Originally published on Sunday, December 21, 2008
Source: Seattle Post-Intellibencer
Tags: Abu Ghraib, Debt, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Economy, Environment, George Bush, Government, Guantánamo, Karl Rove, Politics, U.S., Unemployment, Wall Street
Are the US afraid that they treated those people so bad that they might have created some ‘real terrorists’?
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More than a fifth of the 250 remaining inmates face persecution or death if they are sent back home
America is putting increasing pressure on Britain and other European countries to take in dozens of Guantánamo detainees so that Barack Obama can close down the infamous prison camp.
The issue threatens to be an early test of relations with the President-elect, who has stated that shutting Guantánamo will be one of the top priorities for his incoming administration.
John Bellinger, the chief legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, told The Times that the US had been seeking help from European allies in resettling detainees who were regarded as posing no threat to the West but could not be sent back to their own countries.
A senior State Department official confirmed that the response from Britain and most European Union members had been to refuse. Mr Bellinger said: “It is not helpful for countries to keep calling for the closure of Guantánamo while doing nothing to enable us to do it.”
More than a fifth of the 250 remaining Guantánamo inmates are Chinese, Libyan, Russian, Tunisian or Uzbek nationals who might face persecution or death if they are sent back home. Albania has taken in a handful of Uighurs, who are part of an Islamic separatist movement in a remote western region of China, and Portugal said this week that it was ready to provide a home for others. Luis Amado, the Foreign Minister, said: “The time has come for the European Union to step forward.”
Tags: Barack Obama, Government, Guantánamo, Politics, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S.
The physical and mental abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the direct result of Bush administration detention policies and should not be dismissed as the work of bad guards or interrogators, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Thursday.
The Senate Armed Services Committee report concludes that harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA and the U.S. military were directly adapted from the training techniques used to prepare special forces personnel to resist interrogation by enemies that torture and abuse prisoners. The techniques included forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, and until 2003, waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.
The report is the result of a nearly two-year investigation that directly links President Bush’s policies after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, legal memos on torture, and interrogation rule changes with the abuse photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq four years ago. Much of the report remains classified. Unclassified portions of the report were released by the committee Thursday.
Tags: Abu Ghraib, Abuse, Afghanistan, Bush administration, CIA, Crimes, George Bush, Government, Guantánamo, Interrogation, Iraq, Military, Politics, Torture
There are about 250 detainees at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. President-elect Barack Obama has said he wants to close the detention center. (By Brennan Linsley — Associated Press)
The Obama administration will launch a review of the classified files of the approximately 250 detainees at Guantanamo Bay immediately after taking office, as part of an intensive effort to close the U.S. prison in Cuba, according to people who advised the campaign on detainee issues.
Announcing the closure of the controversial detention facility would be among the most potent signals the incoming administration could send of its sharp break with the Bush era, according to the advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the president-elect. They believe the move would create a global wave of diplomatic and popular goodwill that could accelerate the transfer of some detainees to other countries.
But the advisers, as well as outside national security and legal experts, said the new administration will face a thicket of legal, diplomatic, political and logistical challenges to closing the prison and prosecuting the most serious offenders in the United States — an effort that could take many months or longer. Among the thorniest issues will be how to build effective cases without using evidence obtained by torture, an issue that attorneys for the detainees will almost certainly seek to exploit.
Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Barack Obama, Bush administration, Cuba, Guantánamo, Human Rights, Politics, Terrorism, Torture, U.S.
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The CIA can hide statements made by the terror suspects that the spy agency has tortured in its secret prisons, a federal judge has ruled.
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the Washington D.C. Circuit Court declined to review torture allegations from men held in the CIA’s prisons-because it could put the nation at risk of grave danger if allowed to be made public.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it filed in March, a Freedom of Information Act request for the documents from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which decide if prisoners at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, qualify as “enemy combatants.”
Tags: ACLU, Bush administration, CIA, Civil liberties, Freedom of Information Act, Government, Guantánamo, Interrogation, Iraq, Politics, Terrorism, Terrorists, Torture, U.S.
WASHINGTON - Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials.
Mr. Bush’s top advisers held a series of meetings at the White House this summer after a Supreme Court ruling in June cast doubt on the future of the American detention center. But Mr. Bush adopted the view of his most hawkish advisers that closing Guantánamo would involve too many legal and political risks to be acceptable, now or any time soon, the officials said.
The administration is proceeding on the assumption that Guantánamo will remain open not only for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency but also well beyond, the officials said, as the site for military tribunals of those facing terrorism-related charges and for the long prison sentences that could follow convictions.
Tags: Barack Obama, Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, DHS, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Government, Guantánamo, Homeland Security, John McCain, Politics, Robert Gates, Terrorism, U.S.
A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving President Bush authority to wage war in late 2002 said Vice President Cheney misled him by saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon.
Tags: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, CIA, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, FBI, George Bush, George Tenet, Government, Guantánamo, Iraq, John Ashcroft, Justice Department, Karl Rove, Military, Politics, Saddam Hussein, Surveillance, War, warrantless wiretapping program
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — Hurricane Ike moved past the southern Bahamas on Sunday, carrying high winds and heavy rain as the Category 4 storm surged forward on a track that could take it toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Obenson Etienne walks to his house Sunday in Providenciales, one of the isles in the Turks and Caicos.
The possibility prompted state and local officials in Florida and Louisiana to prepare for what may be the third major storm to affect the Gulf Coast in less than a month.
“Let’s hope it’s all a false alarm,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Sunday as he pre-emptively issued a state of emergency. His state is still recovering from Hurricane Gustav; more than 370,000 people there are still without power, nearly a week after Gustav made landfall, he said.
“There continues to be much uncertainty about the predicted track,” he said of Ike.
On Sunday, President Bush declared a state of emergency in Florida. The hurricane’s outer bands could start affecting the Florida Keys by Monday afternoon.
Tags: Bahamas, Cuba, Environment, Flood, Florida, George Bush, Government, Guantánamo, Haiti, Hurricane, Politics, U.S.
Mexican soldiers guard cocaine at the crash site
MEXICO CITY (AFP) - A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA “rendition” flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.
As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain’s choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.
Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Bush administration, Civil liberties, Civil rights, Congress, George Bush, Government, Guantánamo, Law, Military, New World Order, NSA, Police State, Politics, Privacy, Surveillance, Taliban, Terrorism, U.S., War, warrantless eavesdropping, warrantless wiretapping program
