Reddit reviews FIVE YEARS OF MY LIFE

Or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_detention_without_trial#United_States

> On December 26, 2013, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014. The NDAA provision first signed into law in 2012, which permits indefinite detention without trial, remains in law as of 2016.

Obviously if people are detained without trial there's a much higher chance that they're innocent. One such case is a German resident who was detained and abused at Guantanamo for more than 5 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz — He wrote a book about it called "Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo".

It's more than just water boarding, and it's not just some people. This book is a really good account. As is this book.

Gitmo isn't nicer, the dimensions of a typical holding cell in gitmo are smaller than the legal minimum for holding a dog. Plus the torture. Dude I WISH they could have sent them to a prison here in the US. They wouldn't be tortured and they could actually be tried for their alleged crimes as enemy combatants. Instead, they are held for years without contact with the outside world or their families. Many of the people in the prison have done nothing, and there are hundreds of pages of records on most of the detainees finding that there is no evidence to convict them of anything.

My alternative? Treat the alleged foreign combatants from Afghanistan and Iraq as prisoners of war. Return the Germans, Brits, Aussies, etc. back to their governments for a fair fucking trial. Give the American citizens (especially the one's who have been picked up from their homes) a fair fucking trial. There's this thing called the constitution. If you leave your principles behind in the blind frenzy to destroy your enemies, there is nothing that differentiates you from him.

Why didn't Bush do that in the first place? I don't know. But my guess is that he wanted to be able to say "We have 500 + enemy combatants in custody. Look how many scary Mozlems were out there, waiting to eat your babies!" If there were fair trials in the US rather than just torturing confessions out of people (<--also failed), people would see that almost all of those blood-thirsty Mozlems were innocent. Whoops!

Hijacking top comment to recommend a related book I read written by this man, Murat Kurnaz. He was also detained in Guantanamo without charge. People should know the kind of things that go on there. Fortunately, he got out after 5 years. The Book

!disagreewithop

I can't believe this is something that needs to be addressed. I mean the Wikipedia article has a really good overview of how the process of how it was "legalized", and the issues that arose due to it.

You can even look into the declassified CIA torture report to find out more. Surprisingly they conclude that most terrorists that they were dealing with were talking before they were tortured and when tortured they completely shut down and refused to give any more information that could be proven accurate. I would suggest looking into the story about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed story, or Abu Zubaydeh (Who has yet to be charged of anything and won damages from the European Court of Human Rights). Both stories are insane considering that 100% of the information gained from them was obtained BEFORE they were subjected to torture. The report also explicitly stated that people who were tortured would give misinformation simply to stop the torture.

> Their torture will not negatively affect you or anybody you know, unless you like to make friends with terrorists.

This statement is so completely misguided. Many individuals who committed terrorist attacks following the US invasion in Iraq explicitly stated that the reason for the attack was due to the US torture program.

> Only people who commit acts of terror or similar horrendous attacks should be tortured.

This is an absolute impossible bar to hit. There is overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of the people that were apprehended by the US were completely innocent and were simply turned over b/c the US was paying large amounts of money for "terrorists". One such story you can read here.

Again, I can't believe that this could be a belief that anyone that isn't an insanely reactionary person could hold. This has been debunked so many times it absolutely laughable that one could still hold this view.

A lot of innocent people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and have since been held without trial. I read a book a while ago which was a real eye-opener, 'Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo' http://www.amazon.com/Five-Years-My-Life-Guantanamo/dp/0230614418

> Sometimes, in order to end a conflict quickly and decisively (with the lowest death toll) you need to be willing to do some pretty bad things.[...] but if you're going to go to war or declare a "war on terror" then you need to be willing to do what it takes to get the job done.

I'll simply say that the end doesn't justifies the means, and Law of war.

> Terrorists state that their goal is to go kill or convert as many infidels as possible, this has nothing to do with a war, this is there stated reason for existing.

The goal of a terrorist is to kill people? No, they kill people as a mean.
Thats not the goal of a terrorist, each terrorist group has differents goals (political, religious, etc).

> Please don't try to equate someone willing to do bad things to bad people in the same vein as indiscriminate killing.

They kill people as a tool to get their goals.
You said that you will kill people to get information, so you kill people as a tool to get your goal.
Difference? Zero

> As to your murderer point, by your definition all soldiers are murderers

No, i was speaking about killing in cold blood, not in the battlefront, thats why we have international laws about POWs
> Before torture was ordered on an individual then there would need to be some pretty strong ties/leads that they know something.

Like in Guantanamo? Murat Kurnaz would like to talk to you about that

> Sometimes it takes one monster to defeat another. That is the essence of all wars and conflicts, and why they are terrible and should be avoided at all costs. The people who "take the higher ground" usually end up dead, and history is written to suit the victor.

You said that: "Sometimes, in order to end a conflict quickly and decisively (with the lowest death toll) you need to be willing to do some pretty bad things", so will you become a terrorist to win the war? will you become a terrorist to find and kill terrorists?

What you're saying that it's OK to murder terrorist (i'm not talking about killing them during an operation or similar stuff) and hold a cognitive dissonance in equating this murders with the ones performed by the terrorist.
Why is one right and the other anathema?

> Sometimes it takes one monster to defeat another

No, just no. in that case your goverment and you are like the terrorist.

This is not about being naive or to play internet hero, it's about human lives, ethics and legality. "Fiat justitia, et pereat mundus" (“Let there be justice, though the world perish.”)

A terrorist is someone who thinks that an end justifies any means, thats why they don't hesitate in killing people. You think that in order to obtain information is allowed to torture and kill terrorist, so you think that the end justifies the means, then, you are not better than a terrorist.