Stop taking prisoners

[Turbineguy]

One of the things the Gitmo and other detainees have accomplished is to assist in the creation of controversy in the west, running up of costs and creation of sympathy for their cause. In a way this is a form of warfare.

Al-qaeda has had some notable successes in avoiding what Americans would call "justice" as last weeks trial outcome in Yemen illustrates.

There are those who argue that there are many more or less innocent people held at Gitmo. I'm not so sure. The detainees have been rounded up in areas where terrorist activity occurred. It could very well be that some were turned in to settle scores but the difficulty lies in establishing just that.

But to me the whole idea of trying to capture terrorists is flawed.

The fact is that somebody who attends a madrass to learn hate (of the west) and jihad or attends a terrorist training course has to be considered lost to civilized society. Obviously many who attend such schools or go to a terrorist training camp simply go home afterward and never use their training. But they are unlikely to be in a place or doing anything that would subject them to capture or harm.

While there are a lot of injustices that need rectifying in the Muslim world (and chasing militants certainly would divert resources from that), extremist militants should simply be chased down and killed by whatever means available (such as Predators armed with Hellfire missiles).

By capturing, detaining and interrogating people we open the door to the type of problems we have had and that are very difficult to solve. I have doubts as to the effectiveness and value of interrogations when it seems that physical evidence such as cell phones and computers can yield lots of data.

A "take no prisoners" approach would work better. It's too easy to simply round up suspects and process them and let some go afterward. No I'm not suggesting that everybody be shot, I'm suggesting (and I think we are being driven by events in that direction anyway) that we get away from arresting "suspects" all together. Also those who would turn in enemies to have the Americans do their dirty work would lose that avenue.

There's a big cultural difference between the two courses of action. That said, I think many young Muslim men who join this battle are being duped and those who send them (with teachings or financial support) are getting off scot-free.

[sui generis]

1. I completely agree. Let's round up the Army of God

they are lost to society.

Also the Southern Babtists, Churchagods, Westboro Babtist, and anyone with any affiliation to the AFA.

I am sure. You want to change hatred of America and the west? Stop supporting absurdist Israeli public policy.

You want young men to stop going to madrass in other countries? Stop promoting christian missionary work and start promoting real jobs and education programs by managing the interface of our economies. Promote agriculture, not war. In America you are guilty until proven innocent it seems, provided you have the misfortune of being labeled a war participant.

We have due process for a reason, and it's not to let guilty people go. The real difference between a liberal and a conservative at the end of the day is that liberals would rather let one guilty man go than imprison a thousand innocent people while conservatives would rather imprison a thousand innocent people than let a single possibly guilty person go.

Which side are we on? I can't support it - at least not without cleaning up our own doorstep first. The KKK? Organ Donors for people who can't live without a fat racist republcian liver.

[anarch]

4. why stop there? eliminate anyone who claims membership in any religion

There you go, there's one less thing to fight about. And hey, there'll be more of whatever's left on the earth for the survivors! I don't know, though, just to be sure maybe we'd better wipe all of humanity off the face of the earth. Sigh. Back to the current program, then, I guess...we seem to be well on our way to that end as it is.

[sui generis]

9. not necessarily talking about religion

but the warlike things done in the name of it.

Hyperbole IS the current program, apparently.

I'm so misunderstood! oh well; what can ya do. :shrug:

[anarch]

10. me either...hence the expansion to include all of humanity

in the spirit of the original post, you see. And then I was comforted with the knowledge that if the current administration is competent at anything, it's raining death and destruction upon all of humanity...so hey, we're in good hands!

[mike_c]

2. OMFG-- this is one of the most repulsive posts I've ever seen on DU....

You're advocating summary execution of fighters (and likely many innocent civilians) rendered hors d'combat for starters. Given that many-- perhaps the majority-- of prisoners at Guantanamo are not guilty of any real crimes, one can assume that casting a wide net will always round up an equally large percentage of innocents. Would you simply kill them all as "lost to civilized society" and let God sort them out?

The alternative, and better solution to the Guantanamo problem is to enforce high standards of criminal evidence and due process to unambiguously separate the relative few who have indeed committed crimes from the majority whose worst offense was opposing U.S. hegemony in their countries. And to treat all prisoners humanely, no matter what they have done.

[Jokerman]

3. Nuke 'em all and let god sort it out.

That seems to be the next logical step to your little plan.

No one likes us-I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens

We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us-so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them

Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us

We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too

Boom goes London and boom Paris
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now

[gratuitous]

5. Okay, you lost me

By taking no prisoners, you say that we shouldn't arrest or detain anyone at all. Except, apparently, for the "extremist militants" who deserve to be on the receiving end of the finest of the American wehrmacht's missile weaponry.

If you would be so kind, could you please give us a list of the extremist militants and their locations? It would sure save a lot of time and trouble. But who would we ask? You're saying that we want to avoid taking in or being taken in by folks who are merely ratting out their enemies to allow our military to do their dirty work. Who's ratting out a harmless enemy, and who's giving us usable information on extremist militants?

And someone who attends a Muslim school that teaches hatred of west is "lost to civilized society." But in your next sentence, you allow that "many" of the folks in a madrass just go home after taking their courses, and never do anything with the hatred they've been taught. Could you please point out which students are going to be the harmless ones after they take their classes, and which ones are going to be "lost to civilized society"? Wait, maybe I should back up a step: What qualifies as learning hatred of the west? Would a class that discussed the massacre at Kama Aido be teaching hatred of the west, or simply reviewing the history of our occupation in Afghanistan? Maybe you should provide a course syllabus so we can distinguish hatred from history. It would sure help.

I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish with this post, but it's a rhetorical and logical mess.

[The Stranger]

6. Please tell me this is a joke.

Did I accidentally log on to Little Green Footballs? The website for David Duke?

Holy shit.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Truly demented

"There are those who argue that there are many more or less innocent people held at Gitmo. I'm not so sure. The detainees have been rounded up in areas where terrorist activity occurred. It could very well be that some were turned in to settle scores but the difficulty lies in establishing just that."

Quite the contrary. In any respectable system of jurisprudence, the difficulty lies not in establishing that one has been framed or falsely accused by one's neighbors, but in establishing that one is actually guilty of some offense. You have it completely fucking backwards.

You recognize that capturing people ("rounded up in areas," in your own words), torturing them, and holding them without any form of trial is a public relations blight. In this realization, you join the civilized world in its understanding of the obvious. Although one can hardly be expected to be praised for such meager feats of discernment, for Americans it is indeed a major step in the right direction to get on the same page as the rest of civilization when it comes to this prickly point, so congratulations.

But thus discerning the obvious, you then propose the most barbarous solution. Yes, it looks bad to hold people outside any law at all, so perhaps we should just disappear and kill people extra-judicially, therefore alleviating the international public relations disasater! This is your proposal! A more bewildering, backwards, and asinine notion I cannot remember on these boards. As if it weren't bad enough to be viewed as lawless kidnappers, we should now establish ourselves as outright murder-squads!

[adwon]

8. The OP is rather confused

Is the last line your real point? Shoot the leaders and parole the foot soldiers? I'm just curious.