Gitmo Update
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/topNews/idUSTRE50C5JX20090113?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=truePentagon 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?
I don't read it as 18, I read it as 18 + 43. To many for comfort.
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.
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-Interrogators/Chris-Mackey/e/9780316011532/?itm=4
From what I can tell bad people were sent there, but they were not the majority.
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.
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.
~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.
They can do it. They just don't want to.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/middleeast/23yemen.html
More grist for the mill: freed from Guantanamo in 2007, now deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch.
In spite of Gitmo, or because of Gitmo?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/middleeast/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?
His past history says... in spite of.
Mr. Shihri, 35, trained in urban warfare tactics at a camp north of Kabul, Afghanistan, according to documents released by the Pentagon as part of his Guantánamo dossier. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he traveled to Afghanistan via Bahrain and Pakistan, and he later told American investigators that his intention was to do relief work, the documents say. He was wounded in an airstrike and spent a month and a half recovering in a hospital in Pakistan.
The documents state that Mr. Shihri met with a group of “extremists” in Iran and helped them get into Afghanistan. They also say he was accused of trying to arrange the assassination of a writer, in accordance with a fatwa, or religious order, issued by an extremist cleric.
However, under a heading describing reasons for Mr. Shihri’s possible release from Guantánamo, the documents say he claimed that he traveled to Iran “to purchase carpets for his store” in Saudi Arabia. They also say that he denied knowledge of any terrorists or terrorist activities, and that he “related that if released, he would like to return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wherein he would reunite with his family.”
“The detainee stated he would attempt to work at his family’s furniture store if it is still in business,” the documents say.
I doubt NATO bombed a lot of "relief workers" at those al Qaeda training camps.
Big deal. Some half-wit decides to turn or return to terror. I'm quakin' in my boots I am.
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.
Gitmo only created hundreds of potential new terrorists out of people who were once never a threat.
Kill 'em all and blame Castro.
or kill 'em all and take the credit.
[SIZE="1"]([COLOR="SlateGray"][/COLOR]Wasn't that the plan to begin with?)[/SIZE]
Another one. In the same group as our previous al-Shihri. You'll have to read this one carefully:
"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for," al-Shihri was quoted as saying.
Well, next time he won't be imprisoned. Next time he'll be
reduced to paste by a predator drone:
PAKISTAN received an early warning of what the era of “smart power” under President Barack Obama will look like after two remote-controlled US airstrikes killed 22 people at suspected terrorist hideouts in the border area of Waziristan.
That IS smart: instead of the messy business of invading, shooting at people, having to take prisoners, set up military tribunals with attention whore lawyers and code pink morons banging at the door --
just kill them, remotely.
If the jihadi's abdomen can't be located, it just might decrease his persistence.
"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for," al-Shihri was quoted as saying.
Sure sounds like an admission of guilt to me.
That IS smart: instead of the messy business of invading, shooting at people, having to take prisoners, set up military tribunals with attention whore lawyers and code pink morons banging at the door -- just kill them, remotely.
Boom goes the dynamite!
If the jihadi's abdomen can't be located, it just might decrease his persistence.
Well stated.
I think they really should not give them a choice. Load them up in a C-17 and drop them off. End of story.
April 24, 2009
Yemen Dispute Slows Closing of Guantánamo
By WILLIAM GLABERSON and ROBERT F. WORTH
The Obama administration’s effort to return the largest group of Guantánamo Bay detainees to Yemen, their home country, has stalled, creating a major new hurdle for the president’s plan to close the prison camp in Cuba by next January, American and Yemeni officials say.
“We’re at a complete impasse,” said one American official who is involved in the issue but was speaking without authorization and so requested anonymity. “I don’t know that there’s a viable Plan B.”
The Yemeni government has asked Washington to return its detainees and has said that it would need substantial aid to rehabilitate the men. But the Obama administration is increasingly skeptical of Yemen’s ability to provide adequate rehabilitation and security to supervise returned prisoners. In addition, American officials are wary of sending detainees to Yemen because of growing indications of activity by Al Qaeda there.
The developments are significant for the Obama administration because the 97 Yemeni detainees make up more than 40 percent of the remaining 241 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The question of what to do with them “is integral to the process of closing Guantánamo,” said Ken Gude, an associate director at the Center for American Progress who has written about closing the prison camp.
The standoff over the Yemeni detainees comes on top of other difficulties that have emerged since President Obama announced his intention to close the prison that has drawn international criticism for years.
continues:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/world/middleeast/24yemen.html?hpw=&pagewanted=printOfficials: Gitmo court system likely to stay open
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration may revamp and restart the Bush-era military trial system for suspected terrorists as it struggles to determine the fate of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and fulfill a pledge to close the prison by January.
The move would further delay terrorism trials and, coupled with recent comments by U.S. military and legal officials, amounts to a public admission by President Barack Obama's team that delivering on that promise is easier said than done.
One official said the Obama administration planned to use the extra time to ask Congress to tweak the existing military tribunals system that was created for the detainees. Critics of former President George W. Bush, who pushed Congress to create it, have said the system violated U.S. law because it limits the detainees' legal rights.
Now, faced with looming deadlines and few answers for where to transfer the detainees, the Obama administration may keep the tribunal system — with a few changes.
Asked at a Senate hearing last week if the administration would abandon the Guantanamo system, Defense Secretary Robert Gates answered: "Not at all."
"The commissions are very much still on the table," Gates said, adding that nine Guantanamo detainees are already being tried in military tribunals.
Gates also alluded to the administration's likely request for Congress to tweak to law that created the Guantanamo legal system.
But administration officials have said they hoped to try many in U.S. federal courts, relying on civilian prosecutors instead of on the military law.
Among the planned changes to the law, both officials said Saturday, would be limits on the evidence used against the detainees. Much of the evidence compiled against at least some of the detainees is classified and cannot be used in civilian courts without exposing the secret material.
Since Obama ordered the prison closed, Republicans have seized on the issue of where the detainees will go — and the new Democratic administration lack of a plan to deal with them.
"Closing Guantanamo is not a good option if no safe alternatives exist," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement Saturday.
Paul F. Rothstein, a Georgetown University legal ethics professor, said the dilemma highlights differences between campaign rhetoric and the realities of the courtroom.
"Once you become president and see the whole panoply of issued that you face, some of the things that seemed easy to promise or talk about during the campaign sometimes appear more difficult," Rothstein said Saturday. "Elections are fought on big slogans without much nuance or detail. I think we want a president who responds to what he sees when he actually gets in there and sees the whole picture, rather than one who adheres rigidly to what he said before."
Hmm.. Now what?
Try 'em. If they're guilty, shoot 'em. If not, process them as a regular deportee.
Open the doors and let Cuba deal with them. :haha:
Open the doors and let Cuba deal with them. :haha:
You're supposed to try them before they get shot.
May 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will keep the military tribunal system for trying terrorism suspects held at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and expand legal protections for defendants.
The Defense Department will ask a military court for another delay in trials of suspected terrorist as the first step in revamping and reviving tribunals for some detainees, Obama said in a statement.
“We will seek more time to allow us time to reform the military commission process,” the statement said. “These reforms will begin to restore the commissions as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law.”
The actions would revive a system put in place by former President George W. Bush with changes that address objections that Obama raised about the policy during his presidential campaign. Human rights groups criticized the president’s decision, while several key lawmakers voiced their support.
Obama said he wanted to preserve the military commissions system as a proper forum “for trying enemies who violate the laws of war, provided that they are properly structured and administered.”
Good - If done properly this is the best course of action - Try and convict if guilty then sentence or if innocent move on.
I think he came to the conclusion that allowing them into the court system would become a dog & pony show of mammoth proportions. Defense lawyers would be subpoenaing everybody and their brother, plus millions of documents the government doesn't want public.
I think Obama want to clean up this mess as expeditiously as possible.
I think Obama want to clean up this mess as expeditiously as possible.
Worse, we imprisioned hundreds who were not guilty. Now that we have created hundreds of enemies, and are not guilty, what happens to these people? Where do they go free?
Amazing how torture turns innocent people into good people.
Why would any nation want people now embedded with so much hate? We programmerd them. Where do we put them? In an open trial, they would have to go free.
Of some 400 innocent prisoners from Guantanamo, about 60 harbored so much hate of America and as to be easily recruited as soldiers against America. Every possible solution is negative. A tribute to the intelligence of people such as Condi Rice whose job was to avert such problems.
Good - If done properly this is the best course of action - Try and convict if guilty then sentence or if innocent move on.
It will most likely be more complicated then that since many potentially innocent people have been imprisoned under much less then favorable conditions for almost ten years. I would not be surprised if some of them tried to get revenge.
This is a no-win situation and I don't see any other realistic option then what Obama is doing now. No other country wants to hold responsibility over them and letting them go freely is extremely dangerous for Obama since if any ex-Gitmo prisoner, innocent or not, is claimed responsible for an American death in the future, Obama is screwed.
I think Obama want to clean up this mess as expeditiously as possible.
Agreed, but he is also figuring out that all the campaign promises to appease the voters and close the place is not as easy as he thought it would be. Of course I am sure that he knew that all along. :rolleyes:
Looks like a severe case of NIMBY.
Democrats won't fund Guantanamo closing for now
By ANDREW TAYLOR – 6 hours ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g4mOZQZCTQoyqqgbms6XH7ud4c_wD989GJ781
So they bitched and complained for years and now they will not fund it. That is just rich.
The public impression is that the debate over repatriating detainees has only just begun. In fact, the agreement with the Denmark was only one of many behind-the-scenes negotiations between U.S. officials and their foreign counterparts that have been going on since late 2002. That largely hidden chapter of diplomatic history—and the mixed results it yielded—illuminates the challenges Obama faces as he races to close Gitmo down. "Over five or six years, we had a multiple-ring circus of negotiations around the world that people really didn't know about," says John Bellinger, who helped spearhead those efforts, first at the National Security Council and later as legal adviser to then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. "I analogize it to the old duck metaphor: we were calm above the surface but furiously paddling our feet below the surface."
The paddling grew more furious with each passing year, as Guantánamo—and America's treatment of detainees in general—became an ever-expanding public-relations nightmare for the U.S. government. Concerns about what, precisely, would happen to the prisoners once they left Guantánamo gave way to a resolve to get them out, as quickly as they could. It was a mammoth diplomatic task: Prosper, the State Department's initial lead negotiator, spoke with diplomats from all of the 44 countries represented in Camp Delta save for Syria. The process, which under Bush resulted in the return of some 550 detainees, revealed the hard truth that the new administration now confronts: there is no good way out of Guantánamo.
I certainly never heard about any of this. It certainly makes one wonder why not.
Because Cheney decided it was none of your business, he was keeping America safe.
Actually Bruce - if that were true and done properly, which it apparently wasn't, I would have had absolutely no problem with it.
It's never done properly by egomaniacs with no oversight or accountability.
Actually Bruce - if that were true and done properly, which it apparently wasn't, I would have had absolutely no problem with it.
It's Obama's problem now. He promised the electorate that it would be closed by the end of the year. I am holding him to that. If he can't it will go in his failure column.
Catching hold of the tail of a tiger is one thing ... letting go, now that's even trickier.
Lets just give them all more publicity now. Just as long as they are given all the rights of our citizens.
What do you propose we do with them then? Should we not try them?
Lets just give them all more publicity now. Just as long as they are given all the rights of our citizens.
And noncitizens.
Non-Citizens have no Rights under our Constitution.
Our Constitution applies to everything the US Government does. It recognizes rights that all people have.
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..
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.
I like it. Or we could just send them to Sandles @ Palau.
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.
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.
Well how about that? Where is the outcry?
Obama may hold detainees indefinitely
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24278.htmlIt has its
own thread and there was an entire discussion on it while you were away - meh.
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/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082004295_pf.htmlFriday 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.
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.
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.
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.
LinkThe 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.
Closing Gitmo and moving them onto US soil are two VERY different situations and, I believe, have very different legal ramifications.
Hey! Where did that ^^^^ smiley come from?
That's strange, I tried the "quote" button, and the "edit" button, and the smilie doesn't show up in either.
It must be Jesus in shades!
someone must have slipped the cellar a lil some somethin'
You have to Edit and then Go Advanced and it's the Post Icon below the edit box.
Thanks, I must have hit it accidentally.
A twenty five minute discussion of a US military guard in Guantanamo and two of the first prisioners held there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p005trqpThe 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.
Supposedly Saudi Arabia has a rehabilitation center for gitmo victims and it has a 80% rate of getting gitmo detainees to live normal lives again. But unfortunately, many of the 20% have started their own terrorist group, AQAP, and took responsibility for the Christmas Day bombing...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_Rehabilitation_Center"getting gitmo detainees to live normal lives again."
define normal . . .
Newsnight did a really interesting piece about that last week.
Supposedly Saudi Arabia has a rehabilitation center for gitmo victims and it has a 80% rate of getting gitmo detainees to live normal lives again. But unfortunately, many of the 20% have started their own terrorist group, AQAP, and took responsibility for the Christmas Day bombing...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_Rehabilitation_Center
There is proof enough we should have just shot them. Releasing them back into the wild is just begging for trouble.;)
Cause that would NEVER backfire.....
Not if you kill enough of them.
Not if you get two people to join the terrorist movement for every person you kill. But eh, you are looking for a reaction now.
Sure, it may work like that for awhile, but if we kill enough of them fast enough we should be ok. Especially if we get 'em while they are still really young. That way they can't grow up to be terrorists.
Actually if we just start killing all of them under the age of 2 we should be just fine. You can't even argue that would be wrong since they're not even really human at that age. ;)
define normal . . .
Not blowing up people...
Woo Hoo - I'm normal!!!!!!
@ Lookout: Mandatory abortions might do the trick.
Yeah, but some of them will undoubtedly hide their pregnancy. We have until they are 2.
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Constitutional attorney: Guantanamo ‘nearly impossible to close’ thanks to NDAA
Even though President Barack Obama made closing Guantanamo one of his core campaign promises in the lead-up to the presidential election in 2008, that promise now appears to be “nearly impossible” to fulfill thanks to provisions in the new laws, Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, explained.
“It has no real geographical limitation, it has no temporal limitation,” he said, summarizing key provisions in the NDAA. “It basically puts into law, into permanent law, the ability to indefinitely detain, outside of a constitutional justice system, individuals the president picks up anywhere in the world that the president thinks might have some connection to terrorism. The United States Congress, with the support of the president, has now put into law the possibility of indefinite detention, where the entire world, including the United States, is a battlefield.”
“This legislation puts into law, into a legal architecture, authority for the president to do things that no president has ever been authorized to do before. It’s a scary day for civil liberties if we depend on the graces of the executive not to use power the Congress has given them.”
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