A post by Pat
A December Defense Intelligence report says 61 released Gitmo detainees have returned to terrorism. Human rights groups say the Pentagon is making it up. Most of the detainees are just unfortunates who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and now the Pentagon is engaged in fear mongering. If it was all a terrible misunderstanding you have to wonder why the carping Europeans are squeamish about taking in released inmates. The U.N. made an appeal for more countries to take in detainees but most European nations declined citing national security concerns.
Reports indicate Obama will be wasting no time in closing the facility. So where do the rest of the inmates go?
Pentagon: 61 ex-Guantanamo inmates return to terrorism
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as “returning to the fight” and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Morrell declined to provide details such as the identity of the former detainees, why and where they were released or what actions they have taken since leaving U.S. custody.
“This is acts of terrorism. It could be Iraq, Afghanistan, it could be acts of terrorism around the world,” he told reporters.
Rights advocates said the lack of details should call the Pentagon’s assertions into question.
“Until enough information is provided to allow the press and the public to verify these claims, they need to be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism,” said Jennifer Daskal, a Washington-based lawyer for Human Rights Watch.
“The Defense Department sees that the Guantanamo detention operation has failed and they are trying to launch another fear mongering campaign to justify the indefinite detention of detainees there,” said Jamil Dakwar, human rights director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office next Tuesday, is expected to issue an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also favors shuttering Guantanamo.
But the prison is unlikely to shut until after U.S. officials settle a myriad of legal and logistic issues, including a solution on where to house its occupants.
So how about it Europe? Ready to show some solidarity with Obama?
We all knew this was coming. The rabid left is so committed to turning back the abilities of NSA, the CIA, and the FBI. God Forbid, we waterboarded a few of them, didn’t we?
Why doesn’t he consult Terry Anderson or David Jacobsen first. Better yet, ask the family of Nick Berg, because that is the level evil we are dealing with here.
It’s going to fun to watch how he sputters through this dilemma. Chances are he’ll settle for one of his (no questions) grand speeches. Watch for him to side-slip in and out of Geneva Convention and then declare amnesty for them as the country is void of legal solutions.
That Ms. Daskal thinks, “Until enough information is provided to allow the press…” The Press? Admittedly now to be a branch of government – well at least a branch of his administration.
I know I’m stretching it, but he certainly doesn’t want to – doesn’t have the tuff – to deal with it.
As to the other sticky-wicket? Renditions started under Bill Clinton – because he didn’t want to deal with interrogation methods. Out of sight, out of conscience. Neither judicial review, appeals nor cuisine options. Just here one day, gone the next.
The concern is that this legal chain of events will result in terrorists being released — except that nobody will take them, and so they’ll have to be released here in America. That’s where this is leading, step by step. The war on terror will culminate with the worst murderers in the world having been gathered up and turned loose on the American public. But the good new is the world will like us again.
Release them in Berkeley. Or anywhere in the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction. Or wherever the loudest – but of course most tolerant – of the liberals who are calling for the closure of Gitmo live. If these people are so convinced that the prisoners are innocent victims of GWB, let them be their neighbors.
Good call, chicagogal.
They want to shut down Gitmo.
No one else on the planet wants the prisoners.
They might end up staying here.
They hate America more than before.
Iran is expected to have nuclear capabilities by now (unless Israel takes them out).
Now add to the list a weaker national security and dirty bombs.
They’re already on Cuban territory, so what exactly would be the problem with just kicking them out the front gates of Gitmo and making them Fidel and Raul Castro’s problem? Better that than release them in the US.
read a few lib blogs and they are just so excited that gitmo is closing. what can i say people are stupid.