Patterico's Pontifications

2/22/2009

WaPo on Gitmo Detainee Who Returned to Jihad: Was It Gitmo’s Fault?

Filed under: General,Media Bias,Terrorism,War — Patterico @ 2:47 pm



A Page A01 Washington Post story is titled From Captive To Suicide Bomber, with a subhead: “Accused of Being Little More Than a Low-Level Taliban Fighter, Abdallah al-Ajmi Was Held by the U.S. for Nearly Four Years. After His Release, He Blew Up an Iraqi Army Outpost. Did Guantanamo Propel Him to Do It?”

Here’s my answer after reading the article: no. His lawyer thinks the answer is “yes,” but the answer is no.

I guess this will be the leftist answer if there are future acts of violence by released detainees: it’s all George W. Bush’s fault for holding them there.

The prisoner committed the worst act of violence to date by a released Gitmo detainee. He made a video praising Allah for releasing him from Gitmo and joining him with “the Islamic State of Iraq” and then killed more than a dozen people:

At 6:15 a.m. on March 23, 2008, not long after making the video, Ajmi drove a pickup truck filled with 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of explosives, hidden in what appeared to be white flour sacks, onto an Iraqi army base outside Mosul. He barreled though the entrance checkpoint and past a fusillade of gunfire from the sentries, shielded by bulletproof glass and makeshift armor welded to the cab.

The Easter Sunday blast killed 13 Iraqi soldiers, wounded 42 others and left a 30-foot-wide crater in the ground.

The article suggests that Gitmo was responsible for turning him into a homicidal jihadist. Early in the article, we are given excerpts from two letters to his attorney that supposedly illustrate this transformation. The first letter the attorney received was polite; in it, Ajmi refers to himself as a “happy detainee.” The last letter the attorney received referred to the Jewish attorney as the “descendant of rotten apes and swine” and says: “I greet you with a kick, a spit, and a slap on your lying, rotten, ugly, and sullen face.”

Yet, deeeeeep down in the article, we learn evidence showing it wasn’t Gitmo that did this to him. According to prosecutors, in August 2004, before he had even met with his lawyers, he was talking about how he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible. Near the very end of the lengthy article, we are told that at his tribunal, the prosecutor said: “In August of 2004, Al Ajmi wanted to make sure that when the case went in front of the tribunal, that the tribunal members know that he is now a jihadist, an enemy combatant and that he would kill as many Americans as he possible [sic] can. . . . Upon arrival at the Guantanamo detention facility, Al Ajmi has been constantly in trouble. Al Ajmi’s overall behavior has been aggressive and non-compliant and [he] has resided in the disciplinary blocks throughout his detention.” (Ajmi denied the allegations.)

The article describes how, in his first meeting with his lawyers, he said: “I am here as an enemy combatant, and I will leave here as an enemy combatant. Tell my family that.”

(Two weeks later he told his lawyer that his story was made up. We know from the interview with Stashiu that “deny, deny, deny” is the mantra of many Gitmo inmates — though not all; some proudly proclaim their hostility to the U.S. — as Ajmi himself apparently had.)

The article sets forth Ajmi’s history, which shows that he became radicalized at a Kuwaiti mosque, and followed fatwas to engage in jihad.

Ajmi joined the army in Kuwait, and the article says that “even some of his relatives are convinced that his departure from Kuwait was not entirely for peaceful purposes.” In Kuwait he attended a mosque that” is known among Kuwaitis as a hotbed of radicalism,” where sermons “dwell on the oppression of Muslims and include exhortations to participate in jihad.”

Obeying a fatwa posted at the mosque, Ajmi traveled to Pakistan to fight Russians in Chechnya, but could not travel there. Another fatwa “called for Muslims to fight against Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, which was battling the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

On March 26, Ajmi left Kuwait for Pakistan. Before leaving, he called his mother. “I’m going for jihad,” he said, according to his brother Ahmed. “Count me as a martyr for God.”

Ahmed said their mother yelled at him. He hung up on her.

After his brother left, Ahmed said, he went to the Subhan mosque to inquire about his whereabouts. “They told me, ‘We taught your brother the right things. We set him on the right path.’ “

He fought against the Northern Alliance and was later captured in Afghanistan near the Tora Bora mountains.

At Gitmo, Ajmi was a disciplinary problem. While speaking with his lawyer, with the aid of an interpreter, he “threw a cup of hot tea in the interpreter’s face.”

He sounds like he had mental issues, and I may try to ask our friend Stashiu about him, although I doubt I’ll get anything specific. At one point he grabbed a microphone tied into the camp’s PA system and said: “This is General al-Ajmi and I’m in control now . . . Everyone is going free.” He “developed a propensity for hurling his feces and urine” — again, a common tactic by detainees, as we know from our conversations with Stashiu.

When his attorney told him he was being released, he cursed at him.

Did Gitmo do this to him, as the article suggests? Anyone making that case has to explain why he was engaged in jihad before arriving at Gitmo, why he described himself as an enemy combatant early on in his stay — and why, in August 2004, before he ever met with his attorney, he said he was going to kill as many Americans as possible.

Once you’re done explaining that, explain to me why we let this guy go.

319 Responses to “WaPo on Gitmo Detainee Who Returned to Jihad: Was It Gitmo’s Fault?”

  1. I still don’t understand why we hold any of the low-value (in terms of information) jihadis at all. Would they stop trying to kill me if I attempted to surrender?

    But heck, let’s keep blaming Bush while it’s still cool. F-tards…

    the bhead (a31060)

  2. How could anybody blame anyone but us ? After all, Hax has told us we hate Muslims so it must be true.

    I denounce myself for mentioning the troll.

    Mike K (90939b)

  3. It’s not Islam’s fault either, is it….

    torabora (69f638)

  4. I cannot believe how racist you all are.

    JD (6e32db)

  5. I denounce your denouncements, JD.

    Also your autocracy. After all, if I don’t believe in you, then John Hitchcock will not respect me.

    (No, John, you did write it the correct way; I read it the wrong and funnier way).

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  6. This much is beyond dispute: his experience at Gitmo did nothing to deter him.

    Maybe if he’d been accorded the inalienable rights America is founded on, he’d have come to appreciate them or, at least, see them as genuine.

    This case is a very sad demonstration that treating brutal people brutally can be counterproductive.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  7. I blame the food.

    I mean, any recipe that begins

    82 lbs. chicken, 8 pc cut, skin removed

    is just wrong.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  8. Comment by Hax Vobiscum

    You are much, much stupider than I had discredited you with up to now.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  9. There is also the dental care, EW1(SG). That’s gotta be demeaning.

    Besides, he represents just a tiny minority of folks held at Gitmo. Not worth considering, in that light.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  10. And once again Hax shows he knows absolutely nothing about what he’s commenting on (besides the talking points.)

    Ignore him please.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  11. I mean, there were lots and lots of people held at Gitmo who, upon release, did not commit any further crimes of terrorism.

    Isn’t that the right way to argue this kind of point, EW1(SG)?

    Heh.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  12. Maybe if he’d been accorded the inalienable rights America is founded on, he’d have come to appreciate them or, at least, see them as genuine.

    Yeah, that would have made all the difference – but he’s not a citizen, you farking ponce.

    Did you even read the post? Here’s the summation:

    Anyone making that case has to explain why he was engaged in jihad before arriving at Gitmo, why he described himself as an enemy combatant early on in his stay — and why, in August 2004, before he ever met with his attorney, he said he was going to kill as many Americans as possible.

    Answer the question, Fop Boy.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  13. Isn’t it simply that many of us are taught to hate America as she is and seek to make us a mirror image of the emphatetic euroweenie elite?
    Afterall, look at all the praise heaped on the likes of Che, Chavez,Castro, ImADamNutJob, Arafish et al. Come on Rethuglicans/neo-conservative/Joo idolators- you know Mikey Moore speaks truth to power and that Jimmuh Carter is the world’s wisest elder statesmen who cares about making America respected by the Muslims and other despots. Now bend over and take it like a man. The libs I talk to here in Boca think O! is doing fine and the media is too tough on him as GOP remains obstructionist. Peace out. Poverty From the Bottom up.

    aoibhneas (0c6cfc)

  14. Can our host please remind us again why this non -entity is worth posting here? You said he was a “journalist” of some sort, yes? Of what, may I ask? Penthouse Forum letters?

    “Being a farking ponce and having never kissed an actual woman, I would have never guessed that when I came home last night to my mother’s house…”

    Dmac (49b16c)

  15. #11 Eric Blair:

    Isn’t that the right way to argue this kind of point,

    If you’ll excuse me for several days, but I take a while to recover from being exposed to that much brain splittingly stupid at a dose.

    As Patterico notes, there might be reason to question whether Ajmi’s sanity was all in one sock (whether you like your chicken with the skin on or not)…I mean, its not like his inalienable rights, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of jihad were denied him for any period of time that was just long enough.

    Like say, the rest of his life.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  16. The lesson is: Don’t take prisoners.

    Perfect Sense (0922fa)

  17. Here I was not believing all the hype about Hax..

    He is lock, stock, and barrel a complete tool.

    Silly me.

    the bhead (a31060)

  18. He sounds like he had mental issues,

    FWIW, I don’t comment about my personal experiences with particular detainees by name, but I don’t recall this one. He may or may not have been in the Behavioral Health system. Many detainees were monitored for reasons beyond mental illness (i.e. Hunger-strikers). If I ever did meet him, I don’t remember.

    There were many like him though. GITMO didn’t shape them… it just collected them together.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  19. This case is a very sad demonstration that treating brutal people brutally can be counterproductive.

    Actually, it wasn’t counterproductive, it just had no effect. But GTMO isn’t brutal, not by absolute standards. Had we just shot the guy upon capture — which, you must admit, is far more brutal — he wouldn’t have gone on to murder a dozen more people.

    Steverino (b12c49)

  20. Hack’s comment is comedy gold.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  21. “It just had no effect.”

    How do you know this? Don’t you think, on its face, it’s absurd to believe that holding someone without trial for years, without a lawyer, etc. would have “no effect?”

    Impossible to prove either way, of course, but it seems a pretty big stretch to go with “no effect.”

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  22. Answer the question, you farking ponce.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  23. “This much is beyond dispute: his experience at Gitmo did nothing to deter him.”

    It sure as hell did while he was there.

    No, we didn’t cure him of his Islamic extremism at Gitmo. Nor do I know of a way we could have.

    But he didn’t murder anyone until he was let go. That’s the point, for anyone willing to see it.

    Patterico (01a065)

  24. This is an excellent post, Patterico.

    I did not intend to threadjack, but the influx of pre-pubescent imbeciles made me go to another thread. The most incredibly ironic part about it was that in order to make their claim of racism, it required one of them to pose as someone they are not, a true Moby, to make something up. Teh Meta-Narrative must be served.

    JD (6e32db)

  25. How do you know this? Don’t you think, on its face, it’s absurd to believe that holding someone without trial for years, without a lawyer, etc. would have “no effect?”

    Impossible to prove either way, of course, but it seems a pretty big stretch to go with “no effect.”

    Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/22/2009 @ 4:06 pm

    Unile the treatment he would have gotten in an Afhani prison, run by Afghanis who would have really tortured him before his execution.

    Which is probably what he expected the Americans to do. But when they did not, he used it as an example of just how weak the westerners were.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  26. How do you know this?

    Because his extremism and intent to murder was already in place before he spent time in GTMO.

    Did you not read the post?

    The article sets forth Ajmi’s history, which shows that he became radicalized at a Kuwaiti mosque, and followed fatwas to engage in jihad.

    Did you not read his own words?

    On March 26, Ajmi left Kuwait for Pakistan. Before leaving, he called his mother. “I’m going for jihad,” he said, according to his brother Ahmed. “Count me as a martyr for God.”

    Yeah, he was just a peaceful soul, and it was GTMO that turned him into a terrorist

    Don’t you think, on its face, it’s absurd to believe that holding someone without trial for years, without a lawyer, etc. would have “no effect?”

    On its face, in absence of any other evidence, I’d agree with you. But there’s plenty of evidence that he was already bent toward terrorism before he spent a day in GTMO. To argue otherwise is rank stupidity.

    Steverino (b12c49)

  27. Then I read the idiocy posted by Hacks, and realize that it is no better than those children in the other thread, just more verbose, and more dishonest.

    He came in a terrorist and left a terrorist. I blame Bush, and Gitmo. Not the terrorist, who was a peaceful goat fucker prior to the evil that is Bush was elected.

    JD (6e32db)

  28. “It sure as hell did while he was there.”

    No, the record shows it didn’t. He, according to you, threw feces etc.

    “DETER
    American Heritage : v. v. tr. To prevent or discourage from acting, as by means of fear or doubt.”

    Holding someone without trial isn’t “deterring” them any more than simply murdering them, as someone here suggested, would be.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  29. The lesson is: Don’t take prisoners.

    I think that will be the lesson. After all, the military families are up in arms about this. The solution is no prisoners.

    Mike K (90939b)

  30. Hax, you ignorant slut.

    Learn to read. “.. as by means of fear or doubt.”
    does not mean those are the only two options. Those are passive ways of deterring. Physically restraining people from acting is a more active method of deterrance.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  31. Hacks – Usually you are not aggressively dishonest towards our host. Not wise.

    You prolly ought to go back and read the interviews with stashiu before you make a complete ass of yourself. Not that it will stop you.

    JD (6e32db)

  32. Expecting comprehension, and rational thought, from The Hack-off, would be like believing in Zombies.
    I know it doesn’t make any sense, I’ve been reading too much Hack-off.

    AD - RtR/OS (f7103f)

  33. before you make a complete ass of yourself.

    Too late.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  34. His lawyer thinks the answer is “yes,”

    Undoubtedly, the same kind of idiotic liberal (eg, like one of the people posting to this forum who shall go unmentioned) who also believes that, for example, a guy who has robbed 20 houses, mugged 30 people, jacked several cars and held up a variety of clerks at the local 7-11 suffered from a lack of enough public resources, from public schools that weren’t well funded enough, from healthcare that wasn’t generous enough, from after-school programs that weren’t plentiful enough.

    Oh, and the guy who has murdered a few people during his lifetime? He suffered from the aforementioned things, but also mainly from a lack of self-esteem.

    What makes this mindset so exceptionally sickening is it emanates from people who in many instances believe their hearts are full of hugs and tears.

    Mark (411533)

  35. Now, now, people, you are giving this guy the oxygen he needs.

    Ignore him, and eventually he’ll go back to Worlds of Warcraft.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  36. we didn’t cure him of his Islamic extremism at Gitmo. Nor do I know of a way we could have.

    Here’s how it has worked in the past:

    “If torture doesn’t work, what does? The evidence suggests that when the Bush administration decided to ignore many of America’s most experienced counterterrorist agents and go for torture in 2001 and 2002, it shut down rich sources of intelligence. In the biggest terrorist case of the 1990s, the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed more than 220 people, the F.B.I.’s Cloonan and his colleagues were able to persuade three of the main conspirators not only to talk to them but also to give prosecution testimony in court. Here Morocco, the U.S. ally where Binyam Mohamed was sent to be tortured in 2002, provided assistance of a very different order. Eighteen months after the attacks, Cloonan traced L’Houssaine Kherchtou, also known as Joe the Moroccan, an al-Qaeda operative who had played a key role, to his hiding place, in Sudan. The Moroccans concocted a story to lure him home, and when he arrived in Rabat he was arrested.
    Cloonan says, “We all went to a beautiful safe house outside of town, with gazelles bouncing around in the grounds and three solid meals fit for a king each day. We all sat on sofas in a big room—me, Ali Soufan [an F.B.I. colleague], Pat Fitzgerald [the U.S. attorney then in charge of a special counterterrorist section in New York], a C.I.A. guy, and two Moroccan colonels. The Moroccans said he’d never talk. He never shut up for 10 days.” Cloonan had done his homework: “His wife needed money for medical treatment in Khartoum, and al-Qaeda had failed to provide it.” That gave Cloonan his “in.”
    The intelligence Kherchtou provided, at a time when U.S. knowledge about al-Qaeda was still perfunctory, was invaluable. “He told us about a lot of things,” says Cloonan. “We learned how they recruited people, their front organizations, how they used NGOs, false passports, what they thought about kidnapping, how they developed targets, did their surveillance, a day in the life of Osama bin Laden, what weapons they used, what vehicles they drove, who was the principal liaison with the Sudanese government, that there was a relationship between al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, how they did their training exercises, their finances, and their membership.”
    http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812?currentPage=4

    It’s important to recognize that there’s no moral mandate to punish detainees, since they haven’t been given a trial. There is certainly a compelling case for holding them to gather information and, even, to give them an opportunity to forswear terrorism. Both for gathering intelligence and that kind of “rehab” for lack of a better word, the evidence seems to be that treating detainees well works far better than treating them badly, let alone brutally.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  37. As the father of a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan (who loves the Army), nothing fills me with greater contempt than news of more than a few of the country’s elite law firms sending high-priced attorneys in high-priced suits to Guantanamo to provide pro buono legal representation for our countries’ enemies. Somehow, these firms apparently see such work as some sort of global “community service” and a mark of pride. What I have just described is maddening enough, but let me set up a study in contrasts. Over the same past six years or so — particularly following the Abu Ghraib hysteria, we have watched the Defense Department pursue an overly-aggressive campaign of prosecuting soldiers and Marines for actions in difficult combat situations that did not always neatly comport with the politically-correct Rules of Engagement (RoE) with which they have been saddled since very early in the Iraq war. Question: Can anyone cite even ONE example of the very same high-priced law firms flying one of their high-priced attorneys in a high-priced suit to either Iraq or Camp Pendleton or Fort Carson or Fort Hood to provide pro buono legal assistance to any of our accused military men (whether guilty or innocent) in the same way that they did for the lawless Gitmo Jihadists? This smells of disloyalty to our country from where I sit. If I were a sitting member of Congress, I would introduce legislation REQUIRING any firm having provided pro buono services to jihadists, to also provide an EQUAL value of pro buono services to our military members. We are — or, at least until Jan 20th, WERE — AT WAR during the past seven years or so.

    gunjam (b22c10)

  38. Isn’t it amusing that Hack can’t even see the purpose in detaining combatants so that they are no longer actually able to … you know, combat.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  39. Did it just cite Vanity Fair? Hacks – until you read stashiu’s interviews, you are beclowning yourself.

    JD (6e32db)

  40. Chilling to re-read Stashiu3’s interviews and really should be a mandatory coupling with this WaPo piece. The writer of the piece could have benefited from it…if he had honestly been searching for even-handedness rather than posturing.

    Maybe if he’d been accorded the inalienable rights America is founded on, he’d have come to appreciate them or, at least, see them as genuine.

    There is a certain naivete and/or idealism about this which doesn’t translate to the reality of the situation. It would be unicorns and happiness if we could believe in the innate goodness of man but to the contrary it would get us all killed in the long run.

    Dana (137151)

  41. Dana, that is among Hack’s more hilarious lines.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  42. This case is a very sad demonstration that treating brutal people brutally can be counterproductive.

    Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/22/2009 @ 3:33 pm

    So when he was radicalized at a mosque BEFORE venturing to and being captured in Afghanistan, does that play any role in his post-Gitmo violence?

    No way, that’d be racist, eh Hax?

    Richard Romano (b96fd9)

  43. So, to sum up for those attending, an attorney who vouched for a Gitmo detainee, who already had a history of Salafi activity against Afghans and Americans, was released, he blew himself up, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him. How about a class action lawsuit by the family of those Iraqis
    injured in that Mosul attack, any takers.

    narciso (57971e)

  44. “If torture doesn’t work, what does?”

    A bullet in the back of the head.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  45. Basically this thug is kept in a situation far more humane than any he’d experience in any of his own country if picked up, but its our fault he’s a thug.

    This kind of stupid, backwards logic would be hilarious if it was not going to get more good people killed.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  46. It looks like Rajiv Chandrasekaran really worked hard on this stupid article. Being a reporter must be a really sucky job if you’re no good at it.

    happyfeet (4eacbc)

  47. If he was held “without a lawyer,” how could his attorney have descended from apes and pigs? Boggles the mind.

    This reminds me of the paradoxical observations we see in the press on occasion – “despite declining crime rates, prison population remains high.

    carlitos (12ebb1)

  48. If it weren’t for Gitmo, this terrorist would not have returned to being a terrorist. Peaceful little goat fucker that he was, and all.

    JD (6e32db)

  49. #40 SPQR:

    more hilarious lines.

    It hurttssss… It hurtssss ussss…..

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  50. No, the record shows it didn’t. He, according to you, threw feces etc.

    According to me? No, according to guards at Gitmo. I’ll quote the article that we now know you didn’t read:

    “Guards told Wilner that it was for his protection. Ajmi had developed a propensity for hurling his feces and urine.”

    See, when you said: “This much is beyond dispute: his experience at Gitmo did nothing to deter him.” I thought you meant: “deter him from killing.” See, I thought you were making the argument that he wasn’t deterred from killing, because he went out and killed. That’s why I argued: “It sure as hell did while he was there.”

    Because, you know, under your dictionary defintion of “deter,” he was “prevented” from killing anybody.

    Now we know that you meant “it didn’t deter him from throwing feces at people.”

    By gum, you’re right! A telling point!

    I think the other people here are right. You’re here to argue and play semantic games.

    I may respond to you in the future if it amuses me to do so, but I think I’m done taking you seriously.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  51. Regarding your post #35: they did exactly that at Gitmo. Exactly that.

    You have not read the interviews with Stashiu. You should. They are linked in the post.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  52. We never took him seriously to begin with, but you certainly gave him more than the benefit of the doubt.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  53. Patterico – You were right about bunkerbuster rubberbabybuggybumpers the first time you encountered it.

    JD (6e32db)

  54. Re Hax Vobiscum on treatment of prisoners, #35

    Hax is right. In the Second World War we set a policy of treating our prisoners of war in a gentle, friendly way. Didn’t always work, but it worked far more often than not and gained us a lot of intelligence.

    It worked especially well on our Japanese prisoners, who had fully expected horrendous torture from their American captors. Hot coffee, good food, a warm bed at night loosened many a Japanese pilot’s tongue.

    There were exceptions of course, there always are. We assume that the Gitmo prisoners are treatd like crap from the git-go, but are they? SS officers in WWII got the same treatment initially as all the other German prisoners, and responded in a belligerent fashion. Life got tough for them. Note that when the fanatics were separated from the general POW population, it was done at the request of their fellow prisoners.

    It’s been awhile, so I’m having a hard time recalling Stashiu3’s interviews. Still, it’s not really an American trait to brutalize people under our control. Don’t mean it can’t happen, just that it’s not our usual behavior. Abdallah al-Ajmi was simply a jerk who pretty much acted like those Nazis back in the Second World War.

    BTW, did you know that by 1944 Axis POWs were working an American farms with no real supervision? Most of the time their “employers” would treat them just like family. I was thinking, maybe we should start up a probation program for the Gitmo detaines. Between their stay at Gitmo and their formal release those who managed to stay out of trouble would work at a family farm or in a small town. Those who couldn’t stay out of trouble would simply not be released.

    Alan Kellogg (14f94e)

  55. Alan, very little serious interrogation occurred on US soil. The British were no where near as polite with prisoners held in Great Britain. Not least because they knew how their own people were being treated by Gestapo on the continent.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  56. #6 is just plain dumb.

    Obama über alles!!!!! (da3d2f)

  57. Muslim schools in Great Britain are radicalizing young muslims without even sending them to Guantanamo.

    How could that happen?

    SPQR (26be8b)

  58. BTW, did you know that by 1944 Axis POWs were working an American farms with no real supervision?

    Sure – there were many German POW’s who ended up staying at many of the small towns in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. They figured the future would be better here than back in their war – torn countries.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  59. Apart from screeching liberals and detainees who have admitted they were instructed to lie about their treatment, what evidence is there that prisoners are treated harshly at Gitmo?

    Perhaps Alan and Hax could answer that question after refreshing themselve with Stash’s articles.

    Releasing detainees who want to kill as many Americans as possible to work Wisconsin dairy farms as we did German prisoners in WWII sounds like an idea only a brain dead liberal could concoct.

    But hey, look over here, we have a fresh report released Friday afternoon, concluding that Gitmo is operated within the parameters of the Geneva Conventions. Those liberal homoerotic torture fantasies may just have to remain fantasies.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  60. Alan,

    While your point is accurate, it seems misplaced.

    1) GITMOs are not soldiers and are barely educated. Many WWII POWs were much more educated. I think kindness is appreciated over brutality by “western” people.

    2) WWII POWs numbered in the tens of thousands. Gitmo is not that. You could never control large POW masses if you were brutalizing them. GITMO has more soldiers than detainees and the fact we don’t brutalize them is testament to our deceny.

    3) The GITMO guys are the hard core of the hard core. These detainees are not “Abu the Radical” who got caught in war after he was drafted from his dirt farm. Most POWs in WWII were not radicals or hard core. Comparing apples to ballons. I view the GITMOs as the worst of the worst and a select breed.

    4) Intelligence in WWII was mostly about getting data on large scale operations with many moving parts — this GITMO thing is like finding a needle in a haystack in order to prevent a terror attack. This type of intelligence gathering is much harder.

    I just don’t understand the parallels.

    Obama über alles!!!!! (da3d2f)

  61. Alan’s history of WWII also overlooks the fact that prisoners in violation of the laws of war, such as non-uniformed combatants, were as a matter of general policy interrogated and executed in the field. Units such as Skorzney’s infiltrators during the battle of the bulge faced death on capture.

    Also, US units faced with enemy troops that were known to kill prisoners, such as the SS, seemed to take very few prisoners in return, especially after incidents like the Malmedy Massacre.

    Comparing prisoners at Gitmo to general US Prisoner-of-War doctrine during World War 2 is comparing apples to oranges.

    Civilis (a98203)

  62. I’ve got some bad news for you, sunshine.

    “Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position.”

    That’d be the Bush Administration position.

    O!

    Pablo (99243e)

  63. Most POWs in WWII were not radicals or hard core. Comparing apples to ballons.

    They were also in uniform and subject to an identifiable chain of command.

    Pablo (99243e)

  64. Patterico: “I may respond to you in the future if it amuses me to do so, but I think I’m done taking you seriously.”

    Patterico, you actually at one time or another took Max Vomitorium seriously? Well, I will be damned!

    GM Roper who wants DRJ back (d53336)

  65. Both for gathering intelligence and that kind of “rehab” for lack of a better word, the evidence seems to be that treating detainees well works far better than treating them badly, let alone brutally.

    More bad news, sunshine.

    Pablo (99243e)

  66. It looks like Rajiv Chandrasekaran really worked hard on this stupid article. Being a reporter must be a really sucky job if you’re no good at it.

    I think it’s a job in which it’s pretty easy to fake it, ‘feets.

    Pablo (99243e)

  67. I wonder if Gitmo had “no effect” on Haji Bismullah?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/washington/19gitmo.html?_r=1&ref=us&pagewanted=print

    Jan. 19, 2009
    For nearly six years, Haji Bismullah, an Afghan detainee at Guantánamo Bay, has insisted that he was no terrorist, but had actually fought the Taliban and had later been part of the pro-American Afghan government.
    Over the weekend, the Bush administration flew him home after a military panel concluded that he “should no longer be deemed an enemy combatant.”
    Asked about the panel’s decision, which was not publicly announced, a Pentagon spokeswoman said, “Mr. Bismullah was lawfully detained as an enemy combatant based on the information that was available at the time.”
    The decision was part of a pattern that has emerged in the closing chapter of the administration. In the last three months, at least 24 detainees have been declared improperly held by courts or a tribunal — or nearly 10 percent of the population at the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where about 245 men remain.
    The Bush administration has maintained that the detention camp holds “the worst of the worst.” In a radio interview Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney said that “now what’s left, that is the hardcore.”
    The timing of the decisions on the two dozen detainees adds new urgency to a review of all Guantánamo cases, which the incoming Obama administration is expected to announce as soon as Wednesday. “The house of cards is finally falling down,” said Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has coordinated detainees’ lawyers.
    Lawyers for Mr. Bismullah, 29, presented sworn statements from officials of the American-supported Afghanistan government of Hamid Karzai that indicated Mr. Bismullah had been named as a terrorist by collaborators of the Taliban who wanted to take over his position as a provincial official. In fact, after Mr. Bismullah was shipped to Guantánamo, a local official said in a sworn statement, one of his accusers stole his car and drove it for two years.
    President-elect Barack Obama, who plans to close Guantánamo, has said that some of the detainees are too dangerous to release. Mr. Obama’s administration is expected to begin an effort to sort these detainees from those who pose less of a threat or are being held on weak evidence.
    While hundreds of suspects have been released from the detention camp in the seven years it has been operating, the recent decisions came after the Bush administration said it had reduced the population to the most dangerous terrorists.
    While Mr. Bismullah’s case was decided by a military panel, the rulings for the other 23 detainees occurred in habeas corpus hearings in federal court. Since a Supreme Court decision in June gave detainees the right to have their detentions reviewed by federal judges in habeas cases, the government has won only three of them. The government is appealing some of the rulings it lost.
    The cases provide a snapshot of the intelligence collected by the government on the suspects and suggest that there was little credible evidence behind the decision to declare some of the men enemy combatants and to hold them indefinitely.
    In a decision on Wednesday ordering the release of a prisoner who had been a Saudi resident, Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court said the government’s case was largely based on inconsistent accusations from two other Guantánamo detainees whose credibility the government itself had questioned.
    That case involved Mohammed el Gharani, who was detained when he was 14. One of the government’s claims was that Mr. Gharani had been a member of a Qaeda cell in London. His lawyers at the British legal group Reprieve argued that the government’s assertions would have meant that he was a member of the cell at age 11.
    “Putting aside the obvious unanswered questions as to how a Saudi minor from a very poor family could have even become a member of a London-based cell,” Judge Leon said, “the government simply advances no corroborating evidence for these statements.”
    In a separate case involving five Algerian detainees, Judge Leon, an appointee of President Bush, ruled last fall that he was not persuaded by the government’s claim that the men had planned to go to Afghanistan to fight Americans. The claim, he ruled, turned out to have been based on an assertion from a single unnamed person in a classified government document.
    “The government’s failure in case after case after case to be able to prove its case calls into question everybody who is there,” said Susan Baker Manning, a lawyer for 17 Uighur detainees from western China who were ordered released by a federal judge in October. The Justice Department has appealed that order from a federal district judge, Ricardo M. Urbina, and the men are still at Guantánamo.
    A Justice Department official who discussed the pattern of rulings only if not identified said the department had long argued that legal proceedings were not well suited to review classified evidence gathered during wartime. The defeats, the official said, were a “consequence of the fact that neither the Supreme Court nor Congress has provided rules on how these habeas corpus cases should proceed in this unprecedented context.”
    In Mr. Bismullah’s case, a military tribunal considered new evidence. His lawyers had fought his case up to the federal appeals court in Washington, which issued a ruling in 2007 that would have required the government to turn over all the information it had gathered on all detainees.
    The Bush administration, in fighting that decision, told the court that it would hold a new military hearing at Guantánamo to review Mr. Bismullah’s claims of innocence. That new hearing, people knowledgeable about the case said, led to his release over the weekend, along with five other detainees.
    The tale Mr. Bismullah’s lawyers assembled was one of complex tribal loyalties and evident confusion by his American captors. Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, a Karzai ally and member of the Afghan Senate, described in a sworn statement that he had known Mr. Bismullah and his family for years. When they fought the Taliban, he said, “Haji Bismullah was with us.”
    After the fall of the Taliban, Mr. Bismullah became an official of the pro-American regional government in Helmand Province, where tribal loyalties had brought assassinations and other brutal infighting, according to sworn statements. His job as chief of transportation was coveted by a rival clan, whose members had held the position under the Taliban. Mr. Akhundzada said the rival clan members had demanded the job, and when they did not get it, they told American forces that Mr. Bismullah was in league with the Taliban.
    Though the accusation worked, the rival clan’s candidate was not appointed transportation chief. It was then that Mr. Bismullah’s car was seen being driven by one of his accusers, who, according to Karzai officials, were themselves tied to the Taliban.
    At Guantánamo, Mr. Bismullah insisted he was innocent. He told military officials to contact his brother to vouch for him. The officials concluded that the brother was “not reasonably available” as a witness. At the time the brother, Haji Mohammad Wali, was the chief spokesman for a pro-American provisional governor who regularly gave news conferences, legal filings say.
    In 2006, the brother filed a sworn statement with Guantánamo officials. Mr. Bismullah and his whole family, he wrote, “fought to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan.”
    Mr. Bismullah, he added, had a wife and three children, including a son born while he was in Guantánamo. “The boy,” he wrote, “has never seen his father.”

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  68. Yep another mass cut and paste and copyright violation – great job Hack.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  69. Seriously, does Haxx0r ever have an original thought? Does Haxx0r ever debate in true faith? Does Haxx0r ever actually provide anything beyond an offer to be a laughingstock?

    I have yet to find anything Haxx0r provides to be of any value in debate promotion.

    (and why does my “zero” in “Haxx0r” get changed to a lower-class “o” in my live preview?)

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  70. I’m pretty sure someone else has chastized Hax already for spamming with cut&paste propaganda that has little relevance or credibility. He has no information or insight into this topic and just googles talking points to distract.

    Ignore him. Responding to him directly just encourages him because he views it as a victory in itself. Talk about him all you like, just don’t talk to him. It’s amazing that someone who supposedly writes for a living apparently has such trouble reading.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  71. https://patterico.com/2006/10/03/pattericos-exclusive-interview-with-a-man-who-has-spoken-to-the-terrorists-at-guantanamo-part-two-stashiu-arrives-at-gtmo-and-describes-the-terrorists/

    “ I didn’t see any that I believe were totally innocent, although it wasn’t my call and it really didn’t matter to their care. ” — “Stashiu” 2006

    Yet the Bush administration has, two years hence, acknowledged that at least 10 percent were totally innocent.

    Case closed on “Stashiu’s” credibility.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  72. Hey Stash~ Good to see ya!

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  73. Why wasn’t Haji “tortured”?

    Can’t those people at Gitmo get anything right?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  74. Comment by Hax Vobiscum

    I’ve already noted that you are an idiot.

    Now you are casting aspersions on a fine man~one whom you will never be able to see over the top of the soles of his shoes because you are such a small person.

    You would do well to consider why it is so important to you to court the derision of people so much kinder and wiser than yourself.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  75. I wouldn’t even talk about him except by allusion.

    He loves (gets that Chris Matthews’ thrill down his leg) attention and seeing his name in print.

    Don’t respond to him. Don’t acknowledge him. Treat him with all the importance he has earned: zero.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  76. Hack, your #71 shows only your dishonesty. Stashiu wrote an honest comment of which you don’t actually confront the core message.

    You’re busy here redefining “asshat” for us.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  77. https://patterico.com/2006/10/03/pattericos-exclusive-interview-with-a-man-who-has-spoken-to-the-terrorists-at-guantanamo-part-two-stashiu-arrives-at-gtmo-and-describes-the-terrorists/

    “ I didn’t see any that I believe were totally innocent, although it wasn’t my call and it really didn’t matter to their care. ” — “Stashiu” 2006

    Yet the Bush administration has, two years hence, acknowledged that at least 10 percent were totally innocent.

    Case closed on “Stashiu’s” credibility.

    I get it now. You’re trying to get banned.

    If you can a) provide a link for the “totally innocent” claim, and b) prove to me that Stashiu saw any of that 10 percent, I won’t demand an apology from you.

    Of course, you can’t do that and won’t. That’s why I expect you to apologize to Stashiu, a man with more credibility in one fingernail than you’ll ever have.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  78. Stashiu3,

    Good advice. When it’s not Dowdifying quotes, the troll never fails to misinterpret them. In your casee, it took a statement of belief about the detainees, not pertinent to their care, and misrepresents it into some kind of legal opinion that was overturned — by some kind of contrived statement supplied by the troll.

    And of course, the troll doesn’t link to the statement it says validates its claim.

    It’s a “how many logical fallacies can you spot in its disinformation?” kind of troll. Instructive in its own way.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., who would far rather have DRJ back and give the troll to DailyKos (0ea407)

  79. Weigh your words carefully. I’m very serious about this.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  80. “Yet the Bush administration has, two years hence, acknowledged that at least 10 percent were totally innocent.”

    Hax – If you are referring back to the article you just pasted, a court made that determination, not the Bush Administration.

    Since Judges are so well trained in foreign and military intelligence matters and interacted with the detainees on a daily basis, how you feel their decisions reflect on Stash’s credibility would be an interesting read.

    Show you work.

    If the Uighurs are in the 10% figure, you are aware we have been trying to get rid of those guys for years. The Judge wanted to release them into the U.S., but cooler heads prevailed.

    Logic and reading comprehension are truly not your strengths.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  81. Hey EW1(SG), 🙂

    Ignore him. He obviously cannot read… even something he’s quoted. It’s willful ignorance and contrariness. Sure, it’s fun to keep smacking him down, but that’s what he comes here for in the end.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  82. Stash, if you specifically ask me not to ban him, I will.

    Absent that request from you, I expect an apology. I really enjoy alternate viewpoints, but I wil not allow people to come on here and baselessly question the integrity of someone for whom I have tremendous respect.

    If he can back up his statement, that’s one thing. But we all know he can’t.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  83. Damn, Patterico beat me to it.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  84. Slagging people who so clearly are better people is a constant for trolls.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  85. Fornicate under consent of the king Haxx0r. Bury him in the banned group. His posts have never had any value. And while I arrived here after the stashiu interviews, I can honestly say I read through the entire series and all the comments attached. Stashiu, I salute you. Patterico, vanquish Haxx0r.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  86. My money’s on Hax claiming his comment as an “analytical observation”, you know the kinds of things he was trying to pass off as facts until he was nailed one too many times.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  87. Haxx0r getting “nailed” ushers up images of some aged cheerleader named Debbie. Shame on you, daley, for shaming me for bad memories.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  88. Patterico,

    Thank you, but I’m not going to ask you to ban him or ask you not to. If you want to set conditions on him staying, I would suggest he comply or leave… you’ve left it up to him.

    I (like many others) don’t believe he is commenting in good faith, but he could provide a valuable counter-point if he ever decided to do so. Too bad for him if he doesn’t… he does enable me to question things I believe at times, then destroys his own credibility by making dishonest comments. He would lose more from getting banned than we would, but we would lose far more potential gain if he would only make a few changes.

    He obviously didn’t read the entire series or the comments and just cherry-picked a single phrase to try and twist into his point. It has the same effect as if I said, “He spells his name with an x instead of -cks…, case closed on his credibility.” Same amount of justification because the supposed reasoning has no connection. Whether you ban him or not, I don’t see the need to talk with him until he can argue in good faith.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  89. “provide a link for the “totally innocent” claim”

    What I meant was that the Bush administration didn’t challenge the tribunal’s verdicts. That’s why I used the word “acknowledged” rather than admitted.
    Though maybe I did bend the point a bit, since “acknowledged” implies an action, whereas what really happened was a lack of action, though the Bush administration did follow through and release the innocent prisoners.

    “ b) prove to me that Stashiu saw any of that 10 percent, I won’t demand an apology from you.”

    He’s online, why not just ask him if he did? If the reason he was unaware that many innocents were being held there is that he didn’t see any of them, then we have to question why he was willing to make general statements about what was going on at the jail. Surely these 10 percent were not segregated, so either he saw some of them, or he didn’t see a cross-section.

    I’ve apologized to people here before, such as JD just yesterday. I have no problem with that. But in this case, I don’t see what I’d be apologizing for.

    My opinion is that his statements about not seeing any innocents, when we now know there were innocents, is an obvious, fatal blow to his credibility. How in the world is that the occasion for an apology?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  90. When it comes to the question “was it Gitmo’s fault? Did Guantanamo propel him to do it?”, there is one cut and paste that can speak louder than the stupid notion that extremism or radicalism found in the captives at a US military prison was somehow related to their confinement. Or mainly to the influence of their captors.

    The mentality of blame-America-first or blame-the-victim (ie, the cruel, imperialistic, greedy US brought acts of terrorism upon itself!) is both disgusting and laughable.

    Muslim schools in Great Britain are radicalizing young muslims without even sending them to Guantanamo. How could that happen?
    Comment by SPQR — 2/22/2009 @ 6:26 pm

    London Telegraph:

    Several recent surveys have noted an unusual phenomenon among young Muslims here and in Europe: that 16-to-24-year-olds are more hardline in their opinions than their parents or even their grandparents. The youngest generation is moving away from mainstream society, not towards it. The reasons for this are complex, but there can be little doubt that Islamic schools play a role in encouraging children and teenagers to isolate themselves. More than 50 per cent of the establishments I examined for my report on Muslim schools showed indications of strong fundamentalist influence and control. Some were set up by organisations that have been banned in some countries.

    Mark (411533)

  91. How many times do you think you can get away with misrepresenting Stashiu’s comment, Hack?

    SPQR (26be8b)

  92. My money’s on Haxx0r’s being banished.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  93. SPQR: none. I quoted him verbatim.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  94. Hack, you remain dishonest. You’ve twice claimed that Stashiu said he saw no innocents when the reality is that he didn’t.

    The quote you brought out to misrepresent stated that “ I didn’t see any that I believe were totally innocent, although it wasn’t my call and it really didn’t matter to their care. ”(emphasis added by me).

    Given your fondness for playing semantic games, it is clear that your misrepresentation is intentional on your part.

    Again, you attack a man of far better character than you.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  95. At some point won’t this troublesome nit simply shrink to nothingness?

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  96. Bunkerblaster is just showing its true colors. Shocka.

    That racist Stash has more honor, class, and decency in his pinky than someone like Hack could ever dream of having.

    JD (6e32db)

  97. SPQR writes: “You’ve twice claimed that Stashiu said he saw no innocents when the reality is that he didn’t.”

    You’re going to have to parse that for me. Not sure where you’re trying to go with it…

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  98. I will also mention that in over two years since we did that interview, not one single particular I gave has been proven false… and many have since been confirmed again and again. If the “journalist” could read, he would see that the comment he cherry-picked specifically doesn’t say whether anyone was innocent, only what I (personally) believed to be true. I wasn’t there to pass judgement. I was very careful to differentiate between what I saw, what I knew, and what I believed thoughout that series. If our “journalist” could read, he would see that proving whether I did or didn’t believe something is different than believing something and (possibly) being wrong, and is a fool’s game.

    It should also be said that “no longer a threat” is not the same as “innocent”. He pulls a 10% figure out of thin air without anything to back it up and expects people to take it on faith that he’s commenting honestly after being proven dishonest over and over again. As a particularly vile troll here once said:

    Right.Out.Loud.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  99. Hax,

    So when you say the Bush administration “acknowledged that at least 10 percent were totally innocent” you mean that they released them. Like the guy in the post. Who killed 13 people.

    So already, your argument is total crap because the fact that the Bush administration released someone does not establish that they were “totally innocent,” nor does it represent an acknowledgement of such by the Bush administration. The detainee that is the subject of the article (while not seen by Stashiu) is a perfect example of someone who was released although not totally innocent, nor acknowledged to be such by the Bush administration.

    Even if releasing the detainees constituted either proof or an admission that the detainees were “totally innocent” — which it doesn’t — you still cannot establish that Stashiu saw any of those people. If you read the interview with Stashiu, you know that he concentrated primarily on inmates with behavioral problems and psychological issues. You have absolutely no proof that he saw the people to whom you are referring.

    To that argument you dishonestly respond: “we have to question why he was willing to make general statements about what was going on at the jail.” No we don’t, because he didn’t do that. He said: “I didn’t see any that I believe were totally innocent, although it wasn’t my call and it really didn’t matter to their care.” That is not a general statement about what was going on at the jail, and for you to claim it is a “fatal blow to your credibility,” to use your phrasing.

    “My opinion is that his statements about not seeing any innocents, when we now know there were innocents, is an obvious, fatal blow to his credibility. How in the world is that the occasion for an apology?” Because you are misrepresenting his statement, repeatedly. He said: “I didn’t see any that I believe were totally innocent, although it wasn’t my call and it really didn’t matter to their care.” That is not the same as saying that he didn’t see any innocents — even if you could establish that the people you are calling innocents (which you can’t prove) were seen by Stashiu (which you can’t prove).

    Ultimately, your argument rests on series of misrepresentations of Stashiu’s statement, together with a series of exaggerations and/or statements that you can’t prove.

    Stashiu is one of the finest men I know. You have questioned his credibility baselessly. I’ve enjoyed having your contrarian viewpoints here and watching my commenters be challenged. I have resisted numerous calls for you to be banned, because I won’t ban people for advancing a contrary viewpoint, even if I think they’re sometimes less than completely forthright in their arguments.

    However, when someone challenges the credibility of someone I deeply respect, that person must back up their claim or retract it. I don’t take this stuff lightly.

    And I’m not putting up with a ton of word games. I’m not stupid, friend, and I can see through them.

    Apologize or be gone with you.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  100. Hack, #97, BS. You know exactly what the point is, and you know you are intentionally misrepresenting Stashiu.

    It is your credibility that did not survive your comment.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  101. The “journalist” can’t read anything that doesn’t fit Teh Narrative.

    It’s not the facts, it’s the interpretation and misapprehension of the facts that’s important.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  102. I think the troll’s nearly at that point now. Nobody’s fooled by it, even though the troll retains its pretensions of cleverness by misrepresentation. That doesn’t work on a blog where one’s every statement is recorded and can be fact-checked at will.

    Fisking isn’t within the troll’s comprehension.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., who would far rather have DRJ back and give the troll to DailyKos (0ea407)

  103. Aren’t you even a little trouble that you may have the story wrong, Stashiu?

    There’s a mountain of evidence that a significant number of the detainees were simply unfortunate bystanders turned in by bounty hunters — as was the case with Haji.

    Don’t you feel some sort of reassessment is in order on your part?

    I didn’t mean to suggest that you were going around claiming to have convicted people yourself, but can’t you at least admit that your personal judgment has been proven faulty on this issue?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  104. Sad to see it happen. It’s like watching a man’s soul disappear. Once there was a reasoning mind; now it’s just a megaphone repeating what others have told him.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  105. JD,

    I lost my racist handbook… think you could scan yours and shoot me an email copy? If I report mine gone they might repossess my Robert Byrd coin.
    😉

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  106. An apology is not something he’s able to do, apparently. The “journalist” can’t ever be wrong, it seems.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  107. Hack, yes you did mean to claim that. You even repeated the attempt to claim it

    SPQR (26be8b)

  108. There’s a mountain of evidence that a significant number of the detainees were simply unfortunate bystanders turned in by bounty hunters — as was the case with Haji.

    So you’re saying Haji was “totally innocent”?

    And you’re questioning Stashiu’s credibility on this topic?

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  109. Patterico, if I ever need a lawyer, I want you – because you believe the best about everyone, and it takes a lot to shake your faith in people.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  110. I’m going to go for a walk. When I get back I expect to be putting you in moderation, Hax.

    If I see an apology to Stashiu, or evidence backing up your claim, I won’t do it. But we’re talking about what I expect will happen.

    The clock is ticking.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  111. The heck with moderation. Haxx0r has proven time and time again he is not willing to accept facts and he is only desirous of advancing falsehoods, assassinating the character of decent people in the process.

    No moderation for Haxx0r. Banish him.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  112. I don’t envy Patterico trying to maintain a balance for robust discussion. On one hand, mere idiots can post and derail a conversation, but on the other, a room full of people who all agree can be boring.

    The dishonest commentator who refuses to admit error and seeks to derail conversations is someone to be dealt with. I wish some of these trolls would have the same sense of honesty here that they think they have with their own families.

    Good luck to the troll. He will not be missed if he is shut out. Perhaps he can find satisfaction in being a “journalist.”

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  113. No moderation for Haxx0r. Banish him.

    It’s the same. I’ll approve a comment of his out of moderation — if it’s an apology to Stashiu. Otherwise it will be deleted.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  114. This is the same crap it pulled last time it was banned around here. I really do not want to see it banned, but questioning the honesty and integrity of Stash is just stooooopid. Plus, no matter what happens, this person that gets paid to publish the written word will still be a dishonest douchebag, whether or not it apologizes.

    JD (6e32db)

  115. From the comments in Part One:

    [snip]
    Almost everything you hear will be already publicly available and had been officially released. Everything else is just my personal opinion. But you never hear much about it and Patterico wanted to consolidate a lot of the questions people had. It is not an attempt to smear or to play “gotcha” with the MSM. I’m not speaking for the military or anyone but myself, within the limits of the regulations.

    I (and Patterico) have been very careful to emphasize what is my opinion [emphasis mine] and any errors are mine alone, not Patterico’s or the military’s. Patterico asked, I answered, as best I could within clear limitations.
    [snip]
    Comment by Stashiu3 — 10/3/2006 @ 3:40 am

    Perhaps our “journalist” missed that?

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  116. I’ve said it before: Hax will wear banishment like a badge of honor. He’ll go to other boards and claim that Patterico won’t tolerate opposing viewpoints, because he’s afraid of being proved wrong.

    I’m tempted to say Hax has been angling for such a banishment since he got here.

    Steverino (b12c49)

  117. “So you’re saying Haji was “totally innocent”?

    Absolutely.

    I wonder what Stashiu thinks…

    Haji innocent, Stash?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  118. I’ll say it again: if he can provide the evidence to back up his claim, he’s in the clear. I think he now realizes he overstated his claim and is looking for a way to back out and save face.

    Sadly, I expect that his “way out” will be more word games. My patience is not infinite.

    Going on that walk now.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  119. I have to say it took me a couple hours at least to read all parts of the series and all the comment sections. It was a lot of material to go through and it was very informational.

    There is no way Haxx0r read all that stuff. Likely he didn’t read any of it. Regardless of what he did or didn’t read, none of it entered into his brain. He’s only here to attack those evil conservatives and those evil people who hate the holy anti-zionists.

    And, stashiu, sir, it is like I was just listening to you last month since that’s when I read that series. I’m glad you’re still around here to provide reasoned input. And you’re far more generous than I am (must be that length of time in the military) in regards to idiots like Haxx0r. **==

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  120. Okay, stick the **== in your YIM and send it, you’ll see what that is.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  121. What a sad little man this troll is.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  122. Before I walk out, let me point out more inaccuracy by Hax: “There’s a mountain of evidence that a significant number of the detainees were simply unfortunate bystanders turned in by bounty hunters — as was the case with Haji.

    Wapo: “The Pakistanis soon handed him over to the Americans. It is unclear whether the United States paid a bounty for him, although doing so was common practice at the time.”

    More proof that this guy distorts everything he reads to suit his prejudices. Just as he did with Stashiu’s statement.

    Going now. Enjoy your last 30-40 minutes on this blog, Hax. Make them worth it.

    Patterico (cc3b34)

  123. Apparently it is more important for it to play its little games than it is to exhibit even a shred of decency.

    JD (6e32db)

  124. Fair enough, then.

    Sorry Stashiu, I misrepresented your view.

    Would be nice, now, to hear your comment, Stashiu, on the fact that many of the detainees appear to have been mistakenly detained and are innocent.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  125. Let’s see. Stashiu is an eyewitness. The “journalist” is not. Whom to believe?

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  126. I’m sorry because I have to say I’m sorry. Now prove every single word I ever said was false or I will laugh at you. And by the by, I’ll reject every proof you have because I’m right and you’re wrong and I own all conversations.

    Haxx0r, prove to me I have not misrepresented your statements. Prove each and every one of your statements are above reproach. Prove you have been honest and fair in each and every one of your accusations.

    Actually, prove you have been honest in 50 pc of your statements.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  127. Comment by Dr. K — 2/22/2009 @ 5:11 pm

    That’s comment #44, btw…

    Dr K, PLEASE do not take this in an insulting manner, because I do NOT mean it as such…

    What kind of doctor are you?

    I ask, because Whatever it is, I hereby proclaim you to be my doctor… 🙂

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  128. “Proof” implies “facts.”

    I don’t know how it’s going to be possible, John.

    Maybe the best we can expect is “feelings” and “impressions.”

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  129. John Hitchcock nailed it — the troll said the grudging bare minimum to keep from being banned. And after its prodigious six-word ‘apology’, it’s shamelessly back again throwing out more challenges to the person it maligned.

    Kudos to Patterico for his near-superhuman endurance for hosting this blog and enduring trolls, in addition to his other responsibilities.

    I doubt the troll has duties anywhere near as consequential.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., who would far rather have DRJ back and give the troll to DailyKos (0ea407)

  130. Heck, I think it’s all this “journalist” can do to keep his pencils sharp and neatly organized.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  131. Thanks John,

    I was exhausted at the end of that week because I didn’t want any questions that came up in the comments to sit for too long. Most of the interview was done already and Patterico made sure to send his intended post for the next day to me so that I could clarify or correct anything. There were a few suggestions I made and I think (IIRC) that Patterico incorporated all of them.

    Hax, I will address you briefly.

    1. Apology noted. Patterico can decide if it was sufficient to keep from banning you.
    2. I have no intention of responding to you directly in the near future, at least not until I am confident (in MY opinion) that you can interact honestly. If I do address you directly it is either through my own choice or weakness to temptation. Failing to respond to you does not imply that you are correct in anything you say or “win” anything… it is standard practice.
    3. If you decide to read the entire series, including the comments where I spent quite a bit of time and effort answering questions, you might be able to ask pertinent questions, possibly even understanding the answers. You might not agree with them, but you would understand them.
    4. Making a claim that “the fact that many of the detainees appear to have been mistakenly detained and are innocent” does not make it a fact, especially with so many undefined terms. “Many”, “appear”, “mistakenly”, “are innocent”, are all undefined and unproven… not facts. A “journalist” should know the difference.
    5. I don’t work for you or respond to your whims, so offsetting the word “now” with commas in repeating your question, after having been ignored up to now, gives the flavor of a demand. Until you wear a ring on your finger that I married you with, or are listed as a child of mine (neither of which will ever happen), you don’t get to make demands of me. Maybe that wasn’t your intent, but I’m not inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt just yet.
    6. It’s very possible your question has already been answered in one of the articles, which you would know if you had bothered to read them before making an asinine accusation about my integrity.
    7. That’s it. We’re done until you can comment honestly. Okay, maybe that wasn’t as brief as I had hoped. I trust it was clear however.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  132. Would be nice, now, to hear your comment, Stashiu, on the fact that many of the detainees appear to have been mistakenly detained and are innocent.

    And his subjective “10%” becomes “many”.

    He can’t even apologize right.

    Toss his ass.

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  133. Not an honest broker for investigative truth is this “journalist.”

    Maybe he should rethink his offer of a job working for the “Weekly World News.” He could could learn a thing or two about integrity from that publication.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  134. I’m as happy that the troll might be a “journalist” as was Frodo to learn he was related to Gollum.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., who would far rather have DRJ back and give the troll to DailyKos (0ea407)

  135. I see your point, but when you think about it, Gollum may have been distantly related to Frodo, but he (Gollum) lost all contact with his “hobbitish” side through disuse of his good nature and contact with the Ring of Power. Only in rare, brief flashes did Gollum break through his selfish, bitter side and approach (as a moth approaches the shining moon) the hobbitish side. He was enobled by Frodo, but he was too wrapped up in his warped, small, and devious self to change permanently. And in the end, his attempts to destroy Frodo lead to his own destruction.

    The parallels are pretty obvious, aren’t they? They just speak for themselves.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  136. #127: Scott, No offence taken. I am an Engineer with a Doctorate.

    Sometimes a little too blunt.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  137. Enjoy your last 30-40 minutes on this blog, Hax.

    But his mindset is so screwed up, his method of arguing a point is so corrupt, that I think he actually serves a useful purpose, at least to those who don’t share his POV. And that is he makes his side of the political divide look so bad, that it ends up seeming even less reliable and credible.

    Mark (411533)

  138. Anyone else care to comment on whether they think a significant number of suspects at Gitmo are innocent?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  139. I am an Engineer with a Doctorate.

    Crap…

    Well, in that case I demand a Robotic Body of Doom…

    Or a robo-babe. Your pick, but the former will get you fewer dirty looks from the women in your life. 🙂

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  140. This is an excellent companion piece to Stashiu’s interview:

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/
    An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  141. Just a gentle warning: you who wish to engage the troll must do so with the expectation of a reduction in intelligent discussion.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  142. as well as bad faith argument, refusal to take argument honestly, twisting words, avoiding clear statements, quibbling over words, and general smallness of thought and intent.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  143. steve miller,
    I was probably giving the petty troll more grandeur than it deserves. It’s more like an boorish relative that shows up at family reunions and makes an ass of itself. You explain to outsiders that you had no say in its being a relative.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., who would far rather have DRJ back and give the troll to DailyKos (0ea407)

  144. I usually argue against banning people who act in a reasonably civilized manner, and it is a tribute to what a credible and honorable man Stashiu3 is that he is seen as a target who MUST be attacked, no matter how ridiculous one must sound to do so, but this approach by this troll is appalling. I may be presumptuous but I feel I can claim I know gentle Stashiu3 personally and he ranks with the finest and most honorable men I know or know of. To attack his credibility or character because his excellent accounts don’t fit the anti-American narrative being pushed is despicable.

    Machinist (c5fc28)

  145. I say that if he thinks all these folks are so innocent, he’s welcome to offer his place to take in a few of them when they close Gitmo.

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  146. True you have no say in a boorish relative – and we all have one or two. (It is to be fervently hoped that we are not that relative, of course.)

    But noobs might think that the troll wants to engage in honest debate. He doesn’t. It’s not really an argument/discussion when one side argues in bad faith.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  147. Scott, that’s brilliant.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  148. Hax, your opinions are so convoluted they can be deemed androgynous. Your demand for truth so impotent it can be deemed “shooting blanks.” As such, I expect you can successfully follow my orders when I say “go screw yourself” without risk of self-impregnation.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  149. I would welcome an honest debate. But I won’t discuss the weather with this troll.

    steve miller (9f5b63)

  150. I am an Engineer with a Doctorate.

    Crap…

    Well, in that case I demand a Robotic Body of Doom…

    Or a robo-babe. Your pick, but the former will get you fewer dirty looks from the women in your life.

    But I’m only a Chemical Engineer. Good for distilling stuff.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  151. Corn don’t grow at all on Rocky Top,
    Dirt’s too rocky by far.
    That’s why all the folks on Rocky Top
    Drink their corn from a jar.

    And Dr. K can make it for ya.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  152. But I’m only a Chemical Engineer. Good for distilling stuff

    Son of a…

    Gimme a few… I need to think for a second…

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  153. Sorry to distract y’all, but:

    “The Taliban and al Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantanamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas, binding religious instructions, to the other detainees.

    “Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, until recently the commanding officer at Guantanamo, acknowledged that senior militant leaders gained influence and control in his prison.

    “We have that full range of (Taliban and al Qaida) leadership here, why would they not continue to be functional as an organization?” he said in a telephone interview. “I must make the assumption that there’s a fully functional al Qaida cell here at Guantanamo.”

    “`Afghan and Pakistani officials also said they were aware that Guantanamo was churning out new militant leaders.

    “`In a classified 2005 review of 35 detainees released from Guantanamo, Pakistani police intelligence concluded that the men — the majority of whom had been subjected to “severe mental and physical torture,” according to the report — had “extreme feelings of resentment and hatred against USA.”

    The report warned that unless steps were taken to rehabilitate the men, they had the potential of “becoming another Abdullah Mehsud,” a former Guantanamo detainee who became a high-ranking Taliban commander in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Mehsud killed himself with a grenade last July to avoid being taken prisoner by Pakistani troops.

    “A lot of our friends are working against the Americans now, because if you torture someone without any reason, what do you expect?” Issa Khan, a Pakistani former detainee, said in an interview in Islamabad. “Many people who were in Guantanamo are now working with the Taliban.”

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38779.html

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  154. Sorry to distract y’all, but:

    Well, if it is on a far-left site like McClatchy (“Truth to Power” where is the exclamation point at the end?) then it absolutely must be true, mustn’t it?

    JVW (bff0a4)

  155. My dash in the parentheses was deleted; the statement should read (“Truth to Power” — where is the exclamation point at the end?). If I am not mistaken, Uncle Noam teaches us that it is supposed to be “Truth to Power!”

    JVW (bff0a4)

  156. Yes, this is the same Gitmo that supposedly flushed korans down toilets (according to Newsweak later proven to be a total fabrication).

    “Truth when it suits us; if not we just make shit up” is more like it.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  157. The report warned that unless steps were taken to rehabilitate the men, they had the potential of “becoming another Abdullah Mehsud,” a former Guantanamo detainee who became a high-ranking Taliban commander in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Mehsud killed himself with a grenade last July to avoid being taken prisoner by Pakistani troops.

    Because NONE of them wanted to wage jyhad before coming here.

    “`In a classified 2005 review of 35 detainees released from Guantanamo, Pakistani police intelligence concluded that the men — the majority of whom had been subjected to “severe mental and physical torture,” according to the report — had “extreme feelings of resentment and hatred against USA.”

    I’d love to see the list of these “sever physical torture”. Water boarding and cold rooms?

    Sorry, not torture in my book.

    “A lot of our friends are working against the Americans now, because if you torture someone without any reason, what do you expect?”

    But those beheadings? Those are totally different, dude…

    “Many people who were in Guantanamo are now working with the Taliban.”

    Good. This time maybe we’ll shoot and kill the SOBs, and get it right.

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  158. And for those of you who care, it’s a relatively pleasant winter day(a little above freezing) in Beijing, where they could teach us a thing or two about capitalism.

    Never thought I’d ever type that.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  159. Ironicaly, Dr. K, my dad gets on a plane at the local airport to begin a trip to China in about 5 hours…

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  160. Now, about that serum…

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  161. That McClatchy war on terror coverage – unmatched for innaccuracy and bias. The left can’t buy better coverage than that.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  162. Haxx0r (why does my zero always get changed to a lower-case o?), have you ever attempted to enter into an honest and fair discussion of anything even approaching the topic at hand? Have you ever even atttempted to have an honest and just debate on anything in your entire post-pubescent life?

    The day you actually begin to debate honestly will be the day I decide to consider whether I should vote for moderate Democrats. Until that day, those moderate Democrats will be far too far left to be considered.

    But I know I won’t have anything to worry about. You are so far left of center and so far beneath contempts that you will never consider an honest debate. You will lose all honest debates, so it will never be in your self-determined best interest to truthfully debate anything whatsoever.

    May your blade break and shatter.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  163. It doesn’t get changed, John.

    LOL
    101
    lol

    See?

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  164. Also, your woman will make a fine prize upon Harkkonen Jacobs linen…

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  165. But what woman would have him?

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  166. I can’t help but notice that you’re dodging the serum issue, Doc… 😉

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  167. Sorry, the curious silence must mean I cannot defend my position.

    Or, I do not know what you’re talking about.

    If you know what I mean.

    Dr. K (b99fd5)

  168. Eusseaux (no idea how to spell that) no longer needs the weirding module.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  169. Usul.

    And I don’t care what the hell anyone else says, I loved the SciFi Channel mini-series they did for Dune, as well as the combo mini they did for the next two books (though that one not as much).

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  170. Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/22/2009 @ 10:56 pm

    Your attempt to perpetuate your calumny against a good man fools nobody.

    There is no part of me that will miss you. Particularly my scrollover finger.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  171. I found this part of Stashiu interview interesting:

    “I can tell you that if I ever saw a detainee face-to-face here in the States, I would immediately assume that I was targeted and do my best to kill them without further warning. If I turned out to be wrong about their intent, I could live with that.”

    Hax Vobiscum (edacf7)

  172. Thanks EW.

    I think the word you’re looking for is “perpetrate,” though I doubt you’re one to quibble over your own meaning and I’m always happy when people confirm that they’ve read my comments.

    Hax Vobiscum (edacf7)

  173. On Guantanamo:

    “My approach was what we call a relationship-based approach—far more than just rapport-building. I’ve never felt any necessity or operational requirement to bring physical, psychological or emotional pressure on a source to win their cooperation. So, following the guidance in the [Army] field manual, I feel unconstrained in my ability to work in the paradigm that I’ve taught for so many years.”
    -Colonel Steven Kleinman, U.S. Air Force Reserve, former military interrogator
    http://intelligence.senate.gov/070925/transcript.pdf

    “Cruelty disfigures our national character. It is incompatible with our constitutional order, with our laws, and with our most prized values …there is no more fundamental right than to be safe from cruel and inhumane treatment. Where cruelty exists, law does not.”
    -Alberto Mora, former general counsel of the United States Navy
    http://www.jfklibrary.org/Education+and+Public+Programs/Profile+in+Courage+Award/Award+Recipients/Alberto+Mora/Acceptance+Speech+by+Alberto+Mora.htm

    “I have been hard pressed to find a situation where anybody can tell me that they’ve ever encountered the ticking-bomb scenario… a show like 24…makes all of us believe that this is real—it’s not. Throw that stuff out, it doesn’t happen.”
    -Jack Cloonan, FBI special agent from 1977 – 2002
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4193

    “Anybody with real combat experience understands that torture is counterproductive.”
    -F. Andy Messing, retired major U.S. Special Forces and director of the National Defense Council
    http://www.cvt.org/file.php?ID=5575

    “The difference between us and the enemy is how we treat the enemy.”
    -Rear. Adm. John Hutson, former Navy lawyer
    http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060119-043756-2616r

    ”I’d like to see it shut down…I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it’s been pretty damaging.”
    -Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
    http://www.miamiherald.com/guantanamo/story/378038.html

    “If it were up to me I would close Guantánamo not tomorrow but this afternoon…Essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America’s justice system…and it’s causing us far more damage than any good we get from it.”
    -Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State
    http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1043646920070610

    “I came to this job thinking that Guantánamo Bay should be closed.”
    -Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/washington/30gitmo.html?scp=3&sq=robert+gates+guantanamo&st=nyt

    “It gives us a very, very bad name, not just internationally. I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how we can hold someone, pick someone up, particularly someone who might be an American citizen—even if they were caught somewhere abroad, acting against American interests—and hold them without ever giving them an opportunity to appear before a magistrate.”
    -James A. Baker III, former U.S. Secretary of State
    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-advice28mar28,1,2275646.story

    “Torture does not work.”
    -Porter Goss, former director of the CIA
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-20-cia-detainees_x.htm

    “Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary.”
    -David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force – Iraq
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/documents/petraeus_values_051007.pdf

    “They prepared me for interrogations by putting electric shocks through my feet. For hours on end they would hang me up by my hands, which were bound behind my back… A doctor looked in to see if you were still alive…”
    -Murat Kurnaz, on his treatment at a U.S.facility in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
    He spent 5 years in Guantánamo and was released in 2006 after a personal plea from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to President George W. Bush.
    Stern magazine, Spring 2008. Volume 34, no. 1

    Hax Vobiscum (edacf7)

  174. Maybe if he’d been accorded the inalienable rights America is founded on, he’d have come to appreciate them or, at least, see them as genuine.

    Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/22/2009 @ 3:33 pm

    How touching, civilized, and enlightened: rely on the transformative power of America’s founding doctrines to change the hearts of our enemies. It sounds so… sensitive and uplifting.

    And now, Hax, if you could produce some real-world examples demonstrating where this has been tried on hard-core enemies of some nation, and the granting of rights actually produced change in the behavior and beliefs of the majority of subjects on which it was tried, and transformed them from hardened enemies into admirers, like in your fantasies and the grade-C films you’re imagining… you might actually have a real argument.

    Without that, it’s just a child’s dream. If it doesn’t work this way in reality, then you’re making an ass of yourself. So… real-world trials? Let’s see them. Go for it.

    Plumb Bob (c0e659)

  175. And his subjective “10%” becomes “many”.

    That’s not even a tiny minority.

    Pablo (99243e)

  176. Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/22/2009 @ 10:56 pm

    Ok, coupla questions here:

    1) If the leaders are constructing operative cells in Gitmo, why aren’t they being held in solitary to prevent such activity?

    2) If the former commander of Gitmo knew this was going on, isn’t he directly responsible for the failure to prevent this sort of activity?

    3) Doesn’t this suggest simply killing the leaders outright as a strategy?

    4) The article names this Farouq fellow as a hardened criminal to begin with, just not in contact with the Taliban.

    4A) How does the writer know there was no contact with the Taliban?

    4B) Why, exactly, did the US detain him?

    4C) What reason do we have to believe that any particular treatment could have “rehabilitated” him? For that matter what reason do we have (given 70+% recidivism in American prisons) to believe that rehabilitation is anything but a random event?

    That’s just off the top of my head. A fifth question occurs to me, though:

    5) Why aren’t YOU asking these questions as you read the article? Are you… a SHEEP?

    Plumb Bob (c0e659)

  177. I think the word you’re looking for is “perpetrate,” though I doubt you’re one to quibble over your own meaning

    On the contrary, unlike you, I try to use words that mean exactly what I intend to convey.

    You have impugned the integrity of a good man, and your attempts to continue to do so are pathetic. You really, really need to consider why your need for attention is driving you to behave in ways that are unacceptable in civil society. You might even need to consider counseling. And if you are very, very lucky, you might get a behavioral health specialist nearly as good as stashiu3.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  178. Wtf? why all the confusion? let’s be smart about this and go back to our WWII policy on enemy combatants. shot dead on sight! that would solve all these problems.

    allah_allah_bing_bang (60ecf0)

  179. When this talk about releasing Terrorists first began, George Bush should have simply addressed the nation and said if we are not allowed to imprison terrorists, then we will no longer take prisoners.

    And the people in Gitmo could be released. An aircraft carrier could take them into the middle of the ocean and say, you are free to go. You don’t have swim to Afghanistan, but you can’t stay here.

    Jeff (164dbd)

  180. Patterico makes no sense. He says that the prosecutor’s claim that the prisoner vowed to kill “many Americans” is evidence that Gitmo didn’t turn him into the monster he later became. But Patterico himself noted that al-Ajmi denied the allegation. So in short, a he-said-she said is evidence in the eyes of Patterico, who blindly believes the prosecutor.

    How slick.

    Andrew (e57bc9)

  181. Add Andrew to the ever-lengthening list of mental midgets around here.

    JD (a9f2c7)

  182. So in short, a he-said-she said is evidence in the eyes of Patterico, who blindly believes the prosecutor.

    Where do you suppose the (eeeeevil) prosecutor got that idea, Andrew?

    Pablo (99243e)

  183. Max Vomitorium: ““`In a classified 2005 review of 35 detainees released from Guantanamo, Pakistani police intelligence concluded that the men — the majority of whom had been subjected to “severe mental and physical torture,” according to the report — had “extreme feelings of resentment and hatred against USA.””

    Oh please! Their own handbook tells them to lie about their experiences in captivity. But since Max Vomitorium seems to believe this crap, whether quoted from reliable or unreliable sources or not, as a licensed psychotherapist, I hereby offer Max Vomitorum free therapy for at least a session or three.

    GM Roper who wants DRJ back (85dcd7)

  184. Banned or not, the asshole with whom some of you are trying to debate in good faith is not worth your efforts.

    I do wonder, though, when someone asks whether Haji is ‘innocent’ – of what, exactly? These guys get rolled up in Afghanistan or Iraq, getting their jihad on. Until (maybe) 30 years ago, they would be shot on sight. Today, we put good soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors on trial for not providing them with daily bread and a koran. Perhaps the pendulum should swing the other way a smidge. I suspect that it will be 4 or 8 years before we can discuss it honestly, however, which is unfortunate for Western Civilization.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  185. A survey of Pakistani police intelligence, that’s a group more likely to be Salafi than the Gitmo detainees themselves. This survey was conducted before or after they put on the rusty nail at the local constabulary.

    narciso (4e0dda)

  186. Andrew,

    If Amji wasn’t on jihad as he initially claimed, then recanted, why was he in Pakistan instead of with his Kuwaiti Army unit? Also, it wasn’t just the prosecutor that Patterico cited, it was the investigative summary, and the lawyer’s own statements. Yet, you only reference the prosecutor’s statement. How slick.

    Patterico,

    In re-reading the WaPo article myself I noticed that Amji left November 3rd, 2005… just over a week before I got there. Definitely never met him.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  187. Holding someone without trial isn’t “deterring” them any more than simply murdering them, as someone here suggested, would be.

    Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/22/2009 @ 4:24 pm

    My goodness, you’re a stupid one. aren’t you?

    You do realize that your tooth fairy politics will get real people killed, do you not?

    N. O'Brain (5deb6d)

  188. I go out for a nice dinner, and good old HV decides to scatter shot attack people yet again. I don’t know if Patterico decided to ban his contrarian backside, but he was posting at 3 AM, so I guess not. Patterico’s house, Patterico’s rules.

    It’s all reflexive contrarianism. He sees people here as his view of the “Right Wing” and he, speaker of great truth, must respond.

    Add to it a positively juvenile penchant for word games, and here we are.

    Again, this “tit-for-tat” business that he pulls is very tiresome, and adds little, in my opinion. He is just here to argue. I even tried to use his approach to the issue early in the thread (and EW, I hope you realize that I was mocking this goofball early on). HV is just here to argue.

    And in some cases, to cast aspersions on people who (a) have actual experience with a given topic, and (b) are acting in good faith.

    A journalist? He has to write copy for Pacifica Radio.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  189. Early on, Hax bleated:

    Don’t you think, on its face, it’s absurd to believe that holding someone without trial for years, without a lawyer, etc. would have “no effect?”

    Oddly enough, real POWs experienced that with no apparent ill effects. In fact, after Italy’s surrender in WWII, Italian POWs were allowed to work in US war-related industries.

    The exceptional cases I can think of are those where the captivity was actually cruel, and not merely the pseudo-cruelty (OMG! The infidel’s touched the Koran!) of Gitmo.

    Rob Crawford (04f50f)

  190. Hax:

    Holding someone without trial isn’t “deterring” them any more than simply murdering them, as someone here suggested, would be.

    Are you really this ignorant, or merely acting it?

    Rob Crawford (04f50f)

  191. Holding someone without trial isn’t “deterring” them any more than simply murdering them, as someone here suggested, would be.

    Do you really mean to suggest that killing someone won’t “deter” him from any future action?

    Damn, these jihadis just can’t be stopped, can they?

    Steverino (69d941)

  192. Hmmm. Banning trolls won’t deter them from trollish behavior on this blog?

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  193. #187 Eric Blair:

    I was mocking this goofball early on

    And deservedly so.

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  194. Nicely put, E.B.

    Perhaps Patterico is right to let the troll stay here, as long as it obeys some boundaries. After its documented history of lies and misrepresentations, it has effectively discredited its point of view. Cathy let David E. stay on for much the same reason. But David E. at least has some redeeming qualities this troll hasn’t shown at all.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407)

  195. True enough, Bradley. But the reason that HV posts here is not to illuminate or discuss. So being “discredited” here is a badge of honor in some respects.

    But as Stashiu3 has stated, along with Scott Jacobs, and even myself…this character could contribute positively.

    If doing something other than playing Monty Python “Argument Room” is the goal, I mean.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  196. Oh yes, the troll could contribute. But it would have to start with honest intentions, avoid quote-mining, consider alternative interpretations not favorable to its point of view, and freely admit error. The troll’s current tactics work only with those who agree with it.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407)

  197. No, Gitmo didn’t “make” him do it…

    The Washington Post published an article over the weekend strongly implying that Abdallah al-Ajmi, a terrorist released from Gitmo, only became a ‘hardcore’ terrorist after he was released in 2006 because his treatment at Gitmo made him ha…

    Sister Toldjah (52e518)

  198. How do you know this? Don’t you think, on its face, it’s absurd to believe that holding someone without trial for years, without a lawyer, etc. would have “no effect?”

    The entire post is precisely about how we know that, at least with respect to his inclination to wage jihad against the US, he was already completely dedicated to that. You can find some rational (that is factual) basis for disputing that. But you don’t do that. Instead you assume in a completely fact-free fashion that it must have had some “effect”, which indicates how pointless it is to attempt rational discourse with your type. It’s like saying Israel imprisoning Eichmann or someone like him would necessarily have some “effect” on their attitudes toward Jews, so it’s a bad idea. It causes one to wonder if the person is some sort of psycho.

    Gerald A (adb85a)

  199. Gerald, you are wasting your time. Look at the comment to which are responding:

    How do you know this? Don’t you think, on its face, it’s absurd to believe that holding someone without trial for years, without a lawyer, etc. would have “no effect?”

    …and observe the following excerpts of the post to which said comment was left. You would be better served running your head into a brick wall than debating with this assclown.

    The article suggests that Gitmo was responsible for turning him into a homicidal jihadist. Early in the article, we are given excerpts from two letters to his attorney that supposedly illustrate this transformation. The first letter the attorney received was polite; in it, Ajmi refers to himself as a “happy detainee.” The last letter the attorney received referred to the Jewish attorney as the “descendant of rotten apes and swine” and says: “I greet you with a kick, a spit, and a slap on your lying, rotten, ugly, and sullen face.”

    Yet, deeeeeep down in the article, we learn evidence showing it wasn’t Gitmo that did this to him. According to prosecutors, in August 2004, before he had even met with his lawyers, he was talking about how he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible.

    The article describes how, in his first meeting with his lawyers, he said: “I am here as an enemy combatant, and I will leave here as an enemy combatant. Tell my family that.”

    At Gitmo, Ajmi was a disciplinary problem. While speaking with his lawyer, with the aid of an interpreter, he “threw a cup of hot tea in the interpreter’s face.”

    When his attorney told him he was being released, he cursed at him.

    Did Gitmo do this to him, as the article suggests? Anyone making that case has to explain why he was engaged in jihad before arriving at Gitmo, why he described himself as an enemy combatant early on in his stay — and why, in August 2004, before he ever met with his attorney, he said he was going to kill as many Americans as possible.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  200. […] Patterico douses the whole silly “the horror Gitmo made him a jihadi” fantasy with a generous splash of cold-water reality, which directly contradicts their entire premise. I’ll pile on by answering the stupid, […]

    WaPo attempts to manufacture support for Lefty meme | Cold Fury (6f4592)

  201. It seems to be the attorney is the problem, so the solution is to ban all attorneys from Gitmo.

    narciso (57971e)

  202. carlitos – Of course Ajmi is innocent. He just went to Pakistan/Afghanistan to study because he couldn’t find any decent place in Kuwait or closer to home. It’s the same with all those Saudi detainees and those folks from Yemen and Chechnya. The schools are better in Afghanistan. Everybody knows that!

    And the torture allegations. Thet’re a little bit softer in part two of the WaPo series, they admit they come from the detainees and claim that the treatment amounts to treatment. The statement from the Pakistani authorities about torture at Gitmo turns out to be based upon a U.N. Human Rights Commission Report. Member of the Commission did not even visit Gitmo.

    “The 54-page report summarizing an investigation by five U.N. experts, accused the United States of practices that “amount to torture” and demanded detainees be allowed a fair trial or be freed. The panel, which had sought access to Guantanamo Bay since 2002, refused a U.S. offer for three experts to visit the camp in November after being told they could not interview detainees.”

    Sounds like more fluid definitions from the left. If they cannot say the practices are torture under the definitions in international conventions, what the hell does “amount to torture” actually mean?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  203. Hax is like that kid Mikey on those breakfast cereal commercials who would eat anything.

    Show the article to Hax, he’ll believe anything!

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  204. “The International Committee of the Red Cross is the only independent monitoring body allowed to visit Guantanamo’s detainees, but it reports its findings solely to U.S. authorities.

    Legislators and journalists have been allowed in on guided tours but few are permitted to see interrogations.

    Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.N. report “clearly suffers from their unwillingness to take us up on our offer to go down to Guantanamo to observe first-hand the operations.”

    McClellan, the White House spokesman, echoed Whitman, saying “it’s a discredit to the U.N. when a team like this goes about rushing to report something when they haven’t even looked into the facts. All they have done is look at the allegations.”

    Although his statement did not address specific allegations, the Pentagon has acknowledged 10 cases of abuse or mistreatment at Guantanamo, including a female interrogator climbing onto a detainee’s lap and a detainee whose knees were bruised from being forced to kneel repeatedly.”

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  205. ZOMFG – A detainee got a lap dance? Torture !!!

    JD (677a23)

  206. Ajmi was held for YEARS without a lawyer and routinely interrogated without a lawyer present, as were all those held at Guantanamo.

    The fact that Ajmi was eventually allowed access to a lawyer, which, unsurprisingly led to his release, doesn’t erase the simple fact that he, like all the detainees, were initially denied counsel.

    How do you rationalize that, Carlitos?

    Consider the case of Omar Khadr, 15 at the time of his “arrest.”

    In October 2002, Khadr was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, where the abusive interrogations continued. Khadr told his lawyers that his interrogators shackled him in painful positions, threatened to send him to Egypt, Syria, or Jordan for torture, and used him as a “human mop” after he urinated on the floor during one interrogation session. According to Canadian government documents recently released by the Federal Court of Canada, he was also subjected to a severe sleep deprivation technique known as the “frequent flyer program.” In its decision to release these documents, the Federal Court noted that such treatment amounted to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

    Khadr was not allowed to meet with a lawyer until November 2004, more than two years after he was first captured. In violation of international juvenile justice standards and international law relating to the involvement of children in armed conflict, Khadr was housed with adult detainees, barred from contact with his family, and denied access to education, counseling, and other rehabilitation assistance.

    Khadr was charged with murder and other related crimes under the first set of military commissions authorized by President Bush. Those charges were dismissed when the Supreme Court ruled the commissions unlawful in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In 2007, under newly authorized commissions, the United States government charged Khadr with murder, attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. Among many concerns, these newly authorized commissions allow for the use of certain evidence obtained through coercion and abuse.

    In May 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Canada (Justice) v. Khadr that the United States’ detention of Khadr at Guantanamo Bay “constituted a clear violation of fundamental human rights protected by international law” and concluded that Canadian officials who interviewed Khadr at Guantanamo in 2003 participated in a process that violated Canada’s international human rights obligations.

    Then there’s Djamel Ameziane.

    Ameziane was sold by bounty hunters to US forces in 2001 and has been detained at Guantanamo Bay for over six years. He has never been charged with any offense, and has been cleared to leave Guantanamo by US authorities.

    I doubt Ameziane was allowed to speak with a lawyer. Even the people who set up Guantanamo can see how ghoulishly Soviet it would seem to send a lawyer to defend a man against non-existent charges.

    I realize Stashiu can’t name people he did or didn’t get to know at Gitmo, but I wonder if how he feels about people like Khadr, Haji and Amaziane.

    As for the 10 percent figure, that’s merely the number that have been released so far.

    Maybe Carlitos can pull a number out of thin air for us about how many are innocent.

    I may have missed a verdict or two, but at my last reading, the first and only conviction so far has been of Hamdan, bin Laden’s DRIVER, which really says it all, doesn’t it?

    Hax Vobiscum (edacf7)

  207. How do you rationalize that, Carlitos?

    I’ll take “Prisoners of War” for $1000, Alex.

    Pablo (99243e)

  208. Seems that the Gitmo detainees aren’t the only ones capable of throwing feces.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  209. Pablo, your wit is appreciated, and decidedly non-fecal. Tens of thousands of Germans and Italians were interned here in the Midwest during WWII. Some got tribunals. Spies were shot. But that was back in the binary good/bad era of human reason.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  210. Ajmi was held for YEARS without a lawyer and routinely interrogated without a lawyer present, as were all those held at Guantanamo.

    Big effin’ deal.

    Who cares?

    N. O'Brain (5deb6d)

  211. Oh, and moron?

    I’ll save my sympathy for the victims.

    N. O'Brain (5deb6d)

  212. “I may have missed a verdict or two, but at my last reading, the first and only conviction so far has been of Hamdan, bin Laden’s DRIVER, which really says it all, doesn’t it?”

    Finally Hax got one right. I agree that it’s almost impossible to follow peace time trial concepts while litigating activity in a war setting.

    EBJ (2fd7f7)

  213. Hax – Do these prisoners need to be charged with offenses and tried in order to be held?

    Are you seriously that stupid?

    Does our military operate under the rules of land warfare or our criminal justice system? You seem to prefer our criminal justice system. Did you notice that the Obama Administration just agreed with the Bush Administration that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights. Why do detainees in Cuba have any constitutional rights? A blown Supreme Court decision?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  214. Hax – Did you ever watch Hogan’s Heroes or were you too young?

    Did those prisoners have lawyers? NO!

    Why are these circumstances different? They aren’t.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  215. Maybe Carlitos can pull a number out of thin air for us about how many are innocent.

    While Carlitos actually uses objective sources to buttress his statements, Poncey Boy pulls them out of his arse.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  216. BTW, how’s “Whiskers” doing these days?

    Dmac (49b16c)

  217. Pablo: are you suggesting the detainees are entitled to POW’s rights? Or is your position that they are POWs when it’s convenient, and not POWs when it’s not.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  218. Hey, look over there!

    (flings poo)

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  219. Notice that the Hack is still attacking Stashiu for no reason, as Stashiu has not made the arguments to which the Hack purports to be responding.

    So we see the sincerity of Hack’s apologies.

    SPQR (72771e)

  220. Pablo: are you suggesting the detainees are entitled to POW’s rights? Or is your position that they are POWs when it’s convenient, and not POWs when it’s not.

    He’s suggesting that they be afforded every single right due them under the Geneva Conventions…

    The part that makes it funny is YOU think they are standard POWs.

    Scott Jacobs (90ff96)

  221. “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes time and annoys the pig”

    “When you lie with dogs, you get fleas.”

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  222. Scott: maybe you should let Pablo speak for himself.

    SPQR: Where’s the attack on Stashiu?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  223. Yes, the troll conveniently forgets the Geneva Convention covers only those who abide by its terms.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., who implores DRJ to remain at Patterico! (536d19)

  224. Remember a while back when we had an Obsidian Whinger over here on some torture threads. She just couldn’t accept the fact that all she had, except in the case of some soldiers roughing up some prisoners at the time of detention, was the statements of the always honest detainees themselves, second and third hand accounts from people who had never visited Gitmo, and definitions of torture which aren’t in any international conventions.

    Hax is following the same pattern.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  225. C’mon, guys, this is the guy who writes things like “how do you know I don’t have a blog?” Riiiggghhht.

    He is just being an annoying jackass.

    I mean, how do we know for a fact that he isn’t, say, blah or TMJ or similar types? It can’t be proven, after all. And it depends on the definition of “isn’t.”

    Besides, Republicans are all racists.

    Sigh.

    I recommend he go fight with Patterico some more. I liked how he calmed right down when our genial host became annoyed with his antics.

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  226. Oh, and Hax?

    Please continue to defend your comments about Stashiu.

    By all means go into detail, so that Patterico can see every single syllable.

    That worked out so well for you before.

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  227. That’s right, Mr. Martini. There is an Easter Bunny.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  228. Hax, since you are so in favor of releasing all these innocent sheperds and Islamic students held at Gitmo, what do you say about the more than 60 who have been released who have returned to fight against the U.S. or its allies according to the government?

    How do you rationalize that, Hax?

    Radical fringe?

    Backward politically, socially and economically?

    Unloved childhoods?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  229. Is that crazy enough for ya’? Want me to take a shit on the floor?

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  230. Daley, you are onto something. There is this weird disconnect:

    Believing the worst about the US.
    Believing the best regarding jihadis.

    Interesting that the one person who had actually been there was treated with such respect by you know who!

    Eric Blair (c8876d)

  231. Eric: can you point to my “attack” on Stashiu?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  232. Medication time. Medication time.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  233. All your talking points are belong to us Hax.

    You’ve got nothing new or insightful to say. You are just reploughing ground that has been ploughed on this blog before.

    You are another fine example of why liberalism is a mental disease.

    Carry on.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  234. Finally Hax got one right. I agree that it’s almost impossible to follow peace time trial concepts while litigating activity in a war setting.

    Hey, didn’t Obama just shut down the trials again?

    I think it’s time we just turned them loose in Berkeley.

    Pablo (99243e)

  235. I think it’s time we just turned them loose in Berkeley.
    Comment by Pablo — 2/23/2009 @ 2:20 pm

    Wouldn’t that be a War Crime against the Lotus-Eaters of Berkeley?
    Let’s be fair, and release them in Oakland.
    That, at least, would be a straight-up fight.

    AD - RtR/OS (9ed43c)

  236. I haven’t posted in a while, but I have to now.

    This Hax person, thing, whatever, is no more a journalist than I’m Michelle Obama. He’s also insulting and disingenuous. He represents the “Nyah, nyah, did not, did too” wing of lefty commentary. He would be better off banned. He brings nothing to any conversation.

    If he does get banned, or slapped down by Patterico, I bet he shows up on some sympathetic site and says it’s censorship. He’s the type that willfully misunderstands the term.

    Ag80 (d41d6a)

  237. I’d agree with you AD, but I think that’s probably racist.

    Pablo (99243e)

  238. Thanks AG. Happy to count you as another member of the fan club.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  239. The Trolly only talks to itself now. Quite sad, really.

    Dmac (49b16c)

  240. Hey, Patterico? Now Hax thinks he wasn’t insulting to S.!

    Do we really have to have this type of person around?

    It’s fine if you want him around. But he sure does the “can you prove” business a lot…even after he is skooled by you personally.

    Sigh.

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  241. Oh, and the “fan club” thing is interesting.

    Since Hax wrote, on another thread: “How do you know I don’t have a blog?”

    If so, post the site. And people in your “fan club” can go there and deal with you as much as they like.

    Or you can buy more socks.

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  242. The “journalist” continues to state opinions and propaganda as facts trying to entice someone to engage. This is known as bait. See the worm? Don’t pay attention to that shiny hook. Isn’t that a juicy-looking worm? And that little bit of metal really couldn’t be that bad, could it? Maybe just a nibble wouldn’t hurt.

    Don’t fall for the bait (like his comment at 2:40am… classic. What purpose could that remark have I wonder? Could it really be twisted around to another avenue of attack? It seems harmless, maybe just a nibble.) Don’t fall for his nonsense! Ignore him. Talk about him, but never to him. It’s amusing to watch him get desperate for his attention fix. If the temptation to respond gets too strong, address the group or another individual, never him. He’s not going to change until there are consequences to his misbehavior.

    Just sayin’

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  243. “Since Hax wrote, on another thread: “How do you know I don’t have a blog?””

    Probably not a good idea to lie to his therapists about actually having one. And then again, he probably wouldn’t want them reading the kind of dishonest crap he writes here, either. What’s a delusional intartube legend in his own mind to do?

    Truly a dilemma.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  244. Thanks Stash. Is this the comment you don’t like:

    I found this part of the Stashiu interview interesting:

    “I can tell you that if I ever saw a detainee face-to-face here in the States, I would immediately assume that I was targeted and do my best to kill them without further warning. If I turned out to be wrong about their intent, I could live with that.”

    What, specifically, is the problem?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  245. (crickets chirping)

    Dmac (49b16c)

  246. Question: if a douchebag screams in the forest and no one hears it, did he ever scream in the first place?

    Dmac (49b16c)

  247. If moonbats were released on the moon, would they survive?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  248. Do you guys see that? Such a juicy-looking worm. Did it just wriggle a bit? Maybe those are just braces and nothing really to pay attention to.

    Ignoring trollish behavior.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  249. Mmmmm … Juicy Fruit.

    carlitos (edeb90)

  250. Yes, how trollish of me to quote you from an interview.

    Just plain dastardly.

    Where do I find the nerve?

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  251. Since fish don’t do well in the ground and worms don’t do well in the water, how did fish ever get a desire for worms?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  252. Hitchcock, the same way that peanut butter and chocolate were put together.

    SPQR (72771e)

  253. Comment by Pablo — 2/23/2009 @ 2:59 pm

    I denounce myself!

    AD - RtR/OS (9ed43c)

  254. Well, since peanut butter and chocolate being combined was obviously divine intervention, I suppose you could make the same case for fish and worms.
    😉

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  255. Stashiu3, exactly! If trout have gods …

    SPQR (72771e)

  256. John, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could sockpuppet Leftist drivel?

    And thanks Stash, for reminding us of the verminish nature of worms (grin).

    Eric Blair (bc5db9)

  257. They do. We call them bears. Think they swim upstream 100’s of miles to jump in a bear’s mouth for fun? It’s martydom, plain and simple.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  258. Do they shout “Allah Troutbar” as they leap?

    Eric Blair (bc5db9)

  259. Aloha Snackbar!

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  260. If they’re Muslim trout, sure. Christian and Jewish trout-martyrs would probably say something different. Atheist-trout-martyrs (far-left socialistic ones, you know the type) probably just say, “Oh ****!!! It was supposed to be the other guy that got screwed!”

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  261. I thought the jewish trout said: “He had a hat”

    SPQR (72771e)

  262. Leftist trout would ask if the opening maw led to their stimulus package.

    Or maybe argue about the meaning of “being eaten”. Then complain about the species-ist depiction of Ursine-Americans by the Right Wing Media.

    Eric Blair (bc5db9)

  263. Well-played SPQR, well-played indeed! *snort*

    A Jewish mother is walking with her small son along the shore, enjoying the sounds and smells of the ocean. Suddenly, without warning, a huge wave comes in and washes the boy out to sea. The woman screams, but no one is nearby, and she can’t swim. She sees her son’s head bobbing up and down as he cries for help and moves farther and farther from shore.
    Desperate, she sinks to her knees in the sand. Pleading with God for mercy, she swears she will devote herself to good causes and be faithful in attending synagogue if God will spare her only child.

    Suddenly another huge wave crashes in, and deposits her son, wet but unhurt on the sand. She lifts her face to the heavens, extends both arms and cries…

    “He had a HAT!!!!”

    (Yes, I had to Google it.)

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  264. Stashiu3, if you had a jewish mother in law, you wouldn’t have needed to Google it.

    SPQR (72771e)

  265. #251 John Hitchcock:

    Since fish don’t do well in the ground and worms don’t do well in the water, how did fish ever get a desire for worms?

    Uh, you wouldn’t happen to be Bill Engvall posting incognito?

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  266. Just for balance, a favorite joke from my own background (I’m a Polack).

    Three POWs, an American, a German, and a Pole, are scheduled to be executed by firing squad. They bring out the American and stand him in front of the pole.

    He points and shouts, “Tornado!” They all look and the American runs away. Next, they place the German in front of the firing squad.

    He yells “Earthquake!” They all hit the dust and the German escapes.

    Next up is the Pole. He looks around and shouts “Fire!”

    Thank you, thank you. Try the veal and tip generously.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  267. #266 Stashiu3:

    Thank you, thank you. Try the veal and tip generously.

    Ouch.

    /wry grin

    EW1(SG) (e27928)

  268. …can you point to my “attack” on Stashiu?
    Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/23/2009 @ 2:00 pm

    Where’s the attack on Stashiu?
    Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/23/2009 @ 1:36 pm

    Case closed on “Stashiu’s” credibility.
    Comment by Hax Vobiscum — 2/22/2009 @ 7:55 pm

    Ignore him. Responding to him directly just encourages him because he views it as a victory in itself. Talk about him all you like, just don’t talk to him. It’s amazing that someone who supposedly writes for a living apparently has such trouble reading.
    Comment by Stashiu3 — 2/22/2009 @ 7:50 pm

    Any takers that our current dishonest arguer, who’s already admitted to misrepresenting Stashiu, is now going to claim one or both of two things: that saying someone has no credibility isn’t an attack because [fill in the blank] or that saying “close the book on someone’s credibility” is not, repeat not, the same as saying they have no credibility because [fill in the blank].

    LOL The arguing skills of this dishonest person do leave something to be desired.

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  269. “I’m here to cooperate with you a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I’ll be just right down the line with ya’. You watch.”

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  270. No one: read the thread if you’re going to comment on it.

    I apologized for mischaracterizing part of Stashiu’s interview. I certainly didn’t intend for people to draw the inferences from it they did, but I can certainly see that that’s what happened and that I should have been more careful.

    The accusation was that I’m STILL “attacking” Stashiu.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  271. Now the troll is accusing me of not reading the thread. LOLOL

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  272. noyk, the “journalist” has a reading comprehension/memory/honesty impairment. Don’t bother.

    BTW, good to see ya! 🙂

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  273. “I’m here to cooperate with you a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I’ll be just right down the line with ya’. You watch.”

    Comment by carlitos — 2/23/2009 @ 5:16 pm

    Had to Google that one. hahahaha Nice!

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  274. Comment by Stashiu3 — 2/23/2009 @ 5:27 pm

    Nice to see you too, Stashui3. 🙂 This thread’s alternately interesting and amusing (the latter on account of you know who). I like the thread w/ the two vids too. Hadn’t seen the “Recession for Men” one. *laughs*

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  275. Stashiu3, of course. Typin’ fingers!

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  276. Since I’m Scotch – Irish (first heard that hat joke from Henny Youngman many years ago, btw), here goes one:

    What’s an Irish 7 – course meal?
    – a six – pack and a potato

    Why do Scotsman wear kilts?

    – zippers make the sheep nervous

    Dmac (49b16c)

  277. Stay busy guys, baby needs new shoes…

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  278. OK, since am both Irish and German (along w/ several other nationalities):

    An Irishman and a German agree to a tug of war with their teeth, for $1000. They take their positions and dig in their heels. The Irishman sends a loud brogue through his clenched teeth: “Arrre ye reddy?” The German exclaims “Ja!”

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  279. I actually had to think that one through – good one!

    Dmac (49b16c)

  280. Comment by no one you know — 2/23/2009 @ 5:37 pm

    That’s even funnier because it reminds me of the first dirty joke I ever told my wife. To this day, she can’t help laughing if I say, “George Washington”. (Don’t know if Google will help with that one, but I’m not going to explain it here anyway. 😉 )

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  281. noyk, you win the prize. That was like the 6th or 7th quote from the movie that I posted here today. That’s going to be my new MO with our resident mentally ill lying scumbag asshole with the latin moniker (ormilsawtlm for short). 100% movie quotes from subjects dealing with its illness.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  282. Now carlitos, to borrow from Dennis Miller, that insult is demeaning to actual bags of scum.

    Besides, it has a blog of its own.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  283. Hit me, Chief, I got the moves!

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  284. Okay, can you identify the joke from the punch line?

    “If I’m gonna be impotent, I’ve got to look impotent.”

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  285. EB, I know the joke, but googled it just to remember the phrasing. You are not going to believe the #1 link on google for the punchline you posted. Just a reminder of how principled the annointed one’s supporters are, and how we are simply not dealing with rational actors on the left.

    carlitos (ebd4ab)

  286. Bernie Goldberg did a great interview on Dennis Miller today, about the media’s bizarre actions. Worth listening to, and relevant to what you just posted, carlitos.

    I was actually waiting for JD to denounce me, given how the joke normally goes.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  287. Bravo Carlitos. Wise move. Better to cop movie lines than try and write your own material. You guys waste WAY too much time on me.

    Hax Vobiscum (23258e)

  288. We sent them to … where there’ll be no tribble at all.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  289. “…write your own material….”

    Is comedy gold. Nice crunchy irony!

    Hey, here is a question: what do you think the blog address would be?

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  290. Ormilsawtlm, why don’t you shut your goddamn mouth and play some music?

    carlitos (ef3802)

  291. Perhaps some funky music, carlitos?

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  292. Comment by Eric Blair — 2/23/2009 @ 7:16 pm

    Hmm, how about:
    http://www.ispendendlesshourswritingpostsatPattericosthinkingeveryonestherejusttopayattentiontome.com

    no one you know (1ebbb1)

  293. I’m patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.
    Edith Sitwell
    Seemed apropos somehow.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  294. I’m thinking there is a song by Beck this is relevant here.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  295. What are you doin’ here? You oughta be out in a convertible bird-doggin’ chicks and bangin’ beaver.

    Pablo (99243e)

  296. Hax – Dance monkey dance. The adults are talking.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  297. We now pause for a musical interlude.

    Pablo (99243e)

  298. Funky music?

    Eric Blair, I denounce you!

    carlitos (ef3802)

  299. EB, that was very racist.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  300. Monkey dance? Where is JD when you need him?

    carlitos (ef3802)

  301. Sometimes a monkey is just a monkey. Sometimes it isn’t.

    Hax, where is my sammich?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  302. Those poor detainees at gitmo keep asking the same question all the time: Do you really want to hurt me?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  303. Now, John, that would be more effective than waterboarding: having the Gitmo inmates being serenaded by Boy George, circa mid to late 1980s.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  304. Now, remember, Dmac: it’s not really a lie. Litterboxes can be made with sand. Sand is at the beach. Therefore, ergo, und so weiter….

    You can’t prove otherwise.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  305. Eric – Boy George circa 2008 was convicted of imprisoning a male whore in his bedroom. Handcuffed and chained him to his wall is what he did. Hax keeps bringing up homoerotic fantasies. I think that’s why he like talking about torture. The Boy George stuff is probably up his alley, NTTAWWT.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  306. One of the Salem Network talkers – Dennis Prager I think – had an interview a few years back with the head of some musical organization that was all about music not being used for “torture.” For example, the Marines playing guns n roses outside the Vatican embassy while Noriega was inside with his bucket of blood and what not.

    Anyway, that’s the first thought that entered my head when I heard “Boy George.” Stay away from those highway rest stops. I work is done here.

    Tangentially, are our usual lefty posters less prevalent lately, or is it just me?

    carlitos (ef3802)

  307. There was an influx of idiocy on a couple of threads over the weekend. Today, not so much.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  308. Daley, just look at George Dowd. Doesn’t he look like someone with…well, issues (and those issues have nothing to do with gender choice!).

    On the other hand, Rick James had a checkered past, as well.

    Carlitos, we have more TdJs and fewer of the civil Left of center posters, it is true.

    Eric Blair (9671e0)

  309. Remember, simply because you agree with a man on where the Sun rises in the morning does not mean you agree with him about the edibility of asparagus.

    BTW, I don’t know who first spread the idea that asparagus was good to eat, but I hope he’s in Hell in the Circle of False Advisers with a serious case of athletes foot.

    Alan Kellogg (14f94e)

  310. Stashiu, the investigative summary also says that it is not even clear that he even fired a shot while in the Taliban. And it’s true that was in jihad, but the point made by WAPO is that he was led by GITMO to blow people to pieces. Remember the nice letter vs. The angry one?

    Andrew (0e8d9c)

  311. Andrew – Why is it that you are so willing to believe that this gentleman was a peace-lovin’ goat fucker prior to Gitmo, especially when you note that he was engaged in jihad, but had not yet fired a shot?

    JD (ad7346)

  312. Andrew, the summary mentions him blindly shooting while on guard duty, not knowing if he hit anything. He left his Kuwaiti Army unit to go to Pakistan. Why? If not jihad, what other reason has been offered? None that I can see which would justify leaving your duty.

    Also, he acted like a jihadi even before meeting his lawyer. Then he wrote one nice letter to his brand-new attorney, followed by nothing but racist and extremist abuse, including assaulting the interpreter. Yet, you apparently believe that the nice letter is more reflective of the “real” detainee than every other bit of information given.

    I understand the WaPo’s point. They’re wrong.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)

  313. Is Andrew a drive-by?

    I’m a terrorist because I decided to be a terrorist but I’m not going to do terrorist things.

    I got caught with my terrorist compatriots and thrown in a prison camp because I’m a terrorist.

    Now I’m mad and I’m going to kill someone. It’s your fault for throwing my terrorist butt in a prison camp.

    That (lack of) logic is amazing, Andrew Chamberlain.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  314. The neighbors all said he was a such a well behaved young man and couldn’t understand how he could do the things he was accused of by the government.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  315. Andrew is the one from earlier in the thread that accused Patterico of believing the prosecutor just because he is a prosecutor. He probably couldn’t get a speeding ticket fixed and now thinks all prosecutors are corrupt, lying, poo-poo heads.

    Stashiu3 (460dc1)


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