Donald Trump has signed an executive order to keep the Guantánamo Bay prison camp open, reversing the policy of the Obama administration.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump said he had directed the defence secretary, James Mattis, "to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay". He added that he expected that "in many cases" captured terrorists would be sent to the camp.
The Trump executive order instructs Mattis, in consultation with the secretary of state and other officials, to deliver a new policy on battlefield detentions, "including policies governing transfer of individuals to US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay" within 90 days.
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Donald Trump Signs Executive Order to Keep Guantánamo Bay Open
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:58AM (20 children)
I recall that President Trump promised that he would. In any case, it has generally been a republican desire for forever.
Most of the people who got released have gone back to terrorism. Why would we do more of that?
It would be notable if President Trump did something that would more effectively deter terrorists, such as giving them transfusions of pig blood. I have a feeling that sex change operations would work mighty well too; that crowd likes to treat women as objects.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:06AM (1 child)
Build a conical or pyramidal prison cell, pointy part down. In the bottom, place a Koran. Several feet above that, place a non-removable metal grate as the floor. Feed the prisoner. Eventually, they must poo. To protect the Koran, they will have to catch and hold their poo. There is no place to set it down. Feed them more.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by edIII on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:41PM
+1 Diabolical
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:01AM (7 children)
You're a liar and a fool.
Most of the detainees could not go "back" to terrorism since they were never terrorists in the first place [www.cbc.ca]. In fact, if you want to use that quaint old idea of "innocent until proven guilty" then well over 90% are innocent because only a tiny fraction have even been given a trial [hrw.org]
Either you are trolling hard, or your irony detector is completely shot.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @01:58PM
What troll meant was that they went back to being brown and Muslim.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @01:37AM (1 child)
The Gitmo population is down from over 700 to just a handful.
In order to justify keeping it open, will Drumpf have to round up another batch of "enemy combatants"?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @03:25AM
That was a crappy meme when John Oliver did it, and it was proven false by... the next week's show as a spelling from the wrong region his ancestors were from anyways.
I'm all for a good joke or insult, but that one is not it, and is both out of date and inaccurate to begin with.
Might I suggest you go with the 'Irony in Chief' instead?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday February 02 2018, @03:08AM (3 children)
There are lots of Americans, some of whom are on SN, who think that there ain't no such thing as a Muslim who isn't a terrorist. And from that, they conclude, the way to solve the terrorism problem is to kill or at least lock up each and every Muslim they can get their hands on. Well, maybe torture a few of 'em, just for fun - I mean, ostensibly for intelligence-gathering, but since it's well-known that torture doesn't actually help gather intelligence, it's really just for fun.
It's exactly the same kind of thinking that has led to every genocide in human history. "If we just get rid of the Catholics, that will fix everything." "If we just get rid of the Protestants, that will fix everything." "If we just get rid of the American Indians, that will fix everything." "If we just get rid of the Armenians, that will fix everything." "If we just get rid of the Jews, that will fix everything." "If we just get rid of the Arabs, that will fix everything." "If we just get rid of the Tutsis, that will fix everything." The name of the group changes, the impulse and the results don't: These are people that aren't smart enough to think of any other solution than killing a lot of people, so they do everything in their power to kill a lot of people.
And in some ways, the worst part is that they don't even succeed in fixing the problems they claim they're going to solve by killing a lot of people.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @05:05AM (2 children)
For all of life, not even just human, the rule is "kill or be killed".
Given enough stress, normal humans will participate in genocide. This reaction is burned into our DNA. Those without it are lacking evolutionary fitness and will ultimately be selected against.
It doesn't solve everything, but it solves a lot of things. Ever wonder why we got so many different distinct cultures? Weirdos were killed.
There is something special about Islam that makes it clearly different. It is easy and normal to declare that somebody with very slightly different beliefs is an infidel, and then of course the religion requires that they be subdued and ideally exterminated. It is thus impossible for muslims to have even a moment of peace. The non-muslims can sometimes calm down and find something non-violent to do.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday February 02 2018, @10:29AM
So much fail.
1 - Yes, genocide does seem to be a human instinct, under certain conditions. Yes, it is almost certainly an evolutionary thing that has been selected for over millions of years of tribal competition. but NO, that does not make it necessary, or desirable, or even acceptable today. Put it this way: Chances are, you carry genes of a rapist somewhere in your DNA. Somewhen back in the distant or not so distant past there's a very good chance that some ancestor of yours sired some other ancestor by raping a woman. It happened a lot in the past, and the awful truth is, you wouldn't exist without that act. Does that make rape OK? Would you support the rape of your mother or daughter just because "hey, it's burned into our DNA"? No, of course not. We strive to be better than our biological impulses.
Interestingly enough, research shows that people find it easier to rise above their worst instincts when they have secure and comfortable lives. So you know what is more likely to turn somebody into a genocidal tool? Invading their country, branding them a terrorist, discriminating against them, abducting and torturing them etc etc etc.
What's your excuse?
2.
This is a lie. Put down the Breitbart / Stormfront. There are orders of magnitude more peace-loving Muslims out there than infidel-killing dicks, and I suspect you know that. You just choose to ignore it because simply branding them all "unworthy of life" requires less brainpower.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday February 02 2018, @03:25PM
The following religious viewpoints are known to have had that viewpoint at some point in their history:
- Judaism
- Roman paganism
- Celtic paganism
- Norse paganism
- Catholicism
- Eastern Orthodox
- Protestantism
- Buddhism
- Shinto
- Hinduism
- atheism (I know, it's not a religion, but there have been anti-religious zealots who've tried to murder everyone who didn't give up their religion)
Which makes tiny minority of Muslims who support violence to spread their faith the rule, not the exception.
The only religions that have never been used to justify violence are the absolute pacifist ones, such as Quakerism, Jainism, and Baha'i. Partial credit also goes to religions that only allow their people to fight in immediate self-defense, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Sikhs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:17AM (8 children)
Maybe - you got citations?
Whatever - if you pick me up somewhere, accuse me of being a terrorist, lock me up somewhere thousands of miles from home, prevent me from communicating with friends and family, torture me routinely for years, beat me up psychologically in between torture sessions - if I'm ever released, I'm going to be looking for revenge. You would have been better off just executing me.
Of course, the US has other methods of creating terrorists as well. Drone strikes on weddings and other festivities, for instance. We really don't seem to understand anything about human nature, do we?
On topic - Trump proves that he's not any smarter than Dubya was. We need to keep creating terrorists, martyrs, and anything else necessary to keep the terrorists going. Hey - why don't we just give weapons to whatever remains of ISIS/DAESH? They are, after all, trying to depose a regime that we don't like very much, right?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday February 01 2018, @12:41PM (3 children)
Here's something [wired.com] I reckon you'll like - I know I did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday February 01 2018, @01:50PM (1 child)
next in the news: isis buys 3d printer from ebay, tries to create bomb but PLA is still stuck to the build plate.
they launch it anyway.
it melts into a purple mess.
(ebay seller gets negative feedback).
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 01 2018, @02:14PM
FTFY
The "3d print your weapon/ammo at war-time" is an idiocy - 3d printing is cost effective for prototyping or when the piece to be fab-ed is so complex that any other way of doing it is either impossible (within tolerances) or more expensive than 3d printing.
It simply doesn't work well for mass production with short production cycles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:30PM
There is a lot more to 3D metal printing than just plugging it in and pushing a button.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 01 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)
And too add insult to injury the guy who falsely told the Americans you were a terrorist got paid for it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @01:33AM
Additionally, if his reason for accusing his neighbor was because he coveted that guy's wife|home|household goods, with the "bad" guy gone, the "witness" now has easy access to those.
The levels of accountability in this "enemy combatant" paradigm are essentially zero.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday February 02 2018, @03:20AM
Actually, not so much right now, because they've been losing territory in Syria for months now, and are also almost completely kicked out of Iraq. Which makes "ISIS" a pretty lousy name for them, since one of their biggest areas of control is actually in the Sinai Peninsula, and most of their other activity is in northern Nigeria.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday February 02 2018, @10:11PM
Dumb like a Fox? Each terrorist "identified" means more dollars in defense spending, which means more money is handed out in defense contracts.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @12:12PM
Most of the people who got released have gone back to terrorism.
And most of the people who posted trash like that have gone back to Slashdot.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:51AM (12 children)
Imprisonment with no legal recourse continues. Are those people criminals? Military prisoners? Oh, right, they are carefully defined to fall outside of all possible categories, so the US can do whatever it damned well pleases. This would be impossible on US territory, or in the territory of any Western nation...
I do object to claiming this as a reversal of Obama's policy. Obama had eight long years to end this travesty, and failed to do so (despite it being one of his campaign promises).
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:17AM
Well, if you consider that terror works better for those who already have power, and that getting jailed as mere suspect, tortured and then released probably makes you hating your captors, you may just consider Guantanamo as a terrorist factory and have everything fit.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:10AM (4 children)
There are three little words my predecessor refused to say: unlawful enemy combatants. We must be clear, terrorists -- wherever we find them -- are not merely criminals. Obama was very soft on terrorism. When terrorists bombed hospitals in Yemen, his State Department put out a statement of condemnation. Like a model makes a fashion statement with a sash or a purse. Somebody got condemned. Nobody got condemned. Because nobody got annihilated. We're going to start annihilating, believe me. We have no choice but to annihilate them. And bring them to Gitmo. It's going to be beautiful. Give a big thank you to General Mattis, folks.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:21AM (3 children)
From the bottom of the SN page -
"They make a desert and call it peace." -- Tacitus (55?-120?)
Go ahead, Donald - burn down the rain forests, salt the ground, bomb the cities - make the earth one huge desert. When there is no one left to argue with, you can call it peaceful. Tacitus could have been talking specifically about the US military industrial complex.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:54AM (2 children)
Those quotations are so interesting. You signed your tweet, you said let's cage Aristarchus. Gitmo is a big, beautiful cage. On a tropical island in the Caribbean. My predecessor said he couldn't close Gitmo, because it would cost too much money to close it. So he kept it open. He said he would close it, he kept it open -- that was a very smart move. Because it's ready for us to fill it up with our many enemies. What about federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people? Our FBI is a mess. But there's lots of space in Gitmo.
As everybody knows, we've been having big problems with China and Russia. General Mattis says they can get together and try to bully us. He thinks maybe the two of them, together, maybe could beat us. We must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful -- much more powerful than it is now -- that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else. Or all of them together. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly. We're not having that magical moment with the fairy dust. So let's have an American moment instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @03:52PM
I got to tell you man, you could be his speech writer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @10:15PM
Seems to me it will be a perfect place to send you once you get impeached, indicted and convicted.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @03:08PM (4 children)
Are you saying Obama didn't try? The home countries of the detainees wouldn't take them back. He tried to move them into high security detention facilities in the US, but the Republican Congress wouldn't let him (you know, he was being soft on crime and all). There is even an empty maximum security facility in Colorado, and they were lobbying to have them sent there, but Congress refused. And somehow this is all his fault?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:27PM (2 children)
One thing that stands out to me is this: These congress-critters generally hold themselves up as penultimate examples of hyper-patriotism. It seems a lot more like jingoism to me, but those so inclined can just call it patriotism if it suits them. It's still pretty damned hyper. These congress-critters loudly and regularly claim the US is the best, and our way of life is the best, and are literally directly responsible for our legal system, which they also claim is the best.
But our way of life, specifically our legal system, isn't, according to them, good enough to deal with the acts of these people. Their (imaginary) God forbid that these people have access to lawyers, trials, juries. They have to be kept offshore, on another country's territory, where they have no options to defend against false accusations or otherwise cope whatsoever.
I am constantly reminded by this (and other things) that the pervading attitude in congress is that the US legal system is only to be used when they find it convenient.
First they came for...
Yeah.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @01:27AM (1 child)
That word doesn't mean what you think it does.
pen != arch|uber|hyper
http://www.google.com/search?q=penultimate [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday February 02 2018, @05:32AM
Penultimate in that context meant exactly what I intended it to mean; next to last on the list of invalid patriotic archetypes, higher only than their (imaginary) "God." They imagine they are placing themselves as the highest authorities; but are actually placing themselves at the lowest possible place – right next to a poorly put together superstition.
But thanks for playing. Always fun to bandy actual words around. You almost caught what I was saying, too, which is laudable. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:40PM
At one point, the Democrats had a super majority, so there are no excuses.
All his fault? No. This is the fault of countless politicians in our country, including Obama. He put up a feeble resistance at best, in order to make himself look good. Suckers fall for that every time.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday February 02 2018, @03:31AM
In Obama's defense:
1. His administration did manage to release a large percentage of the prisoners there. The population went from something like 500 to less than 100.
2. A lot of those who are still there were refused re-entry by their home countries. Yemen in particular is guilty of this, accounting for something like 4/5 of the prisoners still stuck in Gitmo, although part of the problem is that they're in a civil war and the government that the US recognizes is losing that fight badly.
3. The Republicans in Congress tried everything they could to stop him, such as defunding the office in the State Department that was trying to get them out.
It wasn't all roses, though: Another part of Obama's plan, which Republicans refused, was to build a super-secure prison back in the US mainland and move the really dangerous guys there, but still never give them a trial. That's an obvious 5th Amendment problem ("No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law", and notice that it doesn't say "No citizen" but "No person").
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:14AM (1 child)
*slow breathing*
- Close the Guantanamo Bay doors, Donald.
*slow breathing*
- Donald, close the Guantanamo Bay doors!
- Sorry, elector, I am afraid I cannot do that.
Effects are awesome but the story is weak IMHO.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:48AM
I hope they're working on the Presidential Suite.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:20AM (4 children)
* torture
* indefinite detention without due process
This is what sets us apart from the subhumans.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @01:58PM
The above comment (another AC) is the type of Western Values they talk so much about.
All crime is committed under the influence of the devil-worshiping khazarian jews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:12PM (1 child)
If somebody hasn't read this report yet, you might want to do it right now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_torture_report [wikipedia.org]
Be warned though, you might be physically sick and become quite angry.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @02:05AM
I think it should have been televised, much more violent, much more demeaning, and sometimes more high-tech. I guess I'm a tiny bit angry. I suspect we could have gotten more torture for the money we spent, and the prisoners had it too easy.
Start with torture to get information. For this, put them in brain scanners or even surgically place wires into the brain surface. As you question them, detect any lies by the brain activity.
After we have gathered all possible information, we switch to torturing as a deterrent. It's also just fun, so we could sell tickets and auction off opportunities to participate.
For example:
Build a conical or pyramidal prison cell, pointy part down. In the bottom, place a Koran. Several feet above that, place a non-removable metal grate as the floor. Feed the prisoner. Eventually, they must poo. To protect the Koran, they will have to catch and hold their poo. There is no place to set it down. Feed them more.
Another good one is a sex change operation. We can them pimp them out.
We can force them to memorize the Bible and pray the rosary. Better yet, we can do Hindu god(s).
We can do as they would do to us: burning alive, stoning, tossing from roofs, slit throats, acid in the face, hit by truck, explosives, drowning, etc.
We can strap them down, then bring in starving pigs. Pigs are happy to eat humans.
We can transplant pig organs into them. We then point out that they are thus doomed to Hell... but that isn't a Christian belief and so they might as well convert. It's kind of a variation on Pascal's wager.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @05:40AM
If they are subhumans then we aren't torturing or detaining any humans so there isn't any problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @02:56AM
Fantastic, now we'll have a place for the orange one before he goes to the firing squad.