Closing Gitmo
By Steve Hynd Tuesday Jan 13, 2009 3:00pm
Obama is apparently sticking to his Sunday claim that it could take more than 100 days to shutter America's Shame. But after an outcry from civil liberties groups, human rights advocates and many of his own supporters he is now also saying (or leaking, to be precise) that he'll give the order to begin that process on day one of his presidency.
Not only that, but the leaks suggest Obama has made some worthwhile decisions about the nature of that closure process.
People who have discussed the issues with transition officials in recent weeks said it appeared that the broad outlines of plans for the detention camp were taking shape. They said transition officials appeared committed to ordering an immediate suspension of the Bush administration’s military commissions system for trying detainees.
In addition, people who have conferred with transition officials said the incoming administration appeared to have rejected a proposal to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention inside the United States. The Bush administration has insisted that such a measure is necessary to close the Guantánamo camp and bring some detainees to the United States.
... In formulating their policy in recent weeks, Obama transition officials have consulted with a variety of authorities on legal and human rights and with military experts. Several of those experts said the officials had expressed great interest in alternatives to the military commission system, like trying detainees in federal courts, and appeared to have grown hostile to proposals like an indefinite detention law.
I hope that's right and wish the Obama camp would just say so outright. I will be watching, along with many others. Glenn Greenwald writes:
It's critical that Obama -- and the rest of the political establishment -- hear loud objections, not reverential silence, when he flirts with ideas like the ones he suggested on Sunday. This dynamic prevails with all political issues. Where political pressure comes only from one side, that is the side that wins -- period.
But now I'm more hopeful that America will cast off the shame of Gitmo and all the illegal acts that surrounded it. The way to go was always to declare those captured either military POWs or civilian prisoners, then try them in either courts martial or federal courts accordingly - with the full panoply of law. That the Bush administration thought it could be a clever-clogs and just sidestep international norms, while simultaneously tainting every possible prosecution with charges of illegal arrest, rendition and detention as well as prisoner abuse or outright torture should be seen as another of that administration's crimes. Obstruction of justice. That in a normal legal environment some dangerous people will likely be freed because of the Bush administration's arrogant belief in its own ability to re-write law to suit itself is rightly something to blame on Bush and his coterie - yet if it happens the extreme right will blame it on Obama.
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We go through a routine, a routine of posting.
Of listening to other posters.
Hearing their voices.
Modifying what we say.
I say, Howl.
I hate it all.
yep. this is just a feel good measure.
will this stop the bombs from falling on wedding parties in Afghanistan?
will this stop the look the other way mentality of the Afghani drug cultivation/trade (that the Western Banks depend so heavily on?)
will this stop the War on Terror? Doubtful.
but oh oh oh, we have BEGUN to close Gitmo.
just like we have BEGUN to end US presence in Europe/Korea/Japan
You understand it.
How many thousands of troops are stationed in those countries? According to Wikipedia there are 286,316 troops.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deployments_of_the_United_States_Military
Gee, the army is finding it difficult to find people to fight it's wars, they could find lots of them if they just closed a few bases.
Empires never close down outposts that provide muscle for supervising the raw materials in unheard of countries.
I hope the fact that the use of torture at Gitmo will not be brushed aside by the Obama administration.
In listening to his rhetoric about war crimes, he want to "go forward" instead of "looking back."
How in the world can we go forward if we do not look back? This is the most shameful presidency ever and the harm done to the United States must immediately begin to be rectified. The only way to begin the transformation from where the US is now and where we were 8 years ago can only come from a thorough investigation into the war crimes of this current regime. This must be started from day one of the Obama presidency. If he does not do this, then the only thing I can say is that there will be business as usual and the "change" rhetoric is just that. Rhetoric.
This regime MUST be held accountable for the crimes that they have committed. Our future depends upon this one thing. Accountability!
Please excuse me if some of the spelling is incorrect. I am talking off the top of my head and am not consulting dictionaries.
Well said ... and great spelling too!
Once again, it's said that America needs to go back to the way the country was 8 years ago. Look at the history of the country. The US has been and continues to be THE biggest terrorist country in the world. Iraq and Afghanistan are just the two latest countries that have been attacked by the US. In the last century or so the US has either invaded or fomented a coup in every single country from Mexico to the tip of South America. Iran, Indonesia, The Philippines. It's a list of shame.
On the topic of Guantanamo, isn't it about time that the US gave that back to the rightful owners? Isn't it about time that the US got over it's snit about Cuba?
That's the way it's been time after time. If some leader decides that he wants to do things independent of the US, he'll either be overthrown, his country will be attacked, or massive sanctions will be imposed. It's really quite sordid.
For some examples: Iran under Mossadeq, Cuba under Castro, Nicaragua under Ortega, Panama under Noriega, Guatemala under Arbenz. Once again the list is a long and sordid one.
Get it into your heads, the US hasn't been the dream country that everyone seems to think it is for over a century.
He only has to hold his cards close to his vest for seven more days. Then once he has the keys to the oval office and bush no longer has any power, he can tell us his plans. I don't know how many pardons bush has signed but let's not give him any reason to sign more.
that BHO knows how to play poker.
Must...not..get...hopes...up
Screwit!
GOBAMA!
i hope...
I mean, let's close Gitmo ASAP, but sweet baby jesus, can we at least let Obama finish taking the oath. I don't mind making our opinions known, but all the nervous handwashing and utter disappointment in our President Elect really has to stop until at least Jan 21st.
give the land back to Cuba and get the hell out of there.
One, because it's the right thing to do, but even more so, because it would piss off wingnuttia to absolutely no end. They're still mad about Carter letting Panama have its canal back. So I'm having a hard time trying to imagine what they would say if Obama just pulled all the troops out of Guantanamo Bay and let Cuba have it back.
BE patient.. He never said he wasn't closing it.. just that it would take a bit of time. And it will ... with all the torture they have to figure out what to do with the 251 people who are there. They can't put them on trial because the evidence is now tainted. So now they have to figure out what to do with them...send them back and hope they won't attack us again or what else to do.
He is a poker player....just give him a chance.
in Gitmo are insane. They have been forced fed with tubes down their noses so they can't starve themselves to death.
All humanitary efforts should be made to make sure they can live out their days in peace and comfort and not just sent somewhere out of sight.
Gitmo isn't the only problem-site that the US itself runs. There are several more, even one at least on a ship at sea whose whereabouts is unknown to anybody except the CIA. The US is also continuing to conduct "extraordinary renditions" of prisoners -- that hasn't stopped.
A PBS reporter has done an investigation of these actions, and some of his findings are here.
Stephen Gray summarizes the activities of the US in this matter, and it's fascinating reading. Obama needs to get a handle on ALL of these illegal actiivities and stop them immediately, release the prisoners, and take them out of this nightmare.
Will he close the many other US torture sites? Or just Gitmo?
Obama really is against torture and I also think Obama will allow it to happen under his watch because he wants to protect his legacy. That said, the US government is more like a huge super tanker, so it takes a while to complete a turn, thus even if Obama starts turning the wheel on Jan 20th, don't expect immediate results.
Closing the one U.S. Torture and Extreme Rendition Facilities that is most widely known about is not fooling me. This is far cry from closing ALL 'torture and rendition' facilities, just the one that gets the most attention. Also, notice that he does not call for an end to torture outright, just that Gitmo is closing. I would not be the least surprised if Raul Castro simply decided to kick the US out of Cuba for good, raised the rent, and the US is spinning it like its our decision. But then again im not entirely clear on whether it is US soil, or cuban soil leased to the US, so really, im just talking out my ass. But still, i would not be surprised.
I
One thing I would ask President Obama to do would be to eliminate the restriction on showing the return of soldiers lost in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is disrespectful to their sacrifice to be smuggled into the country like contraband, and it seems to me to be a gross violation of the First Amendment to prevent the portrayal of such scenes.
Bagram, Worse Than Guantanamo?
NEW YORK - While millions know that the administration of George W. Bush has left Barack Obama with the job of closing the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, relatively few are aware that the new president will also face a similar but far larger dilemma 7,000 miles away.
That dilemma is what to do with what has become known as "the other GITMO" -- the U.S.-controlled military prison at Bagram Air Base near Kabul in Afghanistan -- and the estimated 600-700 detainees now held there.
The "other GITMO" was set up by the U.S. military as a temporary screening site after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan overthrew the Taliban. It currently houses more than three times as many prisoners as are still held at Guantanamo.
In 2005, following well-documented accounts of detainee deaths, torture and "disappeared" prisoners, the U.S. undertook efforts to turn the facility over to the Afghan government. But due to a series of legal, bureaucratic and administrative missteps, the prison is still under U.S. military control. And a recent confidential report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reportedly complained about the continued mistreatment of prisoners.
...
... of Algiers there. And, I suspect once it is finally closed and or handed over to the Afghans, that the same effect on the countryside will occur.
Yet, another (as if we needed another) reason why military victory is going to be impossible in Afghanistan.
The process should be finished in about 5 1/2 years while the "criminals" illegally captured and sent to Gitmo are given new trials based on the false evidence obtained through methods of torture.
Meet the new boss! Same as the old boss. And, frankly, those of you with Obama blinders on will be far more responsible that you want to accept when the shit comes tumblin' down.
not to mention the expectant "crisis" that Obama will face as so widely predict by all the "experts" that surround him.
Think he will roll back anything when some small expendable (to the elite, that is) medium-sized city is given a nuclear bath?
Damn those civil liberties groups, et al! Don't they know they should wait until after the 20th to be barking about all this? He's not even president yet and so forth...
:)
is already a disaster.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2009/...
but the state needs emergency federal assistance because of a swearing in ceremony? That's so screwed on so many levels, as to not even be funny. People will flock there for change speeches, while an emergency response team tabulates the bills. Too much. Perhaps little toll buckets all around the area? Give Change For Change.
is like Clinton before him, the torture will take place *wink, wink* hidden from world view. Anyone that leaks any of the info will find themselves out of jobs. Torture didn't start with Bush and it isn't gonna end with Obama.
.
2. FACT: Extraordinary rendition began under the Clinton regime.
Covert extraordinary rendition began as a systematic tactic on September 22, 1995, with the capture of terrorist Abu Talal al-Qasimi in Croatia; he was later transferred to Egypt for execution. The largest pre-9/11 CIA rendition occurred in 1998, when five suspects in Albania and Bulgaria were captured and rendered to Egypt. Two were hanged without trial; all were brutally tortured.
Renditions after 9/11 were different, however. The numbers expanded dramatically, each rendition no longer required presidential approval, and it was no longer a requirement that a prisoner be 'wanted' for some offense in the country where he was sent.
that may be correct, I find it hard to believe that torture only began in 1995. No proof, and no reason to think otherwise, but find it extremely hard to believe, what with US foreign policies since World War 2 virtually unchanged.
The author's report was about extraordinary rendition, a tactic first used by Clinton to provide for the torture of individuals when it's verboten in the US. The author also wrote a book, Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Rendition and Torture Program, that describes in detail what clues he found that led to the exposure of this GW Bush intensified program, devised because torture is illegal in the US. Oddly enough, the best clues he found were flight schedules of the planes used to transport prisoners, who owned the planes, and who controlled them.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ren...
In the excerpt above he discussed how difficult it was to get hard facts and mentioned that Bob Woodward and his ilk had published books that described some of the Bush rendition program, but they did not include many facts or incontrovertible proof. He apparently found it after seeing several clues in foreign newspapers and not realizing that the planes identified were being used by the US government to transport prisoners to countries where they would be "harshly interrogated".
Anyway, your point about torture itself is correct. It's been around for as long as human beings had a neocortex, and governments have certainly ordered it. Extraordinary rendition is a relatively new response/loophole to legal requirements forbidding torture.
Bash Obama day? I noticed on the post concerning Executive Orders, many of those commenting were bashing him there also. What gives? The man hasn't even taken office yet and some are making him out to be another Shrub. Obama has worked more since the election than Bush did in his first hundred days, and he isn't even on the payroll yet. I know it's unusual...a President who actually works and actually seems to care, so maybe that is viewed as having some kind of agenda. This man has inherited a mess of monumental proportions. Never before known in the history of the United States. It looks like to me he is delivering so far or at least trying. Things won't change overnight, it will take years to undo the inexcusable and criminal damage done by the Bush Administration. There is a new boss on the hill now, and it's time to start trusting and supporting. It's time to start being positive. May as well start being positive because things are going to get worse and it won't be Obamas' fault. The United States is a fifty ton locomotive speeding down hill at full throttle towards a precipice and the brakes don't work. Give Obama a chance and the time he needs to fix the brakes, then we gotta get back up the hill, cuz the damn engines broke also.
totally trust a complete stranger politician? Trust is not given, like respect it's earned.
Mouths.'
Tricks and mirrors substituted for intelligent discourse.
talk about a hard line
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=Show...
Nuking Gaza would nuke Israel. Israel had better not let this idiot's thumb near the button.
With a new president that actually uses the word "Constitution" when he speaks perhaps the United States can devote itself to atoning for our systematic thrashing of the Geneva Conventions!
It's either that, or look even worse than Israel's looking.
Our actions in the Middle East over the last 15 years have already guaranteed radical Muslims quite enough ammunition to kill Americans for the next century, even if Guantanamo did not exist.
[Nick Clooney]
and thurn it into a docking and staging area FOR AMERICAN TOURISTS. I want to walk those beaches, and gamble in those old casinos, and listen to all that hot live music, and SMOKE THOSE CIGARS.
Close GITMO... but for God's sake, OPEN UP CUBA!
There may be time required to actually close this embarrassment, but freeing all the prisoners, turning on the lights, and hosing down the interior surfaces will be the way to get started!
closing GITMO will be, first and foremost, a SYMBOLIC GESTURE... a symbol of our acknowledgement that the Bush Administration REALLY SCREWED UP... a symbol of Obama's desire for the American people to join the Human race again... a symbol of the old "upright and honest" character of Americans. Secondly, it will be the beginning of a process that will lead to CRIMINAL INDICTMENTS for those who approved and supported the torture of political prisoners.
Close Gitmo. Arrest Bush & Cheney. Problem?
Scre Greenwald. One day he comes out ridiculous predictions about what Obama will do based on three words Obama said: "create a process." Now, when the details of that process become more explicit, and clearly prove Greenwald's predictions wrong, Greenwald not only refuses to see how what Obama said on Sunday could refer to what he is talking about now, Greenwald suggests that it is thanks to people like him that Obama has now all of a sudden decided to change his plans! Is he crazy? Does he think Obama on Sunday was planning on a military tribunal and since the comments of some bloggers he has suddenly changed his mind? Are these the people who we think are reasonable voices of the left?
There was that piece in the Washington Post by Dana Priest about black sites that the CIA runs. Are those being closed also? I doubt it. Obama is just removing the most public site of our torture policy. With GITMO closed and the seal of secrecy re-established how are we or anyone else supposed to know what the CIA does elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for the closing of GITMO. It's just that I would like to go further and blow the lid off the policy of what the CIA does when nobody is watching. I will be here napping, wake me up if this policy goes beyond GITMO.
let it also be known that the criminal Bush wanted Australia to take 18 of the Chinese inmates because he knew the reds would shoot them after being caged up by Bush's redneck gaurds. Australian PM Kevin Rudd told him to jam his request up his torturing arse. The love affair with Bush and the Australian Government appears to be over :-)in spite of that dik head Howard getting a medal from Bush. Hell I thought the two of them were about to kiss and have it off there in front of the cameras. Those 2 wankers are a great advertisement for how the civilised world was run and wrecked for 8 unlovely years
Lord knows Gitmo should be closed, but could we avoid the hyperventilation and accept a few little facts - which apparently Obama has done?
Realistically, there is no way that the prison on Gitmo could be closed "day one". What do you think should happen to the prisoners? Toss 'em on a jet, fly 'em to New York, and just drop 'em off in Times Square? Or maybe just escort them to the gate at Gitmo and push 'em out? "Welcome to Cuba!"
It's not a matter of wondering if any of these prisoners belong in jail. (I seriously doubt it, at this point.) But we sure as hell owe it to them to treat them better when we release them - and maybe give a little thought to what is best for them. Can they go home? Maybe, maybe not - it might not be safe. Do they want to settle in the US? Do they have families that are or will be in danger because of our actions?
Symbolic gestures are great, but practicality and patience need to be in the equation, too.
Is anybody thinking about this: If those men were not terrorists when they were picked up I'm willing to bet they are now. I don't know about you but I damned sure would be. I heard on a news report yesterday that several of the prisoners already released have returned to being terrorists. Gee....I am so friggin' shocked!
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