I know everyone's tired of Guantanamo bay...

[xoxoxoBruce]

According to Smithsonian Magazine, we are winning the war on terror in one spot. The Islands of Basilian and Jolo, in The Philippines, used to be the favorite R&R/training base for the Taliban when they were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.

Now the American Military is building infrastructure and creating an economy that has the rebels deserting the jungle, to share the wealth. It will be interesting to see if lasts.

And "treating with dignity" by the other side has simply not happened.

And we want to be just like them.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I say that's piffle, and I don't pick those nits. Our foes are creepy enough to tempt me to genocide. That's a measure of how bad they suck.

And considering that the inmates at Guantanamo aren't losing their Korans and are eating better than the guards are, last I heard -- perhaps the MP's are now eating three hots from the chow hall instead of MRE's -- concerns that we're "just like them" are unbelievably misplaced.

Just win the fucking war, man. Then these worries all go away.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Just win the fucking war, man. Then these worries all go away.

Ummmm.....usually winning the war just brings up new worries.

WWII - We ally with the USSR and defeat the Nazis and the Cold War starts.

Cold War - We give weapons to an group that will resist Soviet influence and we get the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

War On Terror - We kill civilians and we, in turn, create more terrorists.

[TheMercenary]

I am all for closing Gitmo. And regardless of their final disposition, sending all of them home. Pack them on various planes and send them back to their home countries, their governments can do with them whatever they like. Get them out of our hair. Take the hardest core guys and put them in a high security prison on the US mainland. Give them some degree of due process before hand, but lock them up forever. Then close Gitmo.

[piercehawkeye45]

I thought their home countries didn't want them back?

[xoxoxoBruce]

What does that matter? Iraq doesn't want us either.

[DanaC]

What does that matter? Iraq doesn't want us either.

How do you place someone in another country if that country won;t let them in?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hell, that's easy.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

How do you place someone in another country if that country won;t let them in?

Don't give them a choice, just drop them off. No big deal. They can let them go, cut their heads off, or send them packing. Once we give them back they are no longer our problem. People can't have it both ways. Close Gitmo, fine, let's do it.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Pierce: yep, Sevareid's Law at work -- and it's nowhere stronger than in politics. That's why I specified those worries. Sufficient unto the day, and all that.

HM: and the Administration could have had all that easily -- IF Congress had declared a state of war existed. Nobody in government or out of it really thought a Congressional declaration of war was the right size or kind of government response. So what you're seeing is a wartime Administration stuck with trying it the hard way if it is to do it any way at all.

Queequeg, read up on conspiracist thinking and conspiracist thinkers -- if that study doesn't turn you off the path you're taking, you may be headed for a hopeless condition.

Basically, conspiracist thinkers are frustrated romantics, looking for an explanation of events that is full of high drama. Unfortunately, Occam's Razor cuts conspiracy theory to shreds, for conspiracy theories invariably accrete layers of complexity. They also generally attribute to malice what can be more simply explained by stupidity. People who've been in government employ tend eventually to notice that government agencies really don't have time for plots, given their real responsibilities. This is true even of intelligence agencies, those favorites of conspiracy-theorizers.

Thomas P.M. Barnett contends that this kind of attack on ourselves and on Europe comes out of a resistance to globalization, by persons seeing only a loss -- though these are outnumbered heavily by those who can see the gain. He notes without attempting to analyze or explain that some of the more intense objection to globalization is to be found only within the societies well globalized already -- what he calls the Core nations, the economic core and mainstay for the globe. He is optimistic that successful integration into globalization is more or less inevitable in the long run, but how much conflict and trouble we'd want to tolerate during that long run is rather a sharp question. He reckons globalization integration is powerfully driven by economic, free-trade considerations, and that thus it has a pull like gravity. It's in the Core nation's interest, though, that this integration proceed swiftly, though it must be also recognized that the substantial social changes societies undergo in the process are not going to be hurried beyond a certain point.

Meanwhile, during that long run, our international troubles are likeliest to come from those unglobalized, unintegrated nations he calls the Gap -- for their separation from, and zero effect upon, the global economy and cultural connectivity.

And meanwhile again, I'm in a lot less hurry to quit fighting than the senior leadership of the Democratic Party.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

HM: and the Administration could have had all that easily -- IF Congress had declared a state of war existed. Nobody in government or out of it really thought a Congressional declaration of war was the right size or kind of government response. So what you're seeing is a wartime Administration stuck with trying it the hard way if it is to do it any way at all.

Irrelevant. They wiretapped without warrants so they wouldn't have to have a reason for the tap, and created an extralegal designation for prisoners so they wouldn't have to have a reason for holding them. This is fact. And you try to defend it by saying they didn't do it to Bruce?

[queequeger]

HAHAHAH! That's almost bumper sticker funny.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I don't see how anyone of sense could call it "irrelevant." It's central to the Administration's entire conduct of this war against a shadowy, intercommunicative enemy.

If the enemy communicates to coordinate, that is where they are vulnerable. We can't stymie nor defeat them unless we find ways to know their plans and their thinking, hmmm?

I'd further point out that neither Happy Monkey nor anyone else, anyone else at all, has come up with a way to prosecute this war that is any different or any better -- better meaning that we, the democracies, are likely to win. Our foes were the ones to start the ruckus, out of sheer religious bigotry.

You don't approve of religious bigotry, do you, Happy Monkey? Are you quite certain you don't? All of the good liberals should be shooting at these bastard hyenas' sons on those grounds.

[queequeger]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

You don't approve of religious bigotry, do you, Happy Monkey? Are you quite certain you don't? All of the good liberals should be shooting at these bastard hyenas' sons on those grounds.

Also, I don't approve of religious indoctrination camps for evangelicals. Can I shoot them? How about white supremacists? let's shoot them on those grounds?