Ted Rall for February 09, 2009

Obama has set a concrete deadline for the closing of the Gitmo Concentration Camp, so there will be no foot-dragging or delaying. And, of course, all the torture approved by Bush has been permanently stopped. Why is Ted never happy?

One year to close Gitmo IS foot-dragging and delaying.

Most of the people in Gitmo were turned in for the ransom we offered. We have absolutely NOTHING on most of them. If we can spend billions a month on these criminal wars, we can shut down Gitmo in a week. It just takes the political will to do it.

Why is one year acceptable to you? Is it because at heart you don’t care about the civil rights of others? You’d be OK spending one more year on top of five or six or seven years in a cage in Gitmo for nothing?

It’s easy to be patient when it’s not YOUR butt out there in the cage, isn’t it?

“We need scapegoats!”

I love that line.

“If we can spend billions a month on these criminal wars, we can shut down Gitmo in a week.”

Yeah, just wave that magic wand and everything will be peachy! It’s so easy to offer advice when you sit on the sidelines watching others do the heavy lifting.

Good answer, Bill_Clay. Now I know who to go to for meaningless, off-the-point responses…

“Now I know who to go to for meaningless, off-the-point responses…”

Quite an incisive response you dreamed up there, geezjan. Let me know when you have some real solutions to offer, instead of platitudes.

dont worry Bill, most posters at this sight are blindly partisan (overwhelmingly liberal) and have no intention of ever attemping any kind of lifting…heavy or otherwise.

as to the toon, this guy draws about as good as that hack john deering and i thought we had all decided to remove any kind of personal responsibilty from being gay by agreeing that you are born that way.

maybe ted missed that memo.

and what do we scapegoats for? i thought that was Bush’s new job.

bill_clay: The torture has been officially stopped. Everyone knows there was torture before that. The difference was, as George Carlin said, the government was just more naked about it. Now, the government has returned to the previous mode of saying one thing and doing another. The black sites, for instance, have not been dealt with.

I’m not an expert on the question of the Gitmo detainees, but I think geezjan’s view makes more sense. These guys have been detained for years. Whatever was possible to discover about them, has probably been discovered by now. We know what we need to know. Several hundreds of them have been released a few years ago. I don’t see why the closing would take a whole year, all the talk about the issue being “complicated” notwithstanding.

“Yeah, just wave that magic wand and everything will be peachy! It’s so easy to offer advice when you sit on the sidelines watching others do the heavy lifting.”

We’re all exercising our minds over this, as all humans do over every single subject they please. Do you suggest we should just stop thinking and being critical, simply because we’re not in the government ? All you have said until now to explain the delay, is that there will be no foot-dragging, even though every sentient being can see that a year is already a lot of delay. Then, you complain that we’re asking too much, and we’re not being realistic. But what is this based on ? Your knowledge seems just as shaky as ours, yet you’re the one condescending to us, like we’re deluded kids and you’re the down-to-earth parent. But again, you don’t cite one reason why this closing down has to take a year.

The only thing I’m getting from all of you, is that’s the way it is, and we just need to adjust to it and not ask questions.

“as to the toon, this guy draws about as good as that hack john deering and i thought we had all decided to remove any kind of personal responsibilty from being gay by agreeing that you are born that way.

maybe ted missed that memo.”

Maybe this is a cartoon and the point wasn’t blaming gays, but pointing out the hypocrisy of the American law system.

Does Ted here assign responsibility on being gay ? Does saying that you can turn gay mean that you have responsibility for it ? Certainly, people can repress their homosexuality out of homophobia, and realize their nature later on in their lives; and in fact, this would not be surprising for Muslims, although I doubt very much they could “turn gay” in the hell that is Gitmo, if their sexuality was thusly. They’d probably be more interested in keeping their soul intact.

Quite frankly the biggest problem we seem to have, and the reason the Obama administration is taking a year to close Gitmo, is that we do not have anywhere to send the detainees.

If we put them in the US Federal Prison System then we will need to process them through our legal system. This is the main reason Gitmo was created in the first place. Since we have little to no evidence on many of them we would then have to release or deport them. Even if they posed little threat to us when they were picked up, after seven years in Gitmo they are probably not partial to us now. So we deport them, right? Sort of. Who will take them and what will their status be? Since we are respecting human rights (again) we are not going to ship them to “black sites” or to régimes that will torture them so we need to find countries who will accept them and detain them (or not). This will take careful negotiations and time.

I do not like that it will take a year to close Gitmo, it is a stain on our global image as a beacon of democracy and human rights (believe it or not, and despite our many detractors over the years, we have been just that for much of the world); but simply releasing the detainees or shipping them somewhere else to be detained in a similar manner are not options so a year it will be…

littlehorn, complaining about something without offering a solution is a useless endeavor. If you want to speed up Gitmo’s closing, give us a realistic way that doesn’t compromise America’s security. Saying, “Just do it!!!!” is not a plan. We can’t safely throw open the doors and let everyone walk home. Many have no country that will accept them, and there may be a fair number that actually are guilty of terrorism. Unlike Bush’s perpetual detention, Obama has set a deadline for the military to either justify detention and prosecute in a true criminal court, or repatriate those who will not be charged. It doesn’t look like a quick process to a layman like me, and I’m willing to give Obama a year to do it correctly and safely.

Well, Obama sait Gitmo will close someday, it’s already a start.

Funny that his strip comes out two weeks after this news item: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0127/p01s03-wome.html . Was this debunked or out of context, and I missed it??

Bush never knew that your current prisoner can be your future ally. Instead they’re poisoned against us more than ever, and most evidence is inadmissible. He sure queered the pitch for Obama. Rall is being a tad cutesy over genuine complications.

Bill, don’t hold your breath.

So now that we have regained the moral high ground maybe the Jihadists will only cut the captives heads half off………………………..

Braniak and Oldlegodad:

You losers never had any moral highground. The soldiers that liberated the concentrationcamps, yes. But they’re almost all gone now.

The USA is the biggest terror threat to civilians in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

http://images.google.nl/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4RNWN_enNL277NL279&q=white%20phosphorus&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=nl&tab=wi

Thanks to the generous use of depleted uranium ammunitions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, both countries will remain radio-active for the next couple of 1000s years. Nice going. And by all means, keep sending your soldiers over there so they can have more Gulf War Syndrome malformed off spring.

And how about the former School of the Americas?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WesternHemisphereInstituteforSecurity_Cooperation

audieholland…

its so nice that you hate America.

Last i checked, its not an easy job being the world’s most free and prosperous nation and mistakes will be made.

I would hasten to remind you though, if the US stopped all foreign aid today, scores of countries would begin to starve to death.

Its awfully funny that my nephew whos been to iraq twice and is in afghanistan now, told me that “depleted uranium rumors” are just that.

and trust me…He DOES have the “moral highground”.

And now thanks to redhead … we now know the rest of the story.

oldie, there are other military uses for spent uranium. It shouldn’t be discussed to show “we’re in the know” by any party.

“Last i checked, its not an easy job being the world’s most free and prosperous nation and mistakes will be made.”

Well that’s cool to hear. Now what are those mistakes exactly ? Or was the above sentence simply an evading remark designed to hide your ignorance of the depth of the bleeep that is the American way of life ?

“I would hasten to remind you though, if the US stopped all foreign aid today, scores of countries would begin to starve to death.”

Well that’s one way to look at it. The other way is to remark that people on the planet have lived long before there was an American government, and they’ll live long after America is gone.

Kevin Carson’s book, Organization Theory, also demonstrates the American way of agriculture is a waste of resources; and in truth, the world would produce even more food if it was left to local farmers to do the job. The reasoning is simple: locals who cultivate smaller areas are much more intensive, clever, and careful in their work, than a company that treats a large area with employees who don’t really care otherwise, except for their paycheck.

Another point to be made: there ARE people starving, right now. There ARE farmers committing suicide.

“Its awfully funny that my nephew whos been to iraq twice and is in afghanistan now, told me that “depleted uranium rumors” are just that.

and trust me…He DOES have the “moral highground”.”

I do not believe his “moral highground” should be assessed. He’s a killer. That should discard him outright. But even that is beside the point.

The point is, what is his medical expertise, to assure you that they are only rumors ? And considering that he works for the army, shouldn’t we expect him to be biased ?

I suggest you take a look at this article:

http://commonwonders.com/archives/col235.htm

“As Moret testified, depleted uranium turns into an infinitesimally fine dust after it explodes; individual particles are smaller than a virus or bacteria. And, “It is estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person’s body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment.”

And DU dust is everywhere. A minimum of 500 or 600 tons now litter Afghanistan, and several times that amount are spread across Iraq. In terms of global atmospheric pollution, we’ve already released the equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs, Moret said.

The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse. DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe or touch it; the substance also alters one’s genetic code.

Thus, birth defects are way up in Afghanistan since the invasion: children “born with no eyes, no limbs, tumors protruding from their mouths … deformed genitalia,” according to the tribunal report. This ghastly toll on the unborn — on the future — has led Mohammed Daud Miraki, director of the Afghan DU and Recovery Fund, to coin the term “silent genocide” to describe the effects of this horrific weapon.

The Pentagon’s response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator.

But blame is beside the point. Surely even those who still await “conclusive proof” that DU is the cause, or a factor, in the mystery illnesses and birth defects emanating from the war zones, can see the logic in halting its use now.”

RandianRon: I’m not a scholar myself, and I suppose you should always doubt non-mainstream outlets. Your point is therefore well taken.

Nevertheless, I would remind you that the press has already run many stories that turned out to be false; and silenced others that were very important. This is not because they are involved in some kind of conspiracy. But rather, there is a price to pay for saying the awful truth; and a reward for saying what pleases power. And there certainly is power in America. As for all countries, that has consequences as to what will be publicized.

More importantly, studies show that the death toll among Iraqi civilians is at best 100 000 and the Lancet magazine estimates more than a million died. Do you know of these numbers ? I doubt it. If the population does not care about a million people dying, I believe it is only natural that they would not care for deformed babies either. Consequently, the media seeking first and foremost a topic that attracts viewers and readers, it probably simply decides not to mention it. Iraq is old news.

Possibly, they don’t even know about the consequences of the use of depleted uranium.

“Well that’s cool to hear. Now what are those mistakes exactly ? Or was the above sentence simply an evading remark designed to hide your ignorance of the depth of the bleeep that is the American way of life ?”

i spend too much time doing this anyway…the real writing, i get paid for…im not evading anything…if you think the “American way of life” is “bleep”, im glad you live in whatever wonderful place you do live…do know that even tho you seem to hate US and our way of life, we wont hold that against you and the next time a giant earthquake or tsunami or firestorm or giant monkey rat attack devastates your worldly paradise, we’ll be the first ones there asking what you need.

“Another point to be made: there ARE people starving, right now. There ARE farmers committing suicide”

…in north korea.

and

…just like hairdressers and accountants…and soldiers (but even here the military has made giant strides in treatment and recovery more is needed and the rent spike last month is horrifying…but from the folks ive spoken with is that they realize its a problem and are speaking with the folks the best minds say they should be about it

all in all, ive spent far too much time on this for such a crappy toon and i will do my best to avoid it in the future.

“I do not believe his “moral highground” should be assessed. He’s a killer. That should discard him outright. But even that is beside the point.”

isnt the free exchange of ideas great?! you can write things like this and i can write back that i think you are full of ‘that which aids plant growth and it is ‘very powerful’

still…if i ever heard you say that to a soldier, the free exchange of ideas would get a whole lot more heated and scary and i would imagine you would walk away thinking of things “you should have said” for decades.

i will say however, that while your passion and seeming “want to know” are impressive, its best to never form opinions based on only one side of any argument…

good day

Red, you seem a little one-sided also. Sure, the US has done some wonderful things. But the US has done some downright criminal things, too. You can hate the bad things the US government has done without hating your country. Don’t fall into the old trap that dissent is unpatriotic. Railing against past injustices helps to ensure that they won’t be repeated.

you right bill.

do know if this site were over-run with government apologists, i would most likely be the one “railing”.

as it is, a great number of folks appear to think its ok to perpetually run down the US, her military and her citizens and I think its imperative that someone point out the good that the US does every day.

Red, it’s always nice to have a counterpoint. You provide a much needed balance to some of the more, as Fox News calls them, ‘loony lefties’ who give the rest of us progressives and moderates a bad name.

“Isnt the free exchange of ideas great?! you can write things like this and i can write back that i think you are full of ‘that which aids plant growth and it is ‘very powerful’

still…if i ever heard you say that to a soldier, the free exchange of ideas would get a whole lot more heated and scary and i would imagine you would walk away thinking of things “you should have said” for decades.”

“I’m full of shit. And if you hear me tell that to a soldier, you’re going to humiliate me.”

Maybe I should continue.

The military is entirely made up of people who surrender their free will. They are slaves and a threat to freedom.

Your nephew has killed. People who kill are called killers. The fact that he wore special clothes when he did it does not change anything.

Only in the struggle for survival is the act of giving death understandable. Your nephew may have faced such a struggle; but the odds are, he did not. It is standard US military policy not to risk their soldiers’ lives in fierce battles.

“You provide a much needed balance to some of the more, as Fox News calls them, ‘loony lefties’ who give the rest of us progressives and moderates a bad name.”

You try to pass yourself off as a progressive, yet you quote Fox News as an authority on what would give progressives a bad name ? That is weird. What else do you have ?

“Thank you red, George Bush would be proud.” ?

“It strains credibility to think that the left would bury such a story if they had proof.”

That is not a very convincing argument. The “left” has been very cowardly for a very long time. What convinces you that they would have acted on the story ?

littlehorn, glad you clarified this soldier thing, never did catch on in twenty six years.

“The military is entirely made up of people who surrender their free will. They are slaves and a threat to freedom.”

LH, there’s a lot of free people in Europe who are grateful for the ‘slaves’ who saved them during WWII. I can see why you took offense to my “loony lefties” remark.

“Only in the struggle for survival is the act of giving death understandable. Your nephew may have faced such a struggle; but the odds are, he did not. It is standard US military policy not to risk their soldiers’ lives in fierce battles.”

right. because if they did you’d be screaming about that instead of this.

one day, when you’re “all growed up”, you might see that the only reason you are able to continue spouting your fertilizer is because someone died to defend the liberties you use to rag on the military.

good day

Bill, that’s a weak point. The US army in WW2 was entirely conscripts, that is, normal human beings who were forced into battle. They did not undertake the current training that creates unthinking killing machines. That came later on.

In general, I don’t want any population to depend on another one for liberty. Peoples should defend liberty in their own country, with their own weapons. When you depend on others for your freedom, you’re not that free to begin with. For this reason, the fact people worship the US intervention in WW2 is very sad and depressing. It should be viewed as a failure, not an achievement.

“if all the non-factual BS that they accused him of (and I’m no fan of bush) was brought out as they did, and you think a major bombshell such as THIS would be ignored, you’re dreaming ….”

Why do I feel like I’m talking to conservatives ? What non-factual BS did they accuse him of ? I’m very interested. Because after following American politics for several years, I haven’t yet seen an outrageous, unfounded accusation from Democrats. To the contrary, Democrats tended to underplay issues that could lead to Bush’s impeachment. But I’m sure you have evidence to back up that claim.

As regards “why they wouldn’t use it”, the Democrats share a lot of things with Republicans; and it might be that certain of those things they could use against Republicans, could just as well be used against themselves. Therefore, it is not in their interest to prosecute the Bush administration, because it would set a precedent against the use of tactics they might want to have at their disposal.

“one day, when you’re “all growed up”, you might see that the only reason you are able to continue spouting your fertilizer is because someone died to defend the liberties you use to rag on the military.”

The only reason I can spout my fertilizer is because I will not bend to other people, be they an invading army, or the army from my own country, or the killing-machines worshippers like you. It’s true that I’m pretty weak, and I couldn’t mount a big fight, at the moment. But I know where my head is and why, unlike you.

Loyalty was the King’s mantra. Revolutionaries talked about freedom. They praised freedom so much that they viewed even working for others (what most people do today) as dangerous. Their view of the military was obviously even worse, because complete obedience is its primary principle.

This is a quote from James Madison: “The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy. They are more: They are the best basis of public liberty, and the strongest bulwark of public safety. It follows, that the greater the proportion of this class to the whole society, the more free, the more independent, and the more happy must be the society itself.”

He was talking about independant farmers. Who grows his own food today ? Who is truly autonomous ? Almost no one. And soldiers certainly are NOT autonomous.

Guess I’ll have to start watching my own verbiage. As of late it seems the less an individual has to say, then the greater the volume of words used to say it. Am I supposed to be convinced or the writer themselves ?

“Peoples should defend liberty in their own country, with their own weapons. When you depend on others for your freedom, you’re not that free to begin with.”

That’s nonsense, LH. It’s not the victim’s fault when they’re conquered by a superior or overwhelming enemy. Using your logic, we should have let the Death Camps continue and just shouted “Save yourselves!” as the victims were marched to the ovens.

“I will not bend to other people, be they an invading army, or the army from my own country, or the killing-machines worshippers like you. It’s true that I’m pretty weak, and I couldn’t mount a big fight, at the moment.”

Wolverines!! Let me know how that whole ‘Red Dawn’ thing goes for you.

Good posts, Littlehorn. Americans like you I can respect.

And before people here start thinking I’m just an alter ego of LH, I’m a born Dutchman. My parents however, were born in Indonesia, a former colony of The Netherlands (“Holland”).

Indonesia declared its independence from The Netherlands in 1945. In 1947 and 1948, the weakened, impoverished Dutch sent a massive military force to reconquer Indonesia for the crown. About 100,000 Indonesians were killed making the conflict something of a mini-Vietnam.

To this very day, that bloody, costly war (5,000 Dutch soldiers KIA) is still being called “Policing Actions” to “restore order.”

Just a small example why never to trust countries who rely for their wealth and/or security on brute military force.

You people did not liberate Europe during WW2. Some of your greatgrandfathers did but neither good deeds or sins pass on from father to son, unless you think like a fundamentalist. If you think like them, you should beware all Germans because ‘they’ started WW2.

Well, look at this article from today’s news-

“President Barack Obama’s chief White House lawyer was on a site visit at the prison camps of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Wednesday, working on a plan to empty the detention center of 245 detainees within a year. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said general counsel Gregory Craig was accompanied by Department of Justice and Pentagon staff as “part of an effort to monitor the implementation of the president’s plan to strengthen our national security and close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.” In a separate effort, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has tasked Adm. Patrick Walsh to conduct a 30-day study on whether the camps are in compliance with Geneva Conventions obligations to treat captives humanely.”

Looks like all the whining about Obama not closing Gitmo was premature.

“That’s nonsense, LH. It’s not the victim’s fault when they’re conquered by a superior or overwhelming enemy. Using your logic, we should have let the Death Camps continue and just shouted “Save yourselves!” as the victims were marched to the ovens.”

Where did I blame the victims for being liberated by America ? I never said anything like this. What I did say was: everyone should fight for his own liberty. Using this logic, I do not condemn those who were liberated by America (I said “should”, not “must”). I think it’s disappointing, but I obviously prefer that to more innocents dying.

“Looks like all the whining about Obama not closing Gitmo was premature.”

I suppose you can look at it this way. We’ll see what happens.

“Good posts, Littlehorn. Americans like you I can respect.”

Well that’s too bad, cause I’m not an American. But I did learn most of what I know from Americans.

redheadsandrazorbacks states: “My nephew whos been to iraq twice and is in afghanistan now, told me that “depleted uranium rumors” are just that.”

I’d tend to believe what Ted Rall says since he has been to Iraq and to most of the “stans”.

“littlehorn, glad you clarified this soldier thing, never did catch on in twenty six years.”

Ah right. What is your point ? You spent 26 years in the army, so you know what you’re talking about ?

Isn’t there a process whereby they destroy you and then re-build you from the ground up ? You know, treating you like bleeep, destroying you, telling you it’s an honor to be called a soldier but you’re such a piece of bleeep that you don’t deserve it,

and when they estimate you’re enough of an obedient slave, they finally bestow their sacred word on you. “Soldier!” And you feel pride then, fabricated, fake pride. The pride of a good doggy, of a non-human.

Yet, even in the face of all this psychological manipulation, you expect us to take your testimony to be the truth ?

Here’s some truth: soldiers get back home, and commit suicide. Some kill their wives; that is, when wives haven’t given up on them, of course. Some kill strangers. Some just stop talking. Some do bounce back. I don’t know the numbers. But I’ve heard of the tragedies.

If killing is not wrong, and if killers are not wrong, if there’s no consequence for your soul, then petition the government to make it legal. Be a full monster. Stop pretending to care. And don’t say you got the bleeep “moral highground.” You’ve forsaken all morality when you signed up.