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The War on Terror Spectator
A Question Not Asked
Is the administration again preparing to transfer Guantanamo prisoners to an Illinois facility?
(Page 2 of 2)
Moreover, there is something amiss about a President who sees his options as either drone strikes or criminal trials when it comes to going after terrorists. At every turn, President Obama has sought to avoid the sensible and militarily valuable middle-ground of military detention, which would maximize intelligence-gathering opportunities while minimizing the legal and security risks that go with criminal trials. The mastermind of 9/11 and his associates are only on trial by military commission at Gitmo after administration delays to the commission proceedings and the failure of the administration to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and company to New York in 2009. The President’s profound — and profoundly misguided — discomfort with military detention is clear, making it all the more likely that he and his allies are maneuvering to bring Gitmo detainees to the United States, most likely for eventual criminal prosecution in federal court.
Ironically, the Obama administration is sending troubling signals that on his watch, not even conviction and incarceration in the civilian criminal system will guarantee that justice will be served. Several reports have indicated that the administration is contemplating releasing “The Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman, the spiritual advisor to the 1993 World Trade Center terrorists, from federal prison, transferring him to Egyptian custody.
If left unchecked now, President Obama and his allies may move in the near future to bring Gitmo detainees to American shores. If that happens, we will be one step closer to losing a war that President Obama does not care to admit we are in, whether we like it or not.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (12) | Leave a comment
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c. j. acworth| 10.23.12 @ 8:54AM
How's about we just hang the miserable SOBs? As terrorists they are "enemies of all mankind", like pirates. Summary execution is how to deal with them, unless you want to question them for intel first.
SUBVET| 10.23.12 @ 10:12AM
The summary execution will be just like the death penalty in CA. ........it will never happen.
Stormy| 10.23.12 @ 9:18AM
What is the morality of a policy where a president can designate an enemy for assassination by drone, including collateral damage of innocents, versus humane detention of those individuals? How is the former acceptable and the latter not?
nathan| 10.23.12 @ 9:38AM
C.J. You wouldn't want to go to the trouble of actually determining their guilt first would you? That MINOR little detail? I mean the Canadian we sent abroad to be tortured for six months only for the Canadians to say "oops, he's not a bad guy", that happens literally ALL the time. We know many of the people at both Gitmo and Abu Ghraib didn't belong there, they were guilty of nothing. OBL's driver, won on appeal didn't he?
You see, under the Constitution, American law, and international agreements that we both helped draft and signed, we're obligated to treat these people properly. And when we don't we're no better than the people we're fighting. The writer here talks about if we bring them here they will have rights in American courts. They already have rights folks. And please we already hold these kinds of trials here. And Matthew Alexander in Iraq got all sorts of information from the guys he interrogated without ever violating their rights. Why can't others do like he did? The notion that we have to torture people to get information is nonsense. Look at the Luftwaffe unit who never touched our flyers. Look at the American unit who never touched the Japanese prisoners and got huge amounts of info from them. The premise that we have to resort to "enhanced" methods was nonsense from the beginning. This guy really doesn't know history and doesn't know what he's talking about.
Tom Kyba| 10.23.12 @ 11:23AM
I understand from your past comments sir, that you think youself superior to all other commenters here, but for what it's worth I am Canadian and would put a bullet in khadr's head myself. The "Canadians" you cite are the leftist brethren of yourself, who arrogantly speak for others and see themselves as more "evolved" than the rest of us. Your obnoxious "law and Order" routine is snobbish and insulting. Don't pretend to speak for me your highness.
nathan| 10.24.12 @ 7:52AM
Sir: Criticize my "attitude" all you want, but I notice you did not dispute my facts which were exactly as I stated them. Your own government stated for the record that the person in question was innocent of any involvement with the bad guys and was sent abroad to be tortured for absolutely nothing.
I remind you again that the Fifth Amendment of OUR Constitution says no PERSON shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process. Furthermore the Eighth Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment. In the case we are discussing both amendments were violated. Governments have an obligation to obey the law too. Otherwise you go down the road to things like the Holocaust. Go back and read the history of how that happened. And also read about how this country committed genocide against the Indians here. And indefinitely detained those Japanese many of whom were American citizens. Tom Paine is right, defend the rights of those you hate to secure your own. But Martin Niemollor is right too, they came form this group, I said nothing . . . and when they came for me, there was no one to speak for me. We cannot allow this behavior. Not with the lessons of the last century staring us in the face. Not with the remnants of Auschwitz still standing.
You no doubt criticize "moderate" muslims for not standing up to the bad guys and yet when I stand up for constitutional rights, you yell at me? I don't get it. I'm doing exactly what we expect of them.
Pecos Pete| 10.23.12 @ 12:59PM
nathan: "We know many of the people at both Gitmo and Abu Ghraib didn't belong there, they were guilty of nothing. " Other than OBL's driver, do you have any proof for your statement?
nathan| 10.24.12 @ 8:00AM
Our "allies" the Northern Alliance responding to a "bounty" we offered, just grabbed people and gave them to us. The rough estimate was aroung 60-70 percent. We ended up out rightly releasing that percentage from Gitmo and while a handful went back to blowing things up the vast majority just went home.
In Iraq the way this works is a bomb goes off. If you recall the scene from the movie "Casablanca" where the inspector says "round up the usual suspects" this is sort of what happens. If y0u happened to be in the "hood" when it blew you just got picked up in the general round up. The conventions require signatories meaning us to make a speedy determination regarding detainees as to whether they are bad guys or not. Similar if you will to the Sixth Amendment. We have been failing to do that. But again the estimates are well over half at all the detention facilities.
A priest in Baghdad was so outraged over OUR behavior at Abu Ghraib that he refused to let Americans worship at his Catholic church. You can question his theology here, but it shows you how our behavior was viewed by at least some of the general population.
cicero| 10.23.12 @ 2:59PM
Rather than release all of those innocents in Getmo, like the others who were rleeased and returned to the battlefield, perhaps we should just have an escape attempt every once in a while.
Don't be too suprised if this president does not start issuing pardons as soon as he is not reelected. At that point, patriotic disobedience to his orders may be in order.
Anthony| 10.23.12 @ 4:23PM
I propose that Obozo, upon losing the election, along with his Chicago thugs, (and Holder) be transported to GITMO for some severe waterboarding.
I would love to participate in the waterboarding of Holder and Axelrod. Numerous times.
And Obozo doesn't even have to bring his prayer rug and Koran, as the Army supplies them to all the Muslim terrorists housed at GITMO.
What a great country!!
Albert Constantine Jr.| 10.23.12 @ 5:32PM
Because of the proximity to Chicagoland, I propose instead we use this new prison to detain the Chicago thugs (because I'm not so sure that it is not, in fact, for the current Gitmo detainees, but is intended to be used in the event of an Obama reelection for us, his vocal opposition).
Thomas II| 10.23.12 @ 9:11PM
Thompson, Illinois is one of the worst choices to put terrorists. It is on the Mississippi river which would provide a great area for staging prison breaks and all kinds of terrorists attacks on strategic infrastructure and military targets in the reason. Save this prison site for the traitors in our government.