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I'm not sure where this idea of a "room full" of reporters comes from. The initial Afghanistan leaks were only shared with 3 papers and the quote suggests they were seated with Assange together at a single table. It is consistent with his other quote in a different paper where he refers to the informants as "criminals".

But whatever. People can believe or not, but actions speak louder than words and Assange's actions clearly say he's more than willing to risk people getting killed over what he does. That's enough for me.

Couldn't agree more..the simple fact that he did, indeed, release the names, meant he risked it..and either knowingly, which is quite bad, or without realizing the risk to them, which may make him less bad, but would make him a total idiot. Not sure which one I would rather him be haha.

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I really this is wasted. Assange is a warped tit, Fine I have no problem with saying that, and I do not think it has any bearing on Wikileaks.

So lets look at the more important part. Should Wikileaks redact names as there might be an element of risk to those so named. In the spirit of starting from an extreme position:

I here there is a guy running Iraq, ******, who kills his own people in horrible ways.

I understand that ******** has billions in a Barclay Bank in the Cayman Island Branch number **-**-** Ac ***********

Now how dangerous is Wikileaks. How useful is the information? Does it make evil men cringe? I doubt it. So do we start censoring the information so that only information that cannot possibly lead to someones death is redacted. But that requires surely some divine guidance as ******* with the Cayman account may have some very unhappy people quite motivated to kill him now they realise where the loot went.

It also means taking a side. Fron an Iraqui point of view people informing to the US may well be criminals. Is the West the arbiter of what is right or wrong. After all some of those informers could be stitching up neighbours because they want their land, or very possibly because they get paid to deliver names.*

And by-the-by it seems a trifle coy to worry about informers dying when tens of thousands have been killed by countries who do not believe in the death penalty even IF guilty.

*

Counterinsurgency efforts are also shown as being at the mercy of local contacts peddling identical "junk" tips around various intelligence officials, with the effectiveness of the intelligence effort being quantified by some senior officers solely in terms of the amount of "tip money" disbursed to sources.

And lets get it into proportion:

Catalyzed Reportage (more: news, blogs, twitter)

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Well..I definitely understand your argument..but the very basic part seems flawed... of course from a criminal's mindset...the "other guys" are the REAL criminals. However, the information provided by the informants must be first applied to the analysis...what is this information? In general, it has been the location of TERRORISTS, sometimes the PLANS of TERRORISTS, sometimes supply movements to TERRORISTS. Now, forgive my association of someone who would then, by inference, be HELPING TERRORISTS, by providing them with the names of civilians who are trying to get rid of the TERRORISTS, as essentially a TERRORIST AIDE himself (or, itself, if referencing wikileaks rather than Assange)

The people fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are not "fighting for freedom" they are fighting for a religious extremist viewpoint, that, ironically were it a "Christian" extremist viewpoint, I can imagine likely this argument would never even be discussed, as the attitude probably would be "kill the right wing idiots" In Iraq...most of the enemy we fought were Shia Islamic fighters, often armed and even coming from Iran..not fighting for any "Iraqi"freedom whatsoever...or Sunni minority fighters who were fighting, not for Iraqi freedom, but to return their minority to the power it held under Saddam. Neither of these sides were freedom fighters, so those outside who never bother to hear anything except the Wikileaks and its ilk, get the wrong idea automatically of "informants"...the "informants" were simply trying to help their country return to its place, and live in peace..if anything at all, the "informants" came closest to being the "freedom fighting heroes" role that everyone outside assigns to the terrorists in the other two groups, who daily attacked civilians in an attempt to terrorize them into NOT supporting the new Iraqi govt..hence the definition of terrorists.

In Afghanistan, we have the deposed Taliban along with foreign al qaeda fighters as the enemy..again, neither one fighting for "Afghan freedom"..the Taliban fighting to return to power, along with return to Sharia law,prohibiting women from school, execution of gays, execution of anyone professing a belief publicly other than Islam, etc. This is NOT a freedom fighter, either..and again, the "informants" so casually disregarded by Assange, and those defending him, were, again, simply people in MOST cases, trying to get their country put back together..if a terrorist group is hiding in your village, and you want them to leave, you tell ISAF, ANA, etc..since going to them and asking them to leave, results in your death...unfortunately for them, a person totally devoid of a conscience can either ignorantly without malice, or full of malice, your pick...turn their names in to the Taliban. Again, the "freedom fighters" are those daring to fight against the Taliban, they are not the Taliban, who, again target their own supposed people, every day, non stop...It is what I meant by saying earlier that were Assange not a coward, he would go to the field, and see his thought process regarding these wars, proven wrong.

As a last point, the link above regarding "US detainee interrogation.."...Waterboarding is not valid torture, and even as such, has only been conducted a handful of times, where almost everyone in the deployed US military has undergone this process in training.

I would be more apt to consider as torture, what the other side does to their prisoners, most of whom turn up,headless,eventually. One can only assume that they are, perhaps, brain eating zombies.....

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I really this is wasted. Assange is a warped tit, Fine I have no problem with saying that, and I do not think it has any bearing on Wikileaks.

So lets look at the more important part. Should Wikileaks redact names as there might be an element of risk to those so named. In the spirit of starting from an extreme position:

I here there is a guy running Iraq, ******, who kills his own people in horrible ways.

I understand that ******** has billions in a Barclay Bank in the Cayman Island Branch number **-**-** Ac ***********

Depends on whether the people who's names are redacted have done something criminal, and whether that possible criminal act would justify death.

Now how dangerous is Wikileaks. How useful is the information? Does it make evil men cringe? I doubt it. So do we start censoring the information so that only information that cannot possibly lead to someones death is redacted. But that requires surely some divine guidance as ******* with the Cayman account may have some very unhappy people quite motivated to kill him now they realise where the loot went.

I think a reasonable person can make judgments on such things. People living in a war zone where one side has a documented history of killing informants is in a very different category than someone living in New York who may have committed tax evasion or bank fraud.

It also means taking a side. Fron an Iraqui point of view people informing to the US may well be criminals. Is the West the arbiter of what is right or wrong. After all some of those informers could be stitching up neighbours because they want their land, or very possibly because they get paid to deliver names.*

Yes, it does mean taking a side! Thank you. Is there a problem with that? I do in fact support my own country's armed forces in whatever conflict they may be engaged in. That includes conflicts that I would have preferred they never to have become involved in, such as Iraq. They didn't make the decision to go there.

As for the informants, no, the West is not the arbiter of right and wrong but after the fall of Saddam their soldiers were fighting on the side of the internationally recognized government of that country and therefore I find it highly unlikely that informants aiding them would have been breaking the laws in that country. Same in Afghanistan.

It is true that some informants have deliberately passed false information in order to implicate rivals, but they are a minority. For the most part such information has been very helpful, and in fact anyone who is at all familiar with counter-insurgency operations knows that the cooperation of the local population is a critical element in the success or failure of such operations.

My own brother's life was perhaps saved in Iraq by one such informant who approached their convoy one day to warn of a sniper ahead. I don't expect you to care whether or not my brother gets his head blown off, or for any other Yankee imperialist dog for that matter. But I note that you do live in the country that has the second largest Western contingent of troops fighting in Afghanistan, and did also in Iraq.

As for Wikileaks in general, I'm not going to say that nothing they have done is worthwhile, just that they have been reckless at best, malicious at worst, in some of their releases.

And by-the-by it seems a trifle coy to worry about informers dying when tens of thousands have been killed by countries who do not believe in the death penalty even IF guilty.

I'm not sure what to make of this. But if you mean we should not care about any of them, well, you go right ahead with that.

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Where did I claim it was a proven fact? I didn't. You just made that up. I'm quite happy to let people make their own judgment on its veracity, and quite happy to let you keep tripping over your own strawman arguments.

Reference to your post numbered 54 in this thread provides the evidence that this is exactly the view you were trying to impart when you posted this exact sentence..."Well, they're informants so, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it."

Note the quotation marks in your sentence which I have highlighted. Use of quotation marks shows that you were deliberatly trying to present this statement as if Julian Assagne had said those exact words and that there was no denying it. And before you try and argue that you meant the quatation marks to mean that it was simply quoted from the linked article I think it's clear to any fair minded person what you were really trying to achieve. Character assasination by presenting a sentence as if it was directly from the targeted persons mouth.

Regards

KR

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Mother of god. :rolleyes: Why am I not surprised?

Do you realize that was a cut and paste from the article I linked to?! That wasn't even my words. The reason they were placed in quotation marks is because the original article I cut and pasted them from had them in quotation marks, hence the quotation marks were cut and pasted along with the rest! :confused:

For me to remove the quotation marks would be to misrepresent the article.

People cut and paste snippets of text out of larger articles all the time so readers don't have to wade through the full article to find the relevant part if they don't won't to. People do this all the freakin' time! You've been posting on this board for a decade and you need this explained to you?

This is why when I posted the links to the anti-semitism articles I was sure to make the normally unnecessary disclaimer that I cannot personally vouch for their absolute accuracy. I addressed that disclaimer specifically to you because you are the only person who would take the mere posting of those links as claims to them being the word of god, and use that as a launch board into another insulting attack on my "critical thinking skills" or whatever the KR Strawman of the Day is.

Ugh.

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As a last point, the link above regarding "US detainee interrogation.."...Waterboarding is not valid torture, and even as such, has only been conducted a handful of times, where almost everyone in the deployed US military has undergone this process in training.

Must remember not to accidentally abduct people and send them to countries who are known to torture prisoners. : )

Not making any moral point!.

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VAB-

You make fair points regarding informants. I have to admit it is the only part of Wkileaks where I have ambivalent feelings.

You do however make the Government of Iraq sound very correct. Some might have viewed Quislings's government as official. Or what about Vichy France. Were the true patriots informing on the Resistance?

Perhaps Wikileaks makes it clear to informants that real names should be avoided. I would be pretty certain MI5 informants in N.Ireland would not have their real names recorded but only be known to a few individuals at most.

In the specific example you give I think it a heroic deed. And I appreciate it when people take sides like that for "our" guys.

However have I missed anything that tells me how many informers were named, how many were killed. How closely where they identified? Or is this horror of named names hyped up to discredit Wikileaks more than it is an actual danger to informers. Where are the figures?

If it were not run directly by an honest Western officers I suspect some would disappear, not because they ever got shot but simply handlers were pocketing back-handers from friends , or they were inventing them. Seems always to happen

As sectarian violence smolders in their country, Iraqis with names that are easily recognized as Sunni Arab are changing their names in the hope of avoiding violence. Some Shiites are also adopting neutral-sounding Arabic names as a means of escaping scrutiny.

The fall of Saddam Hussein brought a rush of men — many of them named after Saddam or his sons — to government offices, applying to have their names changed. But now it's those with names that are clearly Shiite or clearly Sunni who are looking to have their names changed to something more neutral.

Handed down by tribal tradition, the names are an easy way to mark sectarian differences. Abu Showkat, a registry clerk at the Iraqi nationality and passports office, says some of the more common names are Omar, Abu Beker, Othman, Abdul Hussein, and Ali.

The names come from men involved in the 7th century battle over who would succeed the Prophet Mohammed, a dispute that led to the schism between Sunnis and Shiites. The Shiites believe that Ali, Mohammed's cousin or son-in-law, was his rightful heir, whereas the Sunnis believe the successor should be appointed by a council. Abu Bakr was the first appointed caliph, or successor, and Omar was the second. So today, names like Omar are typically Sunni, while Ali is typically Shiite.

Men like Omar al Tikriti, who says the de-Baathification drive has made it difficult for him to find work, say they hear stories about groups of massacred men all having the same name.

"Lately we've witnessed a phenomenon where everyone who bears the name of Omar is being killed," al Tikriti said.

He cited a television report on 16 men, all named Omar, who had been killed.

"My cousin works at the hospital in Medical City," al Tikriti said. "And he confirmed that the 16 were brought to the morgue in one day, and all of them were called Omar."

http://names.mongabay.com/most_common_surnames.htm

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@ dieseltaylor.

Thanks for all those links dt. I found this one... Guantanamo's Immediate Reaction Force still terrorizing detainees

particularly disturbing. If true, it's hard to see how the treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo is any less despicable than the treatment of prisoners by the Gestapo in WWII or the Stasi after the war.

I always thought that the bastion of democracy held itself to far loftier standards?

Regards

KR

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Thats pretty horrific. One know in warfare, in the heat of the moment humans can be both brutal and irrational. Doing it in cold-blood away from the battlefield is a different kettle of fish.

What makes me feel slightly gutted is that we have prisoners in the UK and US who committed and convicted of terrible terrible crimes but they are treated like normal human beings whereas these guys are essentially held on suspicion. And they are out of play and no danger.

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VAB-

You do however make the Government of Iraq sound very correct. Some might have viewed Quislings's government as official. Or what about Vichy France. Were the true patriots informing on the Resistance?

That would be subjective. I was referring to legality. Whether the Iraqi government was "correct" I will let you decide, but it was the Iraqi government and was recognized as such by the UN.

However have I missed anything that tells me how many informers were named, how many were killed. How closely where they identified? Or is this horror of named names hyped up to discredit Wikileaks more than it is an actual danger to informers. Where are the figures?

As I posted earlier, the large majority of Afghan informants named were rounded up and taken to US bases for protection. A small number have not been found and presumably their fates are unknown. As for exact numbers, I don't have any.

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Must remember not to accidentally abduct people and send them to countries who are known to torture prisoners. : )

Not making any moral point!.

From a strictly battlefield perspective, you do understand that the extra "rules" that this implies to taking of prisoners, usually makes it more convenient for soldiers to simply shoot the enemy rather than accept surrender, do you not? And before simply implying how awful that would be, it has been done quite often in the history of warfare. If we must essentially give rights to captured enemy (which, I agree, we must) then it makes it more and more possible that in the heat of battle, many units will simply "not see" a surrender, and fire on the enemy attempting to do so, since KIA enemy are much less hassle than POW enemy who must be essentially coddled, fed, and cared for.

All I am saying is that we do not have to keep ADDING FURTHER rules on how we treat the enemy. The enemy at Guantanamo, for example, are treated amazingly better than civilian prisoners already.

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As for exact numbers, I don't have any.

The Pentagon do. The exact number they use is zero (0).

We can compare that to the numbers of people known to have actually been killed and injured in the various invasions and their mismanaged aftermaths if you like? Which is, of course, the whole point of Wikileaks.

Hmm, lets see. Made up imaginary fears on the one hand vs. revealing embarassing information on the other. Hmmm. Tough choice :rolleyes:

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The Pentagon do. The exact number they use is zero (0).

Absence of evidence...

According to the officials, the U.S. military rounded up many of those named and brought them into their bases for protection. But, according to one military official, "We didn't get them all." Military officials tell NBC News a small number of them still have not been found.

Link

Emphasis added. Zero (0) that we know about is not necessarily the same as zero (0).

If the number was greater than zero (0), would you even care?

We can compare that to the numbers of people known to have actually been killed and injured in the various invasions and their mismanaged aftermaths if you like? Which is, of course, the whole point of Wikileaks.

Hmm, lets see. Made up imaginary fears on the one hand vs. revealing embarassing information on the other. Hmmm. Tough choice :rolleyes:

So you do not think that the release of the Afghan logs may make Afghans less likely to cooperate with NATO forces in Afghanistan i.e. that is an imaginary fear?

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Absence of evidence ... Zero (0) that we know about is not necessarily the same as zero (0).

Sure. You can't prove a negative, it's logically impossible. But when you have a fistful of evidence and a fistful of nothing, why would you go with the nothing?

If the number was greater than zero (0), would you even care?

Is this another 'abscence of evidence' question? I'll phrase my response like this: probably more than you appear to care about the 100,000+ that actually have been killed.

So you do not think that the release of the Afghan logs may make Afghans less likely to cooperate with NATO forces in Afghanistan i.e. that is an imaginary fear?

Probably less, but whose fault is that? It's not really Wikileaks, is it. That's like blaming the woman for a rape because she complained about it. If the stupid b!tch had just kept her damned yap shut, nobody would have to go to prison :rolleyes:

By the by; stop being so self centred. Wikileaks are doing some great work, and not just in the US. They affected the election in Spain in a good way, and they shedding light on things govts all over the world would probably ratehr not have to explain, including here. That's a Good Thing[tm].

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Sure. You can't prove a negative, it's logically impossible.

Actually given a limited enough environment you can prove a negative - do I have any London underground tickets in my pocket at the moment? (do they use tickets?? dunno - pick anything else I don't have in my pocket!! :))

Nope - and I can empty my pockets to prove it...postively! :)

Now I don't know whether the situation here lends itself to that certainty or not, but in some cases it is worth bearing in mind.

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Sure. You can't prove a negative, it's logically impossible. But when you have a fistful of evidence and a fistful of nothing, why would you go with the nothing?

Is it actually necessary to have a confirmation of someone killed because of the information in the reports in order for them to have an effect on relations between NATO forces in Afghanistan and the native population? I don't think so, and judging from your comments below you don't seem to think so either.

Is this another 'abscence of evidence' question? I'll phrase my response like this: probably more than you appear to care about the 100,000+ that actually have been killed.

I don't have numbers handy, but I'm guessing you're lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together here. That would be a mistake.

Probably less, but whose fault is that? It's not really Wikileaks, is it. That's like blaming the woman for a rape because she complained about it. If the stupid b!tch had just kept her damned yap shut, nobody would have to go to prison :rolleyes:

Wikileaks is not the victim here. Of course it is not solely to blame either, but it has willingly done it's part. We can talk about lax US security procedures if you wish, but that is not the subject of this thread.

By the by; stop being so self centred. Wikileaks are doing some great work, and not just in the US. They affected the election in Spain in a good way, and they shedding light on things govts all over the world would probably ratehr not have to explain, including here. That's a Good Thing[tm].

I'm not sure what you mean by "self-centered". If by that you mean caring about my countrymen in danger, which will likely include a member of my immediate family in the future, then I make no apologies. If you mean that I am being myopic in my criticism of Wikileaks while ignoring good things they may have done, then I will reiterate that I don't contest that Wikileaks has done some real good with some of their actions, nor do I even claim that a "whistle-blower" organization like Wikileaks is an inherently bad idea. I just think they have been reckless at best, malicious at worst, in some of their actions.

And yes I do think Julian Assange is a scumbag. But that's not quite the same thing as condemning Wikileaks itself, as Daniel Domscheit-Berg would probably agree.

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"Is this another 'abscence of evidence' question? I'll phrase my response like this: probably more than you appear to care about the 100,000+ that actually have been killed. " JonS

"I don't have numbers handy, but I'm guessing you're lumping Iraq and Afghanistan together here. That would be a mistake." VAB

Documented civilian deaths from violence 99,906 – 109,149 timeline.phpLatest incidentsFeb 24: One shot dead at security checkpoint in Qayyara, south of Mosul Details Recent events Sunday 6 March: 15 killed

Basra: 8 by IED.

Mosul: 2 by gunfire, 2 bodies found.

Baghdad: 2 by gunfire.

Sinjar: 1 body.

More

Well thats Iraq, and of course only counts violent deaths so all those aborted or misshapen babies in Fallujah will not count.
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....SNIP....

All I am saying is that we do not have to keep ADDING FURTHER rules on how we treat the enemy. The enemy at Guantanamo, for example, are treated amazingly better than civilian prisoners already.

If you had read the linked article I put in my post numbered 109 in this thread you would have read of horrendous tales of abuse for prisoners in Guantanamo. Here's just a sample from the link...

Perhaps the worst abuses in the Spanish case involve Omar Deghayes, whose torture began long before he reached Guantánamo, and intensified upon his arrival.

A Libyan citizen who had lived in Britain since 1986, in the late 1990s, Deghayes was a law student when he traveled to Afghanistan, "for the simple reason that he is a Muslim and he wanted to see what it was like," according to his lawyer, Stafford Smith. While there, he met and married an Afghan woman with whom he had a son.

After 9/11, Deghayes was detained in Lahore, Pakistan, for a month, where he allegedly was subjected to "systematic beatings" and "electric shocks done with a tool that looked like a small gun."

He was then transferred to Islamabad, Pakistan,where he claims he was interrogated by both U.S. and British personnel. There, the torture continued; in a March 2005 memo written by a lawyer who later visited Deghayes at Guantánamo, he described a particularly ghoulish incident:

"One day they took me to a room that had very large snakes in glass boxes. The room was all painted black-and-white, with dim lights. They threatened to leave me there and let the snakes out with me in the room. This really got to me, as there were such sick people that they must have had this room specially made."

Deghayes was eventually moved to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he was beaten and "kept nude, as part of the process of humiliation due to his religion." U.S. personnel placed Deghayes "inside a closed box with a lock and limited air." He also described seeing U.S. guards sodomize an African prisoner and alleged guards "forced petrol and benzene up the anuses of the prisoners."

"The camp looked like the Nazi camps that I saw in films," Deghayes said.

When Deghayes finally arrived at Guantánamo in September 2002, he found himself the target of the feared IRF teams.

"The IRF team sprayed Mr. Deghayes with mace; they threw him in the air and let him fall on his face … " according to the Spanish investigation. Deghayes says he also endured a "sexual attack." In March 2004, after being "sprayed in the eyes with mace," Deghayes says authorities refused to provide him with medical attention, causing him to permanently lose sight in his right eye. Stafford Smith described the incident:

"They brought their pepper spray and held him down. They held both of his eyes open and sprayed it into his eyes and later took a towel soaked in pepper spray and rubbed it in his eyes. "Omar could not see from either eye for two weeks, but he gradually got sight back in one eye. "He's totally blind in the right eye. I can report that his right eye is all white and milky -- he can't see out of it because he has been blinded by the U.S. in Guantánamo."

In fact, Stafford Smith says his blindness was caused by a combination of the pepper spray and the fact that an IRF team member pushed his finger into Deghayes' eye.

Note:- IRF means "Immediate Reaction Force".

If this is an example of how the "enemy" in Guantanamo are treated better than civilian prisoners then I very much fear for the longevity of any civilian prisoners in that case. Note, you mention the Guantanamo prisoners as being "enemy" yet no meaningful trials have taken place to prove this allegation. It's been over 9 years in many cases and still no trials. In the meantime this "enemy" is subject to the sort of treatment we read about in the sorts of articles dieseltaylor and subsequently myself, linked to. So, if you're some poor schmoe who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time & had some Northern Alliance "freedom fighter" finger you as an "enemy" because of the substantial rewards given out for such information, you're right royally screwed.

Yep, right there is another fine example of an enlightened Western democracy at work.

Regards

KR

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With all regards KR, my unit, and I am certain other units as well, captured documents instructing these people to make these claims, were they captured. This is not a secret, and received reporting on it at the time.

Now, I am not at all saying it is guaranteed these did not happen, but there have been 0, zero, VERIFIED incidents, despite many agencies looking.

Note that I do not count a claim by an attorney as "verified"..and again it is possible, but thus far invisible.

In Guantanamo, prisoners receive 3 excellent meals per day, receive hours of "play time" in the prison yards, access to a world class library and computers, television, the most up to date movies, one of the best gym/workout facilities in the world, access to medical attention, etc...sounds a lot like a country club to me. Sure, it is not as good as "being free" although it is a better facility than many "free" people who are poor have...but then, it is a prison, and not meant to be better than being free.

With regard to your point of some innocent people there, that IS possible, and quite unfortunate...after 9-11 some people went crazy I think with some detentions...has been done in other wars before, including against Japanese Americans in WW2, and German citizens in British territories in WW2...so I am quite sure it has happened now as well.

Regards,

Ron

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