Keeping the pressure on Obama

[Flagg]

As much of a dickchugging fucktard as Ryan is being, there is a point buried under that fetid pile of shit:

What do we do with the people no other countries will take but who are so anti-American that they cannot safely be released onto the streets here?

As long as they haven't actually committed any crimes you can always release them in the US but just keep an eye on them. Until they actually commit something or there's strong evidence that they may do something violent there's no reason to throw them out or lock them up just because you don't like their rhetoric.

I'm talking about people who get off due to evidence being inadmissible but who we know were involved in terrorist acts against the US. What do we do with these people who are too dangerous to be allowed to move freely in this country? You can't legally watch someone 24/7 without due cause, and it's all too easy to just disappear.

[Dominus Atheos]

I'm talking about people who get off due to evidence being inadmissible but who we know were involved in terrorist acts against the US. What do we do with these people who are too dangerous to be allowed to move freely in this country? You can't legally watch someone 24/7 without due cause, and it's all too easy to just disappear.

RTFA. Obama doesn't want to release them, he wants to set up a new court system that will accept torture-drawn confessions as evidence.:

Obama today rather clearly stated that he will not close Guantanamo in the first 100 days of his presidency. He recited the standard Jack Goldsmith/Brookings Institution condescending excuse that closing Guantanamo is "more difficult than people realize." Specifically, Obama argued, we cannot release detainees whom we're unable to convict in a court of law because the evidence against them is "tainted" as a result of our having tortured them, and therefore need some new system -- most likely a so-called new "national security court" -- that "relaxes" due process safeguards so that we can continue to imprison people indefinitely even though we're unable to obtain an actual conviction in an actual court of law.

UPDATE: Let's emphasize what Obama is actually saying about why he can't close Guantanamo right away. Here is his answer when asked if he'd close Guantanamo in the first 100 days:

It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize and we are going to get it done but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom who may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it's true. And so how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo American legal system, by doing it in a way that doesn't result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up.

What he's saying is quite clear. There are detainees who the U.S. may not be able to convict in a court of law. Why not? Because the evidence that we believe establishes their guilt was obtained by torture, and it is therefore likely inadmissible in our courts (torture-obtained evidence is inadmissible in all courts in the civilized world; one might say it's a defining attribute of being civilized). But Obama wants to detain them anyway -- even though we can't convict them of anything in our courts of law. So before he can close Guantanamo, he wants a new, special court to be created -- presumably by an act of Congress -- where evidence obtained by torture (confessions and the like) can be used to justify someone's detention and where, presumably, other safeguards are abolished. That's what he means when he refers to "creating a process."

This is only a small part of the articles in the OP, and it's conclusions are supported by the rest of the article. So don't say the conclusions are bassless until you've read the entire OP.

[Guardsman Bass]

Depending on how much you care about whether or not they end up back in their original groups, you could always deport them first. A lot of them, if I recall correctly, are Yemenis that the Yemeni government has said it won't be able to stop from potentially re-joining terrorist groups.

[spikenigma]

RTFA. Obama doesn't want to release them, he wants to set up a new court system that will accept torture-drawn confessions as evidence.:

perhaps I'm being thick, but doesn't this part of the article:

...we cannot release detainees whom we're unable to convict in a court of law because the evidence against them is "tainted" as a result of our having tortured them, and therefore need some new system ...

directly contradict what you are saying?

unless you believe he's setting up a new court system that will accept torture-drawn evidence, because the evidence gained by the previous system is tainted because it was torture-drawn

[Dominus Atheos]

RTFA. Obama doesn't want to release them, he wants to set up a new court system that will accept torture-drawn confessions as evidence.:

perhaps I'm being thick, but doesn't this part of the article:

...we cannot release detainees whom we're unable to convict in a court of law because the evidence against them is "tainted" as a result of our having tortured them, and therefore need some new system ...

directly contradict what you are saying?

unless you believe he's setting up a new court system that will accept torture-drawn evidence, because the evidence gained by the previous system is tainted because it was torture-drawn

Yes, that is exactly what the article AND Obama are saying.

And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it's true. And so how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo American legal system, by doing it in a way that doesn't result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up.

We already have a "process" to try these people and if Obama tries to create a new on that accepts torture drawn confessions, I for one am going to be calling for impeachment.

[General Zod]

We already have a "process" to try these people and if Obama tries to create a new on that accepts torture drawn confessions, I for one am going to be calling for impeachment.

Except the only thing that suggests he's going to try and get torture drawn confessions made admissible are rather liberal (heh) interpretations by Glenn Greenwald and other conservative douchebags. For all we know he's going to try and convict using alternative angles that can sidestep the fact that they were tortured and ignore the tainted evidence altogether rather than use it in the courts.

[Dominus Atheos]

We already have a "process" to try these people and if Obama tries to create a new on that accepts torture drawn confessions, I for one am going to be calling for impeachment.

Except the only thing that suggests he's going to try and get torture drawn confessions made admissible are rather liberal (heh) interpretations by Glenn Beck and other conservative douchebags. For all we know he's going to try and convict using alternative angles that can sidestep the fact that they were tortured and ignore the tainted evidence altogether rather than use it in the courts.

So why does he talk about "creating a new system"? Our current system can do that just fine.

[General Zod]

So why does he talk about "creating a new system"? Our current system can do that just fine.

I have no idea; perhaps it's because there's little precedent for instances like what's occurring in Guantanamo. But automatically assuming that it means he's going to try and get torture drawn confessions made admissible is absurd.

[Dominus Atheos]

So why does he talk about "creating a new system"? Our current system can do that just fine.

I have no idea; perhaps it's because there's little precedent for instances like what's occurring in Guantanamo. But automatically assuming that it means he's going to try and get torture drawn confessions made admissible is absurd.

Why? There isn't any other explanation. Our current system can handle this just fine. The only thing it can't do is accept torture-drawn confessions. There's no other reason he'd need to set up a new one.

[General Zod]

Why? There isn't any other explanation. Our current system can handle this just fine. The only thing it can't do is accept torture-drawn confessions. There's no other reason he'd need to set up a new one.

Except it can't handle it just fine, or else we would have put all these people to trial already. The fact that there's been dozens of legal hangups and problems with things like security clearances even ignoring the torture drawn confessions makes the claim that the current system can handle things just dandy rather dubious.

[Guardsman Bass]

So why does he talk about "creating a new system"? Our current system can do that just fine.

I have no idea; perhaps it's because there's little precedent for instances like what's occurring in Guantanamo. But automatically assuming that it means he's going to try and get torture drawn confessions made admissible is absurd.

Why? There isn't any other explanation. Our current system can handle this just fine. The only thing it can't do is accept torture-drawn confessions. There's no other reason he'd need to set up a new one.

Some of the evidence (and no, it's not just torture-extracted confessions) was had by classified military means. That makes trial in the US system rather difficult (and unprecedented; there were military tribunals for certain prisoners back in World War 2, for example).