A Tale of Two Prisons (Abu Gharib & Gitmo)

[Ahriman238]

Four-and-a-half years into his presidency, Barack Obama remains stymied in his effort to close the Guantanamo prison for detainees captured in the war against al-Qaida.

A hearing of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday made clear that for now, there remains a very wide gulf between those who agree with Obama on closing Guantanamo and those who believe doing so would be too dangerous.

The timing of a raid Sunday at Abu Ghraib prison - now under Iraqi government control - which freed at least 250 militants, has supplied opponents of closing Guantanamo with new evidence in making the argument that sending detainees to places such as Yemen would be risky.

On Tuesday, a group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a coalition of al-Qaida affiliates in Syria and Iraq, took responsibility for the Abu Ghraib prison break. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Ks., a former Army officer who testified at the Senate hearing, both mentioned the Abu Ghraib breakout as a reason for not closing Guantanamo. Foreign prisons, they said, were not secure.

Cruz said that Obama has told Americans “that al Qaida has been decimated and that we can now take a holiday from the long difficult task of combating radical Islamic terrorists … I don’t believe the facts justify that rosy assessment.”

He said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said that 28 percent of those who have been released from Guantanamo have returned to the terrorism battlefield. He said that was “an inconvenient fact” for those advocating closing Guantanamo and releasing at least some of the 166 detainees held there.

In questioning one witness who called for closing Guantanamo, retired Army Gen. Paul Eaton, Cruz asked whether there’s any reason to think that if those now held at Guantanamo were released, their recidivism rate would be any less than 28 percent.

Eaton told Cruz he had spent his military career weighing and managing risks. “Soldiers never get all the assets they need to buy risks down to zero. The question, I believe, could also be posed: Is the existence of Guantanamo a higher risk than the release of the prisoners we have there now?”
Eaton said U.S. intelligence agencies “will help us buy down the risk” of repatriating detainees to their home countries or some other country.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the hearing that Guantanamo is “a massive waste of money,” noting that that it costs $2.67 million per detainee to hold a prisoner there, but only $78,000 a year to keep one in a maximum security federal prison.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee who testified at the hearing, told the panel that “there is literally no benefit to keeping Guantanamo Bay open.” The detainees could safely be held in the United States.

And he indicated some impatience that his arguments and those of Obama don’t seem to be getting through to some Americans: “It has been just stupefying to me … the degree to which people seem to be unaware that we already hold hundreds of terrorists in the United States in super-max prisons,” including Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day of 2009.

And Navy Lt. Josh Fryday, who represents an Afghan detainee held at Guantanamo for over 10 years, told the committee that he tells his client that the U.S. government believes it is allowed to detain prisoners indefinitely until the war is over. “He then asks me, ‘you will no longer be at war with Afghanistan after 2014. Can I go home then? Or does this war never end?'”

Noting that he was speaking only for himself and not representing the views of the Defense Department, Fryday told the panel that not allowing his client to have a trial was “at odds with our values.”

As subcommittee chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., noted “the president’s authority has been limited by Congress. The enacted restrictions on detainee transfers – including a ban on transfers to the United States from Guantanamo – has made it very difficult, if not impossible, to actually close the facility. It’s time to lift those restrictions and move forward with shutting down Guantanamo.”

The possibility of some compromise that might bring the two sides together on Guantanamo seems remote – a point underscored by the vote on Tuesday in the House when Rep Jim Moran, D-Va., offered an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2014. Moran’s amendment would have allowed the U.S. military to transfer or release the detainees who have been cleared by the intelligence community and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to their home countries and to bring those not cleared for release to the United States for trial.

By a vote of 247 to 175 the House rejected Moran’s amendment, with 25 Democrats voting against it and four Republicans voting for it.

Mass breakout at Abu Gharib a couple days ago. And even closer in time and space, another measure to get some people out of Gitmo was blown out of the water.

[Raw Shark]

I think Jon Stewart put it best:

Look, I know you're Republicans so you don't watch MSNBC, but check it out on the weekends. They have this 6-10 hour block called 'Lockup.' [video shows a prisoner saying, 'I pulled his brain out and took a bite out of it'] We can't handle these piddly punks from Guantanamo? I'll put a good, old fashioned, USA born and raised, brain-eater against any of those motherfuckers. Any of them. USA! USA!

[Grumman]

Four-and-a-half years into his presidency, Barack Obama remains stymied in his effort to close the Guantanamo prison for detainees captured in the war against al-Qaida.

Obama's effort was to rid himself of the tarnished Guantanamo brand name, and in return legitimise everything that is wrong about Guantanamo by moving it to the US proper. He is the enemy here.

He said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said that 28 percent of those who have been released from Guantanamo have returned to the terrorism battlefield. He said that was “an inconvenient fact” for those advocating closing Guantanamo and releasing at least some of the 166 detainees held there.

Clapper says 28% "returned to terrorism". I say 72% are such saints that even after bastards like Clapper spent years torturing them, they still don't hate America enough to resort to violence.

[PeZook]

It's p. awesome that Clapper thinks it's justified to keep two innocents incarcerated indefinitely in Gitmo if it will prevent one terrorist from "returning" (yeah, right, returning) to violence.

If US police used that as a guideline you'd have mass riots everywhere.

[davidutlib]

Does anyone find it a little bit telling that Obama changed his tune on Gitmo the second he was inaugurated? AKA, began to receive National Security briefings and had access to classified intelligence? I'm just saying, we're all a bunch of fucktards who have an opinion and very few facts, because the actual facts are classified. Obama was a similar fucktard, who at least had the courage to change his mind when he saw the facts.

Two caveats: First, I'm not an Obama voter. Second, I'm not saying that's absolutely what happened, I'm just saying it's certainly a possibility that there are things we don't know, due to national security classifications, that make it imperative to keep Gitmo operating.

[Edi]

Does anyone find it a little bit telling that Obama changed his tune on Gitmo the second he was inaugurated? AKA, began to receive National Security briefings and had access to classified intelligence? I'm just saying, we're all a bunch of fucktards who have an opinion and very few facts, because the actual facts are classified. Obama was a similar fucktard, who at least had the courage to change his mind when he saw the facts.

Two caveats: First, I'm not an Obama voter. Second, I'm not saying that's absolutely what happened, I'm just saying it's certainly a possibility that there are things we don't know, due to national security classifications, that make it imperative to keep Gitmo operating.

This tired argument has been trotted out every time the issue comes up and it still has no more validity than it did the first time. It's all bullshit, since US intelligence information has cleared the vast majority of Gitmo detainees but they are still not being let go.

[Grumman]

Does anyone find it a little bit telling that Obama changed his tune on Gitmo the second he was inaugurated? AKA, began to receive National Security briefings and had access to classified intelligence? I'm just saying, we're all a bunch of fucktards who have an opinion and very few facts, because the actual facts are classified. Obama was a similar fucktard, who at least had the courage to change his mind when he saw the facts.

No, I don't. "Classified intelligence" has turned into Doctor Who's psychic paper: to the gullible it justifies anything, solely because you imagine it is exactly the thing that would justify it. I find it more telling that Obama changed his tune on Gitmo the second the pretense got him what he wanted.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Didn't Obama attempt to close Gitmo anyway? I think he did, and promptly got blocked. And yeah, the reasons are up for debate as always.

And Grumman's right; 'I gots classified information' basically means 'you have no way of knowing I'm telling the truth'.

[Simon_Jester]

One note is that (unlike regular people) politicians in a strong position almost never keep trying to enact the same policy over and over after it doesn't get them what they want. Politicians in a weak position may do so as a protest. But if you have actual power to get things done, are you going to keep using that power to accomplish something you already tried and failed under more favorable circumstances?

A very principled person might do that, or might be willing to expend whatever one-shots it takes to create better circumstances for a second try. In practice, politicians don't seem to go for that, at least not in cases I'm familiar with.

[SirNitram]

Didn't Obama attempt to close Gitmo anyway? I think he did, and promptly got blocked. And yeah, the reasons are up for debate as always.

And Grumman's right; 'I gots classified information' basically means 'you have no way of knowing I'm telling the truth'.

2011 article on why Gitmo wasn't closed yet. WaPo

Short answer: Obama retreated in the face of fierce opposition and weak-kneed allies who feared being primaried. It's the same problem he's had in many areas since elected. One can argue this makes him ineffective quite fairly and intelligently, but to say he hasn't, or to trot around unfounded claims of suddenly not trying anymore after election is ridiculous.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I think it is worth while to note something. Had congress passed a law prohibiting federal funds from being used in order to affect the release of persons held on Remand who had federal cases against them dismissed or found Not Guilty at trial, the number of Habeus Corpus petitions would literally cover the supreme court building in paper.

So, I have a question for the lawyers. Why has the Obama administration, not simply taken the congress to court? Afterall, they have ruled that Habeus Corpus does apply to detainees, as I recall. So, at least for detainees cleared by the intel community, they are not suspected of crimes, they are not proper POWs or combatants. There is no legal basis for holding them in prison. Denial of funds to release them is the same as banning their release, and is blatantly unconstitutional. So, why can't the DOJ or Pentagon file suit? Is there something obvious that I am missing?

[Thanas]

Yes, you are assuming the President is interested enough in human rights to put political capital on the line and risk setbacks.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yes, you are assuming the President is interested enough in human rights to put political capital on the line and risk setbacks.

Obviously, but I meant a legal reason....

[Edi]

Yes, you are assuming the President is interested enough in human rights to put political capital on the line and risk setbacks.

Obviously, but I meant a legal reason....

The DoJ and Pentagon take orders from the president. So if the president has no interest, do you think any of his own political appointees in those institutions, or officers hoping for advancement, are going to do anything to jeopardize what they have over principle?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yes, you are assuming the President is interested enough in human rights to put political capital on the line and risk setbacks.

Obviously, but I meant a legal reason....

The DoJ and Pentagon take orders from the president. So if the president has no interest, do you think any of his own political appointees in those institutions, or officers hoping for advancement, are going to do anything to jeopardize what they have over principle?

These things I know. I am asking if there is a legal reason why the defunding of prisoner transfers and releases could not be appealed to the courts on the basis that it violates the civil/human rights of prisoners to prevent their lawful release.

If there is such a legal reason, then at least congress' refusal to fund such efforts, and the lack of support in congress for trying again, are sufficient reason for an administration to not make the attempt. It ends up being a poison pill.

If there is no legal reason, then all the BS of going through congress is just a malevolent dog and pony show.