Guantanamo trials to be restarted
 

I vaguely remember cheesehead saying in Jan 2010 that it wasn't Obama's fault that he was unable to keep his promise to close Guantanamo in a year. It was the damn Congress that refused him funding.

[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/guantanamo-military-terrorism-trials-resume[/url]

So now can we say that he has broken yet another election promise?

[QUOTE=garo;254611]I vaguely remember cheesehead saying in Jan 2010 that it wasn't Obama's fault that he was unable to keep his promise to close Guantanamo in a year. It was the damn Congress that refused him funding.

[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/guantanamo-military-terrorism-trials-resume[/url]

So now can we say that he has broken yet another election promise?[/QUOTE]

Congress has also refused funding to allow the prisoners to be brought
to the U.S. for trial. So it is either detain them indefinitely with no trial,

(which violates many principles on which the U.S. is founded)

or proceed with military trials. What alternative do you suggest?

[QUOTE=garo;254611]I vaguely remember cheesehead saying in Jan 2010 that it wasn't Obama's fault that he was unable to keep his promise to close Guantanamo in a year. It was the damn Congress that refused him funding.

[URL]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/guantanamo-military-terrorism-trials-resume[/URL]

So now can we say that he has broken yet another election promise?[/QUOTE]Do you mean that Congress has now approved the funding it refused earlier?

If not, then nothing's changed in that regard -- it's still Congress that's the roadblock -- and I'm disappointed that you'd try to falsely imply otherwise.

Since trials at Guantanamo will at least move the status of some detainees forward from indefinite detention to a verdict that either release them or sets a more definite term of imprisonment, that will improve some detainees' status. Can't you see that? It's not the preferred method, but Obama can't use his preferred method, so he's using the best of the sorry options available to him.

What would you rather see him do, given that Congress won't allow any detainee transfer? Continue indefinite detention? Do you consider that preferable to what a military trial could do? Or do you want Obama to disobey Congress and get impeached?

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;254613]

(which violates many principles on which the U.S. is founded)

or proceed with military trials. What alternative do you suggest?[/QUOTE]

[sarcasm]Oh? Since when did the US government start worrying about the principles on which the US was founded?[/sarcasm]

Don't you think that it is a sad sad statement about the state of the US and a telling commentary on its self-appointed role as the 'leader of the free world' that people (some innocent) are being kept in indefinite detention and there is no serious protest.

There is a simpler alternative. Ship some civilian judges over and have proper trials.
Yet another simple partial alternative is to release those prisoners that are demonstrably innocent.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;254641]
What would you rather see him do, given that Congress won't allow any detainee transfer? Continue indefinite detention? Do you consider that preferable to what a military trial could do? Or do you want Obama to disobey Congress and get impeached?[/QUOTE]

Come now, it won't be for the first time that a US president disobeyed Congress if he brought them over to the US. BTW, did anyone impeach Bush when he had a war which is supposedly the sole prerogative of the Congress?

He never had a plan for closing Guantanamo, just a vague promise that he never intended fulfilling because he never came up with a concrete plan to do just kep talking about it till nitwits in the Congress got together and started making it more difficult for him.

More details here:
[url]http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/08/guantanamo/index.html[/url]

On a related note, it seems that it is okay to torture people accused of crime but not okay to condemn it.

[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/13/pj-crowley-resigns-bradley-manning-remarks[/url]

[QUOTE]A day later, Obama was asked about Crowley's remarks at a news conference. He replied that he had asked the Pentagon whether the confinement conditions were appropriate and whether they met basic standards. "They assure me that they are," the president said. He declined to elaborate when pressed on whether he disagreed with Crowley's assessment.[/QUOTE]

Pathetic! And this is a man who taught constitutional law. Next he will be saying he believes Gaddafi when he says he is treating opponents with respect.

Glenn Greenwald has a good writeup on this.
[url]http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/13/crowley/index.html[/url]
[QUOTE][URL="http://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/46979146957602816"]Matt Yglesias just put it[/URL]: "[B]Sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning[/B]." [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=garo;255093]There is a simpler alternative. Ship some civilian judges over and have proper trials.[/QUOTE]They don't have jurisdiction there. G'tmo is not part of the USA. It is a "no man's land". That is why they are there. No other base fulfills the unique spot that it does.

[QUOTE=garo;255094]Come now, it won't be for the first time that a US president disobeyed Congress if he brought them over to the US.[/QUOTE]... and each of them suffered for doing so.

Furthermore, your comments indicate that you miscategorize certain presidential actions as disobedience of Congress, when they're really not.

[quote]BTW, did anyone impeach Bush when he had a war which is supposedly the sole prerogative of the Congress?[/quote]"had a war which is supposedly the sole prerogative of the Congress" -- Each of the incursions, Afghanistan and Iraq, were approved by Congress in advance. They were _not_ instances of disobeying Congress.

Impeachment is conducted via votes in Congress, and it's practically impossible when the president's own party controls Congress. (Note that Republicans had control when Clinton was impeached.)

[quote]He never had a plan for closing Guantanamo,[/quote]What is your preferred plan, and how would you have implemented it if you were president?

Oh, wait. Here it is:
[QUOTE=garo;255093]There is a simpler alternative. Ship some civilian judges over and have proper trials.[/QUOTE]Civilian judges would have no authority to preside over [I]proper[/I] trials at Guantanamo.

(You'd know that if you were president.)

[quote]Yet another simple partial alternative is to release those prisoners that are demonstrably innocent.[/quote]There are claims of such innocence, but their demonstration would be conducted where? In court (I know you think your sources are accurate, but they aren't courts, are they?). Now we're back where we were.

(You'd know that if you were president.)

So much for your plan and its superiority to Obama's.

- - -

One might reasonably ask what [I]my[/I] preferred plan is/was.

1) Work to persuade other countries to accept some inmates.

2) Work to persuade Congress to allow transfers to the mainland.

I have never claimed to have a better plan -- and those who do make that claim have never shown how theirs could actually, realistically be implemented.

Lesson for future presidents: don't do what Bush did.

Arguing with cheesehead is a waste of time. But I never learn.

So to sum up the situation is as follows:

1. 173 or so alleged terrorists are in Guantanamo and there is no hope of them getting a proper criminal trial in the foreseeable future. [Edit: And no military tribunals are not a proper criminal trial.]

2. There is a high probability that at least some of the prisoners are innocent of any crime. The majority of men who were detained in Guantanamo under conditions amounting to torture were subsequently released with no charges pressed. But they were kept in there for many years. So it seems likely that at least some of the remainder will also be innocent. Many of the others have not been told what their crime is.

3. At least one prisoner Mohammed Hassen, was cleared for release by Bush but Obama is opposing his release.

4. If the Congress is the obstacle then why is Obama vehemently opposing rights to habeus corpus for these prisoners? And why not just say to Congress, give the funding to try these people properly or I will have to release them?

5. Cheesehead, evidently did not read or read but chose to ignore my link to the Salon article which describes the legal issues far better than I could. The writer is a lawyer.

6. Uncwilly seems to be entirely comfortable with the fact that a "democratic" and "free" country maintains a gulag where it can send anyone it pleases for as long as it pleases.

It's a fucking disgrace!

References:
1. Lakhdar Boumediene [URL]http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/08/boumediene[/URL] who was innocent and wrongfully imprisoned and tortured by the US government for over 6 years.

[QUOTE]Does anyone object to the term "moral depravity" being applied to those in Congress who voted to keep [B]completely innocent[/B] [B]people[/B] in cages for life without any opportunity to have a court review the accusations against them? If these members of Congress had their way, these completely innocent individuals would still be encaged at Guantanamo.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]Here is Boumediene's description of what was done to him by the U.S. at Guantanamo -- perfectly consistent with what other Guantanamo detainees (and those at Bagram and elsewhere) have described, as summarized by Tapper: [INDENT] Boumediene said he endured harsh treatment for more than seven years. He said he was kept awake for 16 days straight, and physically abused repeatedly.
Asked if he thought he was tortured, Boumediene was unequivocal.
"I don't think. I'm sure," he said.
Boumediene described being pulled up from under his arms while sitting in a chair with his legs shackled, stretching him. He said that he was forced to run with the camp's guards and if he could not keep up, he was dragged, bloody and bruised.
He described what he called the "games" the guards would play after he began a hunger strike, putting his food IV up his nose and poking the hypodermic needle in the wrong part of his arm.
"You think that's not torture? What's this? What can you call this? Torture or what?" he said, indicating the scars he bears from tight shackles. "I'm an animal? I'm not a human?"
[/INDENT]What kind of person would deny that this is torture? And what kind of person would argue that those who ordered that should be immune from investigation and prosecution?
[/QUOTE]
2. Mohammed Hassen [URL]http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/28/guantanamo[/URL] who Obama is refusing to release despite a court order.

[QUOTE=garo;255345]Arguing with cheesehead is a waste of time.[/QUOTE]Not when one presents [I]sound[/I] arguments and evidence.

[quote]3. At least one prisoner Mohammed Hassen, was cleared for release by Bush but Obama is opposing his release.[/quote]Thank you for bringing this fact to my attention. I hadn't known this.

[quote]5. Cheesehead, evidently did not read or read but chose to ignore my link to the Salon article[/quote]... "evidently"? ... on the basis of what evidence?

Answer: none.

You demonstrate, in that post, little practical understanding of the distinction between evidence and not-evidence. E.g., you make the statement that "evidently" something-or-other, when [I]in fact you have no evidence to support that statement that "evidently" something-or-other[/I].

Do you understand the plain meaning of "evidently"? (Does "on the basis of presented evidence" ring any bell?)

You could have made the simpler, factually-correct statement, "Cheesehead did not comment on the Salon article." -- which [i]is[/i] supported by evidence.

But instead you chose to make the false straw-man claim that I "evidently did not read or read but chose to ignore [your] link to the Salon article".

Was that because you were so irritated with my failure to agree with you that you wanted to smear me with a straw-man accusation?

- -

I did read the article. I didn't have time then to make any significant comment. Until you show understanding of the difference between evidence and not-evidence, and a willingness to forgo making straw-man accusations, I see no point in my taking that trouble now.

Nice job throwing a hissy fit to avoid dealing with the substantive issues. Grow up and address the issues I raised in the post. It is NOT all about YOU.:rolleyes:

[QUOTE=garo;255356]Nice job throwing a hissy fit to avoid dealing with the substantive issues.[/QUOTE]Another smear, instead of acknowledgment or apology.

I'm detecting a pattern.

Is this what other People Who Don't Say What Garo Wants Them To Say can expect?

I feel like the above two could be repeated, [i]ad infinitum[/i], in a sort of fractal posting pattern.

[QUOTE=garo;255345]6. Uncwilly seems to be entirely comfortable with the fact that a "democratic" and "free" country maintains a gulag where it can send anyone it pleases for as long as it pleases.[/QUOTE]Assumes facts not in evidence. I neither said that I support/endorse/like/etc. the situation, nor did i say that I don't like/etc.

I was clarifying a point of info.

Also it's disingenuous at best to compare Guantanamo to GULAG.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;255374]Also it's disingenuous at best to compare Guantanamo to GULAG.[/QUOTE]
If by disingenuous you mean misleading or false then I'm very interested to know what important differences you see between Guantanamo Bay and the old Soviet Union's methods of dealing with what it defined as criminality. The only one I can come up with is scale: instead of the millions incarcerated without trial by the Soviet Union, the USA has done this to a few hundred who have been suspected of the extremely serious crime of (planned) terrorism. Beyond scale I cannot see any other difference which makes the comparison false, and for the smaller number of in some cases innocent people imprisoned at Guantanamo it might just as well be the Soviet Union of the first half of the 20th century as far as I can see.

Scale is a big one: 775 vs. 20 million. (See diagram.)

Death rate is another big one. About 17 times as many people died in the GULag [i]as a proportion of the total[/i] as in Guantanamo. If the suicides are removed from both, it becomes more than 100 times as many in the GULag. And these totals are unfairly favorable to the GULag, since incomplete records mean that there were many more deaths than the numbers I'm using.

[QUOTE=Brian-E;255399]If by disingenuous you mean misleading or false then I'm very interested to know what important differences you see between Guantanamo Bay and the old Soviet Union's methods of dealing with what it defined as criminality.[/QUOTE]The quality of life at Guantanamo is better in many respects. See [i]One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich[/i] for a description of gulag life.

Obviously, the last two posts should not be seen as an [i]endorsement[/i] of Guantanamo Bay, but merely bringing the discussion back to reality.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;255459]Obviously, the last two posts should not be seen as an [I]endorsement[/I] of Guantanamo Bay, but merely bringing the discussion back to reality.[/QUOTE]Yes, the latter was my intent, too.

- - -

[QUOTE=cheesehead;255124]Civilian judges would have no authority to preside over [I]proper[/I] trials at Guantanamo.
[/QUOTE]I may have been wrong about that. Perhaps there is a provision for civilian trials after all (or perhaps I'm misinterpreting the following article):

"DOD: don't rule out civilian trials of detainees"

[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110317/ap_on_re_us/us_gitmo_detainees;_ylt=AkWHL1UFqsA_b2_woQHgyu5v24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTMxdTNpMzAxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwMzE3L3VzX2dpdG1vX2RldGFpbmVlcwRjY29kZQNyZG5iZQRjcG9zAzMEcG9zAzMEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNkb2Rkb250cnVsZW8-[/URL]

[quote]WASHINGTON – The Defense Department's general counsel on Thursday urged Congress to allow the Obama administration to use civilian courts as well as military commissions to prosecute detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Jeh Johnson said a Republican bill to virtually remove the civilian option would make it more likely that courts would step in when detainees challenge their detentions.

"Let's not take options away from the military and the national security apparatus. Let's not take away the Article 3 (civilian court) option," Johnson told the House Armed Services Committee.

. . .[/quote]

[QUOTE=cheesehead;255446]The quality of life at Guantanamo is better in many respects. See [i]One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich[/i] for a description of gulag life.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reference. I'm reading it now -- enlightening, and (darkly) amusing. It's very well-written.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;255604]Thanks for the reference. I'm reading it now -- enlightening, and (darkly) amusing. It's very well-written.[/QUOTE]As someone wrote in Wikipedia,

"[I]One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich[/I] was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Academy"]Nobel Committee[/URL] awarded Solzhenitsyn the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Literature"]Nobel Prize in Literature[/URL] in 1970."

- - -

Note: A different committee (in a different country) selects the laureate for the Peace Prize.

Yes, quality of life at Guantanamo Bay detention camp probably is better in many respects than that in the Gulag work camps. For example, obviously the detainees on Cuba are not subjected to the extreme cold that those in the Gulag were subjected to. In other respects the two are simply incomparable in any meaningful way. In practically [I]all[/I] respects life at Guantanamo will be different from that of the prisoners of 50-100 years ago in the USSR: torture methods have presumably changed out of all recognition (quantifying these in terms of quality of life is something few of us probably feel like trying), the mechanics of life amongst inmates who are largely multinational prisoners of war must be totally different from that of Soviet civilians, and the prospects of ever being released or of having contact with people they love are based on completely different situations.

Another reason for the futility of the comparison is that to a large extent we are still ignorant of what is happening to prisoners at Guantanamo. Its survivors do not yet include any Nobel Prize winning novelists achieving world-wide acclaim, and those who do manage to publish their account of their torture and repression are being marginalised. I suppose we will need to wait for Guantanamo Bay to recede into history and all those in power who have/had anything to do with it to go the same way before the facts of what is going on there now become common knowledge.

There has been an appeal here to bring the discussion back to reality. Alright. Well, I haven't yet seen anyone in this thread defending the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay detention camp. So who can tell me, as a non-US citizen, what the stumbling block is in Congress at the moment which is preventing the politicians from making work of shutting down this appalling breach of human rights by the US government? Are there any prospects for political progress on this, maybe by highlighting what is going on for the enlightenment of the American public who vote in the democracy called the USA? Is the angst for terrorism still too fresh in the American psyche for a new look at the lot of the prisoners at Guantanamo, or is change possibly in the air?

[QUOTE=Brian-E;256162] So who can tell me, as a non-US citizen, what the stumbling block is in Congress at the moment which is preventing the politicians from making work of shutting down this appalling breach of human rights by the US government? ?[/QUOTE]

Republicans are in control.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;256168]Republicans are in control.[/QUOTE]And why was Gitmo not shut down when the Democrats were in control?

A plague on both your houses.


Paul

[QUOTE=xilman;256174]And why was Gitmo not shut down when the Democrats were in control?

A plague on both your houses.


Paul[/QUOTE]

Bush.

One needs control of both Congress and the White House.

I agree with you.

That seems to leave out a certain timespan...

R.D. Silverman,

I think xilman's question (and what CRGreathouse is alluding to) refers to the 2008 US election

Results:

Congress
Senate
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2008"]59 democrats 41 republicans[/URL]

House

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2008"]257 democrats 178 republicans[/URL]

Presidential

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2008"]democrat[/URL]

These results took effect on January 2009, and were held until the next election cycle. The next cycle 2010 and those results took effect on January 2011.

That is 2 years where the democrats had congress and the white house. What I understood from your last two posts, this is all that was needed in order to close Guantanamo. Instead it remains open. Which is why garo started this thread.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;255374]Also it's disingenuous at best to compare Guantanamo to GULAG.[/QUOTE]

The term gulag (note the absence of capitalization in my original post) is now often used for prisons that are beyond reasonable judicial and human rights oversight. And it is not just Guantanamo. It is also Bagram, Diego Garcia and several other prisons which are "known unknowns". And then the prisons maintained by allies such as Mubarak (in the past), Yemen, Bahrain, Syria etc.

And finally, with the advances in psychological torture pioneered and perfected by the CIA and the US military, I'm sure Guantanamo is no less unpleasant than the gulags were. Just in a different way.

I think this long read is relevant to this thread even though it discusses civilian prisons inside the US and not Guantanamo.

[url]http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande[/url]

[QUOTE=garo;256209]The term gulag (note the absence of capitalization in my original post) is now often used for prisons that are beyond reasonable judicial and human rights oversight.[/QUOTE]

So you're not disagreeing with me, then.

It's the NUMBERS: 60 + 218 + 1 or 67 + 290
 

[QUOTE=xilman;256174]And why was Gitmo not shut down when the Democrats were in control?
[/QUOTE]If you look at the numbers that Mathew Steine provided for the results of the 2008 elections, you see that Republicans retained 41 seats in the Senate.

[QUOTE=Mathew Steine;256194]These results took effect on January 2009, and were held until the next election cycle. The next cycle 2010 and those results took effect on January 2011.

That is 2 years where the democrats had congress and the white house. What I understood from your last two posts, this is all that was needed in order to close Guantanamo.[/QUOTE]But it's not that simple. A majority of 59 in the Senate is not nearly as powerful as a majority of 60 would have been.

The U.S. Senate has a procedure called "filibuster", by which a minority of senators can delay legislation indefinitely. Ending a filibuster is called "cloture" and that requires 60 votes to pass. (A few decades ago, such as in the 1960s civil rights legislation era, cloture required 67 votes. So, compared to then, filibuster is harder now because cloture is easier now).

As long as the 41 Republican senators stayed together during 2009-2010 in voting against cloture, they could maintain a filibuster indefinitely, stopping any further progress in passing a piece of legislation, including anything that changed the situation at Guantanamo. [I]That[/I] is how Republicans prevented the Democratic then-majority of 59 senators from shutting down Gitmo!

Had Democrats managed to get enough Senate seats in the 2008 election to raise their total to 60, the world would have seen [I]a whole bunch of Democrat-favored legislation (including Guantanamo changes), with not nearly so many concessions to Republicans, being passed and put into effect during 2009 and 2010! Zip, zip, zip![/I] But they were one senator short from that filibuster-proof total.

- - -

If you're wondering why you didn't see dramatic reports of Republican filibustering in 2009-2010, that's because the Senate also sissified the filibustering procedure while making it harder to maintain by requiring fewer votes for cloture.

(Kiddies, when I was young there were cots ...)

In the 1950s-1960s, 34 (or more) filibustering senators had to actually give continuous speeches (or read the Bible or telephone directory, etc. aloud) for all 24 hours of a day to hold the floor, and there were scenes of some of them bringing cots into the chamber so they could take turns around the clock. Nowadays, all that 41 (or more) filibustering senators have to do is to file a formal written notice that they intend to filibuster whenever a certain piece of legislation is under consideration on the floor and ... voila! They're considered to be giving continuous virtual speeches, blocking that legislation. (* gag *)

[QUOTE=Brian-E;256162]So who can tell me, as a non-US citizen, what the stumbling block is in Congress at the moment which is preventing the politicians from making work of shutting down this appalling breach of human rights by the US government?[/QUOTE]Republicans need only 41 senators to block action.

[quote] Are there any prospects for political progress on this, maybe by highlighting what is going on for the enlightenment of the American public who vote in the democracy called the USA?[/quote]Not until Democrats can capture 60 Senate seats.

[quote]Is the angst for terrorism still too fresh in the American psyche for a new look at the lot of the prisoners at Guantanamo,[/quote]Oh, the right wing works around the clock to keep that angst fresh, all right.

[quote]or is change possibly in the air?[/quote]60 (of 100) Democratic senators, 218 (of 435) Democratic representatives, and 1 Democratic president -- those are the numbers required after the 2012 election.

There's another, less likely, combination that could also do it: 67 Democratic senators plus 290 Democratic representatives could both close any filibuster and override a veto by a president of either party. (This is rarely possible.)

[QUOTE=Mathew Steine;256194]R.D. Silverman,

I think xilman's question (and what CRGreathouse is alluding to) refers to the 2008 US election

Results:

Congress
Senate
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2008"]59 democrats 41 republicans[/URL]

House

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2008"]257 democrats 178 republicans[/URL]

Presidential

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2008"]democrat[/URL]

These results took effect on January 2009, and were held until the next election cycle. The next cycle 2010 and those results took effect on January 2011.

That is 2 years where the democrats had congress and the white house. What I understood from your last two posts, this is all that was needed in order to close Guantanamo. Instead it remains open. Which is why garo started this thread.[/QUOTE]

I agree. Keeping it open is contemptible.

OTOH, let me observe the following. Although I do not trust the government,
I do accept that they are in possession of information that is not available
to the general public. There may be very valid reasons for not releasing
prisoners. There may also be valid reasons for not having public trials.
(e.g. identity of spies might come out as evidence in such trials. )

The prisoners should be tried. But not necessarily in a civilian court.

The difficulty lies in knowing when the government has legitimate reasons
for secrecy, and when they are using secrecy to cover up internal wrong-
doing. Secrecy begets tyranny. But it is sometimes a [b]necessary[/b]
eveil.

[QUOTE=Mathew Steine;256194]That is 2 years where the democrats had congress and the white house. What I understood from your last two posts, this is all that was needed in order to close Guantanamo. Instead it remains open. Which is why garo started this thread.[/QUOTE]And also why I quoted Shakespeare.

Paul

[QUOTE=cheesehead;256233]If you look at the numbers that Mathew Steine provided for the results of the 2008 elections, you see that Republicans retained 41 seats in the Senate.

But it's not that simple. A majority of 59 in the Senate is not nearly as powerful as a majority of 60 would have been.[/QUOTE]

Yet, despite not having had a filibuster-proof supermajority, Team Obama managed to pass the monster "Obamacare" healthcare-reform legislation, which did not become anathema to many Republicans only just recently. You think the Dems couldn't have gotten one single solitary human-rights-aware Republican to vote with them? It comes down to a matter of priorities...Obama felt significant political pushback and decided it simply wasn't something worth fighting for. Just like going after the Wall Street crooks who were the major players in the scammery which led to the 2008 global financial meltdown made for some great campaign soundbites, but was jettisoned almost immediately after Obama took office. (That's giving him the benefit of the doubt and presuming that he actually had some intentions of doing what he promised to do on that front prior to taking office).

[QUOTE=ewmayer;256265]Yet, despite not having had a filibuster-proof supermajority, Team Obama managed to pass the monster "Obamacare" healthcare-reform legislation,[/QUOTE]Did not you yourself report on some of the many compromises that were necessary to get that passed?

Note my "As long as the 41 Republican senators stayed together during 2009-2010". The key to getting legislation passed was sometimes to find a compromise which got a Republican senator to defect.

[quote]which did not become anathema to many Republicans only just recently.[/quote]You wouldn't be mistaking propaganda for ... Nahhh, you wouldn't.

[quote]You think the Dems couldn't have gotten one single solitary human-rights-aware Republican to vote with them?[/quote]Ahem. Framing. For the GOP, it's "national security".

[quote]It comes down to a matter of priorities...Obama felt significant political pushback and decided it simply wasn't something worth fighting for.[/quote]There [i]are[/i] limits. What compromises with the GOP did he pass up as unworthy?

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;256221]So you're not disagreeing with me, then.[/QUOTE]

Of course I am disagreeing with you. There is nothing disingenuous about comparing Guantanamo to a gulag. It is a justifiable comparison. In fact, most people who were sent to gulags were given a trial (sham or not) before they were sent there. Lots of people spent years and are still spending years in Guantanamo without ever appearing before any judicial officer.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;256252]
The difficulty lies in knowing when the government has legitimate reasons
for secrecy, and when they are using secrecy to cover up internal wrong-
doing. Secrecy begets tyranny. But it is sometimes a [B]necessary[/B]
evil.[/QUOTE]

But Bob there is very clear evidence that both this and the previous administration have misused the faith one normally places in a government. They have repeatedly used secrecy to cover up wrongdoing. Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, renditions - they fought disclosure at every step. One would think the government has lost the right to benefit of doubt. And holding people they know are innocent such [URL="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/08/boumediene"]Lakhdar Boumediene [/URL]and refusing to compensate people like [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar"]Maher Arar[/URL]. I am surprised that a normally objective person like you is ignoring such clear evidence.

[QUOTE=garo;256388]But Bob there is very clear evidence that both this and the previous administration have misused the faith one normally places in a government. They have repeatedly used secrecy to cover up wrongdoing. Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, renditions - they fought disclosure at every step. One would think the government has lost the right to benefit of doubt. And holding people they know are innocent such [URL="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/08/boumediene"]Lakhdar Boumediene [/URL]and refusing to compensate people like [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar"]Maher Arar[/URL]. I am surprised that a normally objective person like you is ignoring such clear evidence.[/QUOTE]

Before you accuse someone else of ignoring evidence, it is usually best
to ascertain that they actually KNEW about the evidence.

I knew nothing of the cases you quoted.

[QUOTE=garo;256388]One would think the government has lost the right to benefit of doubt.[/QUOTE]

I do wonder. Obama seemed to genuinely (as opposed to for political reasons) want to release the Guantanamo prisoners prior to taking office. When he did, he (apparently) decided against it. I wonder what he knows now that he did not on the campaign trail.