Another quiz for conservatives/liberals. Iraq policy for suspected insurgents.

[RandomGuy]

You are placed in charge of a massive prison in Iraq with approximately 30,000 detainees who have been picked up in sweeps by American and Iraqi forces, and who are suspected of insurgent activity of varying degrees.
Many have been held for many months, none have had any formal hearing or trial. Often, there is little hard evidence of their involvement with the insurgency, other than the judgement of the troops that originally detained them.

Which option for running the prison do you choose, in order to best fight the insurgency in Iraq? Pick the one you feel is the best option, and elaborate about why you do or do not agree with the description.


A. Continue keeping them here for as long as possible. Don't worry about trials or hearings. We might not have solid evidence of what they did, but the judgement of our troops is good enough to keep them all together in one place and this keeps them from getting out and joining the insurgency. Treat them all as the criminals they are.

B. Attempt to give them hearings by a tribunal to review the evidence against them. Release anybody and everybody who doesn't have a solid case against them. Organize vocational and educational classes like carpentry, welding, English, Qu'ranic studies, civics, etc. Once they get out, organize "parole" hearings that offer them "stipends" equivalent to what Al Qaeda might pay them to keep them out of trouble.

C. Some other option. Be sure to spell out in detail the what and why of your choice.

[spurster]

I picked Option 2, but I would add the following details.

1. Hold them for 6 months or so while you figure out whether there is a solid case or not.

2. Treat them humanely. Show them that Americans are not torture-happy maniacs.

3. Ditch the stipends. Probably ditch the re-education part, too.

[RandomGuy]

I picked Option 2, but I would add the following details.

1. Hold them for 6 months or so while you figure out whether there is a solid case or not.

2. Treat them humanely. Show them that Americans are not torture-happy maniacs.

3. Ditch the stipends. Probably ditch the re-education part, too.

Thank you for your answer.

I will provide some background to the question in a few days. It is an interesting study in counter-insurgency.

My hope is to educate a little bit here and there. Better information=better policy.

[spurster]

You must have known this article was coming.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/world/asia/17detain.html

U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan
By ERIC SCHMITT and TIM GOLDEN
Published: May 17, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come.

...

[ChumpDumper]

Where is the "pay them several hundred thousand dollars a month to not kill us" option?

[RandomGuy]

You must have known this article was coming.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/world/asia/17detain.html

U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan
By ERIC SCHMITT and TIM GOLDEN
Published: May 17, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come.

...

Not really. The basis of this quiz was another report I heard on an Iraqi prison. They interviewed the new commander about what he was doing and going to be doing.

I will give this a few days, and see if anybody else will venture an answer.

I think it is an interesting question, but sadly it doesn't seem to be as interesting as gay marriage. Maybe I should re-do the thread and put "gay marriage" in the title. ;)

[clambake]

Where is the "pay them several hundred thousand dollars a month to not kill us" option?

no shit. the reality has to be on the plate.

[Extra Stout]

Where is the "torture them for laughs" option?

[RandomGuy]

Where is the "pay them several hundred thousand dollars a month to not kill us" option?

That is actually part of "B", in the form of the stipends.

[clambake]

That is actually part of "B", in the form of the stipends.

so, you already like all these Bush appeasements?

[RandomGuy]

so, you already like all these Bush appeasements [in the form of stipends to former detainees]?

I have an opinion, but will not express it for a while, in order to give people a chance to weigh in without tipping anything one way or another.

I have noticed that only one guy has really stepped up and offered any explanation, and only three votes have been made.

Perhaps I will send a message to a few people on both sides to ask for specific comments.

I think that the answer to this question has rather important implications for the wider war on terror.

[ChumpDumper]

That is actually part of "B", in the form of the stipends.But that's being done without arresting them in the first place.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Option C

If we catch them in the act we should hold them indefinitely. They are truly prisoners of war and should be held until hostilities are over. If you try and kill our guys you deserve to lose your freedom until all of your guys are dead. If we don't have anything to tie them to hostilities how can you keep them indefinitely?

[whottt]

My hope is to educate a little bit here and there. Better information=better policy.

:lmao





I have an opinion, but will not express it for a while, in order to give people a chance to weigh in without tipping anything one way or another.



I'm literally on pins and needles...for the life of me, I just don't have a clue which way your opinion would slant...


Please...the suspense is too much.


I don't know what's funnier...the fact that you think everyone else will view you as an unbiased opininion...or the fact that you consider yourself to be one.

The delusion is hilarious :lmao

[whottt]

If they wearing any type of identifiable uniform, armband, headgear, insignia, that marks them as an enemy combatant, then of course you treat them as you would a POW according to the terms of the Geneva Convention.


If they aren't wearing any sort of indetifiable marking to mark them as an enemy combatant, they are either a terrorist, or a civillian...so you would hold a tribunal to determine which is which(assuming of course they don't offer up a confession willingly and of their own free will).

If they are found to be an innocent civillian you let them go of course...and if they aren't...if they confess willingly, dare I say proudly...if they are found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt...


Well then they are a spy, and as with all spies and the way they are treated by all governments, they simply don't exist...so it doesn't really matter what happens to them after that.


If they are an individual who has encouraged, drugged, coerced, bribed, or used any other method of persuasion to get someone to strap a bomb to themself and deliberately target, endanger, or intimidate civillians...or used any other form of civillian intimidation/coersion tactic...or deliberately marked or used civillian buildings so as to deliberately put civillians at risk...


Let's just make a long story short and leave out all the fun details of the journey...and let's just say pigfeed. You might let one of them go on occasion just so they can tell of what they've seen...


If they weren't doing any of those things and were engaged in attacks on military targets, albeit without any indentifiable markings...well you exectute them...and since you are going to execute them, you might as well torture them to gain information first.



Basically...if they weren't wearing anything to identify themself as an enemy combatant and were attempting to pass themself off as a civillian so they could engage in warfare against a uniformed and marked military and or civillians populations or targets....they die. And they die badly.


They aren't mere criminals in that case you see, they aren't criminals at all in that case you see, what they are is military, unmarkedm and engaged in warfare mass, death...and they are too dangerous to be returned to the civillian population. They also aren't POWs as I interpret the Geneva Convention's definition, due to the fact that they wear no identifiable markings to identify them as military.


What they are, are creatures that don't belong on this planet as they abide by no known laws of behavior or rules of conduct of any military, yet they have the capcity to deal death at the military level...they need to be gone from this planet.

[RandomGuy]

I'm literally on pins and needles...for the life of me, I just don't have a clue which way your opinion would slant...


Please...the suspense is too much.


I don't know what's funnier...the fact that you think everyone else will view you as an unbiased opininion...or the fact that you consider yourself to be one.

The delusion is hilarious :lmao

I never said I was unbiased here. I have a definite opinion and favor a definite choice in the poll. I can even tell you what the real commander of said prison camp is doing, and if it is effective or not.

BUT

I can set that aside and fairly represent different viewpoints for an original post to kick off a worthwhile discussion.

This is important because the answer to this has wider implications for the "war" on terror.

[Ignignokt]

Why do liberals assume all terrorist caught in battlefields are harmless?

[RandomGuy]

If they wearing any type of identifiable uniform, armband, headgear, insignia, that marks them as an enemy combatant, then of course you treat them as you would a POW according to the terms of the Geneva Convention.


If they aren't wearing any sort of indetifiable marking to mark them as an enemy combatant, they are either a terrorist, or a civillian...so you would hold a tribunal to determine which is which(assuming of course they don't offer up a confession willingly and of their own free will).

If they are found to be an innocent civillian you let them go of course...and if they aren't...if they confess willingly, dare I say proudly...if they are found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt...


Well then they are a spy, and as with all spies and the way they are treated by all governments, they simply don't exist...so it doesn't really matter what happens to them after that.


If they are an individual who has encouraged, drugged, coerced, bribed, or used any other method of persuasion to get someone to strap a bomb to themself and deliberately target, endanger, or intimidate civillians...or used any other form of civillian intimidation/coersion tactic...or deliberately marked or used civillian buildings so as to deliberately put civillians at risk...


Let's just make a long story short and leave out all the fun details of the journey...and let's just say pigfeed. You might let one of them go on occasion just so they can tell of what they've seen...


If they weren't doing any of those things and were engaged in attacks on military targets, albeit without any indentifiable markings...well you exectute them...and since you are going to execute them, you might as well torture them to gain information first.



Basically...if they weren't wearing anything to identify themself as an enemy combatant and were attempting to pass themself off as a civillian so they could engage in warfare against a uniformed and marked military and or civillians populations or targets....they die. And they die badly.


They aren't mere criminals in that case you see, they aren't criminals at all in that case you see, what they are is military, unmarkedm and engaged in warfare mass, death...and they are too dangerous to be returned to the civillian population. They also aren't POWs as I interpret the Geneva Convention's definition, due to the fact that they wear no identifiable markings to identify them as military.


What they are, are creatures that don't belong on this planet as they abide by no known laws of behavior or rules of conduct of any military, yet they have the capcity to deal death at the military level...they need to be gone from this planet.

Nut up and take your pick then. A, B, or C. I think this qualifies as "C", but leave that to you.

[Ignignokt]

Option C

If we catch them in the act we should hold them indefinitely. They are truly prisoners of war and should be held until hostilities are over. If you try and kill our guys you deserve to lose your freedom until all of your guys are dead. If we don't have anything to tie them to hostilities how can you keep them indefinitely?

Except they're not soldiers nor do they pertain to any govt. Do you know what the geneva convention is? it's an agreement between govt's to be fair, and somewhat civil.

You need the other side to fullfill their end of the contract.

Would you enter a contract where only you are the one holding up the agreement?

No!

And that's why liberals are full of shit.

[RandomGuy]

Except they're not soldiers nor do they pertain to any govt. Do you know what the geneva convention is? it's an agreement between govt's to be fair, and somewhat civil.

You need the other side to fullfill their end of the contract.

Would you enter a contract where only you are the one holding up the agreement?

No!

And that's why liberals are full of shit.

Then cast your vote, and take a pick. Less talk, more action.

[Ignignokt]

Then cast your vote, and take a pick. Less talk, more action.

You're right theres nothing to talk about. You're full of shit, and you've been exposed. Go pull the lever for your messiah, instead of facing reality.

[RandomGuy]

You're right theres nothing to talk about. You're full of shit, and you've been exposed. Go pull the lever for your messiah, instead of facing reality.
:sleep

Tits or gtfo

Present a solution, pick an option. It's not hard...

[clambake]

i guess these captured are the ones we haven't paid yet.

if we stop appeas...uh paying them, they'll be easier to find.

[RandomGuy]

Why do liberals assume all terrorist caught in battlefields are harmless?

Why do conservatives assume that all people caught on battlefields are terrorists?

[RandomGuy]

Link (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18575320)


All Things Considered, January 31, 2008 · The U.S. military is trying to improve conditions for the nearly 20,000 inmates it's holding at Camp Bucca, a prison camp in the desert of far-southern Iraq.

U.S. commanders see the effort as part of the counterinsurgency — an opportunity to win over the most disaffected Iraqis and the people closest to them. One aspect they are trying to improve is the family visitation program.

The surroundings in the family waiting room at Camp Bucca aren't fancy, but they are at least as good as anything the Americans there have for themselves. The room is crowded, mostly with women and children. The women's flowing garments drape the wooden benches in black.

Col. James Brown, Camp Bucca's outgoing commander, is proud of the waiting area, and he wants to make it even better.

"We want to bring them here, treat them like royalty, make them know how welcome they are. And that's one of the comments that families will make is to say, 'I don't get treated this well anywhere else, but I get treated this well here,'" he says.

Brown says he wants Camp Bucca to reflect the American values of fairness and generosity. Zack, the Iraqi cultural adviser at the waiting area, introduces one example — the wife of a detainee.

She is holding her son, an 18-month-old boy with a hole in his heart.

"You see the face is blue, completely. And before 24 months, if he gets the surgery, he had opportunity to live. After that, it will be too late," the cultural adviser says.

Brown explains that one of the doctors who came to assess prisoner health at the camp happened to be a pediatric cardiologist.

"And she said, 'Well, this is easy. I've already got six babies that I've gotten medical care for already, and we can do this again,'" he says.

Brown says his team has arranged to get the family to Jordan, where the surgery will be performed.

As much as Brown strives to improve the family experience at the camp, there are external factors that he can't do much about.

Zahra Mahdi has visited Camp Bucca twice to see her husband.

"We suffered a lot on our trip down to Basra," she says. "My mother-in-law is an old woman. She's sick, and she suffered a lot just to see her son."

Mahdi lives in the Baghdad slum called Sadr City with her five children. She and her mother-in-law took the 10-hour bus ride down to Camp Bucca in the stifling heat of summer, only to find that she was not on the list of those authorized to see her husband.

"On my first visit, I took all my children with me, but they did not allow me to see him," she says. "They only let the kids inside... I started to scream, cry and beat my head because I had gone through so much to get there."

Mahdi didn't know that the Red Cross pays the expenses of families who visit the detainees, so she paid the costs of bus fare, food and three days in a cheap hotel out of her own pocket.

Another problem is that security measures the U.S. military regards as normal and necessary are frightening and humiliating for Muslim women.

"They stripped me of my scarf and searched my hair," says Mahdi's mother-in-law, Ameen. "I didn't know how to stand in the screening machine. I was sick, but they forced me to stand inside that machine."

The place where visitors get to meet their loved ones is a white-walled room with a partition, through which inmates and their families can talk.

"We allow [the] children to cross the line, and dads can hold their kids. We do allow them, you know, contact hugs," Brown says.

Zahra Mahdi did get to see her husband on her last visit, just three months ago. She doesn't remember the pleasant amenities so much as the shortness of the visit.

"We had to go through all this, just to see him for two hours. Time passed so quickly, and afterwards they ordered us out," she says.

Brown wants the visits to transform the families' view of Americans, but that's not what Mahdi remembers.

"We were trembling all the time, so afraid of the Americans," she says. "The Americans just yelled at us, and we could not understand what they were saying."

Brig. Gen. Robert Hipwell, who is taking over as commander of Camp Bucca, says he's just as committed to making the visitation program as successful as it can be. But like Brown, he will face the difficulties of running a volatile detention camp and the cultural barriers between Iraqis and Americans.

It may be that no amount of good will and hard work can make the experience a happy one.

[RandomGuy]

U.S. Offers Training, Pay as It Frees Iraqi Detainees (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90506939)


Morning Edition, May 16, 2008 · The U.S. military is now releasing more Iraqi detainees in Iraq than it is bringing in. That's because it has found that most of those detained are not dangerous criminals or extremists, but young, poorly educated men without jobs who accepted money from al-Qaida in Iraq to serve as lookouts, or to build or plant roadside bombs.

Ala'a Mezher seems an unlikely insurgent. A slight 17-year-old with a shy smile, a head full of black curls, he wears a clean, white T-shirt and trendy camouflage pants; a woven bracelet on his thin wrist.

He has just emerged from nine months in the American detention center at Camp Cropper, on the outskirts of Baghdad.

"They picked me up from the street. They told me that they will interrogate me and will release me afterward," he says.

Ala'a has come home to the farming area of Arab Jabour, once a hotbed for al-Qaida in Iraq.

Ala'a sits in the office of Mustafa Shabib al-Jabouri, a former Sunni general under Saddam Hussein who now runs the local chapter of the Sons of Iraq — the U.S.-paid para-military that helps American and Iraqi forces keep the peace.

Mustafa says al-Qaida was able to turn young people like Ala'a, who is his nephew.

"Those are our sons, and mistakes have been made. Now, God willing, there will be no more problems," al-Jabouri says.

Converting an Insurgent Training Ground

Few Americans in Iraq know of those problems better than Maj. Gen. Doug Stone. For the past year, he has been running the American detention facilities of Camp Cropper, and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. Before he came here, the detention facilities had become an insurgent training ground.

"Without exception, the reports that came out during those days that said that this was a, quote — their words not mine — 'Jihadist University' were accurate," Stone says.

That means al-Qaida leaders were organizing in this prison, teaching bomb-making skills, holding court and handing out harsh punishments, like eye gouging, Stone says.

Stone quickly realized more and more detainees — most of them young, semi-literate and unemployed, like Ala'a — were being warehoused by the Americans, radicalized by hard-core al-Qaida militants, making the insurgency even worse.

If the Americans had kept on that course, there'd be 50,000 Iraqis behind bars now, Stone says — double the current number.

"Now you've got a bunch of moderates who really shouldn't be in there in the first place, and I can hold them forever but eventually they're going to say, 'Why are you holding me? What's the fairness in this?' And eventually they'll say something about America we don't want to hear. They'll say 'You're not here to better the population. You're here to conquer us and you're taking me hostage.' "

Judgment In, Judgment Out

So, he worked to separate the most extreme inmates from the hangers-on.

Stone set up classes in everything from civics and the Quran, to welding and woodworking. Ala'a took some English classes.

Stone also created what he calls the "central nervous system" of his new plan: a three-member military review board that would hear the case of each detainee.

"We determine by judgment, really. It's judgment that got them into detention and it has to be judgment that gets them out," he says.

On a recent afternoon at Camp Cropper, inmates in yellow prison garb cluster in small groups across the yard, a checkerboard of long brick houses behind chain-link topped with razor wire. Some spread out their clothes to dry on the concrete, others play ping pong; still others bow their heads in prayer as Iraqi guards march past.

Shuffling through the yard is a handcuffed 18-year-old from Baghdad's Zafraniyah neighborhood accused of working with insurgents. He has just been ordered released by a review board that includes Sgt. 1st Class Marcus Richard.

"There was no hard evidence. Is he a threat? No. Could he be? Yeah, roger, anybody can. ... This kid has a chance, and I'd like to give him that opportunity to make himself to be a better citizen of Iraq," Richard says.

Support from the Top

Roughly 50 detainees each day are set free. That's twice the number coming in. Stone estimates that two-thirds of his 23,000 detainees are not a danger and can be released.

That does not sit well, Stone admits, with all American commanders in Iraq.

"As a general rule of thumb, divisions don't want anyone let back out. ... I don't blame them. I don't fault them. But I do understand. ... They don't like detainees to ever come back," Stone says.

But he says the senior officers are coming around, partly because the top commander, Gen. David Petraeus, is supportive — and the program appears to be showing results. Of the 8,000 detainees released under Stone's program, just two dozen have landed back in detention.

"I think that right now the lower re-internment rate has got them encouraged," Stone says.

Financial Incentive

But now Stone has a new worry. Will these former inmates find themselves in the same economic predicament that helped get them here in the first place?

Ala'a Mezher in Arab Jabour says there is no work here. He has had just a few construction jobs.

So, Stone has another plan. It's something like a paid visit to a parole officer for these at-risk young people, until the local economy can put them to work. Total cost? About $10 million.

"We're going to monitor them, so every month for six months, they're going to come back, they're going to get a stipend," he says.

That stipend will be about $200 each month. Roughly what al-Qaida in Iraq was paying them.

[RandomGuy]

Except they're not soldiers nor do they pertain to any govt. Do you know what the geneva convention is? it's an agreement between govt's to be fair, and somewhat civil.

You need the other side to fullfill their end of the contract.

Would you enter a contract where only you are the one holding up the agreement?

No!

And that's why liberals are full of shit.

Would you like fries with your fail?

[RandomGuy]

This thread seemed relevant.

The "conservative" viewpoint as represented by whottt and Ignignokt pretty much leads to not just a failure to solve the problem, but to actually making the problem much worse.

This "liberal" solution, that of actually treating people like human beings with rights and stuff, actually works.

Surprise!!!

[SnakeBoy]

My hope is to educate a little bit here and there. Better information=better policy.

I can see how posting on a sports forum will result in better US foriegn policy. Keep up the good work. :lmao

[Winehole23]

C. We're out in 2-3 years, supposedly. Why should we continue to run Iraqi prisons? Is that really our job? Maybe we should let Iraq start managing their own messes, now that they're acting like they're in charge. They need the practice.

For guys too dangerous to release there's always Diego Garcia, not that I approve, but who's gonna stop us?

[Nbadan]

I can see how posting on a sports forum will result in better US foriegn policy. Keep up the good work. :lmao

Some in the GOP still haven't learned the power of the internets.....that's why they will continue to become the party of marginality....