NY Times reports Obama advisers uncertain about closing Gitmo

[red states rule]

Will Obama break another promise, or do the right thing and keep Gitmo open?


News Analysis
Post-Guantánamo: A New Detention Law?
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

As a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama sketched the broad outlines of a plan to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: try detainees in American courts and reject the Bush administration’s military commission system.

Now, as Mr. Obama moves closer to assuming responsibility for Guantánamo, his pledge to close the detention center is bringing to the fore thorny questions under consideration by his advisers. They include where Guantánamo’s detainees could be held in this country, how many might be sent home and a matter that people with ties to the Obama transition team say is worrying them most: What if some detainees are acquitted or cannot be prosecuted at all?

That concern is at the center of a debate among national security, human rights and legal experts that has intensified since the election. Even some liberals are arguing that to deal realistically with terrorism, the new administration should seek Congressional authority for preventive detention of terrorism suspects deemed too dangerous to release even if they cannot be successfully prosecuted.

“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.

Although the nation has long had limited legal procedures for detaining dangerous people who have not been convicted of a crime, the issue has become particularly controversial in the context of Guantánamo, where some detainees have been held for almost seven years without being charged.

Whether the Obama administration should push for a preventive detention law has inspired “a very hot and serious debate,” said Ken Gude, a national security scholar at the liberal Center for American Progress, adding, “I’ve had conversations with progressives who think it is a good idea and conservatives who think it’s a terrible idea.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/washington/15gitmo.html?bl=&ei=5087&en=034c0d653216eb42&ex=1226898000&pagewanted=print

[stephanie]

the little Marxist is a very scary stupid person that is not just a heartbeat away from the Presidency...

scary.

[Little-Acorn]

I'd give a week's pay to see the faces of the Dem fanatics who thought they were voting for someone who would absolutely close Gitmo and get us out of Iraq in six months.

One of the best things about the 2008 election, is that the new Dem leaders are finally going to find out what happens to people who defy the old Democrat leaders, especially when they are being pushed by their own rank-and-file. This is something the Republicans have been well familiar with for years (decades, actually). Welcome to the club, Barry. You made your bed.

[red states rule]

I'd give a week's pay to see the faces of the Dem fanatics who thought they were voting for someone who would absolutely close Gitmo and get us out of Iraq in six months.

One of the best things about the 2008 election, is that the new Dem leaders are finally going to find out what happens to people who defy the old Democrat leaders, especially when they are being pushed by their own rank-and-file. This is something the Republicans have been well familiar with for years (decades, actually). Welcome to the club, Barry. You made your bed.

Obama and his worshippers are about to find out that Pres Bush was correct on this and MANY more things too!

When YOU are responsible for the safety of all Americans things start looking a little bit different - and perhaps Obama and his staff are starting to understand this

[gabosaurus]

I think we should keep Gitmo open. It would make a wonderful home for conservative talk show hosts and bloggers. :p

But Obama needs to keep his promise to withdraw from Iraq. Preferably within 12 months. Just think of it as a "reverse surge."

[red states rule]

I think we should keep Gitmo open. It would make a wonderful home for conservative talk show hosts and bloggers. :p

But Obama needs to keep his promise to withdraw from Iraq. Preferably within 12 months. Just think of it as a "reverse surge."

Well Gabby, perhaps you should get use to Obama "refining" alot of the promises he made to you in exchange for your vote :lol:

[MtnBiker]

Obama should just release the detainees, let them go.

[red states rule]

Obama should just release the detainees, let them go.

and then they can be picked up on the battlefield again. Is that a make work program for the troops?

Several have been found out to be homicide bombers after they were released

[MtnBiker]

and then they can be picked up on the battlefield again.

Picked up?

[red states rule]

Picked up?

Several have been captured again on the battlefield after being released from Gitmo

Here is another interesting link

Hunger-striking Gitmo inmate returns to his job with Al-Jazeera
July 5, 2008 10:35

Families for America site, notes the release of an Al-Jazeera cameraman from Gitmo. Sami al-Haj was arrested on suspicion of producing videos for Al Qaeda and running money for the al-Haramain foundation.

He’s back at work for Al-Jazeera now, in a special “human rights” reporter job. And it sounds like he’s getting off to a fine start*:

The aircrew who brought him to Khartoum on a military transport said he was relaxed, standing up, walking around during the entire flight. When they landed at Khartoum, he looked out the window, saw all the media, and immediately collapsed in a chair. “I can’t walk,” said the former cameraman for Al-Jazeera, demanding an ambulance. He can be seen being carried off the plane on a stretcher, wincing as if in pain. In another video shot the same day, he’s seen reuniting with his family, walking, standing, smiling, miraculously healed. Gordon reports that the man who said he engaged in a 16 mos hunger strike “left Guantanamo four pounds lighter than when he arrived.”

http://www.911familiesforamerica.org/?p=934

[MtnBiker]

Several terrorists have not be captured on the battefield, but suffered other results.

[red states rule]

Several terrorists have not be captured on the battefield, but suffered other results.

So we release them, and they kill our troops - or blow themselves up (and take innocent bystanders with them) what do we say?

Ooops?

[MtnBiker]

nevermind, you don't get it

[red states rule]

snip

a Pentagon report in June that said “36 ex-GTMO men ‘confirmed or suspected’ of having returned to terrorism … with Kuwaiti ex-detainee Abdulla Salih Al-Ajmi’s confirmation of a suicide bombing in Iraq, the figure is 37.”

“We’re working on it. But it’s very difficult. It’s slow work,” Perino said. “But it’s slow work because we are being very diligent in making sure we do everything that we can to make sure potential terrorists aren’t in a position to hurt innocent people.”

Others identified in the Pentagon report include:

Abdulla Salih Al-Ajmi was transferred from U.S. custody to Kuwait in 2005. He subsequently conducted a suicide bombing in Mosul, Iraq in April 2008.

Ibrahim Shafir Sen, who was transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Turkey in November 2003, then arrested in January 2008 for being an active leader in al Qaeda.

Abdulla Mahsud, released from Guantanamo Bay to Afghanistan in 2004, directed a suicide bombing in April 2007 that killed 31 people.

Abdul Rahman Noor was released from U.S. custody in July 2003. The former deputy defense minister for the Taliban helped fight U.S. forces near the border in Kandahar.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=37907

[namvet]

I think we should keep Gitmo open. It would make a wonderful home for conservative talk show hosts and bloggers. :p

But Obama needs to keep his promise to withdraw from Iraq. Preferably within 12 months. Just think of it as a "reverse surge."

or a great place for Marxists traitors like you. free waterboarding.

Iraq???? its over. done with. now what???? oh yeah invade Afghanistan. start another war. more American dead.

[PostmodernProphet]

I think we should keep Gitmo open. It would make a wonderful home for conservative talk show hosts and bloggers. :p

But Obama needs to keep his promise to withdraw from Iraq. Preferably within 12 months. Just think of it as a "reverse surge."

you have a point.....and, being popular, they have made enough money to make it a pretty nice resort property........

[hjmick]

But Obama needs to keep his promise to withdraw from Iraq. Preferably within 12 months. Just think of it as a "reverse surge."

Another pipe dream you will need to abandon.



Damn! Reality is a harsh misstress.