Gitmo Update

[TheMercenary]

I know we have discussed this subject a number of times but as we approach the time of a new CIC it is going to come up again and again till it is fully closed. I support that. And now we have this in the news:

Pentagon: 61 ex-Guantanamo inmates return to terrorism

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as "returning to the fight" and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.



http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...rpc=22&sp=true

[classicman]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as "returning to the fight" and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Rather misleading to me - 18 isn't as sexy a number is it? and thats out of how many total released?

[TheMercenary]

I don't read it as 18, I read it as 18 + 43. To many for comfort.

[classicman]

I understand that Merc - But weren't they all "suspected" at first? Then they were released - Why? Because we had no proof!

Now what do we have? More suspicion - sorry, I appreciate the gravity of the situation, but the number I see is still 18, and I wonder about some of them too.

[TheMercenary]

You know I am not to sure that they were all "suspected" at first. I think it became a place to send people you really didn't know what to do with, esp early on. Higher level people were sent other places. This was a good read that gave me some insight into the early days and what kinds of people were being shoveled off to Gitmo.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The...6011532/?itm=4

From what I can tell bad people were sent there, but they were not the majority.

[Happy Monkey]

How many are turning rather than returning to terrorism?

Either way, hey, now we have a second chance to grab them legitimately. Unless they confirmed the return to terrorism in the same way they grabbed them in the first place.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

How many are turning rather than returning to terrorism?

I don't think we will ever know for sure. I still stand by my statements to send home to their countries of origin or to where they were picked up and let the host figure out what they want to do with them.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

~snip~send home to their countries of origin or to where they were picked up and let the host figure out what they want to do with them.

They apparently cannot do that Merc as that would be, in many cases, the same as condemning them to a death sentence.

[TheMercenary]

They can do it. They just don't want to.

[TheMercenary]

Better late than never. They need to finish it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/wa...9gitmo.html?hp

[Undertoad]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/wo...t/23yemen.html

More grist for the mill: freed from Guantanamo in 2007, now deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch.

[xoxoxoBruce]

In spite of Gitmo, or because of Gitmo?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/wo...t/23yemen.html

More grist for the mill: freed from Guantanamo in 2007, now deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch.

Not surprising but real question. What these people suppose to do with their lives now that they have been released? Are they ostracized from society?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

More grist for the mill: freed from Guantanamo in 2007, now deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch.

Because of what America did, it is only reasonable for hundreds of innocent prisoners from Gitmo to now become terrorists. Can anyone blame them? Of course not.

How was Jemaah Islamiya (ie Bali bombings) completely defeated? No torture. No Guantanamo. Instead they used tactics that even professional American interrogators used to actually get information (which completely contradicts wacko extremist politics): From the BBC on 13 September 2006:

In the fight against the international terrorist threat in Indonesia, one man has become an invaluable ally. Nasir Abbas explains why, after men he trained carried out the Bali bombing in 2002, he decided to change sides.

For many years Nasir Abbas was one of the most wanted jihadis in South East Asia.

He was a member of al-Qaeda's regional affiliate, Jemaah Islamiya (JI).

The Malaysian trained the Bali bombers in Afghanistan, established a jihadi training camp - Camp Hudabiya - in the dense jungles of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, and rose to become the head of JI's military training division, known as Mantiki Three.

He was close to some of the most notorious militants in the region and brother-in-law of Mukhlas, the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings.

Those he trained and those he knew went on to operate not just in South East Asia, but in other parts of the world. ...

Innocent lives

According to Mr Abbas' philosophy of jihad, it is acceptable to fight and kill foreign forces occupying Muslim countries like the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Americans in Iraq or the Philippine army occupying ancestral Muslim lands in Mindanao, but killing innocent civilians - men, women and children - is forbidden.

This is the philosophy of modern violent jihad outlined by Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, acknowledged to be the "father" of modern violent jihad.

With this distinction in mind, the 2002 Bali bombings in which 202 civilians died, made Mr Abbas think again about the organisation to which he had belonged for almost a decade.

When he discovered that his former students, whom he had trained in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, were responsible, he was deeply shocked.

"I feel sorry, I feel sin," he said, "because they used the knowledge to kill civilians, to kill innocent people."

It was only when he was arrested six months later in April 2003, that Mr Abbas finally decided to put his past behind him.

Switching allegiance

As he was taken off for interrogation, he feared the worst.

"I believed that the police were very cruel and used torture to get their answers," he said.

But Mr Abbas was in for a surprise. He was treated with civility and Muslim respect.

He was also surprised that so much was known about him and was puzzled as to how his interrogators knew.

He was arrested one evening and kept silent until the following morning.

Then he decided to talk and help the police, because he thought it was God's will.

He said he felt "responsible, in front of God, to stop all these bad deeds."

From that point on, Mr Abbas tried to persuade his former comrades that their interpretation of the Koran was wrong.

He urges them to "return to the right path of Islamic teaching."

But he did much more than that.

He actively assisted the police in tracking down and arresting some of his former comrades and felt no guilt in doing so.

On trial

His ultimate test of allegiance came almost two years after his arrest when he gave evidence in court against the alleged spiritual leader of JI, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.

Mr Ba'asyir was charged with conspiracy in connection with the 2002 Bali bombing.

There was a near riot in court when Mr Abbas gave evidence that Ba'asyir had personally made him the leader of Mantiki Three and had attended a passing out parade of Mr Abbas' graduates at Camp Hudabiya.

Ba'asyir was given a two-and-half year prison sentence.

High risk

Mr Abbas continues his work today.

Last week another JI member against whom he gave evidence, Mohamed Cholily, was sentenced to 18 years for involvement in the 2005 Bali bombing.

And earlier this year he provided police with information that helped them track down Azahari Bin Husin, JI's master bomb maker, who made the 2002 Bali bombs.

The jihadi who turned has every intention of carrying on.

... because he was not tortured.

Gitmo is why we had so many fictonal orange alerts such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Newark's Prudential Building. Torture justified by extremists politics only results in no useful intelligence - and Cheney's denials. Gitmo only made America less safe. Obvious once we learn what professional interrogators have always said. Obvious once we ignore wisdom based in extremists politics and extremist propaganda (such as the TV show "24").

Gitmo only created hundreds of potential new terrorists out of people who were once never a threat.

BTW, to break Jemaah Islamiya, Indonesian investigators denied access by Americans who love torture. Indonesians did not need America's extremist politics making a mess of their investigation. A stunningly successful investigation because they kept extremists away and used investigation techniques that even the American FBI had used successfully (ie 1993 WTC bombing, USS Coled, etc). But even the FBI got no more information once the administration started using torture, Gitmo, secret torture prision, Abu Ghraid, et al techniques.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Gitmo only created hundreds of potential new terrorists out of people who were once never a threat.

Kill 'em all and blame Castro.