Obama’s 250 Tough Calls

To all those who oppose closing Guantanamo, why don't we keep Guantanamo open and rotate the prisioners every six years with a group of those who oppose closing Guantanamo. In "this" country, a person is innocent until proven guilty. That's the law in this country. These people were not capture in this country. They are not being held in this country. If they have committed a crime against this country, then let them be tried by the laws of this country. Otherwise, send them to whatever country they came from and let them be tried by that country. If these people are guilty of a crime, then why is the United States afraid to expose themselves and these prisoners to the light of truth, justice and the law?

Dear Mr. Taylor,

Thank you for a thought-provoking article. However, I have some concerns. First, the fact that there is a legal distinction between ???cruel and inhumane??? treatment and torture may be a sign that the law needs to catch up with the psychology of prisoner treatment. This is what Alfred McCoy implied in ???A Question of Torture.??? Many practices, such as deprivation of sleep, hooding, etc. do not involve infliction of pain, but they are powerful ways to break a prisoner. In short, I believe that practices which bring prisoners to the point of saying in effect ???Do it to Julia,??? are torture, whether the practices produce intelligence or not. Moreover, there is already evidence that our policies produce false intelligence, and nothing in the public record that suggests that it works. Second, I am concerned that keeping detainees without charging them runs contrary to the principle of habeas corpus in international law. This principle is too central to human rights to be violated. Third, I am concerned that there will be a tendency to class detainees who have been tortured as too dangerous to release, whether they are or not, in order to cover up what would otherwise be an embarrassment to our government. Again, I am indebted to Professor McCoy for elucidating this general principle.

Great!! Let's murder unborn children and have pitty on criminals. What a great leader this is going to be.

Beware liberals beware

it seems you somehow view these individuals as criminals rather than combatants in a war. a combatant in a war if taken prisoner is a prisoner for the duration of the conflict. just because we are not fighting an identified country does not mean our enemy is not real. make no mistake, the jihadists of al qaeda have declared war on the USA and the west. you can espouse the bull crap of legalities, but i would remind you to consider what these criminals did on 9/11...................we are at war and these persons should be held until the war is over.

Yes, yes Stuart. You are so right. As all you effeminate P.C. wusses are. They should not only let these SCUMBAGS, who would slit you're throat, after GUTTING your children in front of your eyes, but they should all be given nice parting gifts, and the name of a good Jewish Lawyer. And not only should we do away with all naughty ways of getting information, we should stop asking these wonderfull guys anything, in the first place. After all....A Gentleman never tells. Besides, it's none of our business. When is EVERYONE going to learn? These guys CAN NOT BE TRUSTED WITH NATIONAL SECURITY. PERIOD.

No I don't think it's easy. But it's not SUPPOSED to be easy. It's also not supposed to be something you whine continuously about and NEVER solve.

The fact that you all are invoking Joe the Plumber and Dick Cheney (Chris S.) only shows just HOW desperate and stupid you are.

Either you DO or you DON'T believe we're better than this. Period. It's put up or shut up time.

EVERYONE on both sides of the aisle with HALF a brain, and virtually EVERYONE who's served in the military has told you this thing is an unmitigated, freakin DISASTER.

The military never wanted this and they never asked for it. It was people like Cheney (as long as you're deriding "arm chair warriors" that coward got FIVE draft deferments in the middle of the Vietnam War) who came up with this THING.

Those who DID serve are always the FIRST to try and preserve rights.

America is BETTER than this. Got it? Whether you losers want to admit this or not, we ARE!

Do you really have any question which way the Founding Fathers would have went on this thing? George Washington?

You want to talk about people who served? Colin Powell's against it, every Republican Secretary of State you can NAME is against it, Brent Scowcroft's against it, Tommy Franks, who is a well-known Republican who has supported just about everything Bush has done, has never said ANYTHING positive about this.

NO ONE other than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld things this is a good idea. It's an embarassment, it's causing us damage in the world, it accomplishes NOTHING and it's stupid.

You can't NAME a major American figure, military, civilian or governmental with HALF a brain who's for this. It's basically Bush, Cheney Rumsfeld and that's IT. Oh yeah and you morons. Great company to be in.

This is NOT what America stands for. CLOSE IT! Yesterday.

Prisoners of war are not protected by our constitution. How many of the vermin who have been released from Gitmo have gone back and killed our military on the battlefield. Treat them as you would a common criminal at your peril - they want us all dead.

What an outrage of an article! If the government cannot prove in a court of law, clear evidence sufficient to prove probable cause that the defendant has committed a crime, then that person must be released. There is no controversy over this, there is no debate, that is the law of the land, and without the rule of law this country has absolutely lost its claim to be a civilized country. Everyone is entitled to habeus corpus, that includes suspected terrorists, that is the law and the law must be obeyed. I cannot believe that Newsweek would allow such an irresponsible and utterly contemptable argument to be put to print under its journalistic standards. Habeus Corpus is a basic standard for any civilized country. Guantanamo and ALL OF THE SECRET PRISONS MUST BE CLOSED, Habeus corpus must be respected, and torture and abuse and all cruel and unusual punishments are unconstitutional and unlawful and must be forbidden. It is a lasting shame that there is even a pretense that any alternative is worthy of discussion or respect under our Constitution and our nation's reputation as a land where law alone is king.

If the BUSH administration had any legitimate evidence against them, they should have stood trial in American courts with civilian juries. ONLY Bushies who fear reason and good judgment would go to such lengths to avoid that. Oddly enough, unless I misheard him, Obama stated that they would be tried, convicted and executed. That really imposes a certain amount of FINALITY to the entire thing. If Cheney, Rove and Bush wren't such COWARDS, they should have finished their business seven years ago.

Obama isn't likely to be stampeded into anything, nor guilty of appeasing many, judging from his behavior during the campaign. Guantanamo must be closed simply because it is an affront to our constitution, and our systems of justice. Comparing the 250 to inmates in our prison system is an affront to our intelligence. Those in our prisons have been at least charged with a crime, and in most cases found guilty. Many of the 250 can't be charged with a crime because it's been revealed that they did nothing wrong, but just are considered dangerous., and might do something wrong. If that be the standard we should all be locked up. That's what tyrants do to their subjects. That's what Cheney/Bush did.

"jimbo": I just wonder what you ever-so-brave self-described-patriots who know-so-much-with-such-certainty-about-every-single-person-at-Gitmo would be spouting if Americans were the ones being held.

Police and soldiers make mistakes everyday, many of them well-meaning. For you to exclude that possibility here, and instead of thinking you spew your ignorant 'certitude' and epithets on all who happen to have other viewpoints, only further confirms our embarrassment that you are, presumably, American.

Rigid incapacity to see any point of view other than one's own, and to demean and denigrate all others is the "mental disorder" I see here.

Your posts are not laughable, they are pathetic and shameful.

A 40 year republican

The point of establishing international rules for the wartime treatment of prisoners is to protect our own troops from reprisal. No doubt the brutal treatment of captured Americans abroad reflects our own poor reputation. Remember that the Islamic fighters still refer to us as Crusaders and are still ticked off at Richard the Lionheart's massacre of 3000 imprisoned Saladin's soldiers by beheading and the slitting of throats before the year 1200. They do not forget. Americans are supposed to set the international standard for excellence on all fronts. If we are as we profess a Christian nation, we should be setting a standard for Christian behavior. I don't think Jesus, who was tortured with the whip and then tortured to death on the cross, would approve of torture. I don't have any inside information on that, but I'm just saying...The Prince of Peace and all that...I dunno. Consult The Serman on the Mount. Is there a verse in there on waterboarding?