The Obama Conspiracy

Craig Lamson · January 25, 2009

Quite bad in my book.

Gitmo needs to STAY, waterboarding is an important tool...in other words he has surrendered already.

As to his higher standards, he sets standards one day and breaks them a few days later.

Lets not mention the getting back into the baby killing business

Yea..pretty bad for a few days in office.

David G. Healy · January 25, 2009

yeah, business is pretty bad out west, too! Perk up, Obama and company will give the RNC and the Minority something to really wail about soon enough.... The American people have spoken... to quote a modern day politician: "I WON"

Craig Lamson · January 25, 2009

Oh yea there will be wailing and those doing it just might include you. And yes he won, giving him ownership. Gonna be a big change for obie, not being able to vote present....

David G. Healy · January 26, 2009

did all the wailing I'm gonna do in the 60's, Craig. Far as Gitmo, I'm surprised they're still alive, that's GHWB fault...Gitmo, as we know it is all show for dough...

Craig Lamson · January 26, 2009

Well David I'm wishing things work out but I'm not holding my breath. Given the new rules I don't think we willbe seeing any new vistors to where ever the new version of gitmo ends up. No new prisioners because they are going to be killed in the field.

Edited January 26, 2009 by Craig Lamson

January 26, 2009

Craig, I was shocked by opinions you posted on abortion, the treaty, US Criminal Statute, and Constitutional provisions violated via the prior executive branch's policies of the Guantanamo sham, "rendition", secret foreign CIA run "prisons", and by illegal water boarding and other abuses internationally accepted as "torture".

Back in my teen years, I observed how a government ban via criminalization of abortion services worked out for females of child bearing age. The wealthier women with the means to easily endure the lost time from work, the medical expenses of health care related to child bearing, and the time and expense post partum, with or without opting for adoption, simply bought a travel ticket and flew out of the jurisidiction to seek safe, discreet, clinical abortion services that the majority of women in the US have available to them, now.

I'll offer you a deal. If you agree, in the interest of not making the criminalization of abortion you are committed to, what amounts to a burden on the woman of least wealth, to also legislating the requirement that all women of child bearing age must apply for travel authorization when planning any trip out of their community, with a pregnancy test as the only requirement for the issuance of the pass, and a re-entry pregnancy test upon returning from travel.

Legislate criminal penalties against women who test pregnant before exiting, and who are no longer pregnant and unable to provide proof of the outcome of a confirmed pre-exit pregnancy, or the whereabouts and condition of a child.

During the Reagan years, treaties were signed and ratified, and subsequent laws were passed to outlaw torture and othe crimes against humanity, and to obligate our government to investigate and to prosecute commission of the acts you support. As you can see below, our recently departed leadership twisted the truth about the Guantanamo prison population even deliberately lied to us about what the majority of the detainees had done, so as to attempt to justify why they could not be charged and prosecuted by our enforcement and courts system.

I'm posting how I know what I know, and observe that the Bush and Obama admins. have been complicit in eradicating all of the incriminating statements made by Bush and Cheney for eight years, available until last tuesday, at state.gov and whitehouse. gov.

How do you "know what you know", Craig....to feel strongly enough to advocate for continued policies of officials commission of crimes against humanity and other offenses illegal under our system of laws, formerly and proudly pointed to as a "model" system, a system worth fighting to the death to protect and preserve?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...aeda/index.html

Friday Jan. 23, 2009 08:35 EST

The newest fear-mongering campaign from the Right and the media

...This is the first line of Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane's New York Times article today on this subject: "Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed coming to a prison near you?" It's appropriate that scare lines from horror films are the centerpiece of our political debates. It continues:

Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr. Obama’s plan, found a talking point with political appeal. They said closing Guantánamo 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.

"Magnets for attacks." Mazzetti and Shane then offer this childish taunt: "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." ....

...In response to what I wrote this morning in Update III, I received an email from The New York Times' Scott Shane objecting to several of the points I made. He also made some general observations about the relationship between bloggers and -- as he puts it -- "MSM." I offered to post his email in full, as I think it will be illuminating, but until I hear back from him, there is one objection he made that is clearly correct:

My statement -- "Mazzetti and Shane never mention that there are already numerous convicted Terrorists imprisoned in the U.S., including ones alleged to be Al Qaeda operatives" -- is wrong. In the article's 11th paragraph, they wrote:

The number of detainees who may face federal trials — by various estimates, 50 to 100 of the remaining Guantánamo 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.

Several paragraphs later, they also quote an expert, Sarah Mendelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as saying: "We’ve had extremely dangerous terrorists tried in various courts and put away." I don't agree with the other points Shane made and hope he agrees that our exchange should be posted, but on that point, he is absolutely right: he and Mazzetti did, contrary to what I wrote, include this important fact in their article. ....."

# The Washington establishment's plans for Obama's executive orders

If the travesties of Guantanamo are replicated within the U.S., much of the progress Obama just made will be undermined.

# Not letting abject ignorance interfere with opining

A writer at The Atlantic defends Guantanamo military commission based on the most obviously false claims possible. How and why does that happen?

# New poll on torture and investigations negates Beltway conventional wisdom

Majorities of Americans oppose torture in all cases, want Guantanamo closed, favor civilian trials for terrorist suspects, and support investigations into Bush crimes.

# Mohammed Jawad and Obama's efforts to suspend military commissions

As one of his very first acts, the new president attempts to suspend Guantanamo military commissions. That's commendable, but only as a first step.

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:_jR0CY...;cd=3&gl=us

President Discusses Creation of Military Commissions to Try Suspected Terrorists

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

September 6, 2006

President Discusses Creation of Military Commissions to Try Suspected Terrorists

The East Room

THE PRESIDENT:......Most of the enemy combatants we capture are held in Afghanistan or in Iraq, where they're questioned by our military personnel. Many are released after questioning, or turned over to local authorities -- if we determine that they do not pose a continuing threat and no longer have significant intelligence value. Others remain in American custody near the battlefield, to ensure that they don't return to the fight.

In some cases, we determine that individuals we have captured pose a significant threat, or may have intelligence that we and our allies need to have to prevent new attacks. Many are al Qaeda operatives or Taliban fighters trying to conceal their identities, and they withhold information that could save American lives. In these cases, it has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly [sic], questioned by experts, and -- when appropriate -- prosecuted for terrorist acts.

President George W. Bush addresses invited guests, members of the media and White House staff Wednesday. Sept. 6, 2006 in the East Room of the White House, as he discusses the administration's draft legislation to create a strong and effective military commission to try suspected terrorists. The bill being sent to Congress said President Bush, "reflects the reality that we are a nation at war, and that it is essential for us to use all reliable evidence to bring these people to justice." White House photo by Kimberlee Hewitt Some of these individuals are taken to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It's important for Americans and others across the world to understand the kind of people held at Guantanamo. These aren't common criminals, or bystanders accidentally swept up on the battlefield -- we have in place a rigorous process to ensure those held at Guantanamo Bay belong at Guantanamo. Those held at Guantanamo include suspected bomb makers, terrorist trainers, recruiters and facilitators, and potential suicide bombers. They are in our custody so they cannot murder our people. One detainee held at Guantanamo told a questioner questioning him -- he said this: "I'll never forget your face. I will kill you, your brothers, your mother, and sisters."

In addition to the terrorists held at Guantanamo, a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.....

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:vMPuFU...;cd=1&gl=us

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

June 29, 2006

President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Participate in a Joint Press Availability

.....Q Thank you, Mr. President. You've said that you wanted to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but you were waiting for the Supreme Court decision that came out today. Do you intend now to close the Guantanamo Bay quickly? And how do you deal with the suspects that you've said were too dangerous to be released or sent home?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you for the question on a court ruling that literally came out in the midst of my meeting with the Prime Minister -- and so I haven't had a chance to fully review the findings of the Supreme Court. I, one, assure you that we take them very seriously. Two, that to the extent that there is latitude to work with the Congress to determine whether or not the military tribunals will be an avenue in which to give people their day in court, we will do so.

The American people need to know that this ruling, as I understand it, won't cause killers to be put out on the street. In other words, there's not a -- it was a drive-by briefing on the way here, I was told that this was not going to be the case. At any rate, we will seriously look at the findings, obviously. And one thing I'm not going to do, though, is I'm not going to jeopardize the safety of the American people. People have got to understand that. I understand we're in a war on terror; that these people were picked up off of a battlefield; and I will protect the people and, at the same time, conform with the findings of the Supreme Court. .....

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:5fpq6I...;cd=1&gl=us

For Immediate Release

Office of the Vice President

June 23, 2005

Interview of the Vice President by Wolf Blitzer, CNN

.....Q A few other quick questions before we end this interview. Should Gitmo -- Guantanamo Bay's detention center be shut down, the detainees moved elsewhere?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.

Q Because?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Because it's a vital facility. The people that are there are people we picked up on the battlefield primarily in Afghanistan. They're terrorists. They're bomb-makers. They're facilitators of terror. They're members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. We've screened everybody we had. We had some 800 people down there. We've screened them all, and we've let go those that we've deemed not to be a continuing threat. But the 520 some that are there now are serious, deadly threats to the United States. For the most part, if you let them out, they'll go back to trying to kill Americans.

Q Nobody says let them out, but move them to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas or someplace like that.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Why would you do that? ......

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:ut-whv...;cd=1&gl=us

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

June 20, 2005

President Hosts United States - European Union Summit

The East Room

..... Q Mr. President, many in Europe are worrying that with the fight against terrorism the commitment of the United States to human rights is not as big as it used to be -- that is not only to do with Guantanamo, but also with the secret prisons where the CIA holds terror suspects. My question is, what will happen to these people who are held in these secret prisons by the CIA? Will they ever see a judge? Or is your thinking that with some terror suspects, the rule of law should not apply or does not have to have applied.

PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I appreciate that question, and I understand we -- those of us who espouse freedom have an obligation, and those who espouse human rights have an obligation to live that to those -- live up to those words. And I believe we are, in Guantanamo. I mean, after all, there's 24 hour inspections by the International Red Cross. You're welcome to go down yourself -- maybe you have -- and taking a look at the conditions. I urge members of our press corps to go down to Guantanamo and see how they're treated and to see -- and to see -- and to look at the facts. That's all I ask people to do. There have been, I think, about 800 or so that have been detained there. These are people picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan. They weren't wearing uniforms, they weren't state sponsored, but they were there to kill.

And so the fundamental question facing our government was, what do you do with these people? And so we said that they don't apply under the Geneva Convention, but they'll be treated in accord with the Geneva Convention.

And so I would urge you to go down and take a look at Guantanamo. About 200 or so have been released back to their countries. There needs to be a way forward on the other 500 that are there. We're now waiting for a federal court to decide whether or not they can be tried in a military court, where they'll have rights, of course, or in the civilian courts. We're just waiting for our judicial process to move -- to move the process along.

Make no mistake, however, that many of those folks being detained -- in humane conditions, I might add -- are dangerous people. Some have been released to their previous countries, and they got out and they went on to the battlefield again.......

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/25/...in4752211.shtml

SOUTH RIVER, N.J., Jan. 25, 2009

...."We're going one prisoner at a time," he continued. "We're trying to figure out exactly what we've inherited here.”

At its peak, there were 759 men detained at Guantanamo, but over the past seven years, the Pentagon has freed more than 500 of them. Despite Bush administration assertions that the detainees constituted the “worst of the worst” terrorists, except for 14 well-known “high value” detainees such as the alleged 9/11 conspirators, studies of the Pentagon's own case files by the Seton Hall University Law School tell a different story.

Looking primarily at the Combatant Status Review Tribunal reports for 558 detainees held as of August 2004, Professor Mark Denbeaux and a team of his law students discovered that 55 percent of those detainees had never committed a hostile act, while only eight percent had been labeled al Qaeda fighters.

"They swept up a whole lot of people by mistake without investigation, and they don't know what to do with them," Denbeaux told CBS News. "Only four percent of everyone in Guantanamo was captured by U.S. forces."....

REPORT ON GUANTANAMO DETAINEES

A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data

By

Mark Denbeaux

Professor, Seton Hall University School of Law and

Counsel to two Guantanamo detainees

Joshua Denbeaux, Esq.

Denbeaux & Denbeaux

David Gratz, John Gregorek, Matthew Darby, Shana Edwards,

Shane Hartman, Daniel Mann and Helen Skinner

Students, Seton Hall University School of Law

Page 2.

http://law.shu.edu/news/guantanamo_report_final_2_08_06.pdf

THE GUANTANAMO DETAINEES: THE GOVERNMENT’S STORY

Professor Mark Denbeaux* and Joshua Denbeaux*

An interim report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The media and public fascination with who is detained at Guantanamo and why has been

fueled in large measure by the refusal of the Government, on the grounds of national security, to

provide much information about the individuals and the charges against them. The information

available to date has been anecdotal and erratic, drawn largely from interviews with the few

detainees who have been released or from statements or court filings by their attorneys in the

pending habeas corpus proceedings that the Government has not declared “classified.”

This Report is the first effort to provide a more detailed picture of who the Guantanamo

detainees are, how they ended up there, and the purported bases for their enemy combatant

designation. The data in this Report is based entirely upon the United States Government’s own

documents.1 This Report provides a window into the Government’s success detaining only those

that the President has called “the worst of the worst.”

Among the data revealed by this Report:

1. Fifty-five percent (55%) of the detainees are not determined to have committed any

hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies.

2. Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining

detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive

affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban.

3. The Government has detained numerous persons based on mere affiliations with a

large number of groups that in fact, are not on the Department of Homeland Security terrorist

watchlist. Moreover, the nexus between such a detainee and such organizations varies considerably.

Eight percent are detained because they are deemed “fighters for;” 30% considered “members of;” a

large majority – 60% -- are detained merely because they are “associated with” a group or groups the

Government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2% of the prisoners their nexus to any terrorist

group is unidentified.

4. Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody.

* The authors are counsel for two detainees in Guantanamo.

1 See, Combatant Status Review Board Letters, Release date January 2005, February 2005, March 2005,

April 2005 and the Final Release available at the Seton Hall Law School library, Newark,

Page 3.

This 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the

United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected

enemies.

5. Finally, the population of persons deemed not to be enemy combatants – mostly

Uighers – are in fact accused of more serious allegations than a great many persons still deemed to

be enemy combatants.

Page 4.

INTRODUCTION

The United States Government detains over 500 individuals at Guantanamo Bay as so-called

“enemy combatants.” In attempting to defend the necessity of the Guantanamo detention camp, the

Government has routinely referred this group as “the worst of the worst” of the Government’s

enemies.2 The Government has detained most these individuals for more than four years; only

approximately 10 have been charged with any crime related to violations of the laws of war. The

rest remain detained based on the Government’s own conclusions, without prospect of a trial or

judicial hearing. During these lengthy detentions, the Government has had sufficient time for the

Government to conclude whether, in fact, these men were enemy combatants and to document its

rationale.

On March 28, 2002, in a Department of Defense briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald

Rumsfeld said:

As has been the case in previous wars, the country that takes prisoners

generally decides that they would prefer them not to go back to the

battlefield. They detain those enemy combatants for the duration of the

conflict. They do so for the very simple reason, which I would have thought

is obvious, namely to keep them from going right back and, in this case,

killing more Americans and conducting more terrorist acts.3

The Report concludes, however, that the large majority of detainees never participated in any

combat against the United States on a battlefield. Therefore, while setting aside the significant legal

and constitutional issues at stake in the Guantanamo litigation presently being considered in the

federal courts, this Report merely addresses the factual basis underlying the public representations

regarding the status of the Guantanamo detainees.

Part I of this Report describes the sources and limitations of the data analyzed here. Part II

describes the “findings” the Government has made. The “findings” in this sense, constitutes the

Government’s determination that the individual in question is an enemy combatant, which is in turn

based on the Government’s classifications of terrorist groups, the asserted connection of the

individual with the purported terrorist groups, as well as the commission of “hostile acts,” if any,

that the Government has determined an individual has committed. Part III then examines the

evidence, including sources for such evidence, upon which the Government has relied in making

these findings. Part IV addresses the continued detention of individuals deemed not to be enemy

2 The Washington Post, in an article dated October 23, 2002 quoted Secretary Rumsfeld as terming the

detainees Athe worst of the worst.@ In an article dated December 22, 2002, the Post quoted Rear Adm. John D.

Stufflebeem, Deputy Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, AThey are bad guys. They are the worst of

the worst, and if let out on the street, they will go back to the proclivity of trying to kill Americans and others.@

Donald Rumsfeld Holds Defense Department Briefing. (2002, March 28). FDCH Political Transcripts. Retrieved

January 10, 2006 from Lexis-Nexis database.

3 Threats and Responses: The Detainees; Some Guantanamo Prisoners Will Be Freed, Rumsfeld Says,

(2002, October 23). The New York Times, p 14. Retrieved February 7, 2006 from Lexis-Nexis database.

Page 5.

combatants, comparing the Government’s allegations against such persons to similar or more serious

allegations against persons still deemed to be “enemy combatants.”

I. THE DATA

The data in this Report are based on written determinations the Government has produced for

detainees it has designated as enemy combatants.4 These written determinations were prepared

following military hearings commenced in 2004, called Combatant Status Review Tribunals,

designed to ascertain whether a detainee should continue to be classified as an “enemy combatant.”

The data are obviously limited.5 The data are framed in the Government’s terms and therefore are

no more precise than the Government’s categories permit. Finally, the charges are anonymous in the

sense that the summaries upon which this interim report relies are not identified by name or ISN for

any of the prisoners. It is therefore not possible at this time to determine which summary applies to

which prisoner.

Within these limitations, however, the data are very powerful because they set forth the best

case for the status of the individuals the Government has processed. The data reviewed are the

documents prepared by the Government containing the evidence upon which the Government relied

in making its decision that these detainees were enemy combatants. The Report assumes that the

information contained in the CSRT Summaries of Evidence is an accurate description of the

evidence relied upon by the Government to conclude that each prisoner is an enemy combatant.

Such summaries were filed by the Government against each individual detainee’s in advance

of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CRST) hearing.

4 The files reviewed are available at the Seton Hall Law School library, Newark, NJ.

5 There is other data currently being compiled based on different information. Each prisoner at

Guantanamo who has had summaries of evidence filed against them has had an internal administrative evaluation of

the charges. The process is that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, or CSRT, has received the charges and

considered them. Some of those enemy detainees who are represented by counsel in pending habeas corpus Federal

District Courts have received (when so ordered by the Federal District Court Judge) the classified and declassified portion of the CSRT proceedings. The CSRT proceedings are described as CSRT returns. The declassified portion of those CSRT returns are being reviewed and placed into a companion data base.

http://gtmodocuments.blogspot.com/2006/12/...-as-lawyer.html

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

My Worst Moment As a Lawyer

By P. Sabin Willett

December 5, 2006

Newburyport, MA

My worst moment as a lawyer took place on August 30, 2006, at the stroke of noon, just as I was leaving Echo One, an interrogation cell at Guantanamo Bay.....

....So let’s have no more of hypotheticals this evening. Let’s stick to facts. Besides, if we don’t get to the facts soon, I’ll never come round to my worst moment as a lawyer. And the main fact we’d like is this. After five years, who are we holding down there at Guantanamo Bay, anyway?

The way we used to answer that question in this country was in a habeas corpus hearing. The prisoner would demand the legal basis for his imprisonment. The government would have its say. And a judge would decide. But this Fall your Congress and your President abolished that.. So how do we answer the question?

One way is rhetorically.

[slide: Guantanamo Rhetorically: Who are the Prisoners?]

slide

“The people that are there are people we picked up on the battlefield, primarily in Afghanistan. They’re terrorists. They’re bomb makers. They’re facilitators of terror. They’re members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban --

Vice President Cheney

slide

Among the most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth

Donald Rumsfeld (Jan. 27, 2002)

slide

They would “gnaw through hydraulic lines of transport planes.”[1]

Gen. Richard Myers (Jan. 11, 2002),

“Captured on the battlefield seeking to harm U.S. soldiers,”

Sen. John Cornyn.

Guantanamo By the Numbers

So the rhetoric is powerful and alarming. What about the numbers?

Number of Prisoners Held at Guantanamo Bay Cuba

Approx. 450

Years of Captivity for Most Prisoners

4 ½

Number of prisoners charged with crimes

10

Number of prisoners charged with 9/11-Related Crimes

0

Number of prisoners convicted of any crime

0

Percentage of alleged battlefield Captures

5*

*source: summary of military allegations in 517 CSRT transcripts (Seton Hall Law School, February, 2006)

Percentage of prisoners alleged to have engaged in violence

45*

*source: summary of military allegations in 517 CSRT transcripts (Seton Hall Law School, February, 2006)

Well, hold on, wait a minute. Senior officials said these people were the worst of the worst, and you’re saying only 5% were taken on the battlefield? If only 5% were taken on the battlefield, where did the rest come from?

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/...006/0203nj2.htm

COVER STORY

Who Is at Guantanamo Bay

·

Empty Evidence

By Corine Hegland, National Journal

Friday, Feb. 3, 2006

As a result of the habeas corpus petitions filed by attorneys representing Guantanamo detainees, the Defense Department has had to file court documents on 132 of the enemy combatants, or just under a quarter of the prison's population. National Journal undertook a detailed review of the unclassified files to develop profiles of the 132 men. NJ separately reviewed transcripts for 314 prisoners who pleaded their cases before Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantanamo. Taken together, the information provides a picture of who, exactly, has been taken prisoner in the war on terror and is being held in an anomalous U.S. military prison on an island belonging to one of America's bitterest enemies.

Shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush issued a military order that authorized the Defense Department to detain noncitizens suspected of having ties with Al Qaeda or other terrorists. As a result, hundreds of so-called "enemy combatants" were rounded up and taken to prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Since early 2002, lawyers working on a volunteer basis have filed papers with U.S. courts asking the government to explain why it is holding individual prisoners. These habeas corpus petitions have forced disclosures by the Defense Department that shed light on some of the details surrounding the estimated 500 prisoners currently in U.S. captivity.

The Defense Department declined a request to release comparable statistics for all of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

The first thing that jumps out of the statistics is that a majority of the detainees in both groups are not Afghans -- nor were they picked up in Afghanistan as U.S. troops fought the Taliban and Al Qaeda, nor were they picked up by American troops at all. Most are from Arab countries, and most were arrested in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities....

....The 314 transcripts released to the Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit give similar results. The 314 men described there included 97 Afghans who were arrested in Afghanistan. But they also included 211 foreigners, 152 of whom -- or more than 70 percent -- were arrested outside of Afghanistan. And 145 of those men were captured in Pakistan....

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/259/story/38779.html

* Posted on Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Wrongly jailed detainees found militancy at Guantanamo

More on this Story

Mohammed Naim Farouq is now considered a significant Taliban leader in his region after his release from Guantanamo. | View larger image

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/38773.html

* posted on Sunday, June 15, 2008

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

GARDEZ, Afghanistan — The militants crept up behind Mohammed Akhtiar as he squatted at the spigot to wash his hands before evening prayers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

They shouted "Allahu Akbar" — God is great — as one of them hefted a metal mop squeezer into the air, slammed it into Akhtiar's head and sent thick streams of blood running down his face.

Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst."

But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo's Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn't: The U.S. government had the wrong guy......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1101698_pf.html

Unveiled Threats

A Bush appointee's crude gambit on detainees' legal rights

Friday, January 12, 2007; A18

MOST AMERICANS understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking," he said.

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, "I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. "It's not clear, is it?" he said. "Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

It might be only laughable that Mr. Stimson, during the interview, called Guantanamo "certainly, probably, the most transparent and open location in the world."

But it's offensive -- shocking, to use his word -- that Mr. Stimson, a lawyer, would argue that law firms are doing anything other than upholding the highest ethical traditions of the bar by taking on the most unpopular of defendants. It's shocking that he would seemingly encourage the firms' corporate clients to pressure them to drop this work. And it's shocking -- though perhaps not surprising -- that this is the person the administration has chosen to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo."

Len Colby · January 26, 2009

Obama near overnight rise is not entirely without precedent, Wilson had been governor of New Jersey for less than 2 years when he got the nomination having previously been an academic, Harding had been a Senator less than 6 years when he got the nomination having previously been a Lt. Governor and state legislator, Theodore Roosevelt had been governor of New York for less than 1 year when he got the VP nod. But the best example is Lincoln whose claim to fame was loosing a bid for the Senate, his only previous political post was a single term in the House a dozen years earlier

I don’t think Obama’s rise was that mysterious, the way was “greased” by Kerry who chose him as the keynote speaker at the 2004 convention, he is charismatic and a very good orator his only serious rival for the nomination was unpopular with many Democrats and ran a poor campaign in Iowa. IIRC you suspected that the PTB were behind his unexpected loss in NH.

Craig Lamson · January 26, 2009

Cut it down to 10 lines mr cut and paste and perhaps I'll read it....

David G. Healy · January 26, 2009

"No new prisioners because they are going to be killed in the field."

Frankly, I can't think of a better place for their martyrdom.... besides there's no *honor* in a Gitmo...

Craig Lamson · January 26, 2009

We don't often agree...but....

Evan Burton · January 27, 2009

Ditto.

Mark Stapleton · January 27, 2009

I think closing Gitmo is a symbolic gesture, designed to decieve the public into believing change is occuring. That was the catchphrase.

William Kelly · January 27, 2009

So Obama isn't a foreign radical with a fake birth certificate who took over the government, he's a neo-con in disquise and decieving the public with symbolic gestures and really isn't seeking change.

BK

Mark Stapleton · January 28, 2009

Don't know.

But I think closing gitmo is small potatoes, although welcome.

Meaningful change in America's foreign and domestic agenda has yet to arrive, but it's still early in the life of the new administration.

One hopeful sign was yesterday when I heard Obama say that the current situation in Gaza is 'unacceptable'.

Evan Burton · January 28, 2009

I still say: lets wait until his first 6 months are over, but even so I am impressed with his initial actions. IMO, it bodes well for the future.

Edited January 28, 2009 by Evan Burton

The Obama Conspiracy

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest Tom Scully

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

Announcements