Guantanamo trials to be restarted

[Brian-E]

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 all 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?

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

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? ?

Republicans are in control.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

Republicans are in control.

And why was Gitmo not shut down when the Democrats were in control?

A plague on both your houses.


Paul

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by xilman

And why was Gitmo not shut down when the Democrats were in control?

A plague on both your houses.


Paul

Bush.

One needs control of both Congress and the White House.

I agree with you.

[CRGreathouse]

That seems to leave out a certain timespan...

[Mathew]

R.D. Silverman,

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

Results:

Congress
Senate
59 democrats 41 republicans

House

257 democrats 178 republicans

Presidential

democrat

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.

[garo]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

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

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.

[garo]

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

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...a_fact_gawande

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by garo

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.

So you're not disagreeing with me, then.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by xilman

And why was Gitmo not shut down when the Democrats were in control?

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.

Originally Posted by Mathew Steine

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.

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. That 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 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! 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 *)

Originally Posted by Brian-E

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?

Republicans need only 41 senators to block action.

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?

Not until Democrats can capture 60 Senate seats.

Is the angst for terrorism still too fresh in the American psyche for a new look at the lot of the prisoners at Guantanamo,

Oh, the right wing works around the clock to keep that angst fresh, all right.

or is change possibly in the air?

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.)

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by Mathew Steine

R.D. Silverman,

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

Results:

Congress
Senate
59 democrats 41 republicans

House

257 democrats 178 republicans

Presidential

democrat

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.

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 necessary
eveil.