Pelosi Shrugs off Alcatraz as Possible Terror Detention Facility

[Totamo4]

Republicans opposing an Obama administration order to close Guantanamo Bay prison facility within a year suggest sending terror detainees to House Speaker Pelosi's district. Read more at...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/25/pelosi-shrugs-alcatraz-p...

All I gotta say is if the "angry" Americans don't get them...the great whites will...

[Blinkey Wisenheimer]

The reason GITMO is such a hot button issue is because of the torture .The torture of prisoners makes us the same as the people the Bush administration was" saving the world from". If in fact these are such bad people,put them on trial and get it over with. They had to release some already because of the torture,so what good was that. Its been proven,a tortured person will give information to make the torture stop. It's not always the truth.If our soldiers are captured and tortured,we are outraged. It should be the same the other way around. If there's evidence,let the trial begin. If not release them.

[Zannie]

You know what, Rick? I've hesitated going into the whole torture area because so many fine service people post on this board. But what happened at Abu Gharib (sp?) and Gitmo, was definitely torture. There is no doubt about it. I don't blame the servicemen and women for this as I think it was a top down directive and I believe our people were lied to about what actually constitutes torture. Look in the army field manual.

As far as the "everyone else breaks the Geneva convention" argument, that's just plain rationalization. If a few rogue states do this - and I'm sure they do - that doesn't mean that the world's superpower needs to stoop to that level. It has brought us down lower than most people even imagine. When Bush said "We don't torture," he was flat out lying and everyone knows it now.

Please pick up a copy of Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. I know you are going to hate her politics. She's way too left leaning for me so I can imagine how you're going to feel about her, but what she reports gives you a good description of how loud music, sleep deprivation, beatings, standing naked for days in one stress position, all OK in the field manual, coupled with so-called enhanced interrogation methods add up to torture that reduces a person's mind to pure whimpering mush. Any one of the field manual techniques would not be necessarily considered torture, but when the administration oks a relentless combination of these techniques over a long period of time, we're wading into an area that is no longer even gray - its torture plain and simple.

Thank God for Amnesty International, the Red Cross and the ACLU who investigated these detention centers and called it as they saw it. Torture.

Please don't come back on saying I'm feeling sorry for the poor terrorists. Far from it. I think they should have been tried and if found guilty, executed. But we don't break Geneva, we just don't. It's against everything we stand for.

[Lois Nehm]

bravo alex. well said.

[Sam I Am]

Excellent Alex! My father was a career Army officer. He was also against torture and told me torture seldom produces anything useful. He also told me the so called torture experienced by our soldiers in training is not like the real thing and he would know the difference. He was a WWII prisoner of war and was tortured. McCain is also against torture. When I seek advice I prefer it be from someone who knows of what they speak.

[Winkle Fartenstein]

Buy a dictionary Dude!

[J M A]

alex - I too believe we need to follow the Geneva. Like you said, we are better than that.

However, I would rather do anything than let these prisoners go. My personal choice would be to put them into the prison system in the general prison population, to meet the Americans they so badly want to fight and kill.

But you see alex, the Dems are on the other side of the fence now, and everything they do will be portrayed as wrong. See, in complaining about the closing of Gitmo a few things have happened. First, posturing for 2010 and the fact the Obama adminsitration is 'friend' of the terrorist (I do realize they are not). Also, another part of this is that a terrorist attack in the next 4 years would all but gaurentee the regaining of the White House in 2012 by the GOP as they have now painted this soft image. You see, party politics are destructive to the country and benefit no one. But neither party is about to quit, and in a short weeks time the GOP has taken Obama from 'savior' to making many wonder if he was ready. Between the "stimulus" that is simply liberal spedning on things that will have very little impact on the economy to the ever worsening look of cabinet selections. Let's see, since winning, Obama's seat in the Senate has been for sale, his first commerce secretary Bill Richardson is under investigation for selling government jobs to large donors, his head of the IRS is a tax evader, his next pick for commerece sec. the great Tom Daschle has what appears to be about $150,000 in unpaid taxes and his labor secretary's husband is now showing up as having multiple tax infractions. Someone should have done their homework because someone once told me people are often judged by the company they keep.

See Tom Daschle took Rush Limbaugh right out of the spotlight. I don't really care for Rush, but the point being, the race for 2010 has started and thus far I think the Republicans will gain seats. I think Obama should trim a bit of his stimulus package for the sake of keeping the strong majority in Congress, however I think the pressure may be too great from Pel-loud-si and the far left. I still think he has great promise as a president, I just think he needs to make sure his party doesn't push him too much, especially the left side of it.

And as for the ACLU, intent is great, credibility is not.

[Pete Graham]

Not to nitpick J M A, but Daschle was up for Health and Human Services... the Repubilcan senator for Vermont is up for commerce secretary...

But I agree about finding out about all the tax things after the fact. But I am trying hard to think of it as part of the house cleaning. Anyone of these people wouldn't have much to worry about in the past 20 years because no one would have found out until later...and then they would stay on board for one reason or another...

And I think Pelosi should be gone... Harry Reid is her b**ch...;)

[J M A]

Not to nitpick J M A, but Daschle was up for Health and Human Services... the Repubilcan senator for Vermont is up for commerce secretary...

Sorry Pete, don't know how I messed that up anyways.

And I agree, I think Obama is trying to act fast and little hesitiation was made in selection. ANd its not like Daschle and Richardson ae obscure names, they are formal presidential candidates, so I do actually see how they could have overlooked this. But I was not criticizing the picks, simply addressing how party politics can twist things, and twist them fast.

Thanks again pete, HHS it is:)

[Blinkey Wisenheimer]

Rick,earlier you talked about no uniforms.Did you mean if the prisoners weren't in uniform when captured,they have no rights? If thats the case,then someone needs to tell our military. We have soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq not in uniform so they blend in. You also talk about how we had to make rules to deal with a situation we had never run across before. Rules for handling prisoners were established long before the Bush administration. You also mention"alot of us who were there and know". Did you serve in Iraq or Afghanistan? Was it during the invasion or after?. Did you deal directly with any prisoners? Did you deal with any civilians over there? Last you talk about "Supermax". Are any of the prisoners there being held only on suspicion? Just wondering.

[Blinkey Wisenheimer]

Yes I'll define invasion.We invaded a sovereign nation (Iraq) which had nothing to do with the attack on the twin towers.The intel you mention was cherry picked to get the country to back it. The people they needed to get were in Afghanistan. But then Afghanistan hasn't got oil.

[J M A]

Yes I'll define invasion.We invaded a sovereign nation (Iraq) which had nothing to do with the attack on the twin towers.The intel you mention was cherry picked to get the country to back it. The people they needed to get were in Afghanistan. But then Afghanistan hasn't got oil.

Agree or disagree with the Iraqi invasion, oil is an oversimplification of the process. That is just like saying Gitmo is terrorists and they should not be protected. Also, let's not play the make Iraq sound wonderful game, Sadam was creating some of the worst acts against mankind for the sake of power and oppression. Wether you believe that warrants a US invasion is debatable, but this was not a place of peace and prosperity.

[Zannie]

rick, rick, rick...."5 sentence sound bits? really?" Come on man. Haven't you heard a word anyone has said to you? Most of the people on this site are so far beyond simple-minded television sound bytes. The people who regularly chat on this site are some of the brightest people around. Yes, we may disagree. But give people a little credit.

Since 9/11 we've been trying to make sense of all this. I can't imagine anyone just accepting a few simple statements about 9/ll, our retaliatory war on the terrorists in Afghanistan, our move into Iraq, the detention of prisoners and on and on. Everyone who has the time is following this thing very closely.

Quit blaming the bloody media and assuming everyone here is a sheep. Further, it doesn't take someone actually being in the service to know how things are playing out. Yes, they may have an inside view or more likely a perspective that we civilians don't. Thank God for that. We can't afford to think like the military and quite frankly, the servicemen and women defending us with their lives, can't afford the luxury of of thinking the way civilians do.

I've done my research. My "research" is ongoing. I don't know what you mean by the big bad media. Quite frankly, I'm sick of people whining about the media. Do your homework. Stay informed and make your voice heard. You are the one who seems to be talking in canned sound bytes.