Guantanamo Visitor Weighs In to Debate: Sailors and Soldiers at Gitmo Deserve Respect and Thanks

Former Marine and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, Gabe Ledeen visited Guantanamo recently. His blog entry on Pajamas Media, is well worth reading.

Ledeen begins his piece with these words:

I recently visited the detention facilities at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was dismayed at what I saw. The place was nothing like what I expected, and I was struck by how little we Americans actually know about these facilities and the conduct of our personnel there. With every new interview and every new area walk-through I hoped to find some validation of the certainties I brought with me from the hundreds of articles, documentaries, and speeches presented to the American people by our intellectual superiors.

Instead, my experiences at Guantanamo Bay illustrate the thoroughness of the miseducation of the American people and our willingness to assume the worst about our men and women in uniform. Furthermore, the visit clearly demonstrated that there is a widespread ignorance of the complexity of the situation that we face in the current war against our terrorist enemies. This ignorance results in a focus on superficial issues instead of core questions, and a naive trust in false stories and an astonishing proclivity to be misled. (full blog here)

Guantanamo Judge Claims Qahtani Was Tortured

Military judge Susan Crawford alleged that after reading the file of Muhammad al Qahtani, the self-confessed 20th hijacker, she is convinced that even though interrogation procedures used against him “were all authorized” that in the aggregate they amounted to torture.

In a Washington Post article by Bob Woodward, he outlines her thought processes. “This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge,” Woodward quotes Crawford as saying.

In Inside Gitmo, I devote almost an entire chapter to Qahtani – his treatment, which was inexcusable, as well as evidence not linked to any confessions forced or voluntary, that place him squarely in the middle of the 9/11 plot.

I also recount detailed testimony from Khalid Sheik Mohammad that explicitly states that Qahtani was designated as a muscle hijacker, in all probability the missing fifth hijacker on United flight 93 that crashed into Pennsylvania.

With Qahtani in place as extra muscle, could the hijackers have repelled the passenger revolt and crashed that aircraft into the US Capitol? We will never know.

In the book I quote a senior interrogation official at Guantanamo who said, “bad things were done to Qahtani, sure, but it was driven my immaturity and pressure. And it sure wasn’t torture.”

Read the book and make your own judgment. Do we really want to see a man like this released back into the fight on a flimsy legal interpretation?

Gitmo Detainees in Your Neighborhood? Good Idea, Some Activists Insist

“Let some Guantanamo Bay detainees live in U.S., advocates say,” headlines an article in todays LA Times. Expect that this idea is going to gain traction with anti-Guantanamo activists over upcoming weeks. The idea – extraordinarily wrong-headed and naive – is that by accepting released detainees into US society, presumably with a green card, that America will convince European countries to accept their share also.

American imposes strict quotas over allowing foreign scientists, engineers, and professionals to immigrate. Now we are supposed to open up for terrorists?

In a masterpiece of understatement the article said, “Allowing former detainees to live freely in the U.S. probably would be controversial.” Do you think?

We are assured by Elisa Massimino, the executive director of Human Rights First, who is quoted in the piece as saying, “After seven years of being fed the line that everyone there is the worst of the worst, it would help enormously if the United States would set an example that would put the lie to that, by taking one or two of the people.There will be opposition, but the facts can overcome that.”

Facts are precisely the missing piece to all of these resettle Gitmo detainees in the US arguments. If the facts emerge about just who these detainees really are, what their backgrounds have been, and the virulent ideology they hold dear, then overwhelming pubic opinion will be to keep them where they are, somewhere safe and secure, and far away from US soil.

Read Inside Gitmo to learn about just who some of these detainees are and the killer motivation that drives their lives.

Guantanamo Bay Jail Returnees Organization – Loose in Pakistan?

An small, intriguing note in an on-line site for The Nation, a Pakistan-based newspaper today, mentioned the arrest of 7 Afghanis suspected by Pakistani authorities of complicity with multiple bombing attacks. The report mentions that police monitored several groups of suspected terrorists in order to close the ring on the Afghanis.

Included in the listed organizations was the Guantanamo Bay Jail Returnees, an informal organization made up of released former Guantanamo detainees.

Once again we are drawn to the inevitable conclusion that the recidivism rate among former detainees is extraordinarily high and that dealing with these people as ordinary criminals is a mistake of the highest order.

Close Guantanamo? Think Twice, Obama Now Says

Contrary to his firm promise to “close Guantanamo in the first 100 days of my administration,” Barak Obama now appears to have been faced with yet another instance of cold reality taking precedence over breezy campaign promises.

Gitmo closure appears to be another backing off that a laudatory press labels “pragmatism” but hard core supports and anti-Guantanamo activists interpret as a broken pledge.

Speaking with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” Obama said “I think it’s going to take some time [to close Guantanamo] and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do. It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.”

Including, one suspects, Obama himself when he was a high-flying candidate speaking easily and without the weight of presidential office heavy upon him.

Obama went on to summarize a fairly succinct list of issues associated with precipitate closure. “Part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it’s true. And so how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo-American legal system, by doing it in a way that doesn’t result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up.”

In other words, we may not be able to convict some of these detainees in a US court but they are still very dangerous people. Score one for Obama for finally recognizing that essential truth.

He concluded this portion of the interview with what are becoming classic Obamaisms: long on ideas; short on specifics. “I don’t want to be ambiguous about this,” he told Stephanopoulos . “We are going to close Guantanamo.” When? How? Details to follow.

With pressure building in both houses of Congress for closure, and with Senators and Representatives certain that their ideas are the best way to go forward, Guantanamo closure has all the potential to be another in a growing list of divisive issues over which Congress and the White House will clash.

Meanwhile, the clamor from the increasingly disappointed Obama supporters on the left wing of the political spectrum grows daily.

Former Guantanamo Detainee Hamden Walks from Yemeni Prison – And Who Cares?

Usama bin Laden’s driver and right hand man, Salim Hamdan, walked out of a prison cell in Yemen yesterday, according to an AP report, a free man. He served the minimum time given to him on a plea bargain by a military tribunal. Case closed?

Perhaps we ought to ask some of those most affected by Hamdan’s behavior – though commission or omission.

Hamdan knew in advance about the September 11, 2001 attacks. He sat beside bin Laden for years, was privy to his conversations and plans as a most trusted member of his entourage. Yet he did nothing. No phone calls to alert authorities, no attempt to get away to disclose the upcoming attack even though al Qaeda hoped that tens of thousands of innocents would be incinerated by the crashed aircraft.

Here we would call that an accomplice to mass murder before and after the fact. My prediction: Hamdan will be back in the al Qaeda fold in one form or another by the time this is posted.

So who is asking the 9/11 families what they think of this travesty of justice? Where are the voices demanding that lenient sentences for terrorists only will encourage more to join the fight?

Now is the time for you to make your opinions heard. Join the discussion group on the Inside Gitmo web site today and participate in civil discourse about these and other important topics, issues that are going to have a direct impact on all Americans if these dangerous men still confined at Guantanamo are released into US soil, a proposal that some members of Congress and the Federal judiciary are already considering seriously.

If we are going to have a chance to influence these misguided policies we need to get together now! Join today, please. We need your input and ideas.

Close Guantanamo? Bring Gitmo Detainees to the US? Harmon Introduces House Bill

In a move designed to complement Senator Diane Feinstein’s (D-CA) similar bill in the Senate, Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) introduced a bill that would close Guantanamo within a year. “We need to talk about these problems anew,” said Harman in an interview quoted in the Chicago Tribune.

In a press release from Harmon’s office the following options are given for disposition of Guantanamo detainees:

- transfer to a detainee’s country of origin (so long as that country provides certain assurances regarding treatment of the detainee) [note lack of assurances that they would be confined]
- transfer to a facility in the United States to be tried before military or civilian authorities
- transfer to a qualified international tribunal
- outright release

There appears little thought has been given in these high impact options to the dangers posed to American citizens. Before any action is taken consideration must be given to the following facts:

- There has been an alarming recidivism rate of released detainees and many countries of origin offer (including the UK) offer little more than a revolving-door approach to continued confinement.
- The deleterious effect that moving Guantanamo detainees to any US community would have, most of all the fact that these communities would now become terrorist and activist targets. A vast majority of Americans do NOT want these men brought to US soil.
- That most international tribunals are political rubber stamps for anti-US governmental policies and are notoriously inefficient in dealing with terrorism cases.
- Outright release is tantamount to returning dedicated jihadist fighters to the battlefield.

If you are worried about any of these outcomes – and we should all be very worried – then we as citizens need to take action to let our elected officials know of our concernes. Arm yourself with the facts by getting your own copy of Inside Gitmo: The True Story behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay now. Order your copy here.

The Ex-Guantanamo Detainees Road Tour – With Turncoat Guard

Looks like some of the UK Guantanamo detainees – headed by the well-known former detainee Moazzam Begg – are kicking off a fundraising tour around England. Included in the tour are several former Gitmo detainees and former US guard Christopher Brandon Arendt.

“We believe this unique tour and gathering comes at historic juncture in the midst of the “War on Terror” at a much needed time,” said Begg, who was quoted in the Pakistani Associated Press. According to British activist Yvonne Ridley, the tour has been titled as “Two sides, One story” and has organized by Cageprisoners,an anti-Guantanamo human rights organization created in 2003 by, among others, attorney Clive Stafford Smith and Begg, to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

As noted in my book Inside Gitmo, several UK activists including actress Vanessa Redgrave, are advancing the proposal that Begg stand in election for a seat in Parliament.

Australia: No to US Request to Resettle Guantanamo Uighers Down Under

Australia’s Rudd government has turned down two official requests from US officials to resettle 17 Chinese Uigher detainees in Oz. Apparently bowing to Beijing pressure (though a Rudd spokesperson denied this), Australia has selected the safe choice, turning down the Uighers, rather than risk angering its northern neighbor.

“Any suggestion that the Government’s decision was taken in response to pressure from any other country is wrong,” the spokeswoman was quoted in the Australian.

Even cursory digging, however, revealed several strong diplomatic demarches from the People’s Republic on the issue. China has remained adamant on the issue of repatriation of the Uighers.

“We have said on many occasions that the 17 terrorist suspects detained at the US military base of Guantanamo are members of the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is listed as a terrorist group by the UN Security Council,” a spokesman is quoted as saying.

“The Chinese Government requires these terrorist suspects be repatriated to China. We firmly oppose any countries receiving these people.”

Readers of this space will note that these are the same 17 Uigher detainees that Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered released into Washington, DC and Tallahassee, FL in early December 2008. That decision is still under appeal by the US government.

Shopping out Guantanamo Detainees

Add the United Kingdom to the list of European countries supposedly considering accepting some Guantanamo detainees. The most recent piece from the AP is here.

Once again, for those expecting that the Europeans are generously going to take our problems off our hands, attention is called to this line in the article: “Several European nations have said they are considering taking inmates who cannot be returned to their own countries because of the risk of persecution.”

Those detainees are relatively few in number, perhaps 20 or more. They are the easy ones, considered no longer a threat (for example, see previous blog entries on Uighers on this site).

What about the tough cases? So far no country has been willing to accept them, or for that matter even consider accepting them. Our various Coalition allies in Afghanistan and Iraq have been only too willing to turn detainees over to US custody (then some complain vociferously about Gitmo. But none have to date been even open to housing them on their own soil.

Given that condition, does it make sense then to remove them from Guantanamo where they are safely and humanely held, to US soil where they will become targets for activists and fellow terrorists to liberate them?

This is the crux of the Guantanamo problem that is going to stick in the throats of those who say casually that the facility ought to be closed.

Relocation will be the primary point of future debates – sure to be forthcoming after Jan 20 – over Guantanamo.