[General Battuta]

I am displeased with this.

There's a reason the approval rating of any president is expected to drop sharply with time: they can't please everyone, and displeasure is a lot louder than contentment. Nonetheless, I dislike this move.

[Akalabeth Angel]

I am displeased with this.

There's a reason the approval rating of any president is expected to drop sharply with time: they can't please everyone, and displeasure is a lot louder than contentment. Nonetheless, I dislike this move.

No didn't you vote for "a change" and "yes we can"?
Both indefinite ideas with no real substance?

"Yes we can!" do what?

So Obama is moving quantanamo out of legal limbo and now wants to create a legal framework for it to be possible. Wow, great change.

[Snail]

People voted for Obama not really knowing what they were doing. He's not a revolutionary, he's like any modern politician, a slightly different shade of grey. In the past there might have been (bigger) differences between parties and candidates but not anymoar.


Still better than Sarah Palin.

[General Battuta]

I am displeased with this.

There's a reason the approval rating of any president is expected to drop sharply with time: they can't please everyone, and displeasure is a lot louder than contentment. Nonetheless, I dislike this move.

No didn't you vote for "a change" and "yes we can"?
Both indefinite ideas with no real substance?

"Yes we can!" do what?

So Obama is moving quantanamo out of legal limbo and now wants to create a legal framework for it to be possible. Wow, great change.

**** no. I voted for his policies, which I studied in detail, and many of which he has carried out to my satisfaction.

It amazes me that people are so simple that they can't understand that politicians are not 'good' or 'evil', and that people don't have to be die-hard supporters or loathsome opponents. You can be pleased with some decisions and displeased with others.   It's like you grew up in the Old Testament or something. And god forbid people actually elect a president they like.

You vote for a platform. Some planks of that platform are carried out. Others, inevitably, aren't. Obama was definitely the best choice, and given our system of checks and balances, there likely couldn't be a better one: any president is by nature limited in his powers and can only do so much.

People voted for Obama not really knowing what they were doing. He's not a revolutionary, he's like any modern politician, a slightly different shade of grey. In the past there might have been differences between parties and candidates but not anymoar.

Source please? Historical text to back up your latter statement?

What a stupid statement. Things are no different today than they ever have been, except that politicians are on average far more trustworthy.

[iamzack]

But some proponents of an indefinite detention system argue that Guantánamo’s remaining 240 detainees include cold-blooded jihadists and perhaps some so warped by their experience in custody that no president would be willing to free them. And among them, the proponents say, are some who cannot be tried, in part for lack of evidence or because of tainted evidence.

So we detain them forever?! That's the opposite of our legal system. >.<

[NGTM-1R]

So we detain them forever?! That's the opposite of our legal system. >.<

To be honest, in the act of creating Gitmo we ensured that we would have to hold most of its inmates forever, because they will turn on us if we free them. This was a very predictable consequence, unfortunately.

[iamzack]

We should never have held people illegally in the first place. The least we can do is stop kidnapping people we don't have evidence against.

I wonder how reparations would go down. Probably not at all. We barely threw the Japanese-Americans we kidnapped and imprisoned a bone either.

[Akalabeth Angel]

It amazes me that people are so simple that they can't understand that politicians are not 'good' or 'evil', and that people don't have to be die-hard supporters or loathsome opponents. You can be pleased with some decisions and displeased with others.   It's like you grew up in the Old Testament or something. And god forbid people actually elect a president they like.

I don't think he's evil. I just don't trust him. He's too much of a smooth talker. Nothing comes out of his mouth that isn't shaped and moulded for the viewer's ear. I'd rather have a bumbling politician, at least then you know he's honest.

Though mind you I'm not American anyway. But coming from Canada we hear about America all the time . . .

Oh I did hear a few honest words come out of Obama's mouth: "he's a jackass" (in reference to Kanye West)

[General Battuta]

You can't please everybody. I'd rather have an intelligent, articulate man than another Bush.

[Sushi]

I think "indefinite detention" will turn out to have been a very bad idea. Now, we're stuck with a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario: keep holding them without charging them (which goes against some of the foundational protections of the legal system) or turn them loose to kill Americans?

On the balance, I think I'd rather turn them loose. Letting the government hold people indefinitely without giving them a day in court sets very scary precedents that I'd rather have as few of as possible.

If we're so terrified of the terrorists that we can't bring them to court, then they've won anyway.

[notserious]
There is, I suppose, another option. Let them challenge an American of their choice to mortal single combat!
[/notserious]

[General Battuta]

Concur.

And yeah, they could totally hold a Trial of Grievance against the US government. Of course, the challenge-ee gets to pick the weapons used.

[Sushi]

Maybe, but we'd have to restrict to melee weapons only.

[Colonol Dekker]

 am English and therefore have no interest / bearing on this topic

[BlueFlames]

am English and therefore have no interest / bearing on this topic

What's it like, living in the free world?

Seriously, though, this is one area where Barrack Obama has proven frighteningly disappointing.  George W. Bush and the Republican Congress established the power to have the feds snatch someone off the street, detain him/her indefinately, and if he/she is lucky enough to get a trial date, the detainee can't mount a legal defense, as the prosecutor can withhold evidence from the accused on the basis of it being a "state secret."  The only thing the new Congress and administration have done to change this blatant breach of civil liberties is to propose a change of the location where these people will be held.  It's heinous and about the most unamerican policy I've ever seen enacted, but I suppose I'm going to be waiting an awfully long time before leadership emerges with the wisdom to reverse this course.  Power is attractive, and once acquired is rarely renounced.

[Wobble73]

I I'd rather have a bumbling politician, at least then you know he's honest.

So that's how Boris Johnson became mayor of London. 

[Colonol Dekker]

He doesn't personify London..................................


Much

[redsniper]

.....

See, I was so happy when he closed down Guantanamo and now...

I am disappoint

[Mongoose]

Can't we just, like, throw open the gate, let them walk out, and get the realistic equivalent of Sam Fisher to pick them off one by one as they do?  We don't look like baddies for subverting the Constitution, they won't go off into the world and plot attacks against us, and no one is the wiser.

[iamzack]

I want them let go but I also know that they don't know anything about the US except for how they were treated in Guantanamo. Then again. we did stick them in Guantanamo so maybe their suppositions are entirely correct.

[Scotty]

How 'bout we just TRY them?  I mean really, conviction or GTFO, and none of this BS about indefinite incarceration.

Though I do like that Trial of Grievance idea.