Jan 23 2009
Obama Moves On GITMO Without Any Plan In Place – Updated
Sorry for the light posting, work is kicking my butt (which is a good problem considering). Just a kick post on what I heard this morning on the GITMO debacle. Seems President Obama issued the Executive Order to close GITMO without and plan or idea on what to do with the inmates there (most hard core killers, many wanting to plead guilty, some unable to return home). Seems pretty bass ackwards to issue an order to close the facility without any plans on what to do with these mass killers. I would call that extremely reckless and simply meant to generate cheap political points. Not a good start to what could be a disastrous learning experience for an inexperienced leader.
Update: And this is the reason why this kind of action, executed with little to no thought, is dangerous:
The emergence of a former Guantánamo 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 toSaudi 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.
There is almost no chance that these enemy combatants can be tried in our Federal Court system, given the fact they were ‘arrested’ without due process, and much of the evidence against them was gained without legal counsel available. To push these cases out of a military war tribunal almost means setting them free. Not to mention the fact that trials tend to expose our intelligence gathering methods and what we know – required to build a tight case in normal courts. We cannot be in a position of tipping our hands and exposing our current knowledge to our enemies simply to bring known killers to justice.
Update: Geez, if the Washington Post thinks we unilaterally surrendered the War on Terror, why wouldn’t al Qaeda and their ilk?
President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the “war on terror,” as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.
In other words, you CAN hit us and we have no strength of will to bring justice. Wonderful.
Off subject a bit, but did you all read this:
… what Rush said:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTU5MjE3MmQ0NWU1Zjc1YzYyMDE1NzNmZmM2MzYxMmI=
FromTheArticle:”One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama’s ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals:
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.””
We all need to get a copy of Rules for Radicals so we can keep up.
Just a question. If Obama decides to prosecute Bush for war crimes, how does that work for KSM and some of the others who were “waterboarded”?
kathie:
Completely irrelevant. We already know who was waterboarded, and who ordered it. The only question is if anyone is going to do anything about that.
We already know that KSM can’t be tried in a regular court, nor can we use anything that he told us as evidence in another trial, specifically because Bush/Cheney ordered him to be waterboarded. I have to assume that their hope was to keep him in Gitmo forever – they apparently just never thought that someone who disagreed with them could ever possibly be elected as President. (Both of those assumptions say a lot about their planning skills.)
This is irrelevant, though – there is simply no way there will be war crime charges. The worst we’ll get is something along the lines of the 9/11 Committee, which would at least get the full set of information about what was done to whom, and who ordered and/or approved it, out in the open.
Terrye:
You are aware that we have tried terrorists in court in this country before, right? You know that the people who planned the first WTC bombing are currently in life without parole?
Why are you stuck in this mindset where there are only two options: 1) keep them in Gitmo, or 2) set them free? Why are you absolutely convinced that there is simply no chance they could actually be tried and convicted – even though there are multiple examples of exactly that being done with terrorists before:
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted, 1996, U.S. District Court (before then-U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey) — plotting terrorist attacks on the U.S. (currently: U.S. prison, Butler, North Carolina);
Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted, 2006, U.S. Federal Court — conspiracy to commit the 9/11 attacks (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
Richard Reid, convicted, 2003, U.S. Federal Court — attempting to blow up U.S.-bound jetliner over the Atlantic Ocean (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
Jose Padilla, convicted, 2007, U.S. Federal Court — conspiracy to commit terrorism (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
Iyman Faris a/k/a/ Mohammad Rauf, convicted, 2003, U.S. Federal Court — providing material support and resources to Al-Qaeda, conspiracy to commit terrorist acts on behalf of Al Qaeda (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
Ali Saleh al-Marri, accused Al Qaeda operative — not yet tried, held as “unlawful enemy combatant” (currently: U.S. Naval Brig, Hanahan, South Carolina);
Masoud Khan, convicted, 2004, U.S. Federal Court — conspiracy to commit terrorism as part of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Islamic jihad (currently: U.S. prison, Terre Haute, Indiana);
John Walker Lindh, convicted, 2002, U.S. Federal Court — providing material support to the Taliban (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado).
So, exactly what makes these guys in Gitmo such powerful super villians, as opposed to everyone listed above?
Guy,
Treating terrorism as a “law enforcement” problem helped cause our 9/11 vulnerability and is a denial that we are in a War.
Their “super villain” status is based on their recidivism rate and the pattern of barbarism exhibited by their associates.
Can you imagine FDR clogging the courts with 400,000 prosecutions during WWII?
The hyper-moralizing by the “progressives” is unseemly, given their role in making us vulnerable.
Macker:
“Treating terrorism as a “law enforcement†problem helped cause our 9/11 vulnerability”
Prove that statement. Please.
“Their “super villain†status is based on their recidivism rate”
Oh, is that the false recidivism rate, where having your lawyer write an editorial in the NYT counts as “returning to the battlefield”?
“Can you imagine FDR clogging the courts with 400,000 prosecutions during WWII?”
No. Nor can I imagine FDR trying to stick 400,000 POWs in a holding facility in Cuba, with no plan as to how to eventually prosecute them. He wasn’t that dumb.
The terrorist was picked up along the Afghan/Pak border and was one of the first to arrive at Gitmo. He’s an example of 11% that have managed to finagle their way through the process. They are analyzed, re-analyzed, questioned, questioned again and again, observed and observed ad nauseum. Then a board studies the material and decides if they are candidates to be repatriated, or released to authorities in their countries of origin for further detention, etc. Saudi Arabia took him back, put him through rehab and then released him. He conned them too.
Now we have almost 100 Yemenis ready to be released back to Yemen within 3 months according to reports from Yemen—today. Yemen has a bad track record, they like to set their murderers and thugs free. They also tolerate al Qaeda training camps in country. Now that Obama has put his mark on Gitmo, if a percentage of these terrorists rejoin the action already occuring in Yemen he better be ready with an explanation. He gets his daily briefings, he now knows what’s going on.
_________________________
Ivehadit. Mata Harley from Flopping Aces did a thread on Rules for Radicals. Here you go, stick it in your favorites, it will come in handy in the future:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/10/23/the-obama-campaign-playbook-alinskys-rules-for-radicals/
Actually, I made a false statement above in my response to kathie: it’s not true that we could never try KSM in a federal court. We just wouldn’t be able to use anything he said during the course of his interrogation, because he was tortured in a legal sense.
But, if there is corroborating evidence that he definitely was the “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks, he absolutely could be tried and convicted in a federal court.
About that Presidential Executive Order on Interrogations…
http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/01/24/about-that-presidential-executive-order-on-interrogations/
Is Obama revoking Bush’s executive orders only to sign his own that say the same thing?
excerpt:
I mean, is this really a good idea? What’s that? You agree with all six of those points? Then why did President Obama just revoke them? Those were all outlined in Executive Order 13440 signed by President George W. Bush on July 20, 2007. That’s right. Those aren’t Obama’s words although he does restate in less plain terms than President Bush did. That’s right. Much like the Gitmo issue, this EO simply restates what was already US policy. So why revoke it and recreate the wheel?
[…] al Qaeda sees this as a sing of weakness and attacking the now weakened America. Too many see GITMO as a white flag of surrender in the war on […]