Austria rejects Guantanamo detainees

[Middle-aged Europe]

As much as I've criticized President Bush, he was right about one thing. All the countries who've criticized our methods of detaining and interrogating our prisoners, when Bush asked them to take some of the prisoners, they didn't do it. They'll happily judge and condemn us, but when their ideals will inconvenience them, they give us the finger.

Why the hell should other countries be responsible for solving the US problems? Has there ever been a case where a country has tried to unload enemy POWs to other countries because they criticized them. The US captured them and is therefore responsible for them.

That's also basically the CDU's argument in the ongoing debate with the SPD whether Germany should accept former Guantanamo inmates.

[Middle-aged Europe]

It took a lot of pressure to get Germany to take back the only (nominally Turkish, de facto) German prisoner... not one of the high points in Steinmeier's career.

Uh...that's kind of our point. Why should it take a lot for you to take back your prisoner?

I guess the argument was that he's not a German but a Turkish citizen (although he was born in Germany and grew up here), and that it is the Turkish government's business what happens to one of its citizens. Of course, the bottomline is that the German government chose to be not responsible for him. But so did the Turkish government. In the end nobody was responsible.

[Middle-aged Europe]

First Austrian poll on the topic (OGM for the newspaper Profil):

73% are against accepting Guantanamo prisoners
19% are for accepting them

Huh, why is Autria so different??


Acording to a Forsa/Stern poll among Germans (released Jan. 28) 49% are supporting it and 44% are opposing it.

Breakdown among party lines (support for accepting former Guantanamo inmates):
Greens 72%
SPD 64%
The Left 51%
FDP 48%
CDU/CSU 42%

http://www.presseportal.de/pm/6329/1342667/gruner_jahr_stern

[Middle-aged Europe]

First Austrian poll on the topic (OGM for the newspaper Profil):

73% are against accepting Guantanamo prisoners
19% are for accepting them

Huh, why is Autria so different??


Acording to a Forsa/Stern poll among Germans (released Jan. 28) 49% are supporting it and 44% are opposing it.

Breakdown among party lines (support for accepting former Guantanamo inmates):
Greens 72%
SPD 64%
The Left 51%
FDP 48%
CDU/CSU 42%

http://www.presseportal.de/pm/6329/1342667/gruner_jahr_stern

Ahh, now I know why:

The difference is in the question asked by Forsa:

"... wenn diese offensichtlich unschuldig sind." ("... if they are proven innocent.")

Yes, support is of course higher when you include "provided they are innocent" in the question.

Also, Emnid/N24 seemed to ask if it's primarily a problem of the United States to deal with this or if Germany should make the United States an offer to help out. They didn't really ask whether Germany should accept former Guantanamo detainees.

Of course the priorities could be: 1) If the United States finds a solution that doesn't include Germany, that's fine. 2) However, if it becomes necessary to accept Guanatanmo detainees, we'll do it... provided that they're innocent.

So, 65% think that it's America's problem to solve this, while 25% think that it's Germany's problem (Emnid/N24). If the solution to the problem is that Guantanamo detainees are send to Germany 49% are for it and 44% are against it (Forsa/Stern).