Oh, the funny thing is that Hannah Arendt talked about the banalization of evil with a nazi soldier, saying why he really wasn't "evil".Originally Posted by TheAbominatrix
Oh, the funny thing is that Hannah Arendt talked about the banalization of evil with a nazi soldier, saying why he really wasn't "evil".
well of course the nazi soldier wasnt evil. it is impossible for a human to be 'evil'. there seems to be no end to the intensity of emotion taht oen can feel, thus i would say tehre is an infinite spectrum with two opposing extremes, going infinietly in each direction. when someone feels an emotion, they dont feel an infinite amount of it though, they are just somewhere on teh 'scale' if this scale was love on the left and hatred on the right, no matter how far a person was to teh right he or she would still not be pure 'evil' because he cant feel an infinite amount of emotion. love and hatred, good and evil, exists in all of our hearts, but no one is 'evil' all have inherent goodness within them. i hope this made sense, if it didnt ill try to clarify.
No, it wouldn't work. You can either keep them in (best solution), kill them, or release them (worst solution). But tag them?... Come on. Really. Besides, important people can be tracked anyway. Almost all of the people there, save a few, are just minor terrorists. That is, the generic AK-47 holding guy. No-one important, that could turn the tides of war. Then again... you can never know.
Anyway, I think they should be kept where they are, for now.
When fighting monsters, be wary not to become one yourself... when gazing into the abyss, bear in mind that the abyss also gazes into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The rightful owner of this Ciddie can kiss my arse! :P
No, it wouldn't work. You can either keep them in (best solution), kill them, or release them (worst solution).
you really think so?? id say teh worst solution of them all would be to kill them. killing is just plain wrong.
I think the Americans, and indeed anybody, should put their lives before that of their enemy... but, that's just me. Obviously, ALL of the people in Guantenamo resent the US, and most of them would continue in their past activities if they are to be released. I remember they released some a while ago... the vast majority got back to their organizations and groups.you really think so?? id say teh worst solution of them all would be to kill them. killing is just plain wrong.
When fighting monsters, be wary not to become one yourself... when gazing into the abyss, bear in mind that the abyss also gazes into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The rightful owner of this Ciddie can kiss my arse! :P
Obviously, ALL of the people in Guantenamo resent the US,
well, i would to if i was detained illegally, against the geneva convention, and possibly indefinetly without a trial. yeah id be pissed, of course, it doesnt give me or anyone else the right to blow people up but still... a good world istn created by bombs, fear, and injsutice.
[qq=TheAbominatrix]They arent terrorists, they were defending their country. How about if America is ever invaded, you go by the invaders rules. As long as the invaders believe they're doing good work, then you dont dare fight against them.[/qq]
That logic only works if you assume that everyone who thinks they're right is right. If my country was run by a butcher and someone came and overthrew him, I wouldn't fight that army, no. If my country is run by a democratically elected official and someone came to overthrow him, then I would fight. There's a difference. The Afghans and Iraqis fight us out of ignorance, or because they have bad motives. People have brains, and when your leader can drag you and your family into the street and have you all beheaded at any time, your brain should say "Hi, see, this guy is bad OK? Don't shoot the people who're trying to get rid of him."
So far as the original question, war is war and you do what it takes to win. When you're in the middle of a battle, you don't assume everyone is "innocent until proven guilty". You kill people until you win. But you don't do those kinds of things beyond what is necessary to win. I don't think implanting people with chips is necessary to win, nor would releasing known dangerous people back into the world probably be worth the risk.
Not neccesarily. Yes, if my country was run by a total peice of crap, someone horrible like Saddam, I'd support the invaders most likely. However, if they stayed there, if they clearly had no intention of a real 'people's government', instead choosing leaders themselves, not to mention the long amount of time where power, water, and such werent available thanks to the invaders, and if their invasion caused bands of roving, gun-toting idiots to parade through the streets (I've heard horrid stories. Of course, Saddam and his boys were bad too, so really it's just a question of what's worse) then I'd fight to get them out of my country. I dont want them to stay.
Most of the Iraqis didnt fight when the US soldiers first came. They were supporting them, but they seem to be quite tired of us being there, and I would be as well.
And I agree, you dont worry about those things during battle. But afterwards they are important.
I was under the asumption all men were created equal so yes we are ne better than they are. Humans ARE animals. I agree that it just might work but, it would give the rest of the world another reason to put down the US and say how bad we are.
Um, OK.
What makes them terrorists?
the people in Guantanemo aren't necessarily terrorists or even Afghani combatants. Many are prisoners passed on to US forces by various other authorities during the recent conflicts. During times of war plenty of seemingly suspect but actually innocent people get tossed into prison. Go read e e cummings's The Enormous Room which chronicles his time in a French prison in WWI. They threw him and his friend in prison while he was an allied ambulance driver because French officials thought he was shady.
[qq=TheAbominatrix]Not neccesarily. Yes, if my country was run by a total peice of crap, someone horrible like Saddam, I'd support the invaders most likely. However, if they stayed there, if they clearly had no intention of a real 'people's government', instead choosing leaders themselves, not to mention the long amount of time where power, water, and such werent available thanks to the invaders, and if their invasion caused bands of roving, gun-toting idiots to parade through the streets (I've heard horrid stories. Of course, Saddam and his boys were bad too, so really it's just a question of what's worse) then I'd fight to get them out of my country. I dont want them to stay.[/qq]
A leader rules by the will of the people he rules, to a large degree. Had the Iraqis overthrown Saddam themselves, they could've set up any sort of government they wanted, even a goood old-fashioned infidel-killing woman-hating freedom-busting theocracy. They had a moral responsibility to remove Saddam from power, even if it cost them their lives. They didn't live up to that responsibility, so we had to do it (at the cost of some of our own lives), and now things will be partly on our terms. That's how it should be.
[qq]And I agree, you dont worry about those things during battle. But afterwards they are important.[/qq]
You're right. Even during war, once someone is contained and no longer a threat, there's no excuse to do certain things. If someone decided just to put everyone in Guantanomo Bay to death or something, I'd be against that, even though if they were in Afghanistan shooting at us, I'd be in favor of killing them. Circumstances have to dictate what's the right thing to do I guess.
[qq=Shadow Nexus]What makes them terrorists?[/qq]
They aren't terrorists.
[qq=Tsunami Bren]During times of war plenty of seemingly suspect but actually innocent people get tossed into prison. Go read e e cummings's The Enormous Room which chronicles his time in a French prison in WWI. They threw him and his friend in prison while he was an allied ambulance driver because French officials thought he was shady.[/qq]
If you were a cop, and someone was running through a crowded square of people, and you had a strong suspicion he had a bomb on him, weren't sure, but had a strong suspicion, and you yelled for him to stop and he didn't, and you knew that if you didn't do something right then, that he could possibly (not for sure, just possibly) kill 1000 people, what would you do? The correct answer is to shoot him down. You must err on the side of caution, even when you aren't sure about something. How can anyone really be sure of anything anyways?
What if some guy IS a bad guy, and the French find him, and think he's shady, but they don't have proof, and so they let him go? The consequences are far, far worse in that case. Winning a war means doing anything that you have to do. You're out somewhere killing people; what is taking away a bit of freedom for a few months, or even years, compared to that? They could've shot him; they didn't, they held him and eventually let him go, right? You have to do what is necessary, nothing more than necessary, but also nothing less.
"That logic only works if you assume that everyone who thinks they're right is right. If my country was run by a butcher and someone came and overthrew him, I wouldn't fight that army, no. If my country is run by a democratically elected official and someone came to overthrow him, then I would fight."
Saddam Hussein WAS democratically elected. Even after they still had elections. they were rigged, but thats nothing new, bush had florida rigged in 2001.
"A leader rules by the will of the people he rules, to a large degree. Had the Iraqis overthrown Saddam themselves, they could've set up any sort of government they wanted, even a goood old-fashioned infidel-killing woman-hating freedom-busting theocracy. They had a moral responsibility to remove Saddam from power, even if it cost them their lives. They didn't live up to that responsibility, so we had to do it (at the cost of some of our own lives), and now things will be partly on our terms. That's how it should be."
hahaha yeah right. your trying to tell me if there was an oppressive regime where you lived you woul sacrifice your friends and your family?? i think not. its easier to say something than it is to do it.
"What if some guy IS a bad guy, and the French find him, and think he's shady, but they don't have proof, and so they let him go? The consequences are far, far worse in that case. Winning a war means doing anything that you have to do. You're out somewhere killing people; what is taking away a bit of freedom for a few months, or even years, compared to that? They could've shot him; they didn't, they held him and eventually let him go, right? You have to do what is necessary, nothing more than necessary, but also nothing less."
John Adams once said that "better a thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished." i agree, but that's just me.
Many of the Guantanamo inmates were captured as "unlawful combatants" during the fighting in Afghanistan, or elsewhere as eest mentioned.
However, after two years of captivity, they've still not been charged with anything at all. The flimsiest legal excuse is being used to continue their detention - "it's not US soil, so they're not being detained illegally". Basically, they're locked up because of the possibility that they might be terrorists or militants. The possibility.
There's a chance that they're all guilty. However, until they're charged and tried (by a court of law, not a military tribunal) then they should be presumed innocent. They should be presumed guilty unless or until they're found guilty of crimes punishable under international law. Anyone who's incarcerated by the state has a right to know what the charges against them are, and to have those charges dealt with promptly. It's entirely possible that the US authorities simply have nothing they can charge the Guantanamo prisoners with - some may simply have been in possession of weapons when the US soldiers found them in Afghanistan, for example.
If they're never going to be charged, then the US government is basically sentencing them to life imprisonment for "being someone we don't like", which is a genuinely frightening idea. The government continues to ignore the basic principles of international law, and claims to be exempt from the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, that codified document that forbids, amongst other things, the torture of prisoners.
Lets look at things from another perspective.
Suppose the new Iraqi regime starts imprisoning US soldiers. These soldiers aren't charged, but the regime says they're being held as "suspected torturers". There are no indications that these prisoners are going to be charged or released in the immediate future. There's nothing to suggest to the outside world that they're guilty of any crimes, although it's known that there were some US soldiers in Iraq who committed acts of torture.
I doubt that the US would stand for something like this. Military action would be the likely result.
However, when the US does those exact same things, it's all quite all right. The rules apply to other people, not the US because they are "good" so what they're doing must surely be right, apparently. Anyone else who breaches international law, though.. well, they can get invaded or locked up with no charge. This is the kind of reasoning that makes the rest of the world either (a) genuinely afraid of what the US might be capable of or (b) angry at the government that carries out these blatantly hypocritical injustices.[qq]Release all ''the supposed terrorists'' in Guantanomo Bay, and implant micro ships into there bodies, so we find out where they go, and they all be tracked by gps satellites. An then we can capture more terrorists. Its a good idea, and I dont see why we cant do that. We should drug them to so they dont know, and have no memory what so ever on what happen.[/qq]Nice way to assume that they're all terrorists.[qq]Well, I think the guys over there who bomb up there own people, when there rebuilding Iraq are animals, and should be treated like animals...[/qq]I get. There are "bad Arabs" in this world, so that means that every Arab is evil? There are Islamic fundamentalists committing atrocities, so if there's a Muslim in a US prison then that makes him a terrorist too? That kind of thinking fell out of favour after World War Two...[qq] An the Geneva convention, it seems those guys aren't abiding to it much either. [/qq]I thought that those kinds of acts made them the enemy in the first place. It's a bit rich to invade a country and destroy its infrastructure because that country is "evil", but then to behave in exactly the same way. It kind of negates any "moral high ground" argument, and therefore any real justification for what's being done.
As for drugging, bugging and releasing prisoners... again, there's that presumption of guilt. Might as well call for every Arab and Muslim to get the same treatment because they "might be terrorists". Keeping prisoners illegally without regard to the Geneva Convention is bad enough; performing medical experiments on them conjures up very dark images of the Second World War.
Sorry, I guess I misunderstood you.
Posting Permissions
