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.
Not only did he announce the closing of Gitmo before he had a plan, he only received the paper work on the prisoners the same day and hasn’t yet had a chance to even look at who is at Gitmo. He might close Gitmo but it is rather a cheep political announcement.
He did the same thing with “harsh interrogation” putting the CIA under the same restrictions as the Military, except that maybe after review he might put in a clause that would allow something different with his authorization.
I hate this kind of politics. I already miss the straight talker.
From FREEREPUBLIC
Mideast: Saudi prince urges US policy change
01/23/2009 10:10:05 AM PST · by Bokababe · 14 replies
AKI ^ | 1/23/09 | Staff
London, 23 Jan. (AKI) – A prominent member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family has warned US President Barack Obama that the Middle East peace process was at risk unless Washington altered its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In an article published in the British Financial Times Prince Turki al-Faisal said that Israel had come close to “killing the prospect of peace” with its recent military offensive in Gaza. “Unless the new US administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the stability of the region are at risk,”…
Another interesting little tidbit is that Obama’s press secretary is unable to say if Obama is fighting a “war on terror” or something else (maybe he is thinking he is fighting criminals). Then they don’t want to get into semantics as semantics is not useful. Well I say if we are fighting a “war” we use soldiers, if we are fighting criminals then we need to use the CIA or some other legal organization. I don’t think you can have it both ways, it puts our fighting guys in a terrible position.
AJ,
You seem to overlook the fact that this Yemen terrorist was released while Bush was in office, not Obama. He was released along with more than 500 other detainees that have been release from Gitmo over the last 2 years under Bush’s program. Exactly how is Bush’s release of a terrorist whom returned to the battlefield under the old Gitmo approach evidence that we should maintain Bush’s Gitmo policy? No matter how you try and spin it, there is undisputed evidence that Bush released approximately 2/3 of the detainees held at Gitmo and had cleared the release of approximately 60 more before he left office. Even Bush understood that we cannot simply hold suspected terrorist indefinitely.
McCain campaigned on maintaining Bush’s approach to the GWOT. Obama campaigned on a new approach. Obama won handily. So get over it – the American people already decided they want a new approach. You already had your chance to play chicken little and scare everyone into thinking that the world will come to an end if we don’t continue pursuing Bush’s approach to the GWOT and it didn’t work.
As for how Al Qaeda will interpret Obama’s new approach, I highly doubt they will be looking to the Washington Post for their answers. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that you give any credibility to a MSM newspaper. I think the missle strike today that killed 18 Al Qaeda operatives in a Al Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan will be slightly more persuasive to Al Qaeda than the opinion of a Washington Post journalist. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/groundreport/first-post-obama-attack-i_b_160394.html
THE PROBLEM CONMAN, is that Obama doesn’t have a plan except to close down the facility and think about a plan. Yes Bush let the guy go and he is killing people. So the answer is to let more people go, maybe here on American soil. Or to appease sensibilities, move them to another prison, say in Colorado. Maximum Security prisons don’t allow the Red Cross, or UN humanity guys to check out their care, and I doubt very much if the non-eaters would get food stuffed down a pipe. They would be sat in a cell 23/7 and that would be that.
My thought is first, as President of the US, you look at who is in the prison, find alternatives for their care, announce the plan and the closing of the prison, unless you are just grand standing, which is very unbecoming.
Bottom line: I DO NOT FEEL SAFE WITH THIS GUY AND HIS PEOPLE IN OFFICE. Period.
THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!
You seem to overlook the fact that this Yemen terrorist was released while Bush was in office, not Obama. He was released along with more than 500 other detainees that have been release from Gitmo over the last 2 years under Bush’s program. Exactly how is Bush’s release of a terrorist whom returned to the battlefield under the old Gitmo approach evidence that we should maintain Bush’s Gitmo policy?
Because Bush released those detainees under pressure from your side of the aisle.
You wanted it, you got it, it’s a little late to have the waiter take it back to the kitchen because you didn’t like how it came out.
Cobalt:
But wait – I though he was “The Decider”? Are you saying Bush made a decision that he personally did not believe in, because he was afraid of what the Democrats would think of him?
Well, that certainly doesn’t sound very Deciderish.
In fact, it sounds like an act of political cowardice.
GuyFawkes: BDS personified. If Bush didn’t do what the Left demanded, he’s a tyrant. If he gave the Left what they asked for, then he caved in and is thus a coward. End result: I don’t give a **** what GuyFawkes thinks of President Bush because I know ahead of time that he will always spin things to rationalize his continuing hate for the man, so explaining things to him is a waste of time and energy.
So, Cobalt is up there saying that Bush only let a dangerous terrorist go free because the Left forced him to – and *I* am the one spinning things?
Sure – you go on believing that, and ignoring that fact that no one on this entire blog will blame George W. Bush for a single thing that he did during his administration.
So tell me: if Bush only let this terrorist go “under pressure from [my] side of the aisle” – then why did he leave Gitmo open? I certainly don’t remember anyone on the left mentioning even a word about setting this specific terrorist free, but there have been TONS of people calling to close down the whole place.
Cobalt,
Bush did not release prisoners because of pressure from the “left”. Bush did very little during his term to appease the left – I thought that was one of the key reasons you conservatives liked him. Seriously, do you people hold Bush accountable for anything he did on his watch? You seem to excuse everything he did wrong as someone elses fault (9-11, economic collapse, etc.) or something he did under duress from the left.
Bush did it for several reasons. First, the Supreme Court handed down several key rulings that severally complicated Bush’s plan to try these detainees. You know, that left-wing, radical Supreme Court with a large majority of Republican appointees! Second, there has been consistent international pressure over Gitmo that complicated our efforts to get allies to coordinate and cooperate with our GWOT efforts. Third, we discovered that the evidence against some of these detainees was non-existent or extremely unreliable. Fourth, most of them are low-level grunts and/or we already obtained all of the intelligence we could get from them so it no longer was worth our efforts to keep them indefintely.
But wait – I though he was “The Deciderâ€? Are you saying Bush made a decision that he personally did not believe in, because he was afraid of what the Democrats would think of him?
Bush does something you disagree with: he’s a tyrant. Bush does something you agree with: he’s not a leader.
Apparently, leadership is semantically identical to tyranny in your world.
I think I’ve figured you out. You want a tyranny in this country–but only as long as you get to hold the whip.
Guy:
You are such a hypocrite.
I hear that the 9/11 families are unhappy that Obama stopped the trials. That is what is so absurd, the left says they want trials, they get trials, then they stop the trials they got. \
The left says these people have to be set free if no charges can be brought against them, Bush turns someone loose and he kills someone and they complain Bush turned them lose.
Now if Obama wants to turn them all lose, that is okay I guess.
Okay, note to self: sarcasm doesn’t work very well on this group.
The very concept that Bush ever did anything in any of his 8 years because of “pressure” from the Left is farcical by nature. He never once cared what someone like me thought of him – honestly, that might be the only thing about him that I actually admired. I wish on occasion I could get a Democratic President who thought and acted that way, instead of the triangulation of Clinton, or Obama making changes to his stimulus plan in an effort to get 80 votes in the Senate.
conman laid out above why Bush had to let some of these detainees go. Former Bush-supporter John Cole over at balloon-juice.com had a good write up about the subject earlier today:
“Here is what I don’t understand. Why is this repeatedly framed as a problem for Obama, when what this really is is evidence that the Bush administration accomplished NOTHING with Guantanamo. This is not a problem for Obama. This is proof that the last administration was a group of incompetent hacks. Bush decided that he had the right to detain people forever, do whatever he wanted to them, and they had no rights whatsoever, he ruined our international reputation and most likely violated dozens of laws, yet he let these allegedly dangerous people go. Why? What was the purpose of Gitmo, anyway? Why do all this stuff and STILL let the dangerous guys go free?
Because they had no idea what they were doing. They were so intent on DWTFTW, to hell with domestic and international law, that they paid no attention to the fact that torture and abuse doesn’t lead to good evidence and means that you can not prosecute. They made such a hash of the evidence that even today they can not prosecute half these guys because the evidence is in such disarray.”
Conman.
“Seriously, do you people hold Bush accountable for anything he did on his watch? You seem to excuse everything he did wrong as someone elses fault (9-11, economic collapse, etc.)” –
Maybe because they weren’t Bush’s fault .
Terrye,
Liberals are never embarrassed by their own hypocrisy.
Joint Chiefs chairman: Close Guantanamo
Posted 1/14/2008 6:08 PM
By Robert Burns, AP Military Writer
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The chief of the U.S. military said he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been “pretty damaging” to the image of the United States.
“I’d like to see it shut down,” Adm. Mike Mullen said Sunday in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.
guyF:
Okay, note to self: sarcasm doesn’t work very well on this group.
who are you trying to kid? that was your normal approach, it had nothing to do with sarcasm, it’s your personality.
look, Obama is attempting to surround himself with crooks and yes men. we should let him be around who he’s comfortable with, Geitner, Rezko, Ayers, Wright, etc. We all know Obama is unethical, may as well get used to his cohorts and cronies. They’re working very quickly to loot the Treasury (abetted by the crook Geitner).
I don’t know where you live GuyF, but ask yourself this question, if you would be comfortable with those guys in Gitmo being out on bail in your neighborhood, then please communicate that to the One. We all know if they get in the US, and a case can’t be made against them, they will be allowed free passage to YOUR neighborhood. So have at it sport.
Bush decided that he had the right to detain people forever, Actually, he does. The 4th amendment gives him the right to arrest without warrant, if it’s reasonable.
Thousands were detained as POWs in WWII that were never tried, given any hearings, no counsel. Why is it any different?
Put your thinking cap on.
While you’re doing so, tell us if you like Geitner. should he be approved?
GUY, ORIGINALLY THE PROBLEM WAS PRESIDENT BUSH’S, DO YOU HEAR ME. Because there are still head choppers at Gitmo the problem is now Obama’s. The decisions he makes now and the consequences of those decisions will be his. The Yemeni guy who blew up the Embassy, that Bush let out, just brings to mind that many of these people are very dangerous, some not so dangerous can’t be sent home for various reasons. Even some that we thought were not so dangerous, turn out to be big fat liars. So we need to be very careful what decisions are made given that we are closing Gitmo to make us safer.
Personally I think Gitmo was a great idea. If precedent is to be followed, holding prisoners has always existed during war time. Congress did give President Bush the go ahead to take out al Queda in Afghanistan. Only prisoners that had planned 911 or were picked up on the battle field in Afghanistan are at Gitmo. Because the terrorists are not covered by the Geneva Convention new rules needed to be devised. Our Congress was told to do so by the Supreme Court, but were unable to agree on a way forward. So the problem has lingered on and on.
Redteam:
1) His name is Geithner, not Geitner.
2) He’s already been confirmed. Keep up with us, mmkay?
kathie:
Okay, we disagree on Gitmo – we know that already. I’ll try and concentrate on two simple questions then:
1) Why was this guy put into Gitmo in the first place?
2) Why was he released (by the Bush Admin)?
If you can give me honest answers to those two, then we’ll try and address everything else.