UPI: grappling with gitmo
I'm impressed that UPI (apparently) didn't encounter any "let 'em rot" types in their informal polling seen here, although I guess people might censor themselves when they're on camera out on a public street in a way they might not in a more anonymous venue. I'm also guessing the nice young lady who commented about the oddness of the concept of "outsourcing" prisoners to foreign countries is unaware of the practice of extraordinary rendition, or that Bill Clinton authorized the CIA to do it after Oklahoma City in '95.
cross-posted at Hugo Zoom.
Labels: journalism, polling, terrorism, web 2.0, Youtube
posted by Jonathan Versen @ 5:49 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Or perhaps UPI just censored out the nutballs themselves. Also most of the people seemed to be unaware that most of the prisoners were prisoners due to the offers of rewards by the U.S. military which was then used to kidnap, imprison, and then torture and or kill innocent people who were anything but guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I also understand that this system of justice was used by people to settle private scores by telling the U.S. military that someone was an “insurgent.” To be frank I am beginning to become more and more irritated by “reasonable” people because it seems as if “reasonable” people are responsible for much of the injustice in the world today in lieu of their “reasonableness.” Substituting “pragmatic” for “reasonable” I find I have come to loathe the word pragmatic. Watching this film only reinforces this in my own mind as these reasonable people seem to assume that the Gitmo prisoners must be guilty or they wouldn’t be prisoners in the first place. This is an example of reasonableness and one that shows how being reasonable can be fatally wrong. I have been mulling over writing a post on reasonable people and their pragmatic wonderfulness but I don’t know if I can muster the energy any longer.
I think it's reasonable to wonder why, after having imprisoned many of these people since 2001 or 2002, they still haven't brought them to trial, even with all the loosened standards for evidence--
A truly reasonable-- and not just brain-dead-- person might reasonably wonder if, just maybe, so many of them haven't been brought to trial because the evidence just isn't there, and the government may have decided that actually admitting this was, er, unreasonable.
Just a thought.
The government cannot admit it was wrong because this would open up more wrongness and pretty soon the whole fabric of the government would unravel. Come to think of it that is beginning to happen anyway.
My favorite was the guy who wondered if other countries would take the prisoners without wondering why they were prisoners in the first place. This is entirely reasonable yet not a well thought out wondering.
I think your point about the government not wanting to admit that there is no evidence is an excellent point.
Post a Comment
<< Home