Ex-Gitmo detainee reportedly gets al-Qaida role

[SlowwHand]

Bah, the fact that you need to hide behind a bet shows that you have no argument. You're hoping some miracle will occur and you will use that to justify your nonsense. But it doesn't matter. It's still nonsense. You are a weak coward.

You're a little girl. You whine because they're not released, then whine because of early release. You probably get a nose-bleed every 28 days.
Just stick a tampon up those nostrils and leave.

[snoopy369]

Avatar bet >> money bet.

[Boris Godunov]

Sloww finally starting to recognize the Bush Administration ****-ups that endangered our country

[DaShi]

You're a little girl. You whine because they're not released, then whine because of early release. You probably get a nose-bleed every 28 days.
Just stick a tampon up those nostrils and leave.

I never whinged about them not being released. In fact, I've never whinged about Gitmo on this forum. Getting a little senile in your old age. All I did here was point out that your troll was an own goal. Your reaction was pure wadded pantiage.

[Berzerker]

was this guy a terrorist before or after gitmo?

[Sirotnikov]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275527507711793.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r1:c0.190904:b0

The Laws of War Have Served Us Well
Our armed forces shouldn't have to play catch and release.

By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. and LEE A. CASEY

This week, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the terrorist detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay within the year. It was a symbolic repudiation of the Bush administration's policies, but Gitmo is not the crucial issue. The real question is whether Mr. Obama will uphold the legal architecture necessary to continue the war against al Qaeda and its jihadist allies.

What Mr. Obama's national security team will quickly discover is that the civilian criminal-justice system is an inadequate tool to deal with terrorists. President Bush's policies -- particularly treating captured terrorists as unlawful enemy combatants and employing a military court system to try them -- were dictated by the very real need to defend American citizens, not by disdain for the rule of law.


The Bush administration chose the law-of-war paradigm because the international law of armed conflict gives the U.S. maximum flexibility to meet the jihadist threat, including the right to attack and destroy al Qaeda bases and fighters in foreign countries. The alternative legal framework, the civilian criminal-justice system, is unsuitable for several key reasons. Civilian criminal suspects quite obviously cannot be targeted for military attack. They can be subjected only to the minimum force necessary to effect an arrest. They cannot -- consistent with international law -- be pursued across national boundaries. And finally, they are entitled to a speedy trial in a public courtroom. These rules cannot be ignored or altered without constitutional amendment.

In addition, the type and quality of evidence necessary for convictions in civilian courts is simply unavailable for most captured terrorists. One federal district judge recently concluded that although the government's information on one detainee was sufficient for intelligence purposes -- that is, he presumably could have been targeted for deadly attack -- it was insufficient to hold him without trial.

Trying senior al Qaeda leaders for relatively minor offenses ancillary to their major war crimes (like Al Capone for tax evasion) also is not the answer. Even if convictions and punishments could be obtained in this way, the cause of justice and historic closure requires the perpetrators to be charged with their worst offenses. This view informed the Nuremberg prosecutions.

Many have advocated for the creation of a U.S.-based national security court. Such a court would certainly be subject to constitutional challenge, and likely could not handle the sheer number of detained enemy combatants. A few hundred detainees at Guantanamo is one thing, but U.S. forces have captured and processed thousands of prisoners in the war on terror, and still hold upward of a thousand al Qaeda fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many more to come in the years ahead.

Some changes to the Bush policies are obviously inevitable. But what Mr. Obama must keep in mind is that the laws of war form a relatively seamless web. Different elements -- military detention and prosecution, and robust rules of engagement driven by combat necessities -- reinforce each other. So while he may grant detainees additional due process rights (the courts have already established a right to habeas corpus proceedings for those at Guantanamo), he must continue a system of military detention for most of the captured fighters.

That's because the law of war requires that enemies be "granted quarter" -- meaning prisoners must be taken if they surrender. But if these prisoners cannot be held until hostilities are concluded and must be released only to fight again, the military would be consigned to a deadly game of catch and release. Without a viable detention regime, the U.S. cannot fairly ask its soldiers to risk their lives in combat any more than we can send in troops with defective equipment.

Since routinely prosecuting captured terrorists in the civilian courts is unrealistic, some sort of military court system for the detainees must be retained, regardless of whether they are called military commissions or special courts martial. This reinvigorated military court system must be directed to begin prosecuting those captured enemy fighters that have committed war crimes against American troops or civilians. The fact that none of the individuals now held in U.S. custody in Iraq or Afghanistan has been brought to justice, even in situations where there is sufficient evidence to prosecute them, is historically unprecedented and a slap in the face of the U.S. troops fighting this war. Giving de facto immunity to war criminals is also inconsistent with international legal norms. Republicans like Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who have criticized some Bush policies, must make their voices heard here.

This system of detention and military trials must also apply here at home. We cannot limit the military legal paradigm to overseas operations. Al Qaeda has already successfully targeted American territory, and may do so again. Foreign fighters entering the U.S. to carry out attacks should not have rights superior to those on distant, more conventional battlefields. Not only does this double standard create exactly the wrong incentives for our enemies, but it is legally unsustainable. The Supreme Court has indicated a willingness to extend constitutional protections to detainees held where the United States exercises a sufficient level of control, and this ruling can easily be extended beyond Gitmo.

Finally, the new administration cannot behave as if the military justice system for detainees is shameful, like some crazy uncle in the attic. These are legitimate laws of war and should be treated as such.

Mr. Bush's opponents have denigrated this system for nearly eight years. Many of them have now assumed power, and with power comes responsibility -- especially when it comes to protecting Americans from their enemies.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey are Washington, D.C., lawyers who served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

[SlowwHand]

Sloww finally starting to recognize the Bush Administration ****-ups that endangered our country

Would you like to get in on a bet, or are you all mouth like DaShi?
Do you prefer an avatar bet over cold cash? Whatever floats your dingy.

[SlowwHand]

I never whinged about them not being released. In fact, I've never whinged about Gitmo on this forum. Getting a little senile in your old age. All I did here was point out that your troll was an own goal. Your reaction was pure wadded pantiage.

All you do is run your mouth. Put up, in some manner, or STFU, DaShi.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Man, this is making my head hurt. Let me see if I've got this straight:

1) The Bush Administration grabs some guy they think is a terrorist
2) They send him to Gitmo and get all Jack Bauer on his ass
3) Oops! They were wrong!
4) Having turned this guy into a ticking time-bomb of anti-Americanism, they release him into the wild
5) Surprise! Now he's a terrorist!

Ok, that part I think I follow. But now we get to Sloww's argument, which seems to have two parts:

1) Bush tortured a guy and let him go scot-free, and now he's a terrorist; therefore Obama's plan to close Gitmo and detain these guys in a more conventional manner -- including putting them in another military prison and/or a supermax facility -- endangers America.

2) Therefore, everyone at Gitmo should be kept there forever, even though some people there were innocent parties caught up in Bush/Cheney indiscriminate madness -- a fact that the Bush administration itself effectively acknowledged when they released this guy.

All-righty then.

[Sirotnikov]

Nowhere in this article was it made clear that he wasn't a terrorist before or that he was released because he was found to be innocent.

There was huge partisan pressure to reduce the number of gitmo prisoners, so I assume they released people who they could not convict in a court of law.

the article I posted makes sense of this argument:

The alternative legal framework, the civilian criminal-justice system, is unsuitable for several key reasons. Civilian criminal suspects quite obviously cannot be targeted for military attack. They can be subjected only to the minimum force necessary to effect an arrest. They cannot -- consistent with international law -- be pursued across national boundaries. And finally, they are entitled to a speedy trial in a public courtroom. These rules cannot be ignored or altered without constitutional amendment.

In addition, the type and quality of evidence necessary for convictions in civilian courts is simply unavailable for most captured terrorists. One federal district judge recently concluded that although the government's information on one detainee was sufficient for intelligence purposes -- that is, he presumably could have been targeted for deadly attack -- it was insufficient to hold him without trial.

[BeBMan]

I think everyone should be imprisoned. You can never be sure if people don't turn terrorist later, so we better deal with them before it happens

[Dr Strangelove]

Is it really clear that he was a terrorist prior to his capture?

Is it conceivable that someone who was falsely imprisoned for 6 or 7 years, whose life was utterly derailed, who was tortured and denied human rights, might turn terrorist after being released.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090124/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_al_qaida_14

According to the Pentagon, at least 18 former Guantanamo detainees have "returned to the fight" and 43 others are suspected of resuming terrorist activities. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell declined to provide the identity of the former detainees or say what their terrorist activities were.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_al_qaida;_ylt=AsmnvIws3krM7C_pDP8QAaYLewgF

But Rep. Pete Hoekstra, of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the executive order Obama signed Thursday to close the facility as "very short on specifics."

Interviewed on the same program, he said there are indications that as many as 10 percent of the men released from Guantanamo are "back on the battlefield. They are attacking American troops."

IIRC more than 500 alleged terrorists have passed through Gitmo. Only 250 remain. Of the released 18 are said "to have returned to the fight", 43 are suspected to have joined or resumed terrorist activities. To me that means that less than 1 in 4, and possibly as few as 1 in 10 of the detainees were hard-core terrorists. How long did it take to clear the other 220 to 190 innocents? Three, four, five, six years is to long to hold a mere suspect.

Anyone here ever heard of the Fifth Amendment? Back in the good old days, before the American Revolution, a suspect could be compelled to testify to the court's satisfaction. In practice this meant he could be held in prison until he confessed. This was one of the reasons why there was an American Revolution.

[SlowwHand]

Man, this is making my head hurt. Let me see if I've got this straight:

[Sirotnikov]

I think everyone should be imprisoned. You can never be sure if people don't turn terrorist later, so we better deal with them before it happens

People weren't imprisoned by chance.
They were captured during fighting against terrorist bases.

[Sirotnikov]

Is it really clear that he was a terrorist prior to his capture?

Is it conceivable that someone who was falsely imprisoned for 6 or 7 years, whose life was utterly derailed, who was tortured and denied human rights, might turn terrorist after being released.

given that neither version is explained in the text, this is speculation, just as my speculation is.