Is this how Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and crew celebrate Osama’s birthday? According to The New York Times, “The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.” “To us,” reads the document, which may be made public later today, “they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor.”
So that’s five that are currently there. I can’t find how many are currently being held.
I just read that the recitivism rate of detainees released is 11%. In US prisons, it is 65%.
Good thing we have them all locked up to protect us!
I just read that the recitivism rate of detainees released is 11%. In US prisons, it is 65%.
Does this mean we should start torturing US prisoners?
~Matt
I just read that the recitivism rate of detainees released is 11%. In US prisons, it is 65%.
Does this mean we should start torturing US prisoners?
~Matt
No. Just use the death penalty for all felonies. It will free up space and reduce costs. We can then open those empty jail cells and use them to house the homeless.
So that’s five that are currently there. I can’t find how many are currently being held.
I just read that the recitivism rate of detainees released is 11%. In US prisons, it is 65%.
Good thing we have them all locked up to protect us!
The recidivism rate of those that are not released is zero.
I like zero.
Same can be said for all prisoners. I guess that means if I get busted for having some weed I should never get out of prison. There are people in Gitmo who have been falsly accused.
I wasn’t saying that prisoners should be tortured, the exact opposite. I’m saying that the prisoners in Gitmo are less likely to reoffend than the US prison population. But, lets not let that get in the way of our hysteria.
“I’m saying that the prisoners in Gitmo are less likely to reoffend than the US prison population.”
The prisoners in GITMO aren’t going right back into the gang neighborhoods from which they came, and they aren’t being arrested for the vast number of crimes for which a U.S. citizen could be arrested. Comparing recidivism rates straight up really isn’t fair.
If our belief is that these prisoners were associated with terrorism than can’t we assume they are going back into those circles? Back into the same neighborhoods or back to their countries?
I brought that number up because it is so extreme.
There are people in Gitmo who have been falsly accused.
- How do you know that? I’m just curious b/c when I was in the JAG Corps I served on military tribunals, yet I never saw any evidence to support the claim that anyone at Gitmo had been falsely accused, so, I am asking for your source.
**I’m saying that the prisoners in Gitmo are less likely to reoffend than the US prison population. But, lets not let that get in the way of our hysteria. **
- Actually not true. Most of those released have gone back to the same groups from which they were captured in the first place. But, hey, at least they are off in foreign lands and can only kill our men and women and uniform and not those of us comfy here in the US and Canada…
"If our belief is that these prisoners were associated with terrorism than can’t we assume they are going back into those circles? Back into the same neighborhoods or back to their countries? "
What’s the proximity of GITMO to their neighborhoods? What’s the number of US soldiers available to catch these guys compared to the number of cops patrolling our streets? What’s the daily frequency of their terrorist actions compared with the daily frequency of the criminal actions of our released felons on the streets in our cities?
It’s an apples to oranges comparison. The fact that they get caught less repeating their crime does not mean they aren’t still committing that crime.
I’m concerned we’re not doing enough of it. I’d have zapped KSM and the other regulars in the great Al-Qaeda Traveling Terrorist Roadshow down to a greasy smut by now, if I had my way. And thank God for most of the world that nobody ever lets me have my way 
T.
So that’s five that are currently there. I can’t find how many are currently being held.
Those are the 5 who actually perped 9/11 killing 3,000 innocent civillians on US soil. The rest are likely perps in other situations but at the very least they are just avid brother supporters who embrace the same radical ideology and would certainly rise to action or actual support given the opportunity. Individuals who are radical, particularly religious radical ingrained from birth really don’ just change their thinking over night. That’s why they are called radical in the first place.
I’m concerned we’re not doing enough of it. I’d have zapped KSM and the other regulars in the great Al-Qaeda Traveling Terrorist Roadshow down to a greasy smut by now, if I had my way. And thank God for most of the world that nobody ever lets me have my way
Don’t feel bad. There’s endless justification for you to feel that way.
Because at the opposite end of the scale, it doesn’t matter how many sympathetic activists we have on our side in their favor. What you describe is exactly how they feel and more, and they aren’t shy to put it into action whenever they can.
I’m concerned we’re not doing enough of it. I’d have zapped KSM and the other regulars in the great Al-Qaeda Traveling Terrorist Roadshow down to a greasy smut by now, if I had my way. And thank God for most of the world that nobody ever lets me have my way
T.
I’d ride shotgun on that mission. Ka-boom!
Same can be said for all prisoners. I guess that means if I get busted for having some weed I should never get out of prison. There are people in Gitmo who have been falsly accused.
It speaks volumes that you equate a terror suspect with someone convicted of misdemeanor drug possession…
I’m concerned we’re not doing enough of it. I’d have zapped KSM and the other regulars in the great Al-Qaeda Traveling Terrorist Roadshow down to a greasy smut by now, if I had my way. And thank God for most of the world that nobody ever lets me have my way
T.
I’d ride shotgun on that mission. Ka-boom!
I read garbage like the statement those guys made and it makes me want back in the Infantry.
This conversation is pointless. But, since I was asked for source, here it is:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/24/gitmo.detainees/index.html
Selected quote that I was using as reference:
Peter Bergen, a national security expert and CNN analyst, notes that of the 18 people the Pentagon says are confirmed to have engaged in terrorism, only a handful of names have been released.
**
If one accepts that all 18 on the “confirmed” list have returned to the battlefield, that would be 4 percent of the detainees who have been released, Bergen said.
**
Bergen also noted Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics data that show the recidivism rate for U.S. state prisoners who have been released is more than 65 percent. Those same numbers show that about half of the released prisoners are returned to prison.
**
Bergen said that some of the prisoners at Guantanamo may not have been terrorists at all but were singled out by vengeful villagers who told U.S. authorities they were al Qaeda.
**
“We know that a lot of people who were in Guantanamo don’t qualify as being the ‘worst of the worst,’” he said, quoting former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s assessment.
Bergen said some of those “suspected” to have returned to terrorism are so categorized because they publicly made anti-American statements, “something that’s not surprising if you’ve been locked up in a U.S. prison camp for several years.”
**No. Just use the death penalty for all felonies. It will free up space and reduce costs. We can then open those empty jail cells and use them to house the homeless. **
This is not a good idea. While I am for the death penalty, it costs more to house a death row inmate than one serving life in prison.
If we used the death penalty for all felonies, it would cost tons of money and space we can’t afford.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that there aren’t a few in GITMO that may not be terrorist masterminds. The point is that it’s difficult to make a one to one comparison of recidivism rates for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is the larger number of crimes our citizens could be arrested for. Another is the ease of access our law enforcement has to our law breaking citizens as opposed to the access our military has to terrorist suspects. Yet another is the difficulty in tracking who conducts terrorist activity, which makes it pretty hard to track recidivism.
Peter Bergen??? You are citing Peter Bergen as your source? Ok. By the way, he released a new book the same week he commented in that CNN article.
It was me who requested the source and I am still waiting for actual evidence that detainers at Gitmo were wrongfully accused.