Guantanamo: "Dangerous terrorist"? or "no reason recorded for transfer"?

[Formaldehyde]

A former "dangerous terrorist" is now our "ally" in Libya.

DARNAH: For over five years, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu was a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay prison, judged "a probable member of al-Qaida". Now, Qumu, 51, is a notable figure in the Libyan rebels' fight to oust Muammar Gaddafi.

According to the New York Times, he is reportedly a leader of a ragtag band of fighters known as the Darnah Brigade in northeast Libya.

The paper further says that this former enemy and prisoner of the US is now an ally of sorts, a remarkable turnabout resulting from shifting American policies rather than any obvious change in Qumu.

 

[JollyRoger]

A former "dangerous terrorist" is now our "ally" in Libya.

Forma, you are forgetting the Top Secret information that Pat has been divulging.

 

[mangxema]

I wonder why Obama insists on covering for Bush's crimes, he can shut guantanamo down and it won't embarass his administration, it will just further expose Bush's administration.

I don't think he can, practically. I mean yeah, some of them could be released (and the OP suggests that the number is going down), but for the ones that can't, b/c they really are bad dudes bent on doing us harm, there isn't anywhere else to put them. IIRC he tried getting high-security prison to take at least some of them and some people went ballistic. So I don't think is a question of desire.

 

[RedRalph]

You are not understanding, pay attention.

The level of these documents are SECRET, the security level of most of Guantanamo is TOP SECRET. That means that if people in one office with SECRET access say or file something entirely wrong based on their lack of access, the person in the office next door who sees that false report won't be able to correct it because that would be divulging TOP SECRET information to someone cleared for SECRET.

This is simple RRW, you simply want to believe what you want to believe.

Why are you wanting to believe reports from a classification level below what encompasses to locations/people/events you are interested it? Thats like using a guide book on Egypt to travel Japan.

So just humour me and tell me how all these allegations might not be damaging because the guy in the SECRET room didn't know something that was in the TOP SECRET room. Can you even paint a vaguely plausible picture of how that might be the case? Do you honestly imagine the guys in the SECRET room get told all the damaging stuff but the guys in the TOP SECRET room all know reasons why it's not damaging?

 

[MobBoss]

So just humour me and tell me how all these allegations might not be damaging because the guy in the SECRET room didn't know something that was in the TOP SECRET room. Can you even paint a vaguely plausible picture of how that might be the case? Do you honestly imagine the guys in the SECRET room get told all the damaging stuff but the guys in the TOP SECRET room all know reasons why it's not damaging?

RR, I know it must seem foreign to you, but there is indeed a difference regulatory wise of how secret information is kept as opposed to top secret information; just like there is from classified material and secret material. The military has regulations that cover how each level is compartmentalized, and held.

Its simply factual that sometimes an incident may have portions of that incident requiring different security classification levels, and that someone with top secret access may indeed be privy to something others with only lower security level access may not (or not need to) know.

 

[JollyRoger]

Generally becuase the Top Secret stuff is more damaging to the country's reputation than the merely secret information.

 

[RedRalph]

RR, I know it must seem foreign to you, but there is indeed a difference regulatory wise of how secret information is kept as opposed to top secret information; just like there is from classified material and secret material. The military has regulations that cover how each level is compartmentalized, and held.

Its simply factual that sometimes an incident may have portions of that incident requiring different security classification levels, and that someone with top secret access may indeed be privy to something others with only lower security level access may not (or not need to) know.

Honestly, hand on your heart, give a completely honest answer to this. Give me your gut response, because I know you don't 'know', but tell me what you'd 'guess'.

Do you think that the Top Secret stuff would make this situation better or worse for the US' resputation?

 

[Newbunkle]

I suppose there's a slim chance the 70 year old man with dementia is a time traveller from 3069 and carries an infectious form of senility. Keeping him locked up away from the wider population would be a good idea, and it would make sense to keep it top secret lest the islamic communists find out and somehow manage to deduce the secret of time travel from his insane ramblings.

 

[JollyRoger]

The Top Secret is that President Bush got confessions from the terrorists, not through waterboarding, but through pillow talk after some hot romantic action. Jeff Gannon gets props for the hours and hours he spent training President Bush for this mission.
Moderator Action: Trolling
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Incodcito]

It would never have happened if 3 Japanese people, the only 3 people of Japanese descent on an island with 136 residents, including 2 American citizens born in Hawaii, hadn't collaborated to assist a downed Japanese pilot in the days after Pearl Harbor.

Is this an attempt at a justification?

 

[innonimatu]

Do you think that the Top Secret stuff would make this situation better or worse for the US' resputation?

Please, stop arguing over "Top Secret" with those two! Didn't you learn anything from the other thread you started? Can't you see that they're trying to derail the discussion, drawing attention away from the undeniable evidence that the US government held people at Guantanamo on false charges? That they are apologists and employees for the US government (whatever the party in power) and will remain so no matter what you say?

 

[Truronian]

Indeed. Claiming there exists a top secret justification for nasty goings on in any other thread would be considered flimsy at best; so should it be in this thread.

 

[Silurian]

If the Top Secret records were published they would show that some of the completely innocent may have some small involvement with the Taliban (the rulers of the country) and some of the serious terrorists were really unimportant and had little involvement.
So since the Top Secret records will not change the overall numbers of completely innocent etc they are not relevant.

 

[Patroklos]

Again, if you would just think about this for two seconds you would realize how illogical you are being.

So just humour me and tell me how all these allegations might not be damaging because the guy in the SECRET room didn't know something that was in the TOP SECRET room.

THINK ABOUT THIS. You are using information from SECRET sources to try and divine information from a TOP SECRET site. Information travels up the classification chain, it does not travel down.

Or in other words, people with a SECRET source have no information on a TOP SECRET site. Information that is TOP SECRET is exactly that, TOP SECRET.

Thats the first problem with these leaks, that they are not reliable sources because people at that level have no access to such sites.

The second problem is that even though they have no access, that doesn't mean they don't have to operate on assumptions about them or speculation about them to do their daily jobs. We all do this to a certain extent. If thoe assumptions or speculations are wrong, they will never be corrected at the SECRET level because the very act of correnction them reveals TOP SECRET information.

This is not hard to grasp. The stuff you are wanting to get information on is TOP SECRET, so by definition relying on SECRET sources to get that information is obviously a flawed method.

Can you even paint a vaguely plausible picture of how that might be the case? Do you honestly imagine the guys in the SECRET room get told all the damaging stuff but the guys in the TOP SECRET room all know reasons why it's not damaging?

Thats a far more plausible scenario than what you are using, which is knowing absolutely nothing about anything simply make up whatever you want based on sources that by definition know nothing as well.

My analogy continues to be apt and devestates your train of thought. You are making specific conclusions based on snippets of information. That is folly of the highest order.

Indeed. Claiming there exists a top secret justification for nasty goings on in any other thread would be considered flimsy at best; so should it be in this thread.

Nobody has made any such claim, exoneration has never been mentioned by myself or Moboss. This is just a strawman you require to avoid having to accept the flimsiness of your source matierial.

All I have said is that drawing the conclusions some have from this source is ridiculous for the logical reasons I have explained. It neither damns or exonorates anyone.

In fact the more I read about it it becomes clear the version in the OP article is actiaon an extrapolation upon an exageration of an extrapoliation upon an exageration. The actual documents I have read are not at all damning unless you are want to read into them as such.

Its irrelevant though, the sources are useless for the purposes many in this thread want to use them for anyway.

 

[bathsheba666]

Again, if you would just think about this for two seconds you would realize how illogical you are being.



THINK ABOUT THIS. You are using information from SECRET sources to try and divine information from a TOP SECRET site. Information travels up the classification chain, it does not travel down.

Or in other words, people with a SECRET source have no information on a TOP SECRET site. Information that is TOP SECRET is exactly that, TOP SECRET.

Thats the first problem with these leaks, that they are not reliable sources because people at that level have no access to such sites.

The second problem is that even though they have no access, that doesn't mean they don't have to operate on assumptions about them or speculation about them to do their daily jobs. We all do this to a certain extent. If thoe assumptions or speculations are wrong, they will never be corrected at the SECRET level because the very act of correnction them reveals TOP SECRET information.

This is not hard to grasp. The stuff you are wanting to get information on is TOP SECRET, so by definition relying on SECRET sources to get that information is obviously a flawed method.



Thats a far more plausible scenario than what you are using, which is knowing absolutely nothing about anything simply make up whatever you want based on sources that by definition know nothing as well.

My analogy continues to be apt and devestates your train of thought. You are making specific conclusions based on snippets of information. That is folly of the highest order.

Good to see you introduce the concept of 'folly of the highest order' in connection with Guantanamo - and completely unsurprising to see you attempt to attach it to the wrong aspect.

Gunatanamo is obviously made possible by an entrenched hierarchy of tame underlings following occasionally moronic orders. I guess the armed services are predicated upon the continuance of this sad fact.

That's neither top secret, nor merely secret.
Were it either, it would not prevent it from being true.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Indeed. Claiming there exists a top secret justification for nasty goings on in any other thread would be considered flimsy at best; so should it be in this thread.

Indeed. How can you possibly refute such an absurd claim?

Besides, the vast majority of the "terrorists" held at Gitmo have already been released because they were found to be innocent.

 

[Patroklos]

You would have a point if the upper third of that hierarchy didn't just turn over in dramatic fashion and are polar opposites in most relevant categories, only to produce the same result.

After reading the above, I don't expect you to deny the obvious truth of it nor to modify your position that was just crushed, but rather to just continue as before as if nothing had happened.

So am I the only one in this thread that is actually going to impart knowledge not based on fantastic whimsy? You just got a good lesson on classification systems that should make you more informed and critical posters in the future are you going to eschew that simply because it might poke a whole in a favorite conspiracy theory?

 

[bathsheba666]

You would have a point if the upper third of that hierarchy didn't just turn over in dramatic fashion and are polar opposites in most relevant categories, only to produce the same result.

After reading the above, I don't expect you to deny the obvious truth of it nor to modify your position that was just crushed, but rather to just continue as before as if nothing had happened.

So am I the only one in this thread that is actually going to impart knowledge not based on fantastic whimsy? You just got a good lesson on classification systems that should make you more informed and critical posters in the future are you going to eschew that simply because it might poke a whole in a favorite conspiracy theory?

The fact the the new adminstration appears to have little better idea what to do with the actual terrorists, has nothing to do with the main point of this thread.

Let me help you with that again: A random trawl netted as many innocents, who were also tortured, as guilty.

(See. I'm giving the US the benefit of the doubt there, despite the lamentable level of actual convictions.
Or were they actually tried, but it was top secret )

 

[Theige]

Is this an attempt at a justification?

It isn't an attempt at justification, it is the justification.

Historian Gordon Prange notes that it was "the rapidity with which the three resident Japanese went over to the pilot's cause", which troubled the Hawaiians. "The more pessimistic among them cited the Ni‘ihau incident as proof that no one could trust any Japanese, even if an American citizen, not to go over to Japan if it appeared expedient."[7]

Novelist William Hallstead argues that the Ni‘ihau incident had an influence on decisions leading to the Japanese American internment. According to Hallstead, the behavior of Shintani and the Haradas were included in a navy report. In the official report, authored by Navy Lt. C.B. Baldwin and dated January 26, 1942, Baldwin wrote, "The fact that the two Ni‘ihau Japanese who had previously shown no anti-American tendencies went to the aid of the pilot when Japanese domination of the island seemed possible, indicate likelihood that Japanese residents previously believed loyal to the United States may aid Japan if further Japanese attacks appear successful."[8]

 

[squadbroken]

Supposed "liberal" New York Times is now covering for Obama on this issue also, I guess they are playing the role of Fox now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/w...s-in-an-american-limbo.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1


This is a pretty good article on the story.

The NYT has always been a mouthpiece for the American government.