Gitmo Update

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Our Constitution applies to everything the US Government does. It recognizes rights that all people have.

Many legal scholars disagree. And I am no legal scholar but I definately disagree..

[ZenGum]

Here's a wacky idea.
It is "wrong" to keep these people in prison without trial.
It is legally virtually impossible to have a proper trial after all the, ahem, enhanced interrogation etc.
But it would be high risk to just let them go wandering off where-ever they like. If you'd locked me up for seven years, I'd be pissed at you and want revenge, even if I hadn't been a terrorist to start with.

So, how about we convert Gitmo into a luxury resort, and keep them there?
The islolation cells become private suites. Waterboarding is replaced with wakeboarding. Kangaroo courts are replaced with tennis courts. Handcuffs are replaced with some nice jewelry. Burly guards are replaced with masseuses.

They're still all where we can watch them and they can't do much, but their lives are much better.

[TheMercenary]

I like it. Or we could just send them to Sandles @ Palau.

[ZenGum]

Ahh, we call that the "pacific solution". Got a nice ring to it, don't you think.
Maybe you might call it the April Sun in Cuba Holiday Resort Solution.

Nauru is a great place to store boat people applying for refugee status.

[TheMercenary]

I have never been to Palau but we did take care of a lot of their people when I was at Tripler AMC in Hawaii. From what I gathered there is not much there, not much to do when you are there, and most people are dirt poor.

[TheMercenary]

Well how about that? Where is the outcry?

Obama may hold detainees indefinitely

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24278.html

[classicman]

It has its own thread and there was an entire discussion on it while you were away - meh.

[TheMercenary]

meh..... my bad.

[TheMercenary]

Paging Valerie Plame, paging Valerie Plame!

Detainees Shown CIA Officers' Photos
Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 21, 2009



The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged with organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Investigators are looking into allegations that laws protecting classified information were breached when three lawyers showed their clients the photographs, the sources said. The lawyers were apparently attempting to identify CIA officers and contractors involved in the agency's interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects in facilities outside the United States, where the agency employed harsh techniques.

If detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are tried, either in federal court or by a military commission, defense lawyers are expected to attempt to call CIA personnel to testify.

The photos were taken by researchers hired by the John Adams Project, a joint effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to support military counsel at Guantanamo Bay, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry. It was unclear whether the Justice Department is also examining those organizations.

Both groups have long said that they will zealously investigate the CIA's interrogation program at "black sites" worldwide as part of the defense of their clients. But government investigators are now looking into whether the defense team went too far by allegedly showing the detainees the photos of CIA officers, in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes.

If proved, the allegations would highlight how aggressively both military lawyers and their allies in the human rights community are moving to shed light on the CIA's interrogation practices and defend their clients. Defense attorneys, however, described the investigation as an attempt by the government to intimidate them into not exposing what happened to their clients.

When contacted about the investigation, the ACLU declined to discuss specifics.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...004295_pf.html

[classicman]

Friday marks the one-year anniversary of President Obama's pledge to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within the year. And, as anyone who has paid any attention to national security matters knows, the deadline will not be met.

In fact, on Thursday the White House announced that they did not have a time frame for shutting Gitmo down.

"I don't know when the process will be done," Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said during the daily briefing. "I know they made great progress... establishing first and foremost case files and recommendations of who indeed was there and why. There has been progress on that. There has been progress on issue of citing a new detention facility. The president won't meet the deadline he laid out a year ago, but the president, his national security team, the generals in Iraq and Afghanistan understand the support for al Qaeda that Guantanamo provides them, in recruiting, in attracting those that seek to do us harm.

"To keep the American people safe the president pledged to close Guantanamo Bay and he will do that," Gibbs added.

There has been progress on many of the issues Gibbs noted: including pinpointing the Thompson facility in Illinois as a replacement site. But as the one year anniversary of Obama's call to close Gitmo approaches, the issue seems far from settled in the realm of politics.

Link

Perhaps idealism has met reality. Things aren't as easy in the real world.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The fact that it's taking so long shows they just aren't turning everybody loose for political gain. They are doing cautiously, and systematically, but most importantly, they're doing it... as promised.

[DanaC]

Well said Bruce.

[classicman]

As the Obama administration struggles to decide what to do with roughly 200 remaining detainees held at Guantanamo Bay prison, the Pentagon says more of those previously released may now be on the path to terrorism.

The day after President Obama announced the United States would stop releasing Guantanamo prisoners to the country of Yemen, a Pentagon spokesman said the number of recidivist detainees — those who allegedly returned to terrorist activity — had increased.

A similar report that surfaced in May said 1 in 7 detainees likely returned to battle. Now, the Defense Department says that number has risen to 1 in 5 without offering additional evidence.

Professor Mark Denbeaux, director of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Research, has analyzed similar Pentagon claims previously made about Guantanamo recidivism and found them to be false.

"This is the 46th time the government has spoken on the question of recidivism," Denbeaux said. "It's the fourth time the DoD has. Their numbers have changed every time. At no point have they ever matched names with numbers. There is the following statement. We have no names. We have no numbers. We have approximate percentages for which we have some trends, and it's an inexact science."

The last claim by the Pentagon in April involved less than half the confirmed cases and only 15 named suspects, two of whom were never held at Guantanamo, according to Denbeaux.

The researchers noted that "returning to the fight" has included speaking critically of the U.S. detention policy. It has also included five Uighur separatists — members of a Chinese Muslim community seeking independence from China — who have been peacefully staying in an Albanian refugee camp, but one of whom wrote The New York Times asking the American government to respect the right of habeas corpus.

Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiederman at the New America Foundation conducted a similar analysis of the government's claims.

"Our analysis - based on previously released Pentagon reports, news stories, and other publicly available documents — indicates that when threats to the United States are considered, the true rate for those who either have taken up arms, or may have, is barely 4 percent, or 1 in 25," the report states.

Link
Don't know of these people, but they seem to contradict the official US stance on how many are returning to terrorism. It could be different definitions, or just being extra cautious.

Bruce, I too am glad that the place is being shut down. I said so long ago.

[classicman]

Then there is this . . .

It’s hard to know where to begin with this profoundly important story by Scott Horton, for next month's Harper’s Magazine (available on the web here), but let's try this: The three "suicides" at Guantánamo in June 2006 were not suicides at all. The men in question were killed during interrogations in a secretive block in Guantánamo, conducted by an unknown agency, and the murders were then disguised to look like suicides. Everyone at Guantánamo knew about it. Everyone covered it up. Everyone is still covering it up.

Link

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

The fact that it's taking so long shows they just aren't turning everybody loose for political gain. They are doing cautiously, and systematically, but most importantly, they're doing it... as promised.

Oh that and they want to preserve the votes. But I am not sure that you can say that transfering them from one prison to another one is really going to close the issue.

Time will tell.