[Mustang19]

I doubt the consequences of one measly car bomb killing a few dozen people will ever be more harmful than the consequences of the whole world seeing those pictures from Abu Ghraib or hearing stories from Gitmo.

ed: Actually, it strikes me that Gitmo is a good example of the famous pregnancy detector principle. If we have a terrorist detector which is 95% accurate, but only some small portion (<1%) of the population is a terrorist, most of the people we incarcerate will still be false positives. Throw in a further coefficient for rate of terrorist generation per false positive and if you had any kind of good data you could figure out whether Gitmo generates more terrorists than it incarcerates.

Whether or not some are false positives is nearly irrelevant. The abuse scandals would have happened whether or not the US arrested innocent people.  Very few if any terrorists joined Al Qaeda to fight for the right to a fair trial; defiling a single Koran alone was much more of a big deal to them than any concern about false positives.

[Unknown Target]

Um, every time a suicide bomb blows up a marketplace or police station. The political effects are bigger than the immediate ones. Yes, terrorism is a pinprick on the whole but it does get kind of annoying when you're trying to prevent civil war or maintain confidence in institutions.

I doubt the consequences of one measly car bomb killing a few dozen people will ever be more harmful than the consequences of the whole world seeing those pictures from Abu Ghraib or hearing stories from Gitmo.

The consequences of that car bomb are the consequences of people seeing those pictures and of hearing those stories from Gitmo, GB.

[General Battuta]

Um, every time a suicide bomb blows up a marketplace or police station. The political effects are bigger than the immediate ones. Yes, terrorism is a pinprick on the whole but it does get kind of annoying when you're trying to prevent civil war or maintain confidence in institutions.

I doubt the consequences of one measly car bomb killing a few dozen people will ever be more harmful than the consequences of the whole world seeing those pictures from Abu Ghraib or hearing stories from Gitmo.

The consequences of that car bomb are the consequences of people seeing those pictures and of hearing those stories from Gitmo, GB.

Wow, thanks for that point I made a dozen times already in threads like these. It's wonderful having my own arguments repeated to me.

I doubt the consequences of one measly car bomb killing a few dozen people will ever be more harmful than the consequences of the whole world seeing those pictures from Abu Ghraib or hearing stories from Gitmo.

ed: Actually, it strikes me that Gitmo is a good example of the famous pregnancy detector principle. If we have a terrorist detector which is 95% accurate, but only some small portion (<1%) of the population is a terrorist, most of the people we incarcerate will still be false positives. Throw in a further coefficient for rate of terrorist generation per false positive and if you had any kind of good data you could figure out whether Gitmo generates more terrorists than it incarcerates.

Whether or not some are false positives is nearly irrelevant. The abuse scandals would have happened whether or not the US arrested innocent people.  Very few if any terrorists joined Al Qaeda to fight for the right to a fair trial; defiling a single Koran alone was much more of a big deal to them than any concern about false positives.

I'm not sure I believe that. I think the arrest of innocents is a much less sexy and media-friendly but still powerful source of outrage. When someone goes home after years in Gitmo they're inevitably going to have bad things to say about the US, and that's going to make the appeal of groups like Al Qaeda - whose arguments are sociopolitical dressed up in religion - more persuasive.

[Unknown Target]

Um, every time a suicide bomb blows up a marketplace or police station. The political effects are bigger than the immediate ones. Yes, terrorism is a pinprick on the whole but it does get kind of annoying when you're trying to prevent civil war or maintain confidence in institutions.

I doubt the consequences of one measly car bomb killing a few dozen people will ever be more harmful than the consequences of the whole world seeing those pictures from Abu Ghraib or hearing stories from Gitmo.

The consequences of that car bomb are the consequences of people seeing those pictures and of hearing those stories from Gitmo, GB.

Wow, thanks for that point I made a dozen times already in threads like these. It's wonderful having my own arguments repeated to me.

You don't get what those consequences are, GB. The consequences are the people who are killed in those blasts - on both sides. The lives and communities they take with them, the hopes and dreams that die with them. The endless cycle that seems to go on forever these days.

When people say "eh screw it, I wish we could just lock them up there and let them blow each other up" - that's exactly what we do.

[General Battuta]

What the **** are you talking about 'I don't get what the consequences are'. My argument is that the whole problem with Gitmo is it creates more terrorists than it detains by embittering and angering people, who go on to cause attacks, perpetuating the cycle of violence.

Isn't that exactly what you just said? How can you think I don't get what the consequences are if I'm saying exactly what you're saying? Except that you have this bizarre belief that somehow this cycle of violence is a recent thing rather than a constant of human existence for centuries.

I wrote such good material on the problems of cyclic violence that the United States Institute of Peace brought me in to chill with ambassadors. I talked over solutions to these problems with seasoned specialists. Don't talk to me like I haven't examined the issue.

Here I'll give you a little pointer: violence is actually way down in the world. Way down. We live in the most peaceful time in history. Read this in full before you make another post.

I've had friends killed in that very violence you're talking about. Don't pretend I don't understand the consequences on a personal level. You are a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth; you have no right to claim you get it better than someone else. As well as, maybe, but not better.

[Mustang19]

I just can't, in the absence of evidence, support the proposition that if the US handed off detainees to a foreign country without trial this would create more terrorists than it detained. There are many, many Taliban fighters being held in Afghan jails after shoddy trials and this is almost never mentioned.

I've had friends killed in that very violence you're talking about. Don't pretend I don't understand the consequences on a personal level. You are a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth; you have no right to claim you get it better than someone else.

Are you playing the underprivileged black man card? How do you know UT is even white?

[General Battuta]

I just can't, in the absence of evidence, support the proposition that if the US handed off detainees to a foreign country without trial this would create more terrorists than it detained. There are many, many Taliban fighters being held in Afghan jails after shoddy trials and this is almost never mentioned.

No you're probably right about that. From a realpolitik rather than moral standpoint it's a much safer alternative. I'm talking Gitmo vs. no Gitmo, because Gitmo is clearly a symbol of America.

I've had friends killed in that very violence you're talking about. Don't pretend I don't understand the consequences on a personal level. You are a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth; you have no right to claim you get it better than someone else.

Are you playing the underprivileged black man card? How do you know UT is even white?

He posted pictures! Also I'm a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth too, I just had the misfortune to have a few friends de-limbed and de-capitated in various Middle Eastern detonations. (They were in the American pigdog imperialist lackey army though, they obviously deserved it)

Also there are more races than black and white man

[Mustang19]

It's pretty clear that Gitmo needs to be closed to prevent more terrorism. However knowing the CIA this wouldn't change anything as far as human rights; if a suspect is arrested in weak evidence military intelligence won't bother to put them through a trial- they'll find something else to do with them.

Also there are more races than black and white man

No man the whole world is either black or white

[LordMelvin]

I'm Teal!

[Unknown Target]

Also I'm a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth too.

Also there are more races than black and white man

At least about these two you are correct.

Just because my skin color is of a particular tint (which as you said yourself, is similar to yours), you make a lot of assumptions about my character, where I'm from.

To you, you basically know everything about me, because you have all of these assumptions about other people...but I think more importantly, it's because you've made all these assumptions about yourself.

[General Battuta]

Respond to my last post addressed to you.

ed: For the sake of more general argument to help elucidate why so many people on HLP think you aren't worth listening to. You correctly believe there are problems in the world, and you correctly want to fix them. Imagine, then, that you've realized something is wrong with your computer and you want to repair it.

Why do you insist on
1) not bothering to figure out when the problem began
2) not bothering to figure out what the problem actually is
3) not bothering to learn anything about how your computer actually works
4) proposing solutions like 'we should put it in better light, it will work nicer then' instead of diagnosing the issue

How can you treat the patient without understanding the disease, its time of onset, and, hell, the identity of the patient? Why are you not interested in learning that information?

[Unknown Target]

Respond to my last post addressed to you.

Here:

I just can't, in the absence of evidence, support the proposition that if the US handed off detainees to a foreign country without trial this would create more terrorists than it detained. There are many, many Taliban fighters being held in Afghan jails after shoddy trials and this is almost never mentioned.

No you're probably right about that. From a realpolitik rather than moral standpoint it's a much safer alternative. I'm talking Gitmo vs. no Gitmo, because Gitmo is clearly a symbol of America.

What is a "realpolitik"?

I would also like to respond to Mustang19:

There are many, many Taliban fighters being held in Afghan jails after shoddy trials and this is almost never mentioned.

And there are many, many free people residing in the jails of the free.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2494/does-the-united-states-lead-the-world-in-prison-population

From the article:

According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College London, the U.S. currently has the largest documented prison population in the world, both in absolute and proportional terms. We've got roughly 2.03 million people behind bars, or 701 per 100,000 population. China has the second-largest number of prisoners (1.51 million, for a rate of 117 per 100,000), and Russia has the

I just can't, in the absence of evidence, support the proposition that if the US handed off detainees to a foreign country without trial this would create more terrorists than it detained.

Why not? Why do you automatically assume that other countries would not want to have an equal interest in having a fair justice system? Why is our justice system "the best"?

Now please respond to my last post, General Battuta.

[General Battuta]

That isn't the last post addressed to you. That post is clearly addressed to Mustang. Try again.

I'll quote it for you.

What the **** are you talking about 'I don't get what the consequences are'. My argument is that the whole problem with Gitmo is it creates more terrorists than it detains by embittering and angering people, who go on to cause attacks, perpetuating the cycle of violence.

Isn't that exactly what you just said? How can you think I don't get what the consequences are if I'm saying exactly what you're saying? Except that you have this bizarre belief that somehow this cycle of violence is a recent thing rather than a constant of human existence for centuries.

I wrote such good material on the problems of cyclic violence that the United States Institute of Peace brought me in to chill with ambassadors. I talked over solutions to these problems with seasoned specialists. Don't talk to me like I haven't examined the issue.

Here I'll give you a little pointer: violence is actually way down in the world. Way down. We live in the most peaceful time in history. Read this in full before you make another post.

I've had friends killed in that very violence you're talking about. Don't pretend I don't understand the consequences on a personal level. You are a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth; you have no right to claim you get it better than someone else. As well as, maybe, but not better.

Here's another one you missed

ed: For the sake of more general argument to help elucidate why so many people on HLP think you aren't worth listening to. You correctly believe there are problems in the world, and you correctly want to fix them. Imagine, then, that you've realized something is wrong with your computer and you want to repair it.

Why do you insist on
1) not bothering to figure out when the problem began
2) not bothering to figure out what the problem actually is
3) not bothering to learn anything about how your computer actually works
4) proposing solutions like 'we should put it in better light, it will work nicer then' instead of diagnosing the issue

How can you treat the patient without understanding the disease, its time of onset, and, hell, the identity of the patient? Why are you not interested in learning that information?

[General Battuta]

Here's the link you're supposed to read: click me

[Unknown Target]

That isn't the last post addressed to you. That post is clearly addressed to Mustang. Try again.

I'll quote it for you.

What the **** are you talking about 'I don't get what the consequences are'. My argument is that the whole problem with Gitmo is it creates more terrorists than it detains by embittering and angering people, who go on to cause attacks, perpetuating the cycle of violence.

Isn't that exactly what you just said? How can you think I don't get what the consequences are if I'm saying exactly what you're saying? Except that you have this bizarre belief that somehow this cycle of violence is a recent thing rather than a constant of human existence for centuries.

I wrote such good material on the problems of cyclic violence that the United States Institute of Peace brought me in to chill with ambassadors. I talked over solutions to these problems with seasoned specialists. Don't talk to me like I haven't examined the issue.

Here I'll give you a little pointer: violence is actually way down in the world. Way down. We live in the most peaceful time in history. Read this in full before you make another post.

I've had friends killed in that very violence you're talking about. Don't pretend I don't understand the consequences on a personal level. You are a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth; you have no right to claim you get it better than someone else. As well as, maybe, but not better.

Here's another one you missed

ed: For the sake of more general argument to help elucidate why so many people on HLP think you aren't worth listening to. You correctly believe there are problems in the world, and you correctly want to fix them. Imagine, then, that you've realized something is wrong with your computer and you want to repair it.

Why do you insist on
1) not bothering to figure out when the problem began
2) not bothering to figure out what the problem actually is
3) not bothering to learn anything about how your computer actually works
4) proposing solutions like 'we should put it in better light, it will work nicer then' instead of diagnosing the issue

How can you treat the patient without understanding the disease, its time of onset, and, hell, the identity of the patient? Why are you not interested in learning that information?

I chose not to respond to those posts because you started them off with;

What the **** are you talking about

EDIT: Also, I don't really want to read an article from Harvard, to be honest with you.

[Bobboau]

Also there are more races than black and white man

I'm surprised you are taking the position that there are races, 'it's all a social construct' is the buzz these days.

[General Battuta]

Here you go

What are you talking about 'I don't get what the consequences are'. My argument is that the whole problem with Gitmo is it creates more terrorists than it detains by embittering and angering people, who go on to cause attacks, perpetuating the cycle of violence.

Isn't that exactly what you just said? How can you think I don't get what the consequences are if I'm saying exactly what you're saying? Except that you have this bizarre belief that somehow this cycle of violence is a recent thing rather than a constant of human existence for centuries.

I wrote such good material on the problems of cyclic violence that the United States Institute of Peace brought me in to chill with ambassadors. I talked over solutions to these problems with seasoned specialists. Don't talk to me like I haven't examined the issue.

Here I'll give you a little pointer: violence is actually way down in the world. Way down. We live in the most peaceful time in history. Read this in full before you make another post.

I've had friends killed in that very violence you're talking about. Don't pretend I don't understand the consequences on a personal level. You are a privileged white man living in the most pampered society on Earth; you have no right to claim you get it better than someone else. As well as, maybe, but not better.

Here's another one you missed

ed: For the sake of more general argument to help elucidate why so many people on HLP think you aren't worth listening to. You correctly believe there are problems in the world, and you correctly want to fix them. Imagine, then, that you've realized something is wrong with your computer and you want to repair it.

Why do you insist on
1) not bothering to figure out when the problem began
2) not bothering to figure out what the problem actually is
3) not bothering to learn anything about how your computer actually works
4) proposing solutions like 'we should put it in better light, it will work nicer then' instead of diagnosing the issue

How can you treat the patient without understanding the disease, its time of onset, and, hell, the identity of the patient? Why are you not interested in learning that information?

Also there are more races than black and white man

I'm surprised you are taking the position that there are races, 'it's all a social construct' is the buzz these days.

Biologically there are no races, they don't exist.

[Unknown Target]

I'm also not treating you like you haven't examined the issue - that's how you're treating me. I'm treating you like an equal, instead of an "expert" like everyone seems to be these days.

[General Battuta]

Then why would you claim that I 'don't get it' when I'm making precisely the same argument you did, only with more empirical evidence, more visceral reasons to understand the cycle of violence, and more apparently a better grasp of the actual situation?

What basis did you have for that claim?

Do you believe that violence is increasing or decreasing in the historical scheme of things?

[Unknown Target]

Then why would you claim that I 'don't get it'

Because "it" is what I'm saying.