Reply With QuoteNPR had a bit about this today. Mostly (like so much of our politics) it boiled down to Congress being a bunch of worthless cocks.
So what's the current state of Guantanamo Bay, nearing it's 10-year anniversary?
A judicial black hole.
Who did we torture for years there? Children's humanitarian aid workers, of course.rom the perspective of a legal journalist, the real tragedy of this anniversary lies not in all the waste, and error, and gratuitous suffering. The tragedy even transcends the politics and the posturing and the will of the people to do nothing beyond shrugging that, well, mistakes were made. The real tragedy is that when the president and Congress failed to understand what had happened at Guantanamo Bay, the courts stepped in. The Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in Boumediene, holding that the prisoners at Guantanamo who were not American citizens still had the right of habeas corpus, represented the court doing precisely what it was built to do: remind the will of the people that sometimes it is full of shit.
But since Boumediene, the court has taken itself out of the shining beacon of justice business and left the administration of those habeas corpus proceedings to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court has systematically thrown the whole habeas process through a wood chipper until it’s not clear that there is anything left of the promise of Boumediene, beyond a command that some prisoners are due some due process to be named by someone sometime later.
This fact was noted in a dissent by Judge David Tatel in a recently declassified decision regarding a Guantanamo detainee, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif. Latif is a citizen of Yemen who has been held at Guantanamo since 2002. In October the three-judge appellate panel ruled 2-1 that a district court had erred in ordering Latif’s release from the prison. There is much that is worrisome about the majority ruling in Latif, which Adam Liptak described recently as the “next great Guantánamo case—whether the Supreme Court agrees to hear it or not.”
As Liptak wrote: “If the justices agree to hear the Latif case, they can explain whether their Guantánamo decisions were theoretical tussles about the scope of executive power fit for a law school seminar or whether they were meant to have practical consequences for actual prisoners. If the Supreme Court turns down the case, it will be signaling that it has given up on Guantánamo.”
What does it take to get out? Shit you wouldn't believe.I left Algeria in 1990 to work abroad. In 1997 my family and I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of my employer, the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates. I served in the Sarajevo office as director of humanitarian aid for children who had lost relatives to violence during the Balkan conflicts. In 1998, I became a Bosnian citizen. We had a good life, but all of that changed after 9/11.
When I arrived at work on the morning of Oct. 19, 2001, an intelligence officer was waiting for me. He asked me to accompany him to answer questions. I did so, voluntarily — but afterward I was told that I could not go home. The United States had demanded that local authorities arrest me and five other men. News reports at the time said the United States believed that I was plotting to blow up its embassy in Sarajevo. I had never — for a second — considered this.
Boumediene was not simply arrested and imprisoned for years despite no evidence that he was a terrorist, he was arrested while he was working as a humanitarian aide worker. For children. The man devoted his life to helping the youngest and most vulnerable victims of a terrible conflict, and we locked him up and tortured him.
The position of the last British detainee at Guantanamo, Shaker Aamer, is in the UK news today. He’s never been charged with anything and was “cleared for release” under the Bush administration. He is in failing health. For protesting about his own treatment and that of others, he is confined to the punishment block. It seems the reason the Aamer can’t be released today is that the US Congress has imposed absurd certification requirements on the US Secretary of Defense, such that Panetta would be personally reponsible for any future criminal actions by the released inmate. One of the reasons why the US Congress has put these obstacles up is because of claims made by the US military about “recidivism”, claims that also get some scrutiny in the report. It would seem that subsequent protests about conditions in the camp, writing a book about it or making a film, are counted as instances of “recidivism”.
NPR had a bit about this today. Mostly (like so much of our politics) it boiled down to Congress being a bunch of worthless cocks.
This is incredibly depressing. More so because, what could we do that could conceivably make a difference?
Gitmo? I thought President Obama shut that place down years ago why is it still in the news. Isn't it a black mark on America values?
Probably lots of things, there's been pleanty of time(over a decade) to use your vote, as a starting point. Not you personaly, but 'you all' in the wider american context. It's not like all this crazy stuff has been going down hidden out of sight either! This applies to the thread about 'criminalization of children' as well, but that is too saddening for me to even want to post in, even if not surprising as we are talking about a kind of fascism here, and these situations are exactly what you expect to find in that context.Originally Posted by lesslucid
It's shameful. How can people be locked up for 10 years without even being charged? That's just fucking criminal. Convict or let them go.
They're not people, Canuck. They're terrorists. Or suspected terrorists, and that's just semantics.
Things are always so much easier before you become president.
Somehow Ron Paul knows this, while Obama and the rest of the Pub field can't figure it out.
I seem to remember, about 4 years ago, arguing with someone who said you could close the place in a month if the president just wanted to. ;)
We all have learned some things over the last few years.
REPORTED!!!!!! Admission of changing of opinions is a clear violation of the P&R charter and rules. Also makes it a hell of a lot harder to abuse someone for never modifying their opinions (damn you!)
;)
Ah, but we've all changed our opinions! I recall the near-consensus here that Obama was going to save us. :P
So label me a Flip Flopper. :)
The difference is simple, when a republican was president he got the full 100% blame for not closing it. When a democrat is president it suddenly became a more complcated issue that one cannot blame the president for.
Kind of like how deficit spending suddenly became a big, big problem in late Jan of 09, eh?
Exactly like that, what is right and wrong in politics seems to matter more about what party does it and less about what is actually done.
Other than the little detail that Bush opened it in the first place and refused to close it, while Obama's been blocked by Congress and hasn't escalated, yeah, exactly the same.
I think we can all at least agree, though, that the greatest and most important injustice that has been committed over this whole affair is the way that liberals haven't held Obama to the same standards that they held Bush to.
Congress was not blocking Bush from closing Gitmo. Congress is blocking Obama. That is the difference.
To be fair - has Obama really made it a priority? Closing Gitmo doesn't seem to fit his extend the Patriot Act, cut civil liberties agenda.
I don't buy the excuse that Congress is blocking Barry from taking action. He is Commander in Chief. He is a coward. He is Coward in Chief.
Well, that's some insight right there!
I see what you did there.
This reviews it. They tried, didn't press hard, and Congress wasn't buying it anyway. The Senate vote against funding for closing it was 90-6. The administration also did a terrible job of selling it.
The real story I see here is how terrified Congress is. The polling I can find for closing it is only 39% in favor.
Fun detail I didn't know in there: Bush claimed he wanted to close it - but only on German television.
That's an interesting article.
Gitmo is one of the (many) issues where there just isn't a constituency in favor of doing the right thing. Only a minority favor closing it, and I'm guessing maybe half of that minority actually feel it's a serious issue. People on qt3 are very passionate about it, but we're not at all representative of the electorate.
We'd like it if politicians would do the right thing anyway, but given the way the incentives are aligned it's not at all surprising that they aren't. It'd be a hopeless fight for the President to wage; you're simply not going to flip nearly sixty Senators on this issue.
Categories whose responses to 9/11 disappointed me, in descending level of disappointment:
1) The judiciary, who largely abdicated to the executive branch.
2) Conservatives, who went completely insane on foreign policy.
3) The president. Obama's infinitely better than Bush, but he's still shown no desire to expend a thimble of political capital on civil liberties.
4) Congressional Democrats.
5) Congressional Republicans.
6) The public. At least they don't support internment camps, I guess.
I bet they would if you worded it right and it was the "wrong" kind of people.
I think this is because no one has advocated internment camps as job creation vehicle. I think they would be more effective than current programs, and less violent than WW3. Interned people would create lots of jobs, the folks being interned would lose their current jobs, opening up opportunities. But it wouldn't be zero sum, new construction jobs, guard jobs, a cottage industry among academic studying the impact on interns and guards. Great exciting jobs for new law grads, filing writs and such. Plus probably a new court system to handle appeals.
Best of all fantastic new reality TV shows would be possible. Now admittedly I have not worked out all the details, most importantly who would be interned. My initial idea would be to have a survivor-like show, where the various contestant would represent a particular group, Jews, Mormans, Christians, atheists, Muslims, fat people, ugly people, talentless celebrities, rich and poor people, nerds, jocks, and of course immigrants. The winner's group would get immunity to interment, and first crack at guard jobs. The loser group would get interned for a year.
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