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Guantanamo Is Closing

And secret prisons will soon be no more. A dark symbolic stain on the cause of freedom and justice has been lifted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/u...ITMOCND.html?hp

Now that's change we can believe in.

This feels good.

quote:

Originally posted by Zild This feels good.

That's the power of symbolism, silly

Don't be foolish. I've never agreed with our policy regarding detainees and secret prisons. It does feel good to know that they will no longer be used.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo That's the power of symbolism, silly

It would be silly to think this is only symbolic gesture and not actual policy change. Because it is both.

What to make of the nuances though? One executive order he signed yesterday "establishes an inter-agency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases." This must be in reference to that "classified loophole" that has been discussed.

This is a pure attempt at appeasing both sides. From today's NY Times:

quote:

"The executive orders would leave unresolved complex questions surrounding the closing of the Guantanamo prison, including whether, where and how many of the detainees are to be prosecuted. They could also allow Mr. Obama to reinstate the CIA's detention and interrogation operations in the future, by presidential order, as some have argued would be appropriate if Osama Bin Laden or another top-level leader of Al Qaeda were captured."

YAY! It's closed! So what's the plan now? Oh right... having it both ways.

quote:

The new president could take a similar approach to revising the rules for CIA interrogations, said one current government official familiar with the transition. Upon review, Mr. Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight. Advisers caution that few decisions will be made until the team gets a better picture of how the Bush administration actually goes about gathering intelligence, including covert programs, and there could be a greater shift after a full review.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122...=googlenews_wsj

If you read the fine print, you'll understand this means Obama is flirting with a little presidential prerogative when it comes to especially "difficult" subjects. More:

quote:

The proposed loophole, which could come in the form of a classified annex to the manual, would satisfy intelligence experts who fear that an outright ban of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques would limit the government in obtaining threat information that could save American lives. It would also preserve Obama's flexibility to authorize any interrogation tactics he might deem necessary for national security. However, such a move would frustrate Senate Democrats and human rights, retired military and religious groups that have pressed for a government-wide prohibition on methods they describe as torture. "That would not be good," said the Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. "We don't need to be able to torture and we don't need to engage in any interrogation techniques that are not humane. And unless we have absolute clarity that these interrogation techniques will not be used, they are not going to be able to say that."

So, how is Obama upholding his vow to end harsh interrogations if he's not ending harsh interrogations? All he's doing is scaling it down from the level of official policy to an ad hoc contingency, which makes it even more arbitrary and potentially abused.

i just watched a fox panel talk about this they sit there on that station and just reaffirm each others bias, so some guy in oklahoma is thinking....hey! they all agree so they mussst be right!
Fukin doon coons!

more men have died from torture than have been properly convicted. absolutely barbaric.

Fox news went on to say many returned to their "family business" and acted shocked. what in the hell do you expect people to think of america after going through that traumatizing shit...it only makes sense that they seek a life of vengeance

I sure hope Obama comes up with an idea fast on what to do with the people in Gitmo after it closes. This is a pretty good example of why the answer should be "something":

From the NY Times today, about the career of a released Gitmo inmate. After getting sprung and going back to Saudi into a "rehab" program for extremists, Said al-Shihri headed to Yemen and became a leader of the al-Qaeda network there:

quote:

The emergence of a former Guant�namo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official. "They're one and the same guy," said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. "He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear."

How did Shirhi get released? He told the Gitmo tribunals that he only traveled to Iran and Afghanistan to get carpets for his family's store. The Pentagon's dossier on Abu Sayyaf showed that he trained at a terrorist camp outside of Kabul, went to Iran to bring extremists into Afghanistan, and wanted to assassinate a writer on which a mullah had placed a fatwa for his writings. Al Qaeda is not the Gambino crime family, and a law enforcement approach will not defeat them, as the entire decade of the 1990's proved. So what do you guys who claim moral victory for Gitmo closing think the alternative should be?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/w...yemen.html?_r=3

They have to be released. If any of them can be prosecuted then get the evidence and prosecute them.

Yes, there are dangerous people in the world but that is a reality. The fact the USA will continue to be a target is also a reality. Whether you unlawfully detain people or not.

There's a year-long process being put into place to determine who needs to be sent to a facility in the US and brought up on charges and who needs to be released.

It won't actually close until the end of 2009 (hence the title) - but no future inmates will be sent there, and the practice of waterboarding will cease.

While I do not agree with the practice of indefinitely holding people on an island with no timeline for prosecution, I'm a bit unsettled by the concept of bringing them all inside our phsyical borders, let alone dispersing them through the prison population under the guise that they will be less of a potential threat that way. If you think of it along the lines of a virus, that could be the equivalent of potentially setting the stage for a plethora of new cells to be established within our borders. And I love the NIMBY aspect of all of this.

quote:

January 24, 2009 Where Will Detainees From Guant�namo Go? By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE WASHINGTON � Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed coming to a prison near you? One day after President Obama ordered that the military detention center at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, be shuttered, lawmakers in Washington wrestled with the implications of bringing dozens of the 245 remaining inmates onto American soil. Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr. Obama�s plan, found a talking point with political appeal. They said closing Guant�namo could allow dangerous terrorists to get off on legal technicalities and be released into quiet neighborhoods across the United States. If the detainees were convicted, the Republicans continued, American prisons housing terrorism suspects could become magnets for attacks. Meanwhile, none of the Democrats who on Thursday hailed the closing of the detention camp were stepping forward to offer prisons in their districts or states to receive the prisoners. Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, taunted the chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, by suggesting that the authorities reopen Alcatraz Prison in the San Francisco Bay. On Friday, a spokesman for Mrs. Feinstein countered that Alcatraz now was a �national park and tourist attraction, not a functioning prison,� and that the senator �does not consider it a suitable place to house detainees.� But Mrs. Feinstein does believe that some Guant�namo prisoners could be moved to maximum-security civilian or military prisons in the United States, the spokesman said, not naming any specific ones. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in response to a question on Friday that Guant�namo detainees who were moved to the United States �should be held at maximum-security federal facilities wherever they are available.� Like other Democrats queried Friday, Mr. Levin did not specifically address the question of prisoners moving to his state. One of the first Democrats in Congress to address the not-in-my-backyard issue directly was Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, who told reporters this week that terrorism suspects would be no more dangerous in a secure Pennsylvania prison than they were in Cuba. �There are thousands of dangerous prisoners being held securely behind bars in supermax prisons across the United States,� Mr. Murtha said Friday. He noted, however, that there was no supermax facility in his district. The number of detainees who may face federal trials � by various estimates, 50 to 100 of the remaining Guant�namo inmates � is tiny by the standards of the federal prison system, which currently holds 201,375 people in 114 facilities, according to Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Those include 9 detention centers that hold defendants awaiting trial, 21 high-security penitentiaries and a supersecure prison in Florence, Colo., where several convicted terrorists are already locked up. Obama administration officials are beginning to review the files on the remaining detainees at Guant�namo to decide where they should go. Some have been judged not dangerous and cleared for release, but officials have not found a country to take them. Others, including Mr. Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, will almost certainly face trial, either in a federal or a military court. But incoming administration officials admit that every option is imperfect. �There aren�t pretty choices for what we have to do with them,� Dennis C. Blair, the nominee for director of national intelligence, told senators on Thursday. Republican lawmakers have watched these struggles with a certain relish. Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said, �As people start getting an indication that they�re going to Kansas, that they�re going to California, that they�re going to Illinois or to Michigan, people are going to say, �No, why would we want them here and put them in a general prison population and make our hometowns a target for terrorists?� � Despite speculation about the possibility of moving large numbers of detainees to a single military jail, like those in Leavenworth, Kan., or Charleston, S.C., government officials and legal experts say it is more likely that inmates would be sent to civilian or military facilities across the country. That would reduce the burden on any single location and make each site less of a potential terrorist target. Sarah E. Mendelson, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who led a study of options for closing Guant�namo, said it would be best if detainees facing prosecution were indicted while still at Guant�namo and then moved into federal pretrial facilities in the United States, which routinely house people accused of murder and other dangerous inmates. �We�ve had extremely dangerous terrorists tried in various courts and put away,� Ms. Mendelson said. Federal courts have convicted 145 people on terrorism-related charges since 2001, according to one review, while the military commissions at Guant�namo have been plagued with delays and legal setbacks. �The Obama administration has to have a little more of a conversation with the American people� about the feasibility of prosecuting terrorism suspects in the United States, she said. �There are plenty of Americans who would want to see some of these guys prosecuted and locked up.�

quote:

The Jack Bauer Exception Obama's executive order wants it both ways on interrogation. Most politicians would rather do anything than make a difficult choice, and it seems President Obama hasn't abandoned this Senatorial habit. To wit, yesterday's executive order on interrogation: It imposes broad limits on how aggressively U.S. intelligence officers can question terrorists, but it also keeps open the prospect of legal loopholes that would allow them to press harder in tough cases. While that kind of double standard may resolve a domestic political problem, it's no way to fight a war. The human-rights lobby and many Democrats are still experiencing hypochondria about the Bush Administration's supposed torture program, and their cheering about this "clean break" means they may be appeased. But the larger risk is that Mr. Obama's restrictions end up disabling an essential tool in the U.S. antiterror arsenal. Effective immediately, the interrogation of anyone "in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government" will be conducted within the limits of the Army Field Manual. That includes special-ops and the Central Intelligence Agency, which will now be required to give prisoners gentler treatment than common criminals. The Field Manual's confines don't even allow the average good cop/bad cop routines common in most police precincts. The Army Field Manual is already the operating guide for military interrogations. The crux of the "torture" debate has been that the Bush Administration permitted more coercive techniques in rare cases -- fewer than 100 detainees, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden. Yesterday Mr. Obama revoked the 2007 Presidential carve-out that protected this CIA flexibility. The techniques that had been permissible until yesterday remain classified but were widely believed to include such things as stress positions, exposure to cold and sleep deprivation. Senior officials have said they stopped waterboarding in 2003 -- which in any case was only used against three senior al Qaeda operatives and succeeded in breaking these men to divulge information that foiled terror plots. The unfine print of Mr. Obama's order is that he's allowed room for what might be called a Jack Bauer exception. It creates a committee to study whether the Field Manual techniques are too limiting "when employed by departments or agencies outside the military." The Attorney General, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will report back and offer "additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies." In other words, Mr. Obama's Inaugural line that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" was itself misrepresenting the choices his predecessor was forced to make. At least President Bush was candid about the practical realities of preventing mass casualties in the U.S. In Today's Opinion Journal The "special task force" may well grant the CIA more legal freedom to squeeze information out of terrorists when it could keep the country safe. An anecdote former Clinton counterterror czar Richard Clarke recounts in his memoir "Against All Enemies" is instructive. In 1993, White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler was horrified by Mr. Clarke's proposal for "extraordinary rendition," where our spooks turn over prisoners to foreign countries like Egypt so they can do the interrogating. While Mr. Clinton was still chewing his fingernails and seemed to side with Mr. Cutler, Al Gore arrived late to the meeting. "Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides," Mr. Clarke writes. "Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'" The wider danger Mr. Obama is inviting by claiming to draw a line while drawing no line at all is the message it sends to Langley. CIA interrogators are already buying legal insurance in the expectation that a Senator like Carl Levin or some prosecutor-on-the-make rings them up for war crimes. The executive order is bound to produce a more risk-averse CIA culture and over time less intelligence-gathering. No one may be willing to be Jack Bauer when Mr. Obama really needs him. This will have consequences for U.S. safety, and for the Obama Administration if there is another 9/11.

Why not put them into the general population at some maximum state pen where there's a ton of murderers and gang types?

They wouldn't last.

The system would "sort it out" for itself.

(no, I'm not really serious that I think this is a good idea, but I think the outcome would be quite probable)

quote:

Originally posted by pmoisse Why not put them into the general population at some maximum state pen where there's a ton of murderers and gang types? They wouldn't last. The system would "sort it out" for itself. (no, I'm not really serious that I think this is a good idea, but I think the outcome would be quite probable)

I've pondered that many times and in the end I just can't make up my mind if they would last or perhaps flourish there (or perhaps neither). At the end of the day I'm not convinced someone in a maximum security prison gives 2 fucks about America and therefore might not have an axe to grind with any terrorists put in with them. Maybe they'd consider conspiring with them. Maybe they'd just consider gang raping them when the proverbial soap gets dropped in the shower. I just don't know.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka While I do not agree with the practice of indefinitely holding people on an island with no timeline for prosecution, I'm a bit unsettled by the concept of bringing them all inside our phsyical borders, let alone dispersing them through the prison population under the guise that they will be less of a potential threat that way. If you think of it along the lines of a virus, that could be the equivalent of potentially setting the stage for a plethora of new cells to be established within our borders. And I love the NIMBY aspect of all of this.

I think it's ridiculous that everyone suddenly is concerned that our supermax prison facilities aren't capable of holding these people because they're worried that they'll escape. What about the incredibly dangerous people already in those facilities? Why haven't they escaped? If they're strong enough for other terrorists like the Unabomber, they should be enough for KSM.

^ Intersting. I'm not sure why, but I feel that there might be enough hardened patriots in the big house that one of them would shank one of these terrarists.

If that were to happen, I can't really see the prison management spending much time investigating who or why either.

More than half of the people in Guantanamo have already been released under Bush so I don't know why the right is complaining now.


The issue here is that there needs to be a process to deal with them, not this indefinite legal limbo that serves absolutely no one.

For the record, Al-Qaida does not have branches as if they are a fucking bank.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka I've pondered that many times and in the end I just can't make up my mind if they would last or perhaps flourish there (or perhaps neither). At the end of the day I'm not convinced someone in a maximum security prison gives 2 fucks about America and therefore might not have an axe to grind with any terrorists put in with them. Maybe they'd consider conspiring with them. Maybe they'd just consider gang raping them when the proverbial soap gets dropped in the shower. I just don't know.

I'm pretty sure they wouldn't last long in the general population. The American flag's stock is pretty high in prisons, surprisingly. Also, crimes that go against the most basic morals of society tend to be viewed harshly in prison - people like child molesters, rapists, and people who kill civilians indiscriminately aren't treated very well. I would expect that terrorists would be little different.

Finally, do we have that little faith in out own justice system that our courts aren't fit to try terrorists?

I think the white supremacists in the supermax's would be the ones to get involved in this type of thing. It's closer to a matter of pride for them instead of maybe turf or business like for the Bloods or Crips.

**this is just a guess based on watching prison shows on TLC and Discovery lol

quote:

Originally posted by Clovis Finally, do we have that little faith in out own justice system that our courts aren't fit to try terrorists?

Their detainment thusfar has quite obviously been a hate-crime.

quote:

Obama Decides Not to End Extraordinary Rendition Program The Los Angeles Times reports the Obama administration has decided not to end the controversial policy of extraordinary rendition, which gives the CIA authority to abduct anyone throughout the world and secretly transfer them to another country. Current and former US intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role in counterterrorism efforts. One Obama administration official said, “Obviously you need to preserve some tools. You still have to go after the bad guys.” The European Parliament has condemned renditions as an "illegal instrument used by the United States.”

Source: Democracy Now

Additional Link: LA Times

I'm just curious when everyone is stop loosing their mind every time Obama sneezes or blinks, not that it's likely to stop any time soon. The man is a fraud, not to mention the whitest black man since Colin Powell. And when I say white, I mean no different than your average WASP, except with a darker skin tone; a Wallstreet whore on a leash firmly tugged by AIPAC. Lame .

quote:

Originally posted by Zild This feels good.

Yeah, that's the intended outcome... for it to feel good but things pretty much remain the same, just like this election .

quote:

Originally posted by shaolin_Z Source: Democracy Now Additional Link: LA Times I'm just curious when everyone is stop loosing their mind every time Obama sneezes or blinks, not that it's likely to stop any time soon. The man is a fraud, not to mention the whitest black man since Colin Powell. And when I say white, I mean no different than your average WASP, except with a darker skin tone; a Wallstreet whore on a leash firmly tugged by AIPAC. Lame .

They're closing the secret prisons, outlawing torture, but its in your quote, they have to "preserve some tools." I don't see a problem with that or how it amounts to fraud.

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