Comment on Conservatives Quickly Turn Against “Idiot” Marjorie Taylor Greene
sxan@midwest.social 7 months agoI don’t think I agree with you about Gitmo ever serving a purpose. It was entirely outside of Geneva Conventions and served as a secure prison for anyone deemed an enemy of the state, including US citizens. Torture was regularly practiced and there was no oversight; it was an oubliette into which people disappeared for years, with no representation or recourse. Gitmo was everything the US should stand against, when we consider our highest ideals and morals.
The US has plenty of blood on its hands, but Gitmo was out in the open; there was no subtlety, it wasn’t a “dark secret.” The only thing it accomplished was to prove that you can scare the current American public enough that they’ll accept nearly anything, including stuff that would have outraged the WWII US public.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Gitmo had nothing to do with Geneva. It dealt with US law. If we brought them back to our soil, they’d have full protections under the constitution.
Gitmo was supposed to be a stop gap while we figured out what that meant.
I was there for about six months. Obviously can’t get into details but it needs to be shutdown. It’s lived long past its purpose. The things that went on there are a black eye to our country.
sxan@midwest.social 7 months ago
Isn’t that where the GC comes in? The convention isn’t about applying your country’s laws, but about ethical standards for treatment of enemy combatants. Gitmo being not on our soil is where Geneva should have come into play.
I’m sorry about that; maybe some people enjoyed working there, but I think it would have messed me up.
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 7 months ago
No. Geneva has nothing to do with it. We have to comply with Geneva anywhere.
We picked gitmo specifically because it’s not US soil.
There is the whole debate if they weee protected under Geneva and if they was law enforcement, etc. but gitmo was only selected to avoid US law.
sxan@midwest.social 7 months ago
Yah I think we’re talking past one another. I wasn’t debating where Gitmo was located; when I said it was “outside Geneva” I meant it was operating outside of the agreements of the Geneva Conventions. Torture is not allowed for captured enemy combatants under the convention; prisoners at Gitmo were tortured. Gitmo was not obeying the conventions.
I’m sure there are all sorts of loopholes engaged in what went on there; were insurgents technically “enemy combatants?” By classifying them as “terrorists” were they excluded from protection? Since they weren’t wearing military uniforms, were they excluded from protection? Is waterboarding technically torture?
But nobody in the world is going to being the US in for trial, so the question was moot: we all knew Gitmo defied the spirit of the Geneva Convention; this is why I say it didn’t serve a purpose. We know torture is an unreliable way of gathering intel. If I waterboard you enough, eventually you’ll name your own child as a terrorist if I want you to.