Any thoughts on what should happen with Gitmo detainees who aren't prosecutable?

I don’t know. Believing as I do, or hoping, anyway, that we live in a humane society, our options are limited.
It will take the wisdom of Solomon.

@cdwccrn Cut them in half?

Can we? No, I guess Solomon’s brand of wisdom won’t work here. My point is that I am not smart enough to figure out the right thing to do.

@cdwccrn. Don’t feel bad, I’m not either. I think this is a catch-22 that the U.S. put themselves into without enough forethought when it all began. Much like invading Iraq WITHOUT AN EXIT STRATEGY.

For those detainess being released that can’t be sent back to their own countries, maybe we should ask them which country they would eventually like to end up in. Of course, they’d have to send for their families at a later time if that is even an option. And the U.S. might even have to foot the bill for that but I’ll bet our government would probably refuse to do any more than they absolutely have to anyway.

Even though we’ve been operating Gitmo for several years now and much of the activity there has been ambiguous on several levels, I think this is going to be a chapter in American history that is going to tarnish our country’s repuatation for a long time to come (like a lot of other things that occurred too over the last 8 years).

@cdwccrn Yeah, he was pretty brutal when consider what he would have had to have done if his wisdom had not panned out.

I don’t really know the answer, but my gut feeling is that we need to treat human beings with respect and remember that everybody has rights, not just Americans.

It took long enough for us to begin to have hearings on Habeas Corpus for these guys.

I have often wondered how we can make the distinction over the detainees because they are in Gitmo. Isn’t land that is leased by the US under a treaty, as Guantanamo Bay is, considered American Soil (much like an embassy?)

@Grisson In 2007, the Supreme Court did rule, in Boumediene v. Bush, that Gantanamo Bay is under de facto US sovereignty, even though not American soil, and that habeas does apply there.

@Harp So it really does boil down that we treat them differently from Americans simply because they are not Americans. So I come back to my original assertion that we should treat them as if ‘all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights’.

Should we go so far as to release them into the general population stateside if, as seems to be the case, no other country will take them? That’s what would happen to a US citizen under the same circumstances, I assume.

Isn’t that what we do to accused murderers and rapists that we fail to convict?

Why can’t they safely go home?

@jessturtle23. Some of them are going to be assumed to be traitors for giving possible intelligence information to U.S. authorities and/or selling out terrorist operatives or organizations. They’re going to be persona non grata in their homelands.

That is an extremely messed up society where POW’s come back home just to be killed.

@jessturtle23. I agree wholeheartedly and the United States is already sharing the blame (and rightly so in some circumstances) for perpetuating these problems. And looking at the other side of the coin, some of the countries they are returning to are steeped in religious zealotry and hatred of the western world (think: United States).

I think that we need to fire the interrogators, and hire some translators and social workers to make arrangements overseas. These people need to be treated like what they are: humans who have had their lives ruined by being illegally and indefinitely detained and, some, tortured. We really ought to pay the relocation expenses, too.

Maybe we should play it off as good cop/bad cop. That awful Bush did this to you, but we’re going to make sure that he’s punished, and we’ll try to do right by you now.

I think that the detainees, once they have been given some financial restitution and help on relocating to a safe place with their families, should be brought to Congress, and publicly, on international television, be given an apology by the President of the United States. Yes, this could be construed as mere symbolism, but we have to show the world that what was done was not acceptable, even to us. Atonement. Where would we even begin?

Personally, I’d love for Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al., to have to stand in place in front of the White House barriers after Bush has moved out and each detainee be allowed to give each one a good slap full on in the face. Live on international television. That’ll never happen.

@aprilsimnel Maybe they could give each of them a shoe to throw.

I think some will end up in Europe as a sign of solidarity with the new American administration.