Confessions, chaos in Gitmo war court BY BEN FOX The Associated Press
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Two alleged orchestrators of the 2001 attacks on America casually declared their guilt on Monday in a messy and perhaps final session of the Guantanamo war crimes court. This week’s military hearings could be the last at Guantanamo — President-elect Barack Obama has said he would close the offshore prison and many expect him to suspend the military tribunals and order new trials in the U.S. Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the terrorist attacks, were unapologetic about their roles during a series of outbursts as translators struggled to keep up and the judge repeatedly sought to regain control. “We did what we did; we’re proud of Sept. 11,” announced Binalshibh, who has said he wants to plead guilty to charges that could put him to death. The judge must first determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial. Mohammed shrugged off the potential death sentence for the murder of nearly 3,000 people in the Sept. 11 attacks. “We don’t care about capital punishment,” said Mohammed, whose thick gray beard flows to the top of his white prison jumpsuit. “We are doing jihad for the cause of God.” Mohammed, representing himself, insisted that a uniformed lawyer assigned to assist him be removed from his defense table, saying he represents the “people who tortured me.” In another diatribe over secrecy, the acknowledged terrorist ridiculed the government’s position that national security had to be protected. “They want to hide their black sites, their torture techniques,” he said. Told by the judge to limit his remarks to a legal issue being discussed at that moment, Mohammed bristled: “This is terrorism, not court. You don’t give me the opportunity to talk.” Relatives of three people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks who attended the hearing as observers said they were appalled by the remarks of the defendants and hope that Obama does not halt the war crimes trials. “If they’re guilty … then let’s give them the death penalty that they deserve,” said Jim Riches of Brooklyn, whose 29-year-old firefighter son, Jimmy, was killed at the World Trade Center. “It would be nice to know the..............................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00502
Obama signs order to close Guantanamo in a year By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer 9 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama began overhauling U.S. treatment of terror suspects Thursday, signing orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, review military war crimes trials and ban the harshest interrogation methods.
"We intend to win this fight. We're going to win it on our terms," Obama said as he signed three executive orders and a presidential directive in the Oval Office. Obama explained each order before he put his pen to them, in some cases reading them in full, and occasionally solicited input from White House counsel Greg Craig to make sure he was describing them correctly.
With his action, Obama started changing how the United States prosecutes and questions al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters who pose a threat to Americans — and overhauling America's image abroad, battered by accusations of the use of torture and the indefinite detention of suspects at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba.
"The message that we are sending the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism and we are going to do so vigilantly and we are going to do so effectively and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals," the president said.
The centerpiece order would close the much-maligned Guantanamo facility within a year, a complicated process with many unanswered questions that was nonetheless a key campaign promise of Obama's. The administration already has suspended trials for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo for 120 days pending a review of the military tribunals.
"We are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it's easy but also when it's hard," the president said.
In other actions, Obama:
_Created a task force that would have 30 days to recommend policies on handling terror suspects who are detained in the future. Specifically, the group would look at where those detainees should be housed since Guantanamo is closing.
_Required all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual while interrogating detainees. The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and waterboarding, a technique that creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics. However, a Capitol Hill aide says that the administration also is planning a study of ...................http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090122/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_suspected_terrorists
I thought you liberals wanted TRIALS! Obama even canceled the trials! What do they do with them now, send them to Sandals Resort?
I am all ears on what your solution will be. I am sure their rights will be the highest of all priorities. The American people wanted this, so I will accept whatever they want. If they want to give them all the presidential medal of freedom, I guess we will have to go along with that too.
But please, solutions. I know you think what Bush did was reprehensible and it makes him the worst president ever. But help us see what the answer is from the other side of the aisle. I hope it deters terror and stops terrorists from repeating their behavior. Also, I hope they come up with a way to get information from the terrorists they capture, playing rock music at loud levels was deemed cruel. Maybe breakfast in bed, and a day at the spa will induce them to turn on their cells and reveal the next plan to kill children and women. Just asking nicely might be considered intimidating, especially if the guy asking wears some imperialistic uniform, or works for the evil and illegal CIA.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Ya, well they better not send these guys to NYS to one of our facilities. Oh, and don't forget to give these guys the best lawyers the US of A can give them. Like they are going to tell the truth! And of course the bleeding hearts will believe them. I say pack em' up and send them back to where they came from. We obviously can't keep them here forever. Sure they'll be pissed and will join a jihadist group where they will help them attack us. Like there aren't hundreds of thousands of Muslims out there who are just waiting for the chance to cut off all of our heads and destroy our country already!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
well this will change now and I tell you that since that bush is gone then the people of the world will now look better on our country so that this war and that will end thank God
Closing Gitmo signals big change in U.S. policies BY JENNIFER LOVEN The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Breaking forcefully with Bush anti-terror policies, President Barack Obama ordered major changes Thursday that he said would halt the torture of suspects, close down the Guantanamo detention center, ban secret CIA prisons overseas and fight terrorism “in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.” “We intend to win this fight. We’re going to win it on our terms,” Obama declared, turning U.S. policy abruptly on just his second full day in office. He also put a fresh emphasis on diplomacy, naming veteran troubleshooters for Middle East hotspots. The policies and practices that Obama said he was reversing have been widely reviled overseas, by U.S. allies as well as in less-friendly Arab countries. President George W. Bush said the policies were necessary to protect the nation after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks — though he, too, had said he wanted Guantanamo closed at some point. “A new era of American leadership is at hand,” Obama said. Executive orders signed by the new president would order the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, shut within a year, require the closure of any remaining secret CIA “black site” prisons abroad and bar CIA interrogators of detainees from using harsh techniques already banned for military questioners. That includes physical abuse such as waterboarding, a technique that creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed torture by critics at home and abroad. For the signing ceremony, Obama was flanked in the Oval Office by retired senior U.S. military leaders who had pressed for the changes. Underscoring the new administration’s point, the admirals and generals said in a statement: “President Obama’s actions today will restore the moral authority and strengthen the national security of the United States.” Not everyone felt that way. Criticism surfaced immediately from Republicans and others who said Obama’s policy changes would jeopardize U.S. ability to get intelligence about terrorist plans or to prevent attacks. House Minority Leader John Boehner was among a group of GOP lawmakers who quickly introduced legislation seeking to bar federal courts from ordering Guantanamo detainees to be released into the United States. Boehner, R-Ohio, said it “would be irresponsible to close this terrorist detainee facility” before answering such important questions as where the detainees would be sent. Obama said he was certain that the nation’s security is strengthened — not weakened — when the U.S. adheres to “core standards of conduct. “We think that it is precisely our ideals that give us the strength and the moral high ground to be able to effectively deal with the unthinking violence that we see emanating from terrorist organizations around the world,” he said. “We don’t torture,” Obama said, but Bush had said the same. The question has always been defi ning the word. Later in the day, Obama visited the State Department to welcome newly confirmed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, emphasizing the importance his administration intends to give diplomacy in his foreign policy. He told Foreign Service officers and other department employees they “are going to be critical to our success.” The president and Clinton jointly announced the appointment of former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, as special envoy to the Middle East. Former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who helped write the peace deal that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, was named special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Before a raucous, cheering crowd of...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00100
Report: Ex-Gitmo detainee joins al-Qaida in Yemen By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer Maggie Michael, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 41 mins ago
CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.
The announcement, made this week on a Web site commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, which has long posed a vexing terrorism problem for the U.S.
The terror group's Yemen branch — known as "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home.
The Internet statement, which could not immediately be verified, said al-Shihri was the group's second-in-command in Yemen, and his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372.
"He managed to leave the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia) and join his brothers in al-Qaida," the statement said.
Documents released by the U.S. Defense Department show that al-Shihri was released from the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in November 2007 and transferred to his homeland. The documents confirmed his prisoner number was 372.
Saudi Arabian authorities wouldn't immediately comment on the statement. A Yemeni counterterrorism official would only say that Saudi Arabia had asked Yemen to turn over a number of wanted Saudi suspects who fled the kingdom last year for Yemen, and a man with the same name was among those wanted. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press and would not provide more details.
Yemen is a U.S. ally in the fight against terror, but it also has been the site of numerous high-profile, al-Qaida-linked attacks including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors.
Yemen's government struggles to maintain order. Many areas of the California-size country are beyond government control and Islamic extremism is strong. Nearly 100 Yemeni detainees remain at Guantanamo, making up the biggest group of prisoners.
Al-Shihri's case highlights the complexity of Obama's decision to shut down the detention center within a year despite the absence of rehabilitation programs for ex-prisoners in some countries, including Yemen. The Pentagon also has said more former ex-detainees appear to be returning to the fight against the U.S. after their release.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who heads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said the reports about al-Shihri should not slow the Obama administration's determination to quickly close the prison.
"What it tells me is that President Obama has to proceed extremely carefully. But there is really no justification and there was no justification for disappearing people in a place that was located offshore of America so it was outside the reach of U.S. law," she told CBS's "The Early Show."
But Rep. Pete Hoekstra, of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the executive order Obama signed Thursday to close the facility as "very short on specifics."
Interviewed on the same program, he said there are indications that as many as 10 percent of the men released from Guantanamo are "back on the battlefield. They are attacking American troops."
The militant Web statement said al-Shihri's identity was revealed during a recent interview with a Yemeni journalist. That journalist, Abdelela Shayie, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that 35-year-old Saudi man had joined the kingdom's rehabilitation program after his release and got married before leaving for Yemen.
Shayie said al-Shihri told him that several other former Guantanamo detainees had also come to Yemen to join al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is an umbrella group of various cells. Its current leader is Yemen's most wanted fugitive Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, who was among 23 al-Qaida figures who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006.
The war on terror is no game. These people intend to kill us in large numbers, and unless we take that seriously, they will succeed. Al-Qaeda is not the Gambino crime family, and a law-enforcement approach will not defeat them.
That post could be construed as anti-Italian...wink
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Issue of terrorists' rights to test Obama's pledge Obama's position on terrorists' rights to test pledge of bipartisan cooperation with Congress
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Last updated: 5:35 a.m., Sunday, January 25, 2009
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's pledge of bipartisan cooperation with Congress will be tested as he tries to fulfill a campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay and establish a new system for prosecuting suspected terrorists.
The undertaking is an ambitious one. Fraught with legal complexities, it gives Republicans ample opportunity to score political points if he doesn't get it right. There's also the likelihood of a run-in with his former rival, Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war who before running for president staked his career on overhauling the nation's detainee policies.
"We look forward to working with the president and his administration on these issues, keeping in mind that the first priority of the U.S. government is to guarantee the security of the American people," McCain, R-Ariz., said in a joint statement with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
In his first week in office, Obama ordered Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to be closed within a year, CIA secret prisons shuttered and abusive interrogations ended.
So far, Obama's team has given every indication it will engage lawmakers, including Republicans, on the issue.
But once the two sides begin delving into details, there will be ample room for dispute.
Among the unknowns is how many of the 245 detainees now at Guantanamo Bay will be prosecuted.
Administration officials said that, pending an internal review, federal and military courts may be used. But, the officials added, a version of the secretive military tribunals, as established under President George W. Bush with the help of McCain, remains an option, too.
Obama could take a page from the Bush administration and try to revamp the system on his own, through executive order. But that approach failed for Bush, who angered members of his own party and wound up seeking congressional approval anyway after the Supreme Court in June 2006 ruled his tribunal system was unconstitutional.
Pelosi Shrugs off Alcatraz as Possible Terror Detention Facility Republicans opposing an Obama administration order to close Guantanamo Bay prison facility within a year suggest sending terror detainees to House Speaker Pelosi's district.
FOXNews.com Sunday, January 25, 2009
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday shrugged off Republican suggestions that the federal government reopen Alcatraz prison in her San Francisco district to house detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
President Obama this week signed an executive order calling for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo within the year. Republican Rep. Bill Young then suggested to White House counsel Greg Craig that the prisoners who could not be released back to their home countries or sent to a third country be put up in "the Rock," the famous military installation and prison that closed down in 1963 and is now part of the National Park Service.
Asked whether that was a serious proposal, Pelosi said, "It is -- no."
9/11 Families Outraged by Obama Call to Suspend Guantanamo War Crimes Trials Families of victims of terrorist attacks say they are outraged by President Obama's call to halt the trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
FOXNews.com Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Family members of people killed on September 11, 2001, and in other terror attacks say they are outraged by President Obama's draft order calling for the suspension of war crimes trials of prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay.
"To me it's beyond comprehension that they would take the side of the terrorists," said Peter Gadiel, whose son, James, was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. "Many of these people have been released and been right back killing, right back at their terrorist work again."
Obama's request on the first full day of his presidency came as a draft order was being prepared ordering the closing of the Guantanamo prison within a year. A judge responded by halting the case against a Canadian detainee accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, issuing a 120-day continuance in the case.
Click here for photos.
"I see no reason why we should delay these proceedings. Let justice be served," said Jefferson Crowther, whose 24-year-old son, Welles, was killed in the Twin Towers after he saved the lives of several others.
Critics blasted Obama's decision, which they said would delay justice in cases that have already been waiting for the better part of a decade.
"There is no need to suspend [the military tribunals]. There is no reason why [Obama] can't conduct a concurrent review at the same time that the military commission process is moving forward to render justice for the terrorists that have murdered thousands of people," said former Cmdr. Kirk Lippold, who lost 17 sailors during a suicide bombing attack on the USS Cole in 2000. A suspect in the case is being held at Guantanamo.
"It demeans their deaths because we seem to be more concerned with the rights of detainees than we are with the justice that is being denied to my sailors that were killed," Lippold told FOXNews.com.
9/11 families seek quick detainee trials NEW YORK — Families of firefighters killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are seeking a meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss the trials of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel says he hopes the new president will listen to the families, who are seeking open and fair but speedy trials for the prisoners who are being held there. Trials at Guantanamo have been halted for 120 days while the Obama administration completes a review of the system for prosecuting suspected terrorists.
Logged
