Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has an interesting commentary in today’s Kansas City Star about his recent visit to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, stressing that the detainees are bad people who are being treated well and are still generating good intelligence. He wrote: “Everything I saw is consistent with what we have learned from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ongoing oversight of operations at Gitmo: It is a tightly run ship with excellent internal, as well as external, oversight and supervision.” Roberts’ point is well-informed and -taken, especially after Sen. Dick Durbin’s ill-chosen comparison of Guantanamo to Nazi camps. But I’m curious as to whether Roberts realizes that “everything” that he, a prominent U.S. senator, saw might not be everything that goes on at this facility.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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42 Comments
Please tell us Rhonda, what is this “everything” going on at these facilities Senator Roberts didn’t see?
Don’t just insinuate it in your sly journalistic writing style.
The only reason the issue of torture is so mischaracterized and twisted in the eyes of the public is because of all the irresponsible reporting on the matter. (Not that I would ever dare say that about the honest editorial staff members at The Eagle)
Have you been there?
When you go, I will be looking forward to hearing what you seen there instead of your insinuations about what you think is happening.
Not only must we wonder if Roberts saw “everything,” we also need to remember that people often see what they want to see.
Anon,
I suppose you have been there and have information on just what exactly it is Senator Roberts did not see?
Once again, the terrorist apologists have solid innuendos to back their bald assertions.
Tell the truth, Rhonda. You’re just miffed that Roberts went to look at Gitmo for himself. You’d much prefer he get his wife a cushy job to, say, spend a week drinking sweet mint tea at the Hotel Havana to add solid “proof” of the “horrors” at Gitmo.
Oh gosh, did I mention he had a spouse? No, no , forget that.
By the way, isn’t it time for Ed to blame it all on the Israelis who (he can prove) built Cuba on a dung heap and installed Castro as their puppet 30 years ago, so it’s all their fault? Sorry, Ed, I shouldn’t steal your thunder like that.
Let me see, do I think that a well publicized tour by a politician would spring any surprise over-view on happenings at Gitmo? No, I don’t think so, any more than I think the immigration people will find illegals in businesses they raid when the raid is announced to that business beforehand. Duhhhh.
Nola,
Let me see, do I think that perhaps Senator Roberts is not the only person who has visited Gitmo?
No, I dont think so.
Has anyone else that has been there brought back evidence to show anything other than humane treatment to the prisoners?
The real issue at Gitmo isn’t torture, it’s imprisonment without trial.
When Bush is asked why these prisoners are being held without trial, he says “because they’re terrorists.”
When asked how we know they’re terrorists, he says, “Why, because they’ve been imprisoned at Guantanemo Bay. I have to protect the American people.”
If the gov’t KNOWS that they’re terrorists, the gov’t should have evidence that they can present in court to prove that. If the gov’t doesn’t, then this is a clear violation of the Constitution, and counter to everything America stands for.
Just imagine how the right-wing would be howling if they rounded up KKK or David Koresh followers like this. But because the prisoners are “not like us,” we turn a blind eye to the injustice.
Nathan -
No, I’ve not been there as I’m sure you already knew. My statement was not an attack on Robertson but was a simple observation. It would apply equally to Amnesty International. It’s just human nature that we see things through our own persepective and so we might twist something without meaning to.
Nathan – Haver your ever seen a Viet Cong suspect thrown out of a helicopter? I have. Do you think human nature has somehow changed in the last 30 years? War brings out the worst and the best of us. And it is the public who controls the warriors – Especially people like Rhonda.
Dan,
So…
I take it you dont have any evidence either?
Let’s just smack their hands, release them all, and tell them, “no more terrorizing now, you all behave yourselves.”
pssst…they’re not US citizens so they are not protected under the US constitution
NoJo–
We can agree that they are human beings, right?
I believe that the Constitution says something about inalienable rights, not US citizen rights.
I’m not for coddling terrorists, far from it. Execute the rascals if need be.
Just convict them first, like every other criminal.
A follow up–John Walker Lindh, American citizen caught with rifle in hand with Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan.
Execute him. He rode with horse thieves, he should hang with horse thieves.
But if we don’t have evidence, we don’t have evidence. We can’t hold people forever on suspicions . . .
Nathan,I don’t think any visiting dignitaries are likely to see any atrocities. That doesn’t mean they don’t happen. To know what really happens in a prison system, the system cannot know it is being observed. The same holds true for any other entity. Example: Do you suppose chronic speeders on our roads do so if the Highway Patrol is driving right next to them?I don’t think so.
Nola,
So…
You are presuming them guilty untill proven innocent?
Most, if not all, were captured trying to kill US. POW is the kindest term we can use. POWs get released only AFTER the War.
Sending them back to the War is stupid. Charging them is only valid if they have committed war crimes. Trying to kill us is not a war crime – it is ‘merely’ War!
Thanks, Joe.
If the POW’s are being treated poorly, then something must be done about it.
The problem is that being treated “poorly” by liberal standards is having your copy of the Koran flushed down a toilet…
I wonder if there would have been half the outrage if it was a Christian Bible that was supposedly flushed down a toilet…
Let’s give the POWs the same gracious treatment the terrorists give our people.
POWs can have our consitutional rights as soon as they can get them in their own countries.
Bleeding hearts who make excuses for terrorists are a danger to everyone. Just look at what the jihad hate stirred up by Britain’s mosques has done in London.
Intelligence is all about squeezing bad people until they tell all. If it didn’t produce useful results, the squeezing would stop. Nobody likes it, but that’s the way it is. Welcome to the world. Complaining about Gitmo won’t make the POWs or their treatment go away. If you don’t like it, there are better ways to make the world better and prevent this stuff. Gitmo is just a sideshow, a symptom, and a minor one at that.
Speaking of uproars about prisoners, where were all you people when Saddam was running his prisoners through trash shredders?
Obviously none of you have military experience. Torture is the poorest way to get real-time intelligence. The victim will tell you anything to get you to stop. And once somebody goes missing all plans are changed. It sounds to me as though you all started picking the wings off of bugs and now just dream about making somebody scream. You like it, but can’t find any way to justify it without it being or hiding behind American policy. That way you need not admit the truth about yourself. It’s not about war, that’s for sure.
Ed,1. If coersion didn’t work, it wouldn’t be used.2. No torture has been documented at Gitmo. Unpleasant stuff, maybe. My heart bleeds.3. The entire tenor of your last message is over the top, accusing us all of being torturers.4. Here’s what the compassionate muslim who killed the Dutchman, Theo Van Gogh, said at his trial yesterday, according to the Telegraph:
“I take complete responsibility for my actions. I acted purely in the name of my religion,” he told its three-strong panel of judges.
“I can assure you that one day, should I be set free, I would do the same, exactly the same.” . . .
Bouyeri then turned to the victim’s mother, Anneke, in the public gallery, and told her he felt nothing for her. Mrs van Gogh watched as he read out from what appeared to be a statement: “I don’t feel your pain. I have to admit that I don’t have any sympathy for you. I can’t feel for you because you’re a non-believer.”
Of course, his heartfelt compassion is so great that we should unquestionably take his sorrow as prima-face evidence that the Gitmo prisoners would never harm a flea again.
Not only that, but I’ll bet you can prove that the murderer is an Israeli in diguise.
5. Without going one inch out on a limb I can say, categorically:
Ed, you are a nut case.
What did the Zionist say after shooting Rabin dead? Idiot.
Here is Rabin’s Killer saying “He did for Religion.”
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9603/amir_verdict/
Being “Nuts” for you would be a diploma.
Lost your mouth? The Israeli Zionist said: ‘Everything I did, I did for God’
But as long as he’s an Israeli, that’s OK?
Come on, mouth, let us all hear it?
Simon,Correction, ed is not a nut case. He is as serious as a rattlesnake.
It is hard to categorize Ed. My kids all believe he is just a typical Troll, making up stuff just to bug the rest of us and keep the Blog interesting (might be Randy, they say). Wife thinks he is a typical lying leftist just lurking to bash bush. Having read much of his hate, I think he is a journalist from Al-Jazeera doing what our enemies always do.
Joe, That what happens when you take out your brain and start playing with it. No, no.
Oh, my goodness, a bunch of “Bush-Babies.” Israel is so proud of you. { bet you don’t know what they did today }
The Israeli Airforce attacked {terrorized } Gaza, firing missiels into building still standing, killing untold numbers of Palestinians. Now aren’t you proud. And you wonder why they don’t like us? 2 million Palestinian refugees live in Gaza.
Ed,
I told you that the Palestinians set up those attacks to frame Israel.
Dont you see the truth?
Their “final solution” will be enacted if more people like you dont start seeing the truth.
Ed,Tricia, Ireland, and others have already knocked the tar out of your anti-Israel routine on several old posts. I see no point in going over it again.
I sort of agree with Joe, but I still say you are either unhinged, a jihad sympathizer, a nuisance, or all three.
Come to think of it, all 3 looks like the best fit.
Gitmo was designed after the infamous ” facility 1391″ in Israel, where the Israelis perfected torture techniques in that horrid place including the “rancid Hood” which when worn by a victim causes him to try to breath deeply through that awful sickening rancid smell to get what little oxygen would come through. Many suffocated in a horrible death.
The now famous picture of the victim standing with electrical wires attached to his outstretched hands, wearing a rancid hood while balanced on a bucket has come to symbolize Israeli brutality. That picture of that wretched technique that the Israelis were so proud to invent and pass onto to Bush to use against Iraqis is blunt proof of what a despicable so-called country, which that rotten so-called Israel has become. A home of murderous psychopathic butchers. A roost of demons for them and their supporters. The proof is everywhere.
Comparing Gitmo to Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin or Pol Pot falls short of the mark, and America’s treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay to treatment by the Nazis, Pol Pot or the Soviets in their gulags is absolutely accurate.
Are we expected to be so stupid as to be led to believe that revelations at Abu Ghraib Prison are not taking place at Guantanamo Bay? That may be a possibility in that mush-brain of Born-again-Bush, but not in the real world. Certainly not by real Americans.
George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon have sold their souls to the Devil, and may they, along with their supporters rot in Hell forever, while wearing those rancid hoods. Amen
Youe “enemies” are the Demons draging you’all to Hell.
Enjoy the ride and the stay.
…======>> QED…
Ed,
You believe in the Devil?
Just In : Israel murdered six more Palestinians last night using American weapons, suposidly for defensive purposes only. These butchers need to be stopped. The weapons should be taken away from them.
Here it is:
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/3289/
Hey Ed, how much did the Bush and Sharon souls cost you?
Cadman–if you’re going to blame the Mosques in London for the bombings there, are you going to blame Jerry Falwell for right-wing “Christian” Rudolph’s bombing of abortion clinics?
Muslims feel as much responsiblity for them as we Christians do for Rudolph . . .
Also, last time I checked, two wrongs still don’t make a right. What kind of rights suspected terrorists have in their own countries has nothing to do with how we should treat them.
Saudi, Israeli studies show most foreign fighters were not terrorists before Iraq war.
http://csmonitor.com/2005/0718/dailyUpdate.html
Ed, do you hear voices in your head?
Do you ever do what they say?
Doobie, I’ve seen some stupid people write, but you win the prize. Make a tape-recording of what you’ve written and then play it back to yourself. Maybe even play it the other people at whatever “funny-farm” you’re living in. They might like to know that somebody is a little crazier than they are. Might help them to lead a productive life. You just never know, but not knowing is your problem, so I guess we’re back to “go.”
And you call yourself “Doobie?”