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After 14 long years languishing at Guantánamo without charge or trial, Mohamedou Slahi has finally been cleared for release.
Slahi was born in Mauritania in 1970 and won a scholarship to attend college in Germany. In the early 1990s, he fought with al-Qaeda when it was part of the Afghan anti-communist resistance supported by the U.S. The federal district court judge who reviewed all the evidence in Slahi's habeas corpus case noted that the group then was very different from the one that later came into existence.
Slahi worked in Germany for several years as an engineer and returned to Mauritania in 2000.
Slahi turned himself in to Mauritanian authorities for questioning about the Millennium Plot on November 20, 2001. He was detained for seven days and questioned by Mauritanian officers and by agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[5] The CIA rendered him to a Jordanian prison, where he was held for eight months. Slahi states that he was tortured by the Jordanians. After being flown to Afghanistan and held for two weeks, he was transferred to military custody and the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba on August 4, 2002.[6]
Slahi was subjected to isolation, temperature extremes, beatings and sexual humiliation at Guantánamo. In one documented incident, he was blindfolded and taken out to sea in a boat for a mock execution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamedou_Ould_Slahi
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @08:17PM
While I agree more with Azuma's stance, and it was fun to see the pro-gitmo users called out, the amount of namecalling is definitely worthy of flamebait. You don't get people to see a new point of view by insulting them, though as humans that is the hardest thing for us to accomplish :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @10:44PM
You don't get people to see a new point of view by insulting them, though as humans that is the hardest thing for us to accomplish :)
Look at it this way:
[Open scene. 007 is tied to a metal track, and a buzzsaw/laser/plasma torch is advancing toward his crotch.]
007 to Villian: "So, Azuma, I suppose you expect me to see a new point of view?"
Villain to 007: "No, Mr. mouthbreathing remnant of a violent colonialist past, I expect you to STFU!"
[End scene]
Cut! Print! Drinks on me!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 25 2016, @03:46AM
Eeeeexcept this would only work if 007 were the villain here. That is rather the entire point. Think of it more like...well, I don't know any comic books, but imagine Sailor Mercury becoming a ruthless and efficient vigilante, cottoning onto the fact that she's controlling kinetic energy, not water as such, and getting very creative and nasty with the horrors of near-absolute-zero physics as applied to flesh. Anti-hero. Good Is Not Nice as the time-wasting wiki says.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 25 2016, @03:21PM
So, I says to myself, "Self, WTF is this Sailor Mercury?" From the images Google offers, she seems to be an anime porn star. Hmmmm . . . knock kneed at that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 25 2016, @04:09PM
Moron. Just because a lot of people draw those poor women in porn doesn't mean that's where they show up. If you're really wondering, imagine "Lilith Fair meets Power Rangers," the home series being "Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon." Mercury is your stereotypical shy, mousy nerd, who happens to have been the planet Mercury's guardian spirit or somesuch and got reincarnated on Earth after the seat of power on the Moon was destroyed some uncountable number of years ago. Watching her fight, she's supposed to be themed around water, as in the Asian system Mercury is associated with that element, but most of her direct offense uses extremely low temperatures; hence, ergokinesis, not so much control over water as such. Her problem is lack of imagination; in her place I'd skip the "500 gallons of supercooled water in your face" approach and just drain the heat out of whatever it is I'm fighting with, then stick my boot through the resulting ice sculpture. A little Mortal Kombat-ish? Sure, but damn effective if you know what LN2 does to organic matter.
Being that the show is for teenagers (NOT kids, I don't know WTF the American localizers were thinking of when they brought it here...) there's a lot of comedy mixed in, but it's pretty damn dark in places and surprisingly full of nightmare fuel. If it didn't overall have an idealistic tone that would make Rousseau roll his eyes--seriously, Sailor Moon defeats not one but TWO end-season villains by basically mind-melding with them and working out their trauma from the inside--it'd be the Japanese version of the Marvel universe. None of the girls save Moon have anything resembling a normal family life, for one thing.
So why Mercury? Simple: that *was* me all those years ago. Pathetically shy, friendless, completely absorbed in studies, obsessive-compulsive about test scores, you name it. I even wanted to be a nurse or doctor at her age too. Thing is...she made friends at a critical point (see: idealism). I didn't. So it's interesting to watch, and see what could have been.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @04:09AM
Well, before you sit any higher on your high horse you should remember that the conservative voices here quite often say similar shit. Since you're AC we can't call you out specifically!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24 2016, @11:29PM
The overwhelming majority (if not all) of Drumpf's supporters are irrational, so they're not going to see any different point of view no matter how nice you are when you smack them around with facts and logic. I can't even imagine the levels of cognitive dissonance in the heads of people who have convinced themselves that electing a fascist thats campaigning on undermining and subverting the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, and 14th amendments is somehow going to "make America great" or promote freedom. If WWII taught us anything, its that willingly giving up all your freedoms, installing a dictator, and scapegoating minorities is exactly how you don't make a country better.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 25 2016, @03:47AM
^ This, this, thiiiiis! I've never been able to put this into words, but AC here nails it. You don't reason with the zombie; you shoot it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 25 2016, @03:25PM
No, not "^ This, this, thiiiiis!"
The majority of voters in BOTH parties are irrational. This election cycle, the conservatives voted for the least irrational offering. Dems tried that, but they were beaten down by the likes of Wasserman-Schultz. The candidates, the parties, the voters, all are equally irrational.
And, you really are getting to be a blood thirsty little girl. Now you're shooting zombies?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 25 2016, @03:59PM
Fool, I've been "bloodthirsty" since about age 6. Take your patronizing mocking and shove it so far up your sagging, flaccid asshole you gag on it.
And no, both parties are NOT the same. Once more: the Dems have been Republicans for a couple of decades, and the Republicans have been theocratic whackaloons since the late 70s or early 80s. Quit the false equivalencies; no one with three sparking neurons to rub together is fooled by that odious piece of propaganda.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @04:05PM
Except this thread is specifically about Trump supporters. See the very first post in this thread? [soylentnews.org] So your bringing in anybody else's supporters is an obvious red herring, completely unrelated to this discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @06:08PM
THEY DID?!? Um, you do realize that the Republicans have put forward Trump as their standard-bearer this election season, right? Do you really think he is the least irrational offering? The man is, quite literally, the text book definition of irrational. I am sure that future generations will do case studies on his irrational outbursts. In fact, it is hard to find anyone I would consider "rational" amongst the Republican conservatives this election cycle. Seriously. And, before you jump to conclusions, no, I'm not an ultra-liberal socialist commie. In fact, I'm a conservative, evangelical. I was chased out of the Republican party several years back. For the first time in my life I will probably be voting third party.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 25 2016, @10:51PM
Well, yes, I do think that Trump is the least irrational of the choices offered. Who does he belong to? Who did all the others belong to? Carson was a wild card, I don't know who he belongs to, but all the rest belong to Wall Street and Corporate America. And, where are Wall Street, Corporate America, and Hillary Clinton all looking for their next war?
Trump is the candidate least likely to start a new war. That seems pretty damned rational to me.