Obama shuts down Gitmo, CIA prisons

[bascule]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28788175/

 

Shortly after halting trials for those imprisoned at Gitmo, Obama has officially announced he is shutting it down.

 

Words cannot express how happy I am about this. Gitmo was a big black eye on America's international image and one of those things that made me ashamed to have associated with the government of my country.

 

I feel better about America today.

[padren]

Obama's rather simple quote "We intend to win this fight. We're going to win it on our terms." in there really exemplifies why I've been waiting for this as well as why I've really been unhappy with the previous Administration's policy.

 

It really is a breath of fresh air.

[Pangloss]

I think he's being smart about it, too. He's not just shuffling these people off to another prison, or worse, assuming them all to be innocent and releasing them*. Each case will be thoroughly examined for potential for prosecution in a normal court of law, and those cases which are supported by evidence and potential for conviction will be brought before a judge. You know, kinda like things are supposed to go?

 

*(Gee, guess Bill Ayers wasn't all that influential after all -- did you catch that, Rush Limbaugh?)

[DJBruce]

I am happy that it is shut down and that the detainees will finally stand trial. But I feel like there might be a fight when it comes time to decide were to detain these prisoners as I don't see any people wanting them near them.

[SH3RL0CK]

Gitmo had to be closed because of the public image of it, but a new one will be opened. Ultimately, there will be a new Gitmo (although it may be in Afghanistan), although it may be run differently and may provide more transparency and some additional protections for those interned there. I think this is inevitable given that we have confirmed AQ fighters that we must keep somewhere. But where?

 

For example, the AQ combatant might claim to be a Saudi citizen, but Saudi Arabia might deny that he is a citizen of Saudi Arabia and not accept him. Who is lying? And in this case, I think everyone would agree we shouldn't send him there.

 

Should we turn him loose? Of course not!

 

Can we just kill them? Of course we can't do that either. We caught them so now we have to keep them.

 

Should we bring him into this country? I'd rather not do that.

It gives the AQ member our full constitutional guarantees (I'm ok with that treatment in principle, but in practice it becomes much more problematic. I'd rather give them this good treatment as a priviledge rather than a right).

 

But this also grants the possibility of bail (an AQ member free on our streets, just imagine!). Even without bail (once decided by a judge), there would be visits with "friends" where mischief can be arranged. Also it provides the possibility of him talking with the media, including media not particularly friendly to the west which could easily turn into a PR nightmare (they could rip a page out of the Koran and blame the prison guard for example). Especially if the AQ member finds a way to kill himself (of course it would be protrayed that the US murdered him). And don't think AQ won't take full advantage of all these. Now maybe there are ways to address all of these concerns, but it changes the game much, much more to their advantage.

 

Then there is the option of a Gitmo like facility where we can have the best of all the above without any of the downsides.

[ecoli]

The conservative pundits were going crazy this morning, because apparently, Obama doesn't yet have all the details worked out yet... like where the prisoners are going to go, what we'd do with Bin Laden, etc.

 

Its as if they think we're just going to give these guys AK-47s and drop them off at the nearest elementary school.

 

I, for one, am happy with Obama's first action as president. Enjoy it while it lasts, Obama

 

As a side note, I got an interesting feeling today when listening to the news... I wasn't really politically aware for Bush sr. or Clinton (I was 1 when Regan left office) so hearing about "the president" and not associating that with Bush was a surprisingly good feeling.

[doG]

I think he's being smart about it, too. He's not just shuffling these people off to another prison, or worse, assuming them all to be innocent and releasing them*. Each case will be thoroughly examined for potential for prosecution in a normal court of law, and those cases which are supported by evidence and potential for conviction will be brought before a judge. You know, kinda like things are supposed to go?

 

*(Gee, guess Bill Ayers wasn't all that influential after all -- did you catch that, Rush Limbaugh?)

 

What law? What judge? I question the jurisdictional authority of any U.S. judge to preside over any foreign prisoner of war captured on foreign soil. Many of the Gitmo detainees are foreign fighters captured in Afghanistan. Whose law would they be accountable under?

[Pangloss]

My answer to your question is "the laws that pertain to citizens of the US." That's right, they're not citizens, but we're applying citizen-style due process to them anyway. Not to be rude, but you might as well be complaining that the sky is blue.

 

If you want a different answer to be applied then I suggest you convince more conservatives not to mope and whine about the Republican candidates when the next election comes around.

Edited January 22, 2009 by Pangloss

[doG]

My answer to your question is "the laws that pertain to citizens of the US." That's right, they're not citizens, but we're applying citizen-style due process to them anyway. Not to be rude, but you might as well be complaining that the sky is blue.

 

If you want a different answer to be applied then I suggest you convince more conservatives not to mope and whine about the Republican candidates when the next election comes around.

 

Is it against U.S. law to fight against the U.S. on foreign soil? I'm not aware of any U.S. laws that would apply. IMO it's time for the new President to decide if the war declared on terror is in fact a legitimate declaration of war or not. If it is then these detainees are prisoners of war and should be treated as such. If it's not then the war is over these detainees should be returned to their homelands unless it can be should that they are suspected of committing war crimes. Either way the judicial branch of the U.S. has no jurisdiction over them.

[Pangloss]

Yeah that's what Manuel Noriega's lawyers said. At any rate, it's a legally underfined (or underdefined) area. Which means that if it doesn't have that authority yet then it's about to acquire it. Welcome to the new reality.

 

Again, if you want to shape policy, win an election.

[ParanoiA]

If it is then these detainees are prisoners of war and should be treated as such. If it's not then the war is over these detainees should be returned to their homelands unless it can be should that they are suspected of committing war crimes. Either way the judicial branch of the U.S. has no jurisdiction over them.

 

But they're not prisoners of war though, at least per the Geneva Convention.

 

To qualify under the Third Geneva Convention, a combatant must have conducted military operations according to the laws and customs of war, be part of a chain of command, wear a "fixed distinctive marking, visible from a distance" and bear arms openly. Thus, uniforms and/or badges are important in determining prisoner-of-war status; and francs-tireurs, "terrorists", saboteurs, mercenaries and spies may not qualify.

 

And, apparently they're not a combatant either...

 

If a combatant does not follow the law of war (like terrorists), then they are considered an unlawful combatant[1][2'], and upon capture they do not qualify for prisoner of war status.[3]

 

They're more like an unlawful combatant...

 

An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict under the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action.[1]

 

Which appears to be Obama's plan.

 

However you are certainly right about them being treated as POW's:

 

The Geneva Conventions apply in wars between two or more states. Article 5 of the GCIII states that the status of a detainee may be determined by a "competent tribunal." Until such time, he is to be treated as a prisoner of war.[2'] After a "competent tribunal" has determined his status, the "Detaining Power" may choose to accord the detained unlawful combatant the rights and privileges of a POW, as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so.

 

But, I won't pretend to have combed through all of this detail. The subject came up at work today since I kept referring to them as prisoners of war, so I was doing some reading on it.

[bascule]

It appears Obama's hit a major snag closing Gitmo: case files for many of the detainees are nonexistent or in disarray:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/24/AR2009012401702.html

[Pangloss]

Well that's not good.

 

There's a serious lack of detail in that story. I want the two-hour Frontline version -- right f'ing now, dangit. But yeah, they absolutely have the right to make their own determinations here in terms of prosecutions, and they deserve the full and complete available information. I hope they were given everything that was available. This country doesn't need another 18.5 minute gap.

[bascule]

It would appear that Obama will not be able to make the promised January 22nd, 2010 closure date of Gitmo due to lack of funds:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/19/guantanamo.detainees/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

 

Senate Democrats, acting to mitigate criticism from Republicans, are withholding the required funds.

 

Would closing Gitmo not save money in the long run? I don't get it. This seems like some rather myopic penny pinching.

[iNow]

This was a pretty hot topic during the Sunday morning political shows this weekend. There are a few issues as I understand it.

 

One is the concern that we'd be "releasing these terrorists into US neighborhoods." I personally (I'm sure like most of you) find that concern rather lacking since we have existing terrorists in our jails (think about guys like the shoe bomber, the unibomber, whatever... they're safely secured, so no issues AFAIK) and we also have those Supermax prisons. I'm not worried about our ability to "keep them secured" and "locked down." ... not one bit.

 

Two is the fact that we simply don't have good evidence on many of these guys. Most of these guys were captured on the battlefield, in distant countries, by operatives who tend to be pretty secretive... The point being, it's not like we have DNA evidence and stuff like that to make the case against them.

 

Which leads to a third point... our primary court systems aren't really able to use the normal procedures and approaches for that very reason... we don't have things like proper evidence and CSI type stuff. A large number of these guys would likely be let go in our normal court system, despite the fact that we know they're guilty and also that they'd jump right back into killing our guys if they were released... a release which is likely since there's a lack of clear normal evidence against so many.

 

On top of that, much information which we do have about them is classified... the things we know about these prisoners is often top secret, and is information which cannot exactly be shared with judges, lawyers, and especially juries... So, there's that.

 

What we do have is a military trial system of sorts (tribunals) and we should rely on that to get it done. Problem there is, it's a bit of a joke. I tend to agree with the criticisms the main guy from the ACLU (Anthony Ramero) made on Face The Nation this weekend about that particular point (that the tribunals are a joke and a far cry from being a good system of trial... though, I tended to disagree with a few of Ramero's other points)... It's humorous how far from a good trial system that is, but I think we could make that work. Essentially, while currently rather broken, I think that's ultimately going to be our best option if we put some smart guidelines in place first.

 

As for the "pinching pennies" idea, I'm not sold that this serves as an accurate description of what's happening. We spent a bunch of money building Guantanamo and it's courtrooms for military commissions (a few hundred million) and since it's already equipped with the court-like system we may as well use it... especially considering the issues I tried to articulate above.

 

... It's just that we can't likely get it all done by January. Most everyone agrees that we need to close Gitmo, it's just that we're seeing now why the timeline which was set may be too aggressive. Jim Webb expressed it best from my perspective. He was on This Week and spoke clearly and plainly about it.

 

Okay... I'm rambling... I got interrupted mid-post with a call so I'll stop and revisit this after it's had a few responses.

 

So, please let me know if you think I missed anything or made any misrepresentations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: Okay, I've just taken care of the insulin reaction I didn't realize I was having, and also actually read Bascules article. This is just one big case of NIMBY, and they're using their power to pull funds, and their ability to stir up fear in their pea brained constitutiuents ("OMG! Obama wants to send terrorists to your kids pre-school to have sex with them!") to make that happen. Like I said, pretty silly considering we've got Supermax prisons and the like. Oh well.

Edited May 20, 2009 by iNow

[Pangloss]

This is becoming an interesting political fight between Democratic rivals. The Harry Reid faction is pursuing a NIMBY strategy, wanting no more terrorists in US prisons. The Diane Feinstein (and Obama) faction thinks that's a safe approach (it's already used for some of the convicted ones like the shoe bomber), and that we should proceed with closure. Obama stood right in front of the actual Constitution today to rebuke the Senate's 90-6 rebuke of him yesterday, delivering a speech from within in the National Archives -- a very symbolic move.

 

Both sides seem to have their points, but Harry Reid's argument seems to me to be the weaker of the two. Surely something needs to be done to move forward and get this stuff resolved, and to just say "not in the US" doesn't help anything. The situation is what it is, and it has to be dealt with.

 

My two bits anyway.

[SH3RL0CK]

Weak argument or not, 90-6 is a very substantial majority of the Senate.

 

I had thought Obama had worked out what to do with the detainees prior to announcing the closure of Gitmo by placing at least some of them somewhere else overseas. Perhaps at a military base in Afghanistan or Iraq. But that doesn't seem to be acceptable now (maybe the Senate won't authorize funds for this either). At any rate, another "Gitmo" would probably be a public relations nightmare anyway. I don't know what Obama does next, but I don't see any options available to him. This could, unfortunately, get ugly for Obama.

[Mokele]

So, let me get the NIMBY reasoning straight:

 

If you squeeze off a few rounds at US troops in Afganistan, you're a menace that no penal system can hold, especially not anywhere near civilization.

 

If you upholster your chair in human skin, we have no problem with putting you in a facility within a few miles of a major city and all the corpses you can desecrate.

[Pangloss]

Like I said, both sides have their points. It's not exactly NIMBY in the usual sense -- these are dangerous people and there will be a significant cost and danger in housing them. Are Bascule and Phi for All in greater danger because Richard Reid is in Colorado SuperMax? It's a reasonable argument to make.

 

But they have to go somewhere. If we've already determined that they can't remain at Guantanamo Bay, where do we put them?

[Mr Skeptic]

How about the guy who took a bite of his dad's brain? If he's not to dangerous to keep here, then who is?

[Pangloss]

How about the guy who took a bite of his dad's brain? If he's not to dangerous to keep here, then who is?

 

Well that's amusing rhetoric, but why do you feel we're safer if they are left where they are? Do you feel that the 90 miles between Cuba and Florida provides some sort of protective barrier (surely I don't need to address that one, do I?), or is it that you feel Guantanamo Bay is somehow more secure than a Federal Supermax prison?

[bascule]

It was funny to see that New York was one of the few states who volunteered to house the detainees.

 

It's a rather strange lens that the rest of the US sees the 9/11 attacks through. While many Americans cower in fear, New Yorkers are not afraid.

[SH3RL0CK]

I don't see the rejection necessarily based upon fear. There is a certain...I'll use the word dislike (different than fear - maybe closer to hatred)...for the detainees at Gitmo by many Americans. This is probably due to the fact that many (but I doubt all, unfortunately) of these detainees are Al Queda.

 

Still, Pangloss is right (post # 19). If there isn't enough time to bring a trial for all these people and if we can't keep these people at Gitmo, and if we can't bring them into the USA, and if we can't send them to other countries, and if we can't just turn them loose; what do we do with them?

Edited May 22, 2009 by SH3RL0CK
correction of typo

[bascule]

If [...] if [...] if [...] if [...] if [...]; what do we do with them?

 

That's a lot of caveats. One or more of them will have to give. That's what.

[Pangloss]

It was funny to see that New York was one of the few states who volunteered to house the detainees.

 

It's a rather strange lens that the rest of the US sees the 9/11 attacks through. While many Americans cower in fear, New Yorkers are not afraid.

 

Unless it's a low-flying 747 with the presidential seal on the side.