Yes we ca...uh, hang on a minute...

droog

Why should Obama use or even address the term "enhanced interrogation techniques"? The term was coined by the Bush administration as an euphemism for torture. Using a term that was not codified into law before W's regime only legitimises the practices of the past administration.

Obama does not need to define torture, he never had to. The USA has many pieces of legislation which already do that. The point is that Bush chose to break those laws invoking an unprecedented and untrue amount of executive authority. It is therefore not Obama's job to define what Congress has legislated already, much less via a hasty Executive Order issued in his first week in office.

stanley Jerusalem

Frankly after eight years' waiting one might have thought that the resources of the United States would have finished prosecuting all of them.Or failing that, releasing them.
That seems to present the greatest mystery and it is not addressed by Obama's actions.

jeremy goldman

It will certainly not be a dull world ...

An Internet posting purportedly by al-Qaida in Yemen says the group's second in command is a Saudi national released from Guantanamo in 2008.

The posting by the Yemeni group - known as "al-Qaida in Arabian Peninsula" - surfaced on jihadi Web sites that regularly carry al-Qaida messages.

It says the man returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo and from there went to Yemen to join the terror group.

He was identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, said to be his real name, and also as Abu Suffyyan al-Azdi al-Shihri, a nom de guerre. It says his prisoner number in Guantanamo was 372.

The statement says al-Shihri attended a meeting of al-Qaida commanders in Yemen during which the top leader gave an interview to a local journalist.

Raymond Joseph Douglas

Apparently, we are in line to take inmates of Guantanamo off America's hands ! As if we didn't have our hands full with the home grown crop of Islamic terrorist's in this country !

Laura

Obama must pander to the poisonous Leftist media who did so much to get him in there so there has to be the appearance of 'change'.

Of course, once you're in office and you have to start joining the dots you'll be asked to square the circles that defeated your predecessor and so you have to leave the way back - albeit by a different route, so we have our 'change' - to a version of what the status quo was.

So the priority today for Obama and the Leftist media isn't defeating the jihad but burying George Bush.

Pathetic.

Original Tony

Here is a possible scenario of the future:
Nasty militant goes to Guan'mo. Nasty militant is released under 'feel good' new administration. Nasty militant returns to nasty training ground. Nasty militant learns how to press switch to set off suicide bomb. Nasty militant is smuggled into USA and presses switch on first dirty bomb. Nasty militant's friends have put first dirty bomb in Washington. Bye-bye Saint 'O', bye-bye nasty militant.
What else can we do to help us kill ourselves off??

Ronnie

You are pathetic Melanie.

You've been telling us for months how Obama will cave to the terrorists. Now when it is becoming clear that he will not, but rather will leave room for 'appropriate' action to be taken against captured individuals and groups, within the law, you complain about that too.

Bush sought secret and illegal measures because he was too lazy to think through how to deal with these animals within our system of core values. It's a new ball game now and it's going to be legal for a change.

And, Stanley Jeruslem, the reason Bush couldn't prosecute these people was because he was too lazy to set up the proper legal processes to make it happen. Another mess to be cleared up.

Winston Smith

I wonder what's going to happen when a family of Obama luvees, who supported his every step and cheered at the thought of Guantanamo being closed, end up being the victims of one of the post Taliban/Guantanamo/Anti West/detainee suicide bombers? How will America react when it realises that Guantanamo did actually hold people who wanted the destruction of America and the West?
People always ignore the Harbinger of Doom. It also always takes a catastrophe to make change, even though forewarnings were thick and fast in coming.
Remember also that Britain is to take them in too. No doubt, will be given the freedom to walk the UK and plan their next attack on the West.

fellow traveller

There were three possible scenarios once he got elected.

1. Obama in office, no action to change rules of torture/Guantanamo. Cheap blog reaction: you see, he was just saying it to get elected.

2. Obama in office, blanket changes which make action against terrorists all but impossible. Cheap blog reaction: he's a naive idealist, he's soft on terror.

3. Obama in office, takes immediate action to rule out acts he considers immoral, but consults with experienced senior personnel on how to keep up the pressure on terrorists within the boundaries of US and international law. Which is what has happened. But, of course, that's still not good enough.

Your complaint seems to be that he got elected at all: which is fine, but don't dress it up as something else.

Thomas

Ah, yes. Fox News, that paragon of unbiased reporting.

Spike

To summarise Gitmo:

1) we captured bad people and we had to put them somewhere; we chose a place both remote and legally ambiguous until we figured out what to do. (smart, actually)

2) Bush sets up and entire military justice system to handle these kinds of cases and starts military trials; because he believes (correctly) that they are combatants and fall under his jurisdiction. The combatants are given a form of habeus corpus rights; they just aren’t called that because they are not US citizens.

3) a bunch of liberals who hates Bush since 2000 refuse to see the difficult situation and immediately begin labeling Bush a Hitler and comparing GITMO to a gulag; even though it is just a well-run maximum security prison. The keep stating that we’re violating the Geneva conventions, when we clearly are not and they clearly have not read them.

4) The ACLU and all the lib groups sue to stop the trials and they do. The courts say Bush has to have the legislature set up a court system.

5) Congress approves the tribunal setup; not much was changed. But now more congress members are involved and get briefed; which is what makes them more popular at cocktail parties.

6) Trials begin again, but more liberal groups push more lawsuits, until it gets before the supreme court finally — where the lib justice stevens essentially vacates everything that’s happened so far, tells the Bush admin it has to dump them into the civil court system, and assigns them all to one judge to figure out. Stevens provides no standards or direction or anything — just simply tosses it aside and says, “figure something else out”.

7) Trials begin again, because liberals are now whining that some of these people have been locked up for almost 3 years without a trial. BECAUSE OF THEIR LAWSUITS.

Now Obama has halted the trials. He will dump these people into the court system. He doesn’t know how because it can’t be an article 3 court and he doesn’t know what to do with anyone new we capture. He has no clue. Like all you other libs, he believed that GITMO was the Evil Dark Prison. Now he finds out that its just a well-run maximum security prison.

He will have to relocate prisoners into the US. This will require building a new facility to cater to their muslim faith and dietary needs, as well as special security needs. He will build GITMO2. The libs won’t notice or care. Not because it will be run any better, just that Bush isn’t involved.

Over 100 of these inmates have no return country: their homes won’t take them back and no one else will, either. Guess what happens if they don’t get convicted? they are loose on our streets. Over 200 prisoners have been released from GITMO and 44 of them have turned up again killing innocents.

All of this will be on Obama’s hands.

How are you libs going to explain all of this? Do you even understand what’s coming? You libs turned a rather simple affair of processing hardened terrorists with a military tribunal into a political legal nightmare. The fact that you are all proud of what you’ve done and are doing high fives over it is simply obtuse; you are walking into the path of a truck… and if you don’t mind, I’m going to sit over here and watch.

An American

Spike,

Brilliant analysis.

You're right, America deserves everything that's coming its way...and when it happens...the liberals will blame Bush, not 'The One', 'The Messiah', Obama.

phil

Spike honestly do you really think the guilty will not be convicted ? and those that were hoovered up and are innocent(?) shouldn't be set free ?,that is our inheritance ,innocent until proved guilty and we must never give that up -if they are guilty ,which is what I lean to,I would punish them severely ,-Obama seems to me to be going down that route and fellow traveller has said it .Criticise the man when he is wrong and say well done when he is right

Augustus

Yes, I like Mike's way of putting it. and it now seems Obama's inaugural line that "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" was itself misrepresenting the choices his predecessor was forced to make. At least Bush was candid about the practical realities of preventing mass casualties in the US.

Thomas

"we captured bad people and we had to put them somewhere"

What happened to the principles and ideals the writers of your constitution built the country upon? Principles such as innocent until proven guilty.

Adam B.

Thomas, why are unlawful combatants (or terrorists) entitled to civil law proceedings?

An American

Thomas,
The US Marines didn't just pick these men up off some American sidewalk and declare, "you are a terrorist" and ship them to Gitmo.

Most were captured in battle ...trying to kill American soldiers or had strong ties to al-Qaida.

Most Americans don't want them tried in our American courts...these terrorists are not American citizens and the one that was...is now serving time in an American prison.

These terrorists were being tried by a military court...one was recently released for time served. The US military has released hundreds so far with at least 60 going back to their old terror-selves...killing innocent citizens and planning the downfall of western civilization.

Please spare me your naive nonsense.

Conservative Cabbie

More Obama ambiguity it seems.

Day One of Presidency - Obama introduces new ethical regulations banning the hiring of lobbyists within the administration.

Day Two - Obama hires a lobbyist for Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn.

This is going to be a wild ride if Obama's policies only last a day at a time.

Yes we can....change our minds!

Desmond

So all we know from President Obama in effect is 'Bush is bad'.

'What will I, Obama, do better to defend us from the jihadists - I don't know.'

That's just great.

PS, Gerald Warner gets it: "This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right."

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2009/01/20/barack_obama_inauguration_this_emperor_has_no_clothes_it_will_all_end_in_tears

Thomas

"Thomas, why are unlawful combatants (or terrorists) entitled to civil law proceedings?"

Because they are only suspected of doing so. Human rights do not change just because someone uses violence to make a point, however much we may abhorr it - otherwise, surely murderers would be denied the right to a fair trial, and being innocent until proven guilty as well, wouldn't they?

Ronnie

Adam B, they became 'unlawful combatants' when Rumsfeld or whoever dreamnt up the name. They could have been called lollipops or coathangers and it would have had the same force in law.

The point was to call them something that could be used to subvert the legal system, the constitution and international treaties.

In so-doing, Bush handed the terrorists another little victory by helping them attack our core values.

I hope most of you tough guys here are happy with that.

Useful idiots indeed.

phil

On this thread these terrorists are winning the battle -do none of you understand their wish is to be a martyr and to demonstrate that we have no values ?-do you wish to accede to their desires? or should we not demonstrate our values -I hate them too and all they are putting us through ,but they will not turn me into a beast .Respect ADAM B we normally agree on most things :)

Mr Melrose

Personally I think that it is heartening that only 44 former gitmo residents (spike) or even 'at least 60' (An American - sort it out you two) have returned to murderous terrorism.

I would have expected it to be a far higher number given that they are all 'The worst of the worst' and that most of them have been sent three-quarters mad by several years of sleep deprivation, water-boarding, stress positions and poor quality Van Halen records.

All that stuff about being handed over by bandits for rewards, being snatched from the streets for no apparent reason or not having a shred of evidence against most of the gitmo guests is a pack of liberal lies.

Tamara

Thomas, by your definition, nobody should ever have shot at the Nazis in World War II. These people are not randomly ‘suspected’ of anything, they were picked up in red hot conflict zones.

Moreover, Thomas, they are not using “violence to make a point”. They are using violence to subjugate the whole of the free world to Islam, trying to carry out teachings like this to the letter: “Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: and evil fate.”

You think that has some valid ‘point’ to it. Could you tell us what it is, please, Thomas?

While you’re at it could you also please tell me why if anyone replaced the word ‘unbelievers’ with the word ‘Muslims’ would be arrested on a thought crime if they wrote something like that.

James

Ronnie, since when did creating a global Caliphate become one of our ‘our core values’. That’s all Mr Rumsfeld was trying to prevent, but it’s you who wants to subvert that and let these people walk around blowing up who they please until we all start creating special privileges for Muslims the world over. That’s the way to hand them victory.

James

Ronnie, since when did creating a global Caliphate become one of our ‘our core values’. That’s all Mr Rumsfeld was trying to prevent, but it’s you who wants to subvert that and let these people walk around blowing up who they please until we all start creating special privileges for Muslims the world over. That’s the way to hand them victory.

An American

Mr. Melrose
I heard that 60 number yesterday.

Just give it time, these releasees are only the terrorists that have surfaced so far...once an islamic radical... always one.

We have a real novice in the office of the president today. Did anyone notice that Obama had no idea how to answer the questions that the press asked about Gitmo...he referred most of the questions to White House counsel Greg Craig....who by the way represented Castro in the Clinton fiasco of the little boy escapee being returned to Cuba to be indoctrinated into a good little communist.

Obama's press secretary also couldn't answer the press questions of where these prisoners would go when Gitmo was closed. He had no idea...nor does Obama.

Everything is in limbo when it comes to US protection from terrorism. Apparently this unimportant little issue will be turned over to a very liberal committee of Democrats and most likely McCain (they know how he will vote) who will take months to come up with a weak solution on how to question any future terrorists like Osama bin Laden, etc.

Maybe they'll just let Obama dazzle captured terrorists with his smile in order to get the information we need to protect ourselves.

I believe Obama and the Democrats will gut our intelligence community and our armed forces. The Democrats have a habit of doing that once they achieve power. They need that money for the downtrodden that will continue to vote/keep them in power.

Conservative Cabbie,
I'm happy to see you back.

Towncar

The Geneva Convention applies only to troops in the recognized uniforms of a sovereign nation.

For centuries, any non-uniformed armed combatant captured on the battlefield was treated as a spy and executed.

These people aren't entitled to any of these things; civil or criminal trials, the protections of the Geneva Convention, international treaties, agreements or anything else. They're not US citizens or lawful combatants; They have no right of habeas corpus, due process or anything else the bleeders dream up.

Thomas

"Thomas, by your definition, nobody should ever have shot at the Nazis in World War II. These people are not randomly ‘suspected’ of anything, they were picked up in red hot conflict zones."

The Nazis shot were (mostly) soldiers. Therefore, there is proof. There is no need for a court case. However, there is in the case of these terrorists - because they were not in battle, part of an established army, etc.

"Moreover, Thomas, they are not using “violence to make a point”. They are using violence to subjugate the whole of the free world to Islam, trying to carry out teachings like this to the letter: “Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: and evil fate.”"

That is using violence to make a point. An abhorrent point, one where a very small minority (of Muslims as well as people generally) wishes to triumph over the majority, and bring violence and oppressive law.

"You think that has some valid ‘point’ to it. Could you tell us what it is, please, Thomas?"

Where did I say it was valid?

phil

You know guys what I find amazing here is that we are all discussing this point,because we still retain humanity ,those terrorists would never have done that -just killed us !I still wish to be part of our way not theirs .