Tag: Guantanamo Bay

May 06 2009

Obama Guantanamo Bay Closure An “Open Question”?

Crossposted from Antemedius

On January 22, 2009 newly inaugurated President Barack Obama to great fanfare signed an Executive Order requiring that the Guantanamo Bay prison “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order“.

That was more than three months ago.

Today the Wall Street Journal reports that:

Top House Democrats raised tensions with the White House on a key foreign policy goal, rebuffing a request for funding to begin closing the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Barack Obama has sought $80 million to begin the process of closing the controversial detention facility, as part of broader legislation needed to continue funding for the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unveiling the House version of war spending bill, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D., Wisc.) didn’t include the funds, complaining that the administration has not yet developed a clear plan to wind down operations at Guantanamo and relocate the detainees, either abroad or in the U.S.

“When they have a plan, they’re welcome to come back and talk to us,” Mr. Obey said.

Mr. Obama has issued an executive order ordering the facility be shut down in one year. The administration still has some authority to shift dollars around the budget to help begin the process. But Mr. Obey suggested a “concrete plan” will be needed before lawmakers approve any direct funding to shutter the facility.

The White House had no immediate comment on Mr. Obey’s bill.

When asked in late April about President Obama’s plans to shut down the controversial “war on terror” prison, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said  “I think that question is still open“.

Apr 25 2009

Appeals court claims detainees are not people.

Cross-posted from www.progressive-independence.org.

A court of appeals claims that prisoners held at Gitmo are not people, and therefore have no rights – much less the right to sue their torturers, according to the following article from the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Full article reproduced below.

Apr 21 2009

The Bush Administration’s Stunning Geneva Hypocrisy

by Jason Leopold, April 20, 2009

   Newly released US government documents, detailing how Bush administration officials punched legalistic holes in the Geneva Conventions’ protections of war captives, stand in stark contrast to the outrage some of the same officials expressed in the first week of the Iraq war when Iraqi TV interviewed several captured American soldiers.

   “If there is somebody captured,” President George W. Bush told reporters on March 23, 2003, “I expect those people to be treated humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals.”

   Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush, and other administration officials orchestrated a chorus of outrage, citing those TV scenes as proof of the Iraq’s government contempt for international law in general and the Geneva Conventions in particular.

   “It is a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention to humiliate and abuse prisoners of war or to harm them in any way. As President Bush said yesterday, those who harm POWs will be found and punished as war criminals,” Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said on March 24, 2003.

   That same day, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the BBC that “the Geneva Convention is very clear on the rules for treating prisoners.. They’re not supposed to be tortured or abused; they’re not supposed to be intimidated; they’re not supposed to be made public displays of humiliation or insult, and we’re going to be in a position to hold those Iraqi officials who are mistreating our prisoners accountable, and they’ve got to stop.”

   At a March 25, 2003, press briefing about progress in the US-led invasion, Secretary Rumsfeld said, “This war is an act of self-defense, to be sure, but it is also an act of humanity…. In recent days, the world has witnessed further evidence of their [Iraqi] brutality and their disregard for the laws of war. Their treatment of coalition POWs is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.”

Read the whole article here:

http://www.antemedius.com/content/bush-administrations-stunning-geneva-hypocrisy

Mar 16 2009

They Are Not People, According To Obama’s DOJ

From RawStory Sunday morning…

Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’

Joe Byrne, Published: Sunday March 15, 2009

Court documents filed Friday reveal that Obama’s lawyers are arguing that Ex-Guantanamo detainees have no constitutional rights.

The Center for Constitutional Rights(CCR), a non-profit legal advocacy group, is supporting four British citizens – Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al Harith – in their suit alleging religious mistreatment and torture at Guantanamo Bay. Defendants in the case include Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The four men say that they were “beaten, shackled in painful stress positions, threatened by dogs and subjected to extreme medical care,” according to the Miami Herald. In addition, they reported being forced to shave their beards, being banned from prayer, being denied prayer mats, and watching a copy of the Koran get tossed in the toilet.

Last year, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in D.C. voted unanimously against the 4 ex-detainees. The Appeals Court claimed that the men did not fit the definition of ‘person’ in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because they were foreigners being held outside the United States. Months later, the Supreme Court instructed the Appeals Court to reconsider their decision, based on a Supreme Court ruling that Guantanamo detainees have some rights under the constitution. On Friday, the CCR re-filed their brief in the D.C. Court of Appeal.

Obama’s justice department is using an old strategy employed by the Bush administration. Their primary argument is that Ex-Guantanamo detainees don’t have any constitutional rights.

Jun 05 2008

UPDATED. 9/11 Trials about to get underway. What will we learn, if anything?

The trials for some of the alleged masterminds of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentegon as well as others who allegedly helped to fund or participate in the 9/11 attacks are soon to be held and overseen by a US military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The question I would like answered up front is whether we will get to hear the defendents statements during these trials, or will the also alleged torture that was committed on their persons during the interrogation of these defendents cause the Military Brass and the Bush Administration to go into full secrecy mode as to not allow the world to hear what these prisoners have to say in their defense.

What are the odds of full and open trials?  

My guess.  Not real high.  Can you say redacted documents?

May 25 2008

“The constitutional case of our time”

The Los Angeles Times has an article about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s upcoming trial at Guantánamo Bay. In the article, “Defending KSM, ‘the most hated man in the world’, Josh Meyer writes about the lawyer who is assigned to be KSM’s lead defense lawyer – Capt. Prescott L. Prince, a Navy Reserve judge advocate general. The significance of this trial, I think, cannot be understated as Capt. Prince explains:

“I think it’s the constitutional case of our time,” Prince, 53, said in a recent interview in his office, U.S. and Navy flags front and center on his desk. “Because in the 221st year of America, the question is whether the Constitution applies to the government.“

Not only is KSM on trial at Guantánamo Bay, but also the question many of us have asked over the past seven years – do we still have a Constitution?

Mar 28 2008

Five Former Secretaries of State: “Shut Down Gitmo”

Five former secretaries of state, three Republicans and two Democrats,  announced their recommendation that the next presidential administration should close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.

America’s collective response?  “No shit.”

Note that the recommendation is for the next administration.  No one has any illusions that the Bush administration will pay any attention to mere secretaries of state.  

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