Americans voted for Change

[Drake Tungsten]

You don't know what you're talking about.

[Traianvs]

Right... and that's coming from the man quoting http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ire_96416.html

The theory of which Obey speaks is that someone on the O-Team actually has a plan for where to put the 241 terrorists currently detained at the facility. Thus far, no other nation has volunteered to unburden Mr.
Obama of the problem he created for himself during last year's presidential campaign and by issuing his increasingly dubious executive order. Until now, there was talk of moving some to high-security prisons in the United States, sending others to their "home countries" and simply releasing the detainees who no longer are considered to be "terrorists."

I don't know where the author got his information, but this is so blatantly wrong. Many European countries are willing to accept prisoners, under certain circumstances of course. I know from personal experience that talks have been made with Belgian officials for example. I won't dwell on this for too long, since it's obvious you don't know what you're talking about.

[Drake Tungsten]

You're such a moron. Some pissant Euro country doesn't equal the "home country" of the terrorist and no American president in his right mind would ever release a dangerous terrorist to some pussified Euro country that will just let them go free.

[Traianvs]

What in the nine hells are you talking about.

Of the 240 (your source is not even correct there) prisoners still at Gitmo, only a small minority are viewed as dangerous terrorists. Concerning the problem "Obama created for himself": government is actually requesting European govs to accept a number of prisoners who can't return to their home countries because they run a high risk of being detained and tortured there.

They won't release people like Zubaydah because they're genuine enemy masterminds, nor will they send them to Europe. The problem like I said is the evidence gathered from interrogations won't hold in a civil court, due to the torture involved. That's Obama's problem due to Bush' legacy.

Other than that, the remaining people who have been detained on false allegations will be released no matter what, be it in Europe, US or their home country. I never implied Obama would release or transfer terrorists just like that. You OTOH are just assuming every detainee in Gitmo was a terrorist, proving once again you're an ignorant **** on this subject.

[Drake Tungsten]

Yep, they sure aren't terrorists...

1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds

WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.

The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against the transfer or release of any more detainees as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail.

The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.”

Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo. ...

Previous assertions by the Pentagon that substantial numbers of former Guantánamo prisoners had returned to terrorism were sharply criticized by civil liberties and human rights groups who said the information was too vague to be credible and amounted to propaganda in favor of keeping the prison open. The Pentagon began making the assertions in 2007 but stopped earlier this year, shortly before Mr. Obama took office.

Among the 74 former prisoners that the report says are again engaged in terrorism, 29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report. The Pentagon has said that the remaining 45 could not be named because of national security and intelligence-gathering concerns.

In the report, the Pentagon confirmed that two former Guantánamo prisoners whose terrorist activities had been previously reported had indeed returned to the fight. They are Said Ali al-Shihri, a leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch suspected in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, last year, and Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, an Afghan Taliban commander, who also goes by the name Mullah Abdullah Zakir.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21gitmo.html

[Drake Tungsten]

This is so awesome. Obama is actually considering becoming worse than Bush...

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan

WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. ...

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html

[Theben]

Maybe he really does want America to become socialist.

Btw, there are cities and states across the U.S. that would be happy to incarcerate the suspects for a fee.

[Drake Tungsten]

Obama

The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials...

In the past 10 months, for example, about a half-dozen midlevel financiers and logistics experts working with Al Qaeda have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services, a former American counterterrorism official said...

The current approach, which began in the last two years of the Bush administration and has gained momentum under Mr. Obama, is driven in part by court rulings and policy changes that have closed the secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and all but ended the transfer of prisoners from outside Iraq and Afghanistan to American military prisons.

Human rights advocates say that relying on foreign governments to hold and question terrorist suspects could carry significant risks. It could increase the potential for abuse at the hands of foreign interrogators and could also yield bad intelligence, they say.

The fate of many terrorist suspects whom the Bush administration sent to foreign countries remains uncertain. One suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured by the C.I.A. in late 2001 and sent to Libya, was recently reported to have died there in Libyan custody...

Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., said in February that the agency might continue its program of extraordinary rendition, in which captured terrorism suspects are transferred to other countries without extradition proceedings.

He said the C.I.A. would be likely to continue to transfer detainees from their place of capture to other countries, either their home countries or nations that intended to bring charges against them.

As a safeguard against torture, Mr. Panetta said, the United States would rely on diplomatic assurances of good treatment. The Bush administration sought the same assurances, which critics say are ineffective.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/world/24intel.html

Sucks for the detainees who are going to actually get tortured thanks to this policy, but good for America.

[Traianvs]

They were already tortured in America's secret prisons. It's not like much has changed since then..

[Drake Tungsten]

I'd much rather be "tortured" by the Americans than actually tortured by the Egyptians or Libyans.

[Riesstiu IV]

As I've said many times before, America doesn't "torture", we freedom tickle.

[Traianvs]

your article states it already:

The fate of many terrorist suspects whom the Bush administration sent to foreign countries remains uncertain. One suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured by the C.I.A. in late 2001 and sent to Libya, was recently reported to have died there in Libyan custody...

Although from now on indeed Americans won't need to get nasty themselves, these practices were ongoing for a long time already. In other terms nothing much, well nothing really essential, has changed.

Oh well this entire obsessive fixation on terrorists is pretty pathetic anyways.

[Riesstiu IV]

They should be honored that the American government takes an interest in them in the first place.

[Drake Tungsten]

In other terms nothing much, well nothing really essential, has changed.

No ****. Now, read the title of this thread and maybe you'll understand why this lack of change between the Bush and Obama administrations might be considered important by many people...

[Traianvs]

Yeah, otoh seems we're in a bit of a disagreement regarding why certain elements of that policy can't be amended at once. I've pointed out why, but you're adamant in your disability to face some of the underlying facts, such as the ones I adressed in #465 for example. But,.. that's just you eh.