A Look at Guantanamo Bay Legal Issues via Second Life

@rdeegvainal

We were required to know the Geneva Conventions and everything else all the way down to various local SOEs inside and out because they were so patently relevant to our jobs.

The GC specifically states that, when in doubt, detainees are treated as legitimate enemy combatants, and as such are to be treated with all the dignity humans merit and provided necessities (even some more personal items and correspondence). Meaning no torture, no detaining without lawful processes, and often conditions better than those of us who guarded and interrogated them.

Also, it's not just the Geneva Conventions which apply, and the other documents such as the Laws of Land Warfare make utterly clear what is right and wrong, effective and ineffective, productive and criminally negligent or cruel.

I'm just confused by this. Why is this something they think that commonfolk will have any say in? There've been countless public discussions about the war, and that hasn't changed anything.

"During the trip, Rik’s avatar was hooded, an effect he described as “immersive and unsettling.”"

This confused me the most. Having your game window/screen go dark is immersive and unsettling?

Idea: Bring more attention and dialog to an important subject.

Reality: Its taking place in SL who's importance, influence and general public reach cannot be understated. I mean honestly the only people who see any use for SL (aside from those few who play) are Political staffers looking for something "out of the box" and some game blogs. Hell even the MSM who feel under its hype has begun to see how useless it is to have a presence there.

To be honest Spellchk, A lot more then that uses SL, A lot of my College's online instructors use it for their lectures and various other things to give their students a Classroom feel to their online class.

My problem with this whole Second Life Gitmo thing is where is the Avatars spitting, taking a leak and other wise degrading the Avatar guards? I mean what do people expect from the place it's the same as a prison...and it bothers me that it's usually poor Detainee...how about people wake up and realize who's there and just get on with their lives...people that would be happy to blow themselves up...I feel don't exactly deserve more then what they've got...and anyways if they don't wanna be in the cage...they can always give up a little information eh...

But in all Reality this isn't anything special this is just another way to get people to go "awww!!! Poor Detainee! You're so mistreated by those stupid ugly americans!" Thats exactly what this little simulation will be made for...

And yeah xzero87 it bothers me to that they described their computer monitor going black as immersive and unsettling...Either that person has extreme computer addiction of they're talking out their arse to make it sound like they really know what those guys go through....

Ok, let's look at this from a legal standpoint. There is no legal standpoint. These terrorists, caught while engaging our forces, have no rights under the constitution. Reason? They're not legal citizens of this country. Same with Illegal aliens. They too have no rights in this country. Again why? Because they're not citizens of our Country.

unforunitly we classified them as unlawful combatants, who dont have protection under the geeneva convention. i personally felt had we given them lawful enemy combatant status after capture we would have been able to levy with a bit more support in the worlds view.

maybe i should go on second life and start an immersive and unsettling protest about it.

i cant wait until the second life self immulsions and million man marches.

this is a joke i cant believe this guy is simulating political activism its kind of like masturbating for procreation.

Don't give the Chans any more ideas of how to "dispose of" the furries.

@Erik

Of course not. Just like in real life!

After the last race debate, I'm not going to say anything about the Gitmo issue itself ;)

What this idea seems to lack is substance. Or perhaps presentation of substance? I mean, unless the player is introduced to a character, and really get's in that character's shoes, the ramifications of anything in the game dosen't strike me as having weight.

Think of it this way, would the Grand Theft Auto series be interesting to play if there were no story missions? If all you could do was wander around causing havoc, buy property & items, and participate in R3 missions, how long would it hold your attention?

Certainly, the emersive qualities of the cities, the NPCs in them, and the turf growing nature of San Andreas could last you a while, but without CJ as a _character_ in a story, GTA:SA would be more like the older Tony Hawk games...

The Gitmo in SL is an example of why many people say video games are not art. It's a media presenting a message (like art should), but in a way that no one will care about it or effectively relate to it.

I personally have come to think that the GC is pointless in todays world.

Just a personal opinion, but if they chose not to observe the GC, then they don't deserve to be protected under it.

Compared to what they have done to american prisoners, they got off lucky.

"but is slightly better than Al Queda now the moral standard which we hold ourselves to?"


Well their tactics are working in Iraq and ours, well aren't. So I say yeah, it works for me as a standard.

@Ace of Sevens

I think it's a matter of opinion. I don't take the view of good guy vs bad guy, but I say that for us to apply a standard to an enemy that does not want to apply it to us is foolish and weak hearted. I know, my father was in korea and Vietnam.

War is not PRETTY, NEAT, CLEAN, OR Rightous. War does not deciede who is right or wrong, ONLY who is left.

I'd rather america be left standing, not terrorizm.

Hopefully this will at least inspire deeper thought by those who participate, but it does seem as if this would be more poignant if more realistic depictions of what happened went on. It's hard to say how much of a difference this will make, though.

@Erik

Actually, adopting something so similar to "their" tactics is a huge part of the reason our tactics aren't working. In the first Iraq war, we were seen by many as liberators, even embraced and welcomed and trusted; but then, in the first war, we followed the Geneva Conventions.

You may not believe it is effective or contemporary, and while many soldiers are frustrated by some of the hoops that must be jumped through for the sake of enemies, we are also proud of how it sets us apart from, and permits us a sense of moral superiority, over those we fight.

But Guantanamo did worse than "merely" violating international treaties some might think outdated. It lost us friends, resources, and the trust of the people in Iraq. Even beyond that, torture is the LEAST effective means of getting truthful information out of a person. They'll make up or agree to almost anything to get the pain or humiliation to stop. This is not just a personal opinion from dealing with detainees, although it is that too; military regulations and psychological studies of past and current warfare have proven this to be the case, regardless of what old-school CIA types think.


As someone who has actually been in a leadership position in military detainment centers, where torture IS NOT permitted because it usually results in lies that can get our people hurt or killed, I suspect you don't have all the facts. Feel free to read up on the military report of what actually happened in Guantanamo, and how that differed from the military's stated goals, accepted methods, and past studies. Look over the military manuals on interrogation because the experts--Military Intel who actually know something about interrogation--did NOT approve of what was done in Guantanamo.

Primarily because torture is ineffective as an interrogation tool, which the military has known for many years, but also because the actions taken in Guantanamo have decimated our relationship with the very Iraqi citizens we purport to free, and crippled interrogation possibilities elsewhere. The backlash for those atypical actions not only forces the entire processes to be viewed under a microscope and severely constrained since the incidents came to light, but also makes locals unwilling to come forward with any information because they fear to be tortured, too.

The standards for declaring someone an unlawful combatant were not met in many of the cases in Guantanamo, just as the moral stanards to which America has traditionally held itself were sacrificed. Of course there are cases of those who honestly were enemy combatants, even some who were actually unlawful combatants.

The point, however, is that in America, we assume innocence until guilt is proven, not the other way around. Dropping the Geneva Conventions because they've become inconvenient is not only immoral, it is a tactical and strategic nightmare. Much of the reason the first Iraq war was so easy (comparatively, although that in no way demeans those who suffered loss from it) was because our enemies quickly learned that they were treated better as our prisoners than by their own leadership.

We've destroyed the perception that we treat our enemies honorably, an more than that, we've given our enemies a vital tool: now, they recruit more help than they had before, because now our actions make it easy to paint America as the bad guys, especially for those who have lost family directly or indirectly due to our actions.

From a military standpoint, because this is a war of ideas (against terrorism), the only true way to victory requires that our ideals win, in addition to more standard military objectives. The ideals of freedom from tyranny, of democracy, and of safety from terrorism are savaged by our actions at Guantanamo.

This means that the scandals in that place have contributed greatly to our difficulty with winning over many locals, friendly countries, and even our own people to the "cause" of this war--because they don't see anything noble in our actions, it's hard for them to see our goal and methods as noble, which makes it that much harder to end the sectarian violence because we end up looking like bullies instead of mentors.

@Coravin: well stated. Thank you.

@Erik: To put it another way, tactics of torture lend support to our enemy's cause by aiding in the recruitment of more people on the fence. To cede the moral ground to our enemies and become just like them is to cease to be American, as far as I'm concerned. It's to abdicate our very values that we spilled so much blood already to defend.

The way I see it, you either have enough evidence to hold a prisoner or you don't.

We could solve so many problems just by giving each prisoner a trial. If the evidence is there that they deserve to be held, we keep them there. If we don't have any real evidence, then we don't have a right to hold them, and should send them home.

Innocent until proven guilty. That's how we do things in the States.

@Erik

Who said that the friends we lost were in Iraq? Many of the resources were, but certainly not all. And actually, many of the people in Iraq were highly supportive of America until--as they see it, of course--we left them in the lurch instead of getting rid of Saddam the first time around.

And this time around, there were still many (although far fewer openly supportive) who wanted our mission to establish their own self-governing democracy to succeed. But it's amazing how fast people distance themselves from a country that begins to look more and more as if it interfered for its own gain, not theirs.

It's even more amazing (although accurately predicted by military experts--even generals, all the way up through 4 stars, all ignored) how few people are willing to stick their necks out to assist the efforts of our soldiers to re-establish order when doing so risks reprisal by the insurgents and instead of protecting people who bring them information, America's soldiers are plastered across the TV torturing and denigrating their detainees.

And even more incredible is how many of the people we detained are the same people who DID risk their own safety to give us information, brought in because some random jerk thought they knew more than they said or insisted that was the only way to "protect them".

Nobody's saying that everyone in Guantanamo is innocent--but even if they were all guilty, nobody deserves to be tortured, especially by people who are doing so for their own sadistic, twisted pleasure and against the very laws and human rights they are supposed to champion.

Gitmo isn't where the tortures took place: That was Abu Ghraib.

The worst torture in Gitmo is having to stand up for hours at a time. Oh my God, that's terrible!

@Austiin Lewis: there was more than oen place where torture took place. In fact, I shouldn't use the past tense. Other Gitmo tortures include beatings, waterboarding, hypothermia, forced feedings of religiously forbidden foods and threats to murder the children fo detainees or rape their wives. This is besides the fact that not moving is quite painful and possibly fatal. Remember that guy in Korea who died from sitting too long in an internet cafe?

What we really need is civil war re-enactors in SL to remind us of the sacrifices made in that great conflict.

@ Austin Lewis

The difference between the "Irish bar" and Guantanamo is that you know in the back of your mind that the Irish bar threat is mostly Idle drunken bluster.

If the treat is issued to you by someone who actually has the power to make it happen and has proven that to you by reapeated other tortures of you or of other people you tend to believe it and will probably be terrified.

Being forced to do something when you know there is no escape is rather different than doing it when you know that there will be no reprecussions later.

Also, people even die from sitting still in long airplane voyages (trombosos).

[...] A Look at Guantanamo Bay Legal Issues via Second Life The U.S. detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay has long been a controversial issue. [...]

@ austin lewis

First: in that case I would suggest visiting a better class of bar.
About the beret, so are you some kind of marine yourself then?

Second: So you are saying that since the marines are not very good at dealing with stress it's ok that they use violence and that is just an unfortunate side effect that the detainees are hurt in the process.

Would this also be acceptable if it was done to captured americans?

Third:
I wonder if you would just do what you were told if it was you in exact the same conditions.

@The Gaming Dutch
No, i'm not a Marine; they don't wear berets. I'm Army.

I'm not saying that is ok if detainees were hurt; however, they brough much of this down on themselves.

Its not done to captured Americans; those are just plain beheaded. A captured American should be so lucky as to 'suffer' through the Gitmo experience.

As to the Third, much of my training was in combat, so I would never end up in such a situation. However, if I did, I would give them every amenity they needed, a prayer rug and Koran (kinda like what they get in Gitmo now) and inform them that htese were not things that they needed nor deserved; they are not prisoners of war, they are terrorists, and terrorism is not protected under the Geneva Convention.

@Austin Lewis

You assume then that they are Terrorists. Funnily enough, EVERYONE lacks the proof of the matter.

@The gaming Dutch

Is it true you guys can smoke Mary in bars? And have you ever thought about using the screenname "The Flying Dutchman"?

Sorry, but that was a bit off topic..