I'm torn. I can quote facts and end the thread, since Ray and Law don't accept facts and will simply stop posting in the thread. Or I can keep quiet and let this descend into the usual crap among all of you.

I think I'll stick with facts, if the internet is factual, dispite all.

Taken from discoverthenetworks.org



From globalsecurity.org



So, who's left in Guantanamo? Most of them are insignificant--except for a small group recently released to Gitmo by the CIA, including 5 alleged 9/11 plotters.

And where did the released detainees go? Supposedly to their countries of origin.

LOL...your grandstanding attempt is pathetic, Liz. Lets assume for a moment your numbers are correct. 420 prisoners released plus 265 prisoners remaining plus six prisoners "killed" in custody equals 671 prisoners total. Helice suggested the death rate among GITMO detainees was 6%. Now, I know you leftists in general have trouble with math as demonstrated by Stone in another thread but 6% of 671 is just a fraction over forty, not six.

Incidently, Liz, did you actually have a point you were trying to make in this thread? Salim was convicted of providing aid to terrorists, specificly knowingly providing transportation for personnel and weapons to be used in terrorist activities. He recieved a five and a half year sentence. Do you mean to suggest you have a problem with that sentence? Is it not stern enough for you?

In fact, some of them were rendered to countries where torture is permitted with less trouble than here in the US.

LOL! Oh my dear. We don't have problems with facts; we have problems with opinion masquerading as fact. But thanks to your excellent research you and I are now in agreement that the Gitmo detainee population has steadily dwindled as the U.S. has continued to release the prisoners along the way. Amazingly, this has been going on despite Democrats NOT being in the White House, despite Gitmo NOT being closed down; despite the left's contention that George W. Bush wants to keep the detainees behind bars forever and ever. Amazing, huh? They have been released on a continuing basis over the past 7 years.

As for those deaths that have sparked the latest indignant accusations against the effort to keep those who would kill us from killing us, I'd just like to point out that 6 deaths over a 7-year period within a population numbering around 700 is rather minor. In my town of Mountain Home we have at least 7 people a week who die of various causes. Granted, many of deaths are from old age. But if you count deaths only from within the young male population we still get at least 1 death every other week. Hell, just this past week two you men died; one in his 20s from a car crash and one 18-year-old drowned in the lake. Very tragic.

However, back to the figures, taking into account that Mountain Home's entire population is 17 times as large as Gitmo's population, a death rate of one young person every other week over a period of 7 years comes out to be double the death rate at Gitmo. One can only conclude that if you're under 20 you're twice as safe living at the Guantanamo Bay detention center than you are living in Mountain Home, Arkansas.


It's refreshing to hear that torture is "trouble" here in the U.S. To hear some folks describe it, torture is the norm. As I recall the Congressional Testimony, exactly THREE of the Guantanamo prisoners have been "waterboarded." And all of the waterboardees ended up none the worse for wear.

As for using "rendition" as a tactic, I'd be curious to know what the real figures are.

So would I, but I don't think we'll ever know the actual figures. We'll know what they want us to believe.

Or perhaps what you, Dax, want us to believe...Interesting how Dax does not mind making all sorts of wild claims in the absence of facts but seems really offended when the available facts do not comport with his vision of reality. Incidently, I am still waiting to hear what Liz's point in the OP might have been.

There were two, Law. The first was stated, "Who is he?"-- Hamdan. This was because of the thread you'd started about the making of a terrorist. In that thread, you and other posters gave examples of what could turn an otherwise innocent peasant into a religious zealot and hard-core terrorist. Does a Yemeni chauffeur = terrorist?

The second 'point' was that Hamdan's 'trial' would test the efficacy of the Military Commission Act. I thought you'd pick up on that, but I was apparently too abstruse.

I suppose it could, under the right conditions. Does an Egyptian Technical University Student = Terrorist? That's what Mohammad Atta's "occupation" was before he decided he'd rather fly a plane into the World Trade Center.

Now you're bringing education into it, which I believe either you or Law said had nothing to do with anything. How does an Egyptian Technical University student compare with a man with no better than a fourth grade education?

Pardon me. You said: "Does a Yemeni chauffeur = terrorist?" I must have misunderstood the focus of the question. If you'll please explain the point your question was designed to illuminate, I'll give it another go.