Obama Planning US Trials for Guantanamo Detainees

[malik flavors]

Source: Associated Press

Obama Planning US Trials for Guantanamo Detainees

WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1857866,00.html

[snappyturtle]

1. Good. PE Obama cannot right this wrong but he can see that it comes

to an end.

[bluestateguy]

2. McCain was for closing Gitmo too

Just worth pointing out to your RW freinds once they start bitching.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. K&R

[customerserviceguy]

4. Do we really have to bring them here?

Dragging them onto US soil just creates a security problem, and a PR problem, too. Why not just ship them to Afghanistan to be dealt with by the authorities there?

[malik flavors]

6. Afghan authorities are horrible. They can never hold on detainees. They'd be out in a week.

[customerserviceguy]

9. In that case

not our problem. We need to leave Afghanistan, too.

[otherlander]

7. Did you forget this?

:sarcasm:?

[malik flavors]

8. Re-opening Alchatraz could be an option. Or, something like that. An offshore prison.

[customerserviceguy]

10. All we'd need is for some AQ operation

to try to free some high profile detainee. It would be President Obama's Bay of Pigs.

Just dump them back where we found them, and let the Afghani authorities figure it all out.

[Lerkfish]

13. a worse PR problem than war crime level of torture and imprisonment at Gitmo without habeas corpus?

man, talk about looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

[customerserviceguy]

15. That problem

is solely on the shoulders of the Bush administration. Releasing them back into Afghanistan where we found them just reverses the process.

Having the most extreme elements still among them shouting anti-American hate messages on the TV is not what we need the Obama Administration to deliver to us.

Maybe some here are thinking that they're owed some sort of reparations for the injustice done to them? Perhaps, but if we do try to pay them, that lets the wingnuts fan the flames of "Obama is a Muslim" even brighter. We need to get PAST this chapter of our history. Taking out the Taliban and attempting to eliminate Osama bin Laden were worthwhile goals, we accomplished them, and we need to get done with adventurism in parts of the world that we really don't have any business meddling.

[Lerkfish]

16. you make several assumptions based on a nontransparent process at Gitmo

you presume detainees are guilty and therefore would shout anti-american slogans.

on what do you base this, since we are not allowed to know anything about them?

[customerserviceguy]

19. I base that on two things

One is the statements of Zacarias Moussaoui during his trial. The other is that we certainly have at least a few of them who are mighty upset at what's happened to them over the last half dozen years, and would act similarly if given a camera and a microphone.

It will do NO good to bring them here. America already has acknowledged by this last election (and I would argue by the last few Congressional elections, as well) that the way we've handled the Middle East has been a tragedy on the scale of Vietnam. The faster we can wash our hands of it, the less it will be a distraction on what we're trying to accomplish. We were right to just bug out of Nam back in 1975, and let them sort it out themselves over the next several years.

[Lerkfish]

24. and let "them" sort it out, eh?

I'll have to say I don't agree with your position, nor the tone of it and leave it at that.

[customerserviceguy]

34. So you don't want to answer my question

what do we gain by bringing them here? Another chance to embarrass the Bush administration? I say the election did that.

We'll have plenty of stuff to fill Congressional hearing rooms for the next few years to come, we don't need to import an expensive security problem that we've so far been able to successfully quarantine off our shores.

Afghanistan is an unsolvable problem, the Russians found that out, and we've discovered it, too. The "them" I refer to are the people who prefer to live in that area of the world, that doesn't include the vast majority of Russians or Americans.

[Lerkfish]

40. wow. just wow. How DARE they prefer to live in "that area of the world" where they were born

I mean, really, who do they think they are? citizens of their own country?

man, I'm not afraid of your questions, but you coming across as xenophobic in large flashing red letters.

[customerserviceguy]

45. Okay fine

you would rather hurl the name "xenophobic" at me that explain what we would get from doing this. Fine.

But I can see the headlines, "Obama brings Muslim terrorists to US soil!" and how the same jackasses that didn't get the point of the New Yorker cover are going to use it to browbeat people who just narrowly made up their minds to give our new President a chance. And if there is some shoot-em-up escape scene surrounding a Federal courthouse, whether it works or not, it sure fucks up a lot of people's lives over here.

Again, what are the possible outcomes? We spend millions of dollars on show trials (the secret ones won't even be that) to either imprison them at more expense in our prison system, or just send them on their way again.

We should do with them what we do with prisoners of war: the war ends, we send the prisoners back to their homes. At the time we captured them, that was Afghanistan. We declare victory, or 'mission accomplished' or just 'we quit' (like Vietnam) and we just wash our hands of the mess. Any moral culpability for it is all on Bush's legacy. Maybe that legacy includes having some of them make their way to the Hague to say what they have to say there.

[Zhade]

50. Yeah, xenophobic fits.

Ever heard of "innocent until proven guilty"?

[customerserviceguy]

53. Name calling is what people use when they run out of logical arguments

and I was advocating that they just be presumed innocent and returned back without the expensive kangaroo court trials, the most damaging ones to be held in secret.

[specimenfred1984]

65. Too funny

Gotta love our brainwashed culture of "Evildoers" that you're a part of.

[choie]

41. "we need to get PAST this chapter of our history"

Tell that to the possibly hundreds of innocent people who were captured, imprisoned and tortured for the last 8 years of their lives - some of whom committed suicide or died of illnesses. If we want to be a part of the international community again, we must face our crimes and follow international law. Not just do what is politically expedient.

[customerserviceguy]

46. Prisoners of war

have it tough. I'm no John McLame fan, but I don't recall where the North Vietnamese handed him a check at the end of the process. They just repatriated him to the US.

What would you have us do with them? What's a better solution than to just send them back to Afghanistan? What is the compelling reason to have them brought to the US for trials, some of which would be secret?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. A security problem?

In what respect, Charlie?

[customerserviceguy]

20. For the entire time they've been in Gitmo

they've been completely away from our open American society. They're surrounded by both a Latino culture where Middle Easterners would stick out like a sore thumb, and an American military base. Put them anywhere in the United States, and you invite some cockamamie scheme to hatch to free at least a few of them, or perhaps just do some damage to the city where the trials are going on.

Perhaps you can tell me the enormous benefit that we would get by dragging them here, versus dropping them back where we found them.

[Lerkfish]

26. "our Open American Society"??? have you been living under a rock?

man, you've thrown out so many dogwhistles in this thread, I think you're revealing more about yourself than you realize.

[customerserviceguy]

29. Yes, the so-called Patriot Act

has made it tougher for AQ to do things here, as well as treating all Americans as terrorists, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for them to make trouble here. If they could have in Cuba, they would have done so by now. Kind of hard to do that with a big bunch of Marines nearby.

Anyway, answer my question: What do we gain by dragging them here, instead of just dumping them back where we found them?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. So you're saying...

that the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act has made America safer, but we'd be safer under Castro's Cuba.

Interesting.

[customerserviceguy]

44. I'm saying that

Castro's Cuba, being a very, very Latino society, would notice Middle Eastern infiltrators bent on springing their buddies from a Marine base much faster than we would. Castro (neither Fidel nor Raul) want that kind of trouble, or they'd have made it themselves.

I just question the costs in terms of money, security, and publicity being not worth the possible benefits of bringing them here. Nobody's yet explained to me what we get out of it.

[Doremus]

39. WTH are you afraid of? That Bush's atrocities will finally be given the light of day?

That we'll finally find out what sorts of torture those people have been subjected to for YEARS?

Fuck the chickenshit "pawn them off on somebody else" crap. They are entitled to a trial by the country that has kept them in deplorable conditions for so long. We broke it, we bought it.

[customerserviceguy]

47. We wouldn't find out anyway

with secret trials being reserved for those who were mistreated the most.

This isn't pawning them off on "somebody else", I'm advocating sending them back to where we captured them.

Remember that line that Caribou Barbie used about "reading terrorists their rights"? Yes, she's dumb as a post, but that line did resonate with a lot of people. And you can bet she's going to come back to that theme in 2012 if we start handing them reparations checks for their troubles.

[crikkett]

42. Yes. Why? I think it's called habeas corpus. n/t

[customerserviceguy]

48. And habeas corpus

is "charge me or release me", in essense. I'm advocating for release, and repatriation back to the country where they were initially taken as prisoners of war, even though we did not treat them as such subsequently. President Obama has the ability to rectify that wrong, and declare that we don't need to hold them anymore.

Again, what do we hope to accomplish by bringing them here?

[crikkett]

49. "What do we hope to accomplish by bringing them here?"

I repeat: fair trial in the light of day.

But I'll add: probably some medical treatment.

[customerserviceguy]

54. Are you asserting

that they have not had medical treatment while at Gitmo? I've not read any evidence of that.

I guess the question is, who do you want to see on trial? The detainees, or Bushco? He'll slip the noose on that one, the scapegoats (if any) will be the Marines who are accused by the detainees. The Repukes will be happy to portray the whole thing as the Obama Administration "disrespecting" our military.

This isn't Vietnam anymore, the troops have far more public support than they did thirty-five years ago, nobody's going to make the "baby killer" label stick this time around.

[onehandle]

5. Sarah was RIGHT! Palling around with TERRORISTS!

My God. A President who respects human rights. What have we done?

[Ferret Annica]

11. I don't like this, send them home and release them to their country of origin

Obama is caving in to NeoCon demands and better watch his step, he doesn't want to become guilty of the same sort of war crimes that dictate that Bush Cheney and company should be transported to the Hague to be adjudicated for their crimes against humanity.

[malik flavors]

12. WHat war crimes would he be guilty of? He's tryingt o reverse the crimes of the Bush admin.

[Lerkfish]

14. methinks you're a bit confused.

1. neocons WANT gitmo
2. giving fair trials instead of no trials is not a war crime
3. ah, nevermind. trying to travel the pretzel twists of your assertion is like mind-blowing.

[Doremus]

28. WTH are you talking about? War crimes? Caving in to neocons?

Hello? It's the neocons who LIKE Gitmo, remember?

They'd rather see those detainees ROT than given a transparent trial here in the states.

I think criminal trials are an excellent idea -- what better way to flush out all the atrocities committed by the BFEE? Bring 'em on!

[crikkett]

43. isn't the last thing that neocons want, a fair trial in the light of day? n/t

[Ohio Joe]

18. hmmmm

From the article:

"During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed."

What other details are needed? If crimes can be proven in a court of law, they get the appropriate punishment. If not, they go free. Period.

oh.... and no secret evidence and nothing gained from torture is allowed.

[Bacchus39]

22. "go free" where is the question?? n/t

b

[Ohio Joe]

37. That is a very good question

and I'll be honest, I don't know the laws. My first guess would be to their home country. If for whatever reason, their home country won't take them, I don't have a clue what the law requires but whatever it is, should be followed. I would expect there is a law on the books for someone brought to this country for trial and found not guilty. My guess would be that after that, immigration laws would apply.

[Mesteryo]

27. if the evidence is true..

They can't be released even if the evidence was obtained illegally. It'd be too big of a security risk.

[Ohio Joe]

38. Does not matter

We can't keep them against the law. We release wrongly imprisoned people all the time, the risk is no different. Illegally obtained evidence is just that, illegal, it can't be used against them. I'm real pissed about it but we are supposed to be the good guys and its about time we started acting like it. Part of that is not only saying but showing that we are not going to be the bad guy any more.

[Mesteryo]

57. it's different in the context of war though...

The standards for collection of evidence is different for one thing. For example the requirement to Mirandize a captured combatant just is silly.

My problem with the way Bush handled this was that they would hold people without much evidence they were dangerous and had no review of evidence. But I support holding terrorists if evidence shows their danger.

[Ohio Joe]

61. What evidence?

The evidence gained through torture? Are you aware that such evidence is wickedly unreliable? Sorry, but I can't agree. Unless they have legitimate evidence that someone is a terrorist, they cannot hold them indefinitely, they have a right to trial.

[Mesteryo]

62. I meant reliable evidence..

That can be corroborated.

[Mesteryo]

21. it won't happen...

Obama for one won't transfer prisoners kept at Gitmo into a US prison because no Senator or Representative will go along with alleged terrorists being kept in their backyards.

Secondly this will require some type of assurance that truly dangerous terrorists are not released because a judge determines evidence against them was obtained illegally. If the evidence is real they should be imprisoned regardless of how it was obtained.

The main issue is that I doubt Obama will be able to work out a place to hold these prisoners during these trial periods.

[JJ]

23. I thought the idea was to restore the Constitution

that Bush and Cheney shredded, not continue with their illegal and immoral practices.

[Mesteryo]

25. I didn't advocate anything unconstitutional...

Were the Nuremberg trials unconstitutional?

You really think Obama will release truly dangerous terrorists?

[Posteritatis]

30. I think a real court should determine if they are "truly dangerous" first

You might be new to the concept, but accusation does not equal guilt, particularly under the farce of an administration of the last eight years.

[ohio2007]

33. check the ones that have previously been released. That would be a good indication

and also talk to the lawyers that defended them.

[Posteritatis]

36. Nope. Case by case for each individual; anything less is a mockery of justice. (nt)

[ohio2007]

52. actually, as you already know,many have been released to their home countries with amazing results

and joined the dead poets society with thier own mockery of justice;

From Gitmo to Miranda, With Love
Captive Miranda, Lord knows I have not given a thought to the paperwork you sent me.

Let me tell you, Captive, that our release is not in the hands of the lawyers or the hands of America. Our release is in the hands of He who created us.




snip
The poem, "To My Captive Lawyer, Miranda," was written by Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi while he was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Al-Ajmi, a 29-year-old Kuwaiti, blew himself up in one of several coordinated suicide attacks on Iraqi security forces in Mosul this year. Originally reported to have participated in an April attack that killed six Iraqi policemen, a recent martyrdom video published on a password-protected al Qaeda Web site indicates that Al-Ajmi carried out the March 23 attack on an Iraqi army compound in Mosul.


http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121737320982594975.html

Former Guantánamo Detainee Tied to Attack

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/world/middleeast/08iraq.html?fta=y




snip
A former Kuwaiti Guantanamo Bay detainee conducts a suicide attack in Mosul

Two Kuwaiti al Qaeda operatives who conducted suicide attacks were featured at the end of the video. Abu Omar al Kuwaiti, also known as Badr Mishel Gama’an al Harbi, and Abu Juheiman al Kuwaiti, also known as Abdullah Salih al Ajmi, are both shown on the video, along with their attacks in Mosul, said Kazimi.

Harbi, who claimed to be a "veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan," conducted a suicide car bomb attack on a police station in Mosul on April 26, 2008.

Ajmi was released from Guantanamo Bay and was searching for "a way to reconnect with the jihad." He claimed he was tortured while at Guantanamo Bay.


snip

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/06/released_guantanamo.php



Let the trials be shown on TV for all to view the mockery of justice

[Mesteryo]

58. I agree but

A military court is a real court. I am in favor of mandating a review of the evidence by someone besides the President.

[customerserviceguy]

31. That's exactly right

nobody would want the security headache. Ask Bill Clinton.

When Castro released the Marielitos to our shores, the worst of them wound up in a Federal prison in Arkansas, where they created an enormous riot. The bad publicity from that led to the only election defeat that Bill ever suffered. Hopefully, if the Clintons really are trying to help President Obama, they will tell him NOT to bring the Gitmo detainees here.

We can right the wrong by simply sending them back. We had no business removing them from Afghanistan in the first place.

[NYC Liberal]

55. "they should be imprisoned regardless of how it was obtained."

Do you advocate that for American criminals too or not?

[Mesteryo]

59. I'm not talking about just criminals..

I'm talking about people who are making war on the U.S. You're comparing apples to oranges. By your standard we couldn't capture any enemy soldier since we have no jurisdiction in Afghanistan.

[ohio2007]

32. Put them on TV like OJ nt

[Judi Lynn]

51. Amnesty International calls on President-elect Barack Obama to put human rights at the heart of gove

November, 05 2008

Amnesty International calls on President-elect Barack Obama to put human rights at the heart of government

Amnesty International today urged US President-elect Barack Obama to show true leadership by making human rights central to his new administration. The organization is calling on the new government to take concrete steps in its first 100 days which would show genuine commitment to bring the USA into line with its international obligations.

In the first 100 days of the presidency, Amnesty International is specifically calling on the new administration to:

• announce a plan and date for the closure of the detention centre at Guantánamo,
  
• issue an executive order to ban torture and other ill-treatment, as defined under international law and applicable to all US agents, and
  
• ensure the setting up of an independent commission to investigate abuses committed by the USA in its war on terror.
  These demands form part of a “checklist” of actions Amnesty International is asking the new US President to take during his first 100 days in office.

“President-elect Barack Obama must make a clean break from the US government’s detention policies and practices adopted by the previous administration. Millions of people, politicians and religious leaders in the United States and across the world are demanding these changes. Now is the time to make them happen,” said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“President-elect Barack Obama must reverse the damage done at home and abroad by the US government’s unlawful actions in the name of national security,” said Larry Cox, executive director at Amnesty International USA. “The US government’s policies during the past eight years have violated the basic rights of thousands of individuals, damaged the United States’ credibility on human rights issues and strained diplomatic relations. With the entire world watching, and the election of a new President and Congress, it's time to commit the United States to its international obligations and ensure that the rule of law will be the foundation for its policies.”

More:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGPRE200811057970&lang=e

[alarimer]

56. They don't need trials; they need to be released.

Whatever evidence that may have been gathered over the last 7 years is tainted by the probable use of torture and by the fact that few have had access to attorneys and the usual legal process.

These cases are so contaminated by the Bush Administration that there is no possibility of a "fair" trial no matter what.

[Mesteryo]

60. dream on..

No US President is going to just release people whom evidence shows are a threat to national security. Obama is way too smart for that, he'd face impeachment.

[pat_k]

64. If Obama calls on Congress to permit "evidence" extracted by water torture

. . . to be used in some "special" (i.e., Un-American and Unconstitutional) "judicial" process, we are duty-bound to demand impeachment. Any attempt to retrospectively "pardon" or "legalize" war crimes committed against any human being -- and that includes "stress" positions, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, sexual abuse, and other intolerable techniques we have yet to hear about -- would make Obama a full-partner in those crimes.

Our treatment of any person in state custody, and the process by which they are committed to state custody -- whether that person is captured on the field of battle; an orphaned child, a convicted prisoner, an illegal immigrant; a criminal suspect; or suffers from mental illness -- define a our identity as a nation. A government that employs arbitrary or unjust processes, is unjust. A government that subjects those in its custody to inhumane treatment is inhumane. The governing law of the land dates back to the tenets of the Magna Carta.

Any act of Congress, constitutional "analysis," judicial ruling, or executive order that attempts to undermine the tenets embodied in Federal law is guilty of a treasonous and intolerable subversion of of constitutional democracy.

[Mesteryo]

66. I'm not talking about future actions..

I'm saying if there is evidence a person at Guantanamo is a terrorist posing a danger to national security I doubt Obama will endorse releasing them. I doubt he'd be impeached for that except in your wildest dreams.

[pat_k]

67. Understood. But it still begs the question: On what evidence. . .

. . .could Obama -- or anybody else -- conclude that ANY abductee held in the dungeons of Gitmo is a "terrorist" who "posed a danger to national security."

The truth is that we have mo reason to believe in the existence of ANY remotely conclusive and legitimately obtained evidence against ANY of the people they arbitrarily abducted, indefinitely imprisoned, and tortured/abused.

Presumably they chose Hamdan to showcase their "new and improved" (read: unconstitutional) military commissions because they believed it to be their strongest case. But even with a "stacked deck" they couldn't manage to convict on the charge of "participating in conspiracies to carry out terrorist attacks." (When they only managed to convict Hamdan for a few counts of "providing material support" -- a 'crime' so ill-defined they could convict even if the accused unknowingly "provided support" -- even they didn't do much "crowing.")

Given the failed prosecution of Hamdan, and their failure to try any other so-called "terrorist" before a military commission, it appears that their torture program failed to produce much of anything.

If there is in fact no substantive, legitimately obtained evidence -- a reasonable conclusion -- the notion that they are holding ANY "terrorists" in Gitmo is a myth.

And it is a myth that leaves Obama only a couple options.

Option 1: He can tell the nation the truth. Namely, that
a) coerced evidence is crap;
b) Bush and Cheney ordered agencies and people under their authority to commit war crimes to obtain that crap;
c) Bush and Cheney made it impossible to determine whether or not ANY person held at Gitmo committed ANY crime; and
d) the only known crimes were committed by Bush and Cheney -- in plain sight.

Option 2: Maintain the pretense that Bush and Cheney committed no crimes and that there are known "terrorists" being held at Gitmo.

If he attempted to keep up the pretense and keep his pledge to prosecute Gitmo "terrorists" lawfully, he would need to charge and attempt to prosecute, even though he knows the cases are unprovable. When the accused are acquitted, the pretense that we captured any real "terrorists" would be pretty much blown.

If he attempted to keep up the pretense by actually getting convictions, he would need to do the same thing Bush and Cheney have done. That is, he would have to break his pledge and define some "special" process that "allowed" the introduction of evidence obtained by means that are absolutely and unequivocally forbidden.

If he goes for Option 1, he begs the question, Why the Heck didn't the Democratic Congress try to stop the crimes while they were in progress? Why didn't they even TRY to impeach and rmeove?

If he goes for Option 2, he is providing cover. If he keeps his pledge, he is still an accomplice in war crimes. If he breaks his pledge, he becomes a perpetrator of war crimes.

[alarimer]

68. Well if he does try these people with tainted evidence, he's lost my vote FOREVER

Not that my one little voter matters apparently.

There are certain human rights that supersede even national security. Tainted evidence is still wrong.

[sofa king]

63. For want of an "r," this headline lacks impact.

As in "Detainers."