I'd feel a lot better about closing Guantanamo if there was a plan for the detainees who are currently held there, what to do with them, and where to send them. And, if there was a recognition that the Army Field Manual directives for interrogation were designed to be used by field soldiers on captured fighters, not trained interrogators on high value captures. He's moving closer to my "clueless" list than my "good" list.

All Executive Orders being posted on web which should make it convenient when we want to know what something actually says instead of pundit and press massaged versions. The Gitmo order, for example, does not close it tomorrow but orders that the prisoners be evaluated and plans made to close Gitmo in a year.

But anyway, I'm excited that things like that are so easy to find now. I don't recall executive orders being posted before, or at least not posted and publicized as much as I've heard about Obama's orders being freely available on teh Intarwebs.

Deb - I'm not sure I'm following you. The Army Field Manual details the rules for interrogation for field soldiers on captured fighters as you said. It details what is legal based on the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention on Torture (the latter of which applies to everyone). Now Obama is saying that those same rules and conventions must be followed by trained interrogators on high value captures.

Are you saying that you disagree with that decision? Should other rules be allowed for interrogators?

that sounds like a whole 'nuther thread...

mjfrombuffalo Wrote:that sounds like a whole 'nuther thread...

Agreed.

I know that the EO calls for closing it in a year. And publishing EOs on the whitehouse.gov site is not new - a chronological listing was there under the Bush administration as well and as easy to find. My concern with this particular EO is that there is no plan in place to deal with the details of closing it or of where the detainees will be housed pending trial. Since Obama hammered on this frequently during his campaign, I would think that his EO would contain his plan for closing, not just a goal for closing.

As for torture, yes I think that high value targets could be treated differently than other detainees. If trained interrogators have good reason to believe that there is an urgent need for information, I do not have a problem with making a detainee uncomfortable (hot rooms, cold rooms, humiliation, or other techniques that stop short of physical harm). If given a choice between information that could save innocent lives or keeping a detainee comfortable . . . to me, the moral and ethical choice is to save lives.

In the beginning days of housing detainees at Guantanamo, there were some alleged abuses, as when Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and Abu Zubaida gave up high value information in response to waterboarding and other treatment that caused fear but no physical harm. These were legal methods and effective. I still believe, due to the potential cost of not having this information, that this was right. I've stated this opinion before in this forum and haven't changed my mind.

Since then, the detainees have been treated better in most cases than they would be in other American prisons and certainly in their own countries. The guards are routinely treated far worse by the detainees.

I'm a little disturbed by not having a plan before issuing the EO too. Especially after reading stuff like this:

Detainee went from Gitmo to al Qaeda, official says - CNN.com

OK, so if it's a whole 'nuther thread, then how about someone admin-y peel off those posts and start one?

As far as closing without a plan...here's the Devil's Advocate side of me coming out.

Sometimes in business, we issue directive or have a goal that speaks to a specific time frame without having a full blown plan in place. The reason being, if a deadline is defined for a specific action, you need to find a way to get there by that time. If I'm given a large directive without any date scope around it, chances are it will take longer to accomplish. If I'm told "get this done by MM/DD/YYYY", I'll hunker down and start coming up with a plan, especially if it's an aggressive deadline.

Maybe this is Obama's way of avoiding inactivity or procrastination.

I think if he came out with a plan this early in the game, he would be roundly castigated for being hasty. Has he had FULL access to top-secret information regarding Guantanamo? If so, for how long? Long enough to come up with the Ne Plus Ultra plan to cover every extingency, and with the full support of the military and other players over whom he just became boss a few days ago? Producing a plan in the EO as a fait accompli wouldn't allow for a lot of collaboration from other key parties and would garner him more criticism. (Although the far-left progressives share Deb's concern that the plan to close it isn't detailed yet, but that's because they want it closed yesterday.)

I like how the EO directs the key players to start discussion and plan with a deadline for action. I think it's very prudent, especially with the recent news on the results of that other detainee released who went to Al Quada.

The EO was essential for diplomacy purposes; Guantanamo is one of the best terrorist recruitment tools out there. This begins to take the wind out of those sails.

As for what will happen to the detainees, where they are tried will partly depend on what sort of evidence we have. And where they will go after that is not a much different question than what has been done with other notorious convicted terrorists. Like Moussaoui, Reid, Padilla, and others. Ramzi Yousef is in a Supermax prison in Colorado. I don't think he's escaping any time soon.

I agree with what Andrew Sullivan says about this:

Quote:A reader wrote earlier today that "if we bring these men into the justice system and treat them as the common criminals they are, we reduce their standing in the eyes of their peers, in the eyes of the international community -- and in the eyes of America." That is exactly right.

As for people having been released and returning to fight Americans, that is worrying. Does anyone have information about how many detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan are released back into the wild, never reach Guantanamo, and never make it on the news? I understand that detainees are released in the field. The difference is, they don't become recruiting posters.

mjfrombuffalo Wrote:OK, so if it's a whole 'nuther thread, then how about someone admin-y peel off those posts and start one?

LOL, I did. Last night.

drmomentum Wrote:As for people having been released and returning to fight Americans, that is worrying. Does anyone have information about how many detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan are released back into the wild, never reach Guantanamo, and never make it on the news? I understand that detainees are released in the field. The difference is, they don't become recruiting posters.

From my understanding in talking with people who have been involved with Guantanamo, only the worst and most dangerous detainees are sent there. The "easy" cases have been dealt with - some went back to their home countries and have not been heard from again, and a few have taken up arms against the United States. I don't think the litmus test of whether a detainee will become a poster child for terrorism in the future is whether he is taken to Guantanamo.

When Gitmo was created, it was was probably the best in a series of bad alternatives. Among all the criticism, I haven't heard a lot of "well, here's what we should have done instead" and "here's how we should handle those who do not follow established rules of war and are bent on killing as many Americans as possible".

I'd like to see the costs on housing these detainees when Gitmo is closed. I'm not sure how many Supermaxs or Supersegs we have, but we'll probably need more. Or, they could turn them into general population and save the US some money. Can you tell I'm not too sympathetic to people that want to exterminate all Americans?

slick4591 Wrote:I'd like to see the costs on housing these detainees when Gitmo is closed. I'm not sure how many Supermaxs or Supersegs we have, but we'll probably need more. Or, they could turn them into general population and save the US some money. Can you tell I'm not too sympathetic to people that want to exterminate all Americans?

Me either.

Here are some numbers, but are they real?

Security experts skeptical on Gitmo detainee report - CNN.com

There were figures on the news tonight about who's left - can't remember the numbers exactly and can't find on line. But there are 255 there now, 50 of whom have already been cleared for release but have not been returned back to their country of origin because of the risk to their safety (I think they're referring to the Uigers), and the percentage of those thought to be (and never having been) at risk to us was pretty high. Say that leaves 100 or so who might need continued detention, that's not an unmanageable number and hey, building and running a prison creates jobs, no?

CIA analysts have cited that up to a third of Guantanamo detainees are innocent. If you believe that nobody there is innocent, then you probably would be baffled as to why the place needs to close. However, that's not what people in the know (the one's I'm hearing) are saying.

While some of the worst of the worst are there, that doesn't describe all of them.

If we're worried about that guy who was released in 2007, then we should be even more worried about Guantanamo staying open and business as usual. After all, he was released under Bush's policies. It would not make sense to argue that we need to keep Guantanamo open based on his story.

Here's a possibility. Apparently, the guy who was released could not be found guilty under whatever policies Bush had in place. Let's assume as a hypothetical he was innocent. Perhaps he was swept up in Afghanistan because someone there didn't like him and was paid a bonus for every person who got fingered and picked up. So, he ends up in Guantanamo and possibly subjected to torture. Years later, he's released. In the mean time, his opinion, possibly low already, of America has modified somewhat. For the worse.

He's let out and ends up a terrorist.

This is an argument for closing Guantanamo, not keeping it.

But, that's speculation (based on some facts, though not supportable as applying to his particular case). I'm not saying it's what happened to him, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has happened as a result of Guantanamo's existence.

What we do know is that the Bush administration, while they did have him, thought they had made a mistake picking him up. They thought they needed to release him. Under existing policy.

And that is also not an argument for keeping Guantanamo, but of having better evaluation processes.

No matter how you look at it, detaining at Guantanamo seems like a bad idea. This is why so many people, From Colin Powell on down, have called for the closing of this place, and the elimination of the associate disastrous policies. It's not some crazy liberal idea.

Do we have a problem? Yes, we're dealing with the aftermath of a disaster of a policy, which arguably has helped create more terrorists.

-JP

drmomentum Wrote:No matter how you look at it, detaining at Guantanamo seems like a bad idea. This is why so many people, From Colin Powell on down, have called for the closing of this place, and the elimination of the associate disastrous policies. It's not some crazy liberal idea.

actually, from Bush on down

Several dozen of the detainees have been approved for release. But no country has been found to take them, while also providing the guarantees of humane treatment that the U.S. requires.

Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman says U.S. officials are working "aggressively" with other countries to find new homes for those detainees, some of whom have been waiting years for a place to go. Whitman called on other countries to "share the burden."

Never mind.

Quote:President Barack Obama's allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday. With debate looming on Obama's spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official says Democrats will deny the Pentagon and Justice Department $80 million to relocate Guantanamo's 241 detainees.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposed changes to the bill were to be unveiled later. The administration has yet to develop a plan for what to do with the detainees, and Obama's promise to close the facility is facing strong GOP opposition.

It appears to be a tactical retreat. Once the administration develops a plan to close the facility, congressional Democrats are likely to revisit the topic, provided they are satisfied there are adequate safeguards.

Any bets on how long that will take?

drmomentum Wrote:The EO was essential for diplomacy purposes; Guantanamo is one of the best terrorist recruitment tools out there. This begins to take the wind out of those sails.

Is there any objective evidence that the mere existence of Guantanamo is a recruitment tool for terrorists? Have any captured terrorists said "Yeah, I was going to be a cable repair man but man, that Guantanamo Bay thing, got me so mad that I decided to join Al Qaeda instead". It just doesn't pass the laugh test. There was no Guantanamo before the embassy bombings, before the USS Cole or before 9/11, remember.

What difference does it make if the internees are in prison in Guantanamo Bay or in Montana? They are still in prison.

Why does it take $80 million dollars to close Guantanamo and move 345 guys? That doesn't make sense either.

Closing Guantanamo is just political sleight of hand.

There are people released from Guantanamo who have become suicide bombers. These are people we couldn't objectively prove were terrorists. Unless you can objectively prove they were terrorists, it certainly looks like Guantanamo radicalized them.

You're welcome to look for proof the US government couldn't find. Presumably, the Bush administration was trying pretty hard.

Last I checked the Republican party nominee for president also said he wanted to close Guantanamo. It's only in searching for some issue, any issue, to gain traction that this has become a big deal. Political? Yes, I suppose there is politics going on here.

I don't see why these people couldn't be moved to a maximum security prison. We didn't have all this scaremongering over Ramsey Yousef being in a prison, or hand-wringing and O Fortuna commercials about McVeigh and Nichols being held on US soil. Perhaps it is political after all.

-JP

Inmates are radicalized into Islamic terrorism in regular prisons also. The most recent example are those just arrested in New York with plans to blow up synagogues. When politicians say "Guantanamo causes terrorism" they aren't talking about those released returning to terrorism. They mean that the very existence of the place makes those in the Muslim world angry enough to join Al Qaeda. That assertion has no proof whatsoever. It's just political smoke.

drmomentum Wrote:--snip--

These are people we couldn't objectively prove were terrorists. Unless you can objectively prove they were terrorists, it certainly looks like Guantanamo radicalized them.

You're welcome to look for proof the US government couldn't find. Presumably, the Bush administration was trying pretty hard.

--snip--

-JP

.
' ...it certainly looks like Guantanamo radicalized them. '

Well of course it did. Or maybe they were not doing the waterboarding to a sufficient 'meanie' degree...


...tom...

realtraveller Wrote:When politicians say "Guantanamo causes terrorism" they aren't talking about those released returning to terrorism.

I'm sure they are happy to have you speaking for them.

-JP

sleeper54 Wrote:Well of course it did. Or maybe they were not doing the waterboarding to a sufficient 'meanie' degree...

There's only one way to do it, and that's the "you're drowning" way, as one radical conservative "Obama is a secret Muslim" ManCow found out last week.

Waterboarding Mancow

I'm sure no one saw this coming:

Quote:President Obama directly acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay will not close by the January deadline he set, but he said he hoped to still achieve that goal sometime next year.

Obama refused, however, to set a new deadline.