coming from people in certain parts of the world but its tough to swallow every day here with every front page of the NY Times or every AP report or every Amnesty International memo.

And I agree with these online forums - so many nuts so few squirrels.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 16 2006, 03:50 PM) [snapback]256444[/snapback]</div>

I love labels - my favorite is the phenotypic expression you most resemble on government forms
I love the bible quote too - especially from you
Would never want to die until my time was up - but I think there are things worth dying for :mellow:
Does that one actual naval officer have the only opinion you would believe in because i am sure there are lots of other ACTUAL naval officers (or for that matter my father the US Army Captain / Sniper ) who would offer you a different opinion - would you accept those
In an ideal world you are right there would be no need for death and destruction - only problem is there are too few people in that world now. I would love for it to happen - and when it does it should resemble my country more than some totalitarian regime that was 1000 years behind the times.

Still, would u have fought in Japan or Germany in WWII --- please please answer this.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dsunman @ May 16 2006, 03:49 PM) [snapback]256441[/snapback]</div>

Refinement: Incomptence resides in just about every organization to some extent. Sure just beause info. comes from some bunker somewhere doesn't mean it's accurate, no doubt. However, last I knew, Seton Hall wasn't "plugged into" the intelligence community, yet some people have come to the conclusion their findings are somehow more accurate.

In other words, more blind bandwagon administration hate...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 16 2006, 04:09 PM) [snapback]256461[/snapback]</div>

Before I plant i usually put fertilizer down to kill all those nasty bugs

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ May 16 2006, 10:58 AM) [snapback]256358[/snapback]</div>

OK, the FBI got the bastard, has her hogtied to a chair. The FBI knows the following as incontrovertible fact:

1. The bastard is 17 years old, female, nice figure, intelligent, and regards her FBI captors with cold murderous eyes.

2. The girl has placed a functional H-bomb somewhere and set it to detonate one hour from this moment. (We’ll leave alone for the moment the preposterous premise that the FBI knows all that with certainty without also knowing where the bomb is – but perhaps by chalking that curious lapse up to normal FBI incompetence we can proceed):

3. The FBI knows the exact megatonnage of the bomb and that if detonated, it will kill 1,854,321 people instantly, mortally irradiate 562,902 more, and permanently maim 875,321. Some of the killed and injured won’t be “Americans,†but the FBI knows that exact numbers aren’t important: what matters is that the “American†death toll will exceed 5,000, the official US gov’t set benchmark that separates mere mass-murderers from terrorists, if the perpetrator is White and a US citizen. The benchmark is somewhat smaller if the perpetrator is non-White and a US citizen (3,500), and smaller still if the perpetrator is neither White nor a US citizen (3).

4. The girl is White, a US citizen, a faithful fundamentalist Protestant, and she just spit in one of the FBI interrogator’s faces.

5. The girl has so far refused all initial, politely put inquiries for the bomb’s location and how to deactivate it, and just managed, unbelievably, to scratch an interrogator’s hand with her fingernails as he passed too closely to her chair.

6. Last fact. The FBI Director just this minute gave verbal permission by telephone to use “any and all means necessary†to force the girl to divulge the vital information.

With just 60 minutes, what can the FBI do?

A. Start pulling out the girl’s fingernails, one by one, explaining to her that since she just scratched an agent she’ll have to be de-armed. They’ll stop if she talks. She screams in pain but says nothing coherent. Ten minutes later all her finger and toe nails are on the floor, one eye has been punctured, her front teeth have been smashed out, her nose has been smashed to a flat, bloody pulp, and three agents are holding her other eye open and burning it with a lit cigarette. She passes out from the pain. Twenty minutes later she regains consciousness and snarls “228 South Cypress, in the basement. Deactivate it by cutting the blue wire.†30 minutes have expired and agents scramble to the scene. 228 South Cypress is the Precinct 19 police station, and it doesn’t have a basement. Three minutes to go and the agents sent on the goose chase radio in the news. The girl screwed them. Boom.

B. IV her with a careful balance of sedative, stimulant and sodium pentathol. Put her under the most state of the art real-time brain activity monitoring equipment at hand. The sedative and sodium pentathol work together to put her in a state of semi-wakefulness, disorienting her as to her location or who the people are around her. Her bonds are loosened, she’s moved to a comfortable sofa. The balance of narcotics keep her at just the edge of sleep, but not sleep itself. The monitoring equipment helps sustain the critical balance – and alerts professionals as to what areas of her brain are active and reactive to statements and questions. Hurriedly but expertly (having been trained in just how to do this) the interrogators lead the disoriented half-asleep girl to believe they are there to help her carry out her mission, only there’s a problem, and she’s in no state to fix it herself. Her responses are maddeningly inchoate, but with persistence the interrogators exact numerous, consistent references to a “brick office next to Jake’s Saloon†and “what a bitch is was to make the Radio Shack capacitor act as a trigger.†It’s enough to identify three candidate locations, and agents teams are dispatched rapidly. One of teams finds the bomb, and with her confused ramblings about the detonating mechanism, is able to reason out what needs to be done to disarm the bomb.

Now, it is quite true that scenario A might have produced information true enough to act on to prevent the bomb detonating. It is also quite true that scenario B would have produced nothing useful and everybody would’ve been killed.

But of the two scenarios, which would have the greatest likelihood of success over the other?

More important, however, is that while scenario A has no alternative versions, scenario B has many alternative versions, depending on how diligently we apply science to the problem of obtaining accurate information from people who don’t want to divulge it. So the possibilities for success on the scenario B side multiply, while the possibilities for success in scenario A are dismal, and stay dismal right to our doom.

Finally, most important, scenarios B don’t penalize the innocent.

That last point doesn’t seem to matter to a number of people on this thread who are all too willing to sacrifice the innocent to the exigencies of circumstance. To them all that can be said is: “Your day will come sooner than you think.†The tragedy is that they are ones who bring that day closer to all of us.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

Jared, either you are a joke or the Chinese gov't torturing your father (if I understand your posts correctly) screwed you up so badly that you are out of touch with reality. I think your anger at the Chinese gov't is being transfered to our own beloved George W Bush, who BTW is doing a fantastic job. Counseling may help. You probably didn't realize that a conservative like me could be so touchy feely, but we can be. Your anger and resentment is so apparent and that obviously affects your entire life. And NO the US gov't shouldn't apologize to Maher Arar or anyone else.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(imntacrook @ May 17 2006, 06:57 AM) [snapback]256757[/snapback]</div>

Imntacrook, either you are a joke or you have been so brainwashed in the military, that anything that the Commander in Chief does is devine. Clearly proves that that it is not a belief on your part, it's worshipping. Counseling is highly recommended.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ May 16 2006, 08:17 PM) [snapback]256565[/snapback]</div>

What is your pen name?

By the way, water boarding works much quicker, usually people talk within 5 seconds, the longest a person ever held out to my knowledge was 13 seconds. No narcotics, electricity, vices, pliers, needles, etc, needed.

And I guess when they let your "innocent human beings" out of Gitmo you would have no problem putting them up in your house for a few months while they tried to get green cards here? Or would you just confer citizenship upon them?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ May 17 2006, 07:36 AM) [snapback]256764[/snapback]</div>

Clearly, your posts portray you as eugenicist, I wonder if perhaps the works of Madison Grant or Alfred Rosenberg have left the indelible impression on you while going through the med school.

 

Nick Berg and Paul Johnson would love to chime in on this topic.....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hybridTHEvibe @ May 17 2006, 07:13 AM) [snapback]256761[/snapback]</div>

Where is the love? Where is the compassion?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ May 16 2006, 09:22 AM) [snapback]256297[/snapback]</div>

Me too and I have a weak stream! :lol:
Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ May 16 2006, 11:25 AM) [snapback]256260[/snapback]</div>

I'm not really sure what the UN has to do with this. It's the United States that's locking folks up in Guatanamo.... If we don't want our children footing the bill for any possible wrong doing by our government, then we had better make sure that we elect a government that is made up of responsible people who take the future into consideration.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ May 17 2006, 07:36 AM) [snapback]256764[/snapback]</div>

ROFLAMO :lol: :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusguy04 @ May 17 2006, 07:55 PM) [snapback]257222[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, water boarding is so much fun. Why don't you try it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ May 17 2006, 08:22 PM) [snapback]257234[/snapback]</div>

Well larkinmj please do explain it to us, the meaning of water boarding that is

I simply found his responce humrous...

your "innocent human beings" out of Gitmo you would have no problem putting them up in your house for a few months while they tried to get green cards here? Or would you just confer citizenship upon them?