Note: You might want to start at the Barack
Obama Index Page, especially
if you arrived here by using a search engine.
President Obama certainly shows a lot of favor toward Islam. Even the most casual
observer must realize by now that every time the United States has any interaction with
Muslims or Islamic countries, the Muslims always seem to come out ahead. Every coin
toss somehow favors the Muslims. This page covers the specific topic of the
Guantanamo Bay prison facility, which houses known Islamic terrorists who were captured
overseas and are too dangerous (in the opinion of almost anyone other than Barack H.
Obama) to be released to their respective home countries.
Hundreds
of released Gitmo detainees [are] back to killing Americans. Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, U.S.
intelligence documents reveal 229 "rehabbed" former Gitmo detainees have returned to terrorism and killing
Americans — and an alarming 66% of them have not been recaptured and are still at large. Meanwhile,
President Biden is quietly freeing more of these terrorist suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison, all to fulfill his old
boss' pledge to permanently close the facility in Cuba. Shortly after taking office, Biden reversed President Trump's
executive order to keep Gitmo open and is lining up inmates to transfer out of the prison with the goal of emptying it and
shuttering it — even though the remaining prisoners have long been classified by military intelligence as the
worst of the worst and too dangerous to release.
As
Biden Continues Obama's Plan to Close Gitmo, Hundreds of Former Detainees Have Returned to Terrorism and are Killing
Americans Again. Thanks to Biden-Obama, hundreds of the worlds most evil terrorists have been released from US
custody and are now free to pursue their murderous revenge against the west. According to US intelligence documents, A
total of 229 "rehabbed" radical extremists have been released over the past few years and have returned to terrorism, some
have already even been able to kill Americans. What's even more ridiculous — as Biden discreetly works to
release more detainees — US forces now have the responsibility of tracking all of them down, but an astonishing
66% of them have evaded recapture and are still on the run.
Gitmo
Commander Fired — And No One Will Say Exactly Why. Rear Admiral John Ring had seven weeks to go as
the commander of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. By mid-June, Ring would have rotated out of the position
quietly and on schedule. Instead, Ring got relieved of his command over a "loss of confidence in his ability" to lead
the facility, but the Department of Defense won't explain why — or why they opened an investigation into Ring's
leadership last month.
Commander
of prison at Guantanamo is fired. The Navy admiral in charge of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has
been fired for an unspecified "loss of confidence in his ability to command." "Commander, U.S. Southern Command, U.S.
Navy Adm. Craig Faller, relieved U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Ring, commander, Joint Task Force - Guantanamo, April 27,
due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command," said a statement from Col. Amanda Azubuike, the spokesman for
U.S. Southern Command.
Pentagon
shipping jumbo cell to Guantanamo court for al-Qaida trial from hospital bed. The Pentagon is shipping a
handicapped-accessible cell big enough to accommodate a hospital bed and wheelchair that, in a first, would let an accused
war criminal live at the court during proceedings as he tries to recover from multiple spinal surgeries. The Camp
Justice sleepover plan represents a reversal in Guantanamo detention center policy, which required that a defendant be
returned each night from the court complex to a section of the detention center called Camp 7, the top secret prison
for former CIA captives.
Why
these 9/11 monsters still haven't faced a trial. They say the wheels of justice turn slowly — but
now they've ground to a virtual halt. Seventeen years after they helped murder 2,977 innocents in the worst terrorist
attack on US soil, five 9/11 suspects — including self-avowed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — have
not faced trial. [...] The US had captured Mohammed and the four accomplices by 2003. They were shuffled
among CIA "black sites" for interrogation before being arraigned in 2008. But President Barack Obama suspended the case
when he entered office, and in 2010, the Pentagon dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning the men could be charged
again later.
The Top 50 Liberal
Media Bias Examples. [#24] Guantanamo Bay: The media has gone out of its way to portray the terror
detainee facility run by the U.S. military as an illegitimate, even racist venture. President Obama even ran his
campaign promising to close the facility in a year after he ascended to the White House (a promise he later broke). But
one thing the media never reports is that the recidivism rate in detainees returning to terror upon release from the facility
is quite high. Key facts again ignored by the Old Media.
Six
Reasons Why Barack Obama Is the Worst President in History. [#4] Purging Gitmo: As a candidate in 2007,
Obama promised he would close the terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo), as soon as he was
elected. He signed an executive order on January 22, 2009, requiring Gitmo to close within one year.
Congress refused to go along, so instead of closing it, he systematically purged the prison of its terrorist inmates, as a
sort of end-run around congressional opposition to closure. In 2003, there were 680 prisoners. By early January
2015, there were fewer than 130, and he continued releasing prisoners through the remainder of his second term.
NYT:
Ex-Gitmo Prisoners Freed Under Obama 'Vanished' After Return to Libya. An estimated 150 former Guantánamo
Bay prisoners liberated as part of former President Barack Obama's efforts to shut down the U.S. military detention center
"risk being killed — or could end up becoming threats themselves," the New York Times (NYT) acknowledged this week.
Obama reduced the number of detainees held at the facility, commonly known as Gitmo, from 242 to 41 when he took office.
10
years after taking in its last detainee, Gitmo is ready and waiting for Trump's 'bad dudes'. On March 14, 2008,
Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, a close aide and "procurement specialist" for Osama bin Laden, having been captured by Pakistani
authorities and handed over to the CIA, was processed and imprisoned at the U.S. detainment site at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Exactly a decade later, al-Afghani remains the last inmate to enter Guantanamo despite President Trump's vow to "load it up with
bad dudes." The Pentagon has a haul of Islamic State fighters, but it now says it would rather hand them off to other
countries. At its height under President George W. Bush, Guantanamo held 750 suspected militants captured in the
global war on terror. Today, just 41 remain.
Right
Before SOTU, Trump Puts an End to Obama's Dream of Closing GITMO. Just minutes before entering the House
chamber for his first State of the Union address to the nation, President Trump signed an executive order reversing President
Obama's decision to close Guantanamo Bay Prison. "Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are
evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But
we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when
captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are," Trump said. "In the past, we have foolishly released
hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield — including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi."
Send Them to Gitmo, Mr. President.
One of Barack Obama's first acts as president was to sign an executive order mandating that the terrorist detention facility
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba be closed. Obama insisted that the Guantanamo Bay facility — Gitmo — was
an important recruiting tool for terrorists. When Obama left office, Gitmo was still open, housing about forty-one
terrorists including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the al-Qaeda planner of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mohammed was
captured in Pakistan in 2003 and still hasn't been brought to trial. Some of the other 9/11 plotters and planners,
including Ramzi Binalshib, are also still in Gitmo and have been there for more than a decade. The "Gitmo Bar
Association" — lawyers, many from prominent firms providing free legal services to inmates — has gone
to the Supreme Court repeatedly. Their efforts have resulted in decisions bestowing the right of habeas corpus
to the terrorists in Gitmo.
Trump
is one step closer to refilling Guantanamo. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who once called the Guantanamo Bay
detention camp a 'very fine place', visited the prison on Friday as the Trump Administration signals a move to reverse former
President Barack Obama's efforts to shut it down. Sessions traveled to the military detention facility in Cuba with his
deputy, Rod Rosenstein, and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, to gain 'an up-to-date understanding of current
operations,' Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said.
Trump
officials signal intent to begin refilling Guantanamo. The Trump administration appears to be making its first
moves toward fulfilling a campaign promise to fill the Guantanamo Bay prison camp with "bad dudes." Attorney General Jeff
Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein visited the prison on Friday [7/7/2017] to get an update on current operations,
the first concrete action the administration has taken on the facility since taking office.
Canada
set to pay reported $8M to convicted Al Qaeda fighter held at Guantanamo. A convicted terrorist is set to
receive roughly $8 million from the Canadian government, as well as a formal apology for his time in Guantanamo Bay,
according to reports. Omar Khadr, who admitted to killing American special forces medic Sgt. Christopher Speer
while fighting in Afghanistan in 2002, spent 10 years at the secretive U.S. prison, based in Cuba. Khadr, captured
at a suspected Al Qaeda compound, pleaded guilty to a military tribunal in 2010.
Former Gitmo Captive
on Saudi Payroll Arrested in French ISIS Cell. Surprise, surprise, another inmate released from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
has been arrested for reengaging in terrorism. His name is Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar and his Department of Defense (DOD) file says he has links to "multiple
terrorist plots" and as a member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) plotted with Al Qaeda to attack the United States Embassy in Sarajevo.
"Detainee advocated hostilities against US forces and the international community in Bosnia, and is linked to multiple terrorist plots and criminal related
activity," according to Lahmar's DOD file. "Detainee had intentions to travel to Afghanistan and Iran, and is reported as doing so prior to his
capture. Detainee has demonstrated a commitment to jihad, and would likely engage in anti-US activities if released."
Jeff
Sessions: Guantanamo Bay is 'a very fine place' for holding terror suspects. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he has no
qualms sending newly-captured terror suspects to the Guantanamo Bay detention center, describing it as a "very fine place." [...] Sessions said
"there's plenty of space" at Guantanamo Bay, adding he would advise the president to send newly-captured suspects to the facility. "We are
well equipped for it," he said. "It's a perfect place for it. Eventually, this will be decided by the military rather than the Justice
Department. But I see no legal problem whatsoever with doing that."
Ex-Gitmo
detainee killed in US airstrike in Yemen, Pentagon says. A former Guantanamo Bay detainee was among those
killed in recent U.S. airstrikes on terror targets in Yemen, Capt. Jeff Davis said on Monday [3/6/2017]. Yasir
al-Silmi, who was held at Guantanamo Bay from 2002-2009, was killed in airstrikes on March 2, Davis said. Davis, a
Pentagon spokesman, would not get into specifics about why al-Silmi was released in 2009, but confirmed he was counted among
those who had returned to terrorism.
British
suicide bomber who blew himself up in Mosul battle was given £1 million compensation for time in Guantanamo but then
fled to join ISIS. A British ISIS suicide bomber has been revealed as a former Guantanamo prisoner who was
handed £1 million in taxpayers' money as compensation before fleeing to Syria. UK national Jamal Udeen al-Harith
was photographed moments before blowing himself up in an attack on a military facility near Mosul in Iraq. Shortly
after detonating the explosive-laden car near an army base, ISIS released a statement revealing al-Harith had been fighting
for them under the name Abu Zakariya al-Britani.
ISIS
suicide bomber in Iraq was former Gitmo detainee. A terror suspect who received a seven-figure payoff after he
claimed he was tortured while being held at Guantanamo Bay blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Iraq, according to reports
Tuesday [2/21/2017]. ISIS claimed responsibility and praised Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, a British-born suicide bomber, for
the attack near Mosul, where Iraqi forces are battling ISIS fighters for control of the city.
After
Eight Years in Guantánamo, He Yearns to Return. After eight years as a detainee in the United States
detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he says he still suffers from headaches, depression and anxiety attacks from
the torture and other mistreatment he says he suffered there, even six years after his release. Married with two
children now and employed as a nighttime ambulance driver, Mr. Hammami, 47, seems to have rebuilt his life. Yet
the pressures of living in Tunisia's faltering democracy, under harassment and enduring repeated raids by the police, have
driven him to make an extreme request. "It would be better for me to go back to that single cell and to be left alone,"
he said recently. "Two or three weeks ago I went to the Red Cross and asked them to connect me to the U.S. foreign
ministry to ask to go back to Guantánamo."
In
last-day letter to Congress, Obama concedes defeat on Guantanamo closure. President Obama conceded defeat in
his eight-year effort to close the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday, telling Congress that "history
will cast a harsh judgment" on its decision to block the shutdown of the facility. In a letter addressed to House
Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate President Pro Tem Orrin Hatch, an exasperated Obama condemned members of Congress for "placing
politics above the ongoing costs to taxpayers" and straining relationships with allies who have condemned what they see as
human rights abuses at the prison.
US
transfers 10 Guantanamo prisoners to Oman. Oman said Monday [1/16/2017] it accepted 10 inmates from the U.S. prison at
Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close.
It's a little late for this, isn't it? Cruz
Bill Would Force Admin to Release Terror Histories of Gitmo Releases. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) on Tuesday
introduced legislation that would mandate the declassification and public release of information on previous terrorist
activities of former Guantanamo Bay detainees transferred since the presidential election. The Defense Department has
announced the transfer of several Guantanamo prisoners to foreign countries in recent months, as Republicans in Congress have
expressed concerns about former prisoners resuming terrorist activities and the ability of foreign governments to keep track
of ex-detainees.
Ted
Cruz Proposes Bill To Declassify Terrorism Histories Of Gitmo Transfers. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a
bill on Tuesday that would declassify information about the terrorist activities of detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in
Cuba who have been released or transferred since Election Day. The move came after a report that the Obama administration
recently struck a deal with Oman to transfer 10 detainees from Gitmo. The move brings the total number of detainees down
to less than 50. Cruz and other Republicans have been heavily critical of Obama's transfers and of his promise to close
the facility before leaving office. Republicans point to a statistic that 30 percent of detainees released or
transferred from Gitmo either return to terrorist activities or are suspected of doing so. Obama has also been criticized
for transferring detainees with known links to terrorists. Several close associates of Osama bin Laden —
drivers and bodyguards — have been transferred from Gitmo.
'Worst
of the worst' blocked Obama from keeping promise to close Gitmo. President Obama's famous pledge to close the
Pentagon's Guantanamo Bay detention facility was ultimately done in by the very evil of the men it houses. While
hundreds of enemy combatants and terror suspects have been through the facility since the war on terror began — with many
returning to the fight — the most hardcore Al Qaeda operatives ever captured remain there. They are too dangerous to
set free, and no one else wants them. During its peak, Gitmo held some 778 suspected Al Qaeda operatives. Obama
acclerated the policy of his predecessor, President Bush, to free those deemed to no longer be a risk. Within the last
week, another 14 were released from the facility, and turned over to other countries willing to hold them.
Obama
Releases 10 More GITMO Detainees Just Before Leaving Office. President Obama is slowly draining the terrorist
prison in Guantanamo Bay before turning the White House keys over to Trump. In the wee hours of the morning
[1/16/2017], it was announced that Oman accepted ten GITMO prisoners.
Exclusive:
$5 Million price on the heads of ex-Guantanamo inmates who turned back to terror. Security experts today warn
that freeing more Guantanamo Bay inmates risks creating more terrorists intent on harming the United States. They
warned that a push to release significant numbers could see more becoming like the two who were freed, went through a Saudi
Arabian 'rehab program' and became among the world's most wanted men. The State Department put a $5 million price on the
heads of Othman al Ghamdi and Ibrahim al Rubaysh, who became leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula after they were freed.
House
chairman urges Obama to stop Gitmo transfers, cites terrorists' return to battlefield. Citing fresh intelligence that freed
Guantanamo Bay detainees are returning to terrorism, a top House Republican called on President Obama Tuesday [1/10/2017] to halt immediately
any more releases from the prison. In a letter to the president, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Edward Royce, California Republican,
said the administration knows that it's transferring detainees to countries such as Uruguay that have little ability to prevent the terrorists'
return to the battlefield. "Your efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay cannot come at the expense of U.S. national
security," Mr. Royce said. "In light of this dangerous revelation, I again ask that you immediately halt all transfers from Guantanamo
Bay and take steps to secure former detainees who pose a threat to U.S. national security."
UK
jihadi freed from Guantanamo flees to Syria to join al-Qaeda. Obama plans, in his final days in office, to
replenish the enemy ranks even further by freeing more hardened, committed, battle-trained jihadis from Guantanamo. [See]
"British jihadi who was freed from Guantanamo Bay 'has fled to Syria to join Al Qaeda,'" by Omar Wahid and Nick Craven, The
Mail on Sunday, January 7, 2017.
Four
Guantanamo detainees transferring to Saudi Arabia, as part of final wave. Four Gitmo detainees are slated to be
transferred to Saudi Arabia in the next 24 hours, the first of the final wave of up to 20 transfers expected before
Inauguration Day, two U.S. officials tell Fox News. The identities of the four detainees are not immediately known.
The transfers are proceeding despite renewed opposition from President-elect Donald Trump, who tweeted on Tuesday: "There
should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the
battlefield." The Pentagon said Gitmo transfers would continue over Trump's objection.
Seven Ways
Obama Is Trying to Sabotage the Trump Administration. [#6] The great Guantanamo jailbreak: After paying little more than lip service to
his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for much of his presidency, Obama went into overdrive in his last years, transferring over 150 detainees.
A shocking number of them ended up back on the battlefield. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed
this week to sound the alarm about Obama's "midnight push to empty out Guantanamo."
Report:
Obama Aims to Cut Gitmo Population to 42 by End of Tenure. President Barack Obama is expected to transfer out
17 or 18 detainees from the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by the time he leaves office, reducing the
facility's population to 41 or 42, reports The New York Times. The administration is required by law to notify
Congress 30 days before a transfer, which means the last deadline to release Guantánamo prisoners before the end of the
Obama era was Monday.
Report:
Obama intends to transfer more Gitmo detainees before leaving office. The Obama administration intends to
transfer 17 or 18 of the remaining 59 Guantanamo Bay detainees before the president leaves office, the New York Times
reported Monday night [12/19/2016]. The prisoners will go to Italy, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Obama Administration
Intends to Transfer 17 or 18 Guantánamo Detainees. When Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy visited the
White House in October for a state dinner, he made a commitment to President Obama: Italy, which resettled a Yemeni
detainee from Guantánamo Bay last summer, would take one more person on the transfer list. But before the deal was
completed, Mr. Renzi resigned. So a day after his successor, Paolo Gentiloni, formed a government on Dec. 14,
Secretary of State John Kerry called to congratulate Mr. Gentiloni — and to urge him to follow through on the
commitment, according to an official familiar with the negotiations. Mr. Gentiloni agreed, leading a rush to
finalize the details and paperwork.
Amnesty International
Attacks Democracies, Forgives Islamist Tyrannies. In 2005, Irene Khan, then secretary general of Amnesty, described the American detention
center in Guantanamo Bay as "the Gulag of our time." She compared the Soviet forced-labor camps, where three million people died of hunger, cold
and executions, to a US military base where no prisoner has died, and which has prevented countless innocent civilians from being blown up.
It seems that Amnesty International abandoned the battle of human rights in favor of a grotesque anti-Western bias. [...] If Guantanamo is the new Gulag, why
not demand the arrest of its commander-in-chief? This is precisely what Amnesty did two years ago, when it asked Canada to arrest George W. Bush.
Earnest
Attacks Congress for Allowing Guantanamo to Remain Open. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest castigated
Congress on Wednesday for preventing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba. Earnest was asked at
the White House daily press briefing if President Obama's failure to mention closing the detention facility during his
national security speech the prior day was a final "coming to terms" that it remain open after his term. "We have been
deeply dismayed at the obstacles that Congress has erected to prevent progress on this significant national security
priority," Earnest said.
Guantánamo
now has 59 prisoners. The U.S. military has delivered a long-held, mistakenly profiled Yemeni captive from
Guantánamo to resettlement in the African archipelago of Cape Verde, downsizing the detention center to 59 captives, the
Pentagon said Sunday [12/4/2016]. Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, 35, was among a series of one-time "forever prisoners" whose
dangerous status was downgraded by the U.S. intelligence community in recent years.
CBS:
'Forever Prisoners' at Gitmo Saw Trump Win as 'End of the World'. The journalists at CBS This Morning on
Thursday [12/1/2016] were very concerned about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, but not so much about the threat they
pose. Instead, correspondent Margaret Brennan reported live from Cuba and let the world know that these men saw the
election of Donald Trump as "the end of the world." As a network graphic fretted over the "forever prisoners," Brennan
worried, "Donald Trump's campaign pledge to stop this prison from closing has left the fate of many prisoners in limbo."
Gitmo
Prisoners 'Thought It Was the End of the World' on Election Night, Asked for Tranquilizers. Prisoners at the
Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba "thought it was the end of the world" the night of the presidential election and asked
their guards for tranquilizers and sleeping pills, CBS correspondent Margaret Brennan reported Thursday. David Remes,
the lawyer of one of the prisoners at Guantanamo, recounted to Brennan what his client told him about election night.
"He said that many detainees thought that it was the end of the world and felt terrible and that many detainees asked for
tranquilizers, sleeping pills because they were so distraught," Remes said.
Gitmo
prisoner reveals that Saudi 'terrorist rehab' center is a scam. Counterterrorism experts have long suspected
Saudi Arabia's "rehabilitation" center for terrorists does a poor job of de-radicalizing jihadists. But a Saudi
detainee at Guantanamo Bay now reveals it's actually a recruiting and training factory for jihad. According to recently
declassified documents, senior al Qaeda operative Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi told a Gitmo parole board that the Saudi
government has been encouraging previously released prisoners to rejoin the jihad at its terrorist reform school, officially
known as the Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Care Center. The Obama administration has praised the
effectiveness of the Saudi rehab program — which uses "art therapy," swimming, ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer
to de-radicalize terrorists — and conditioned the release of dozens of Gitmo prisoners, including former Osama bin
Laden bodyguards, on their enrollment in the controversial program.
How
Trump Can Stop Obama from Closing Gitmo. Terrorists were big supporters of Barack Obama. At Gitmo they
were chanting "Obama! Obama! Obama!" during election night and when he won started chanting to their guards and prosecutors
the refrain "Hey, hey ... goodbye". President Obama was stymied in his efforts to transfer many of them to American
prisons when Republicans led an effort (joined by many Democrats) to pass a law that forbade prisoners from being moved into
American prisons. But Barack Obama has found another way to release these terrorists (or "detainees" as liberals call them)
by working to depict them as less of a threat than they are and then releasing them into the custody of foreign governments.
Navy
Taps New Commander for Guantanamo Bay Prison. The U.S. Navy is sending a new naval officer to assume command of
operations at the Guantanamo Bay military prison next year. Rear Adm. Edward Cashman will serve as the new
commander of prison operations at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Adm. John
Richardson, chief of naval operations, announced on Thursday [11/17/2016]. Cashman, who currently directs the Joint
Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization in the Pentagon's Joint Staff, will become the 17th commander of Guantanamo
Bay prison operations. His official title will be commander of Joint Task Force, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Obama's
self-serving plan to close Gitmo a threat to national security. With just 2½ months remaining in his
term, President Obama has arrived at what many intelligence officials believe is an "irreducible minimum" number of
Guantanamo Bay prisoners who can't be transferred because they're considered too dangerous, or their home countries like
Yemen are too unstable to repatriate them. But that hasn't stopped the president from trying to whittle down the
terrorist population at the prison even further in his quest to permanently shutter it.
Obama
Clears Afghan Taliban Terrorist for Guantanamo Release Despite 'Threat'. The Obama administration's
Guantánamo parole board has released an al-Qaeda-linked jihadi recruiter from Mauritania and approved for release an
Afghan man affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda who "still presents some level of threat." After the release of
Mauritanian prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi to his home country on Monday [10/17/2016], the total number of detainees at the
U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, also known as Gitmo, dropped to 60.
A Banana Republic, If We Choose to Keep It. Here's
what Americans have learned in the last two weeks alone. [...] [T]he Washington Free Beacon revealed the Obama administration ordered the Pentagon
to spend taxpayer funds on finding domestic locations, such as Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Charleston, South Carolina, and Florence, Colorado, that
could be used to relocate Guantanamo Bay terrorists. Congress has sent a letter to the administration demanding to know who authorized the
site surveys and participated in them, when they took place, and how the taxpayer funds were spent. Expecting an answer is probably
naïve. Expecting one before the election is delusional. And if the status quo prevails, there will be no answer at all.
Obama
Admin Secretly Scouted U.S. Cities to Move Gitmo Terrorists. The Obama administration secretly used taxpayer
money to fund an official inspection of several U.S. cities as possible locations to move terrorist inmates held at the
Guantanamo Bay prison camp in violation of federal law, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. The Obama
administration ordered the Pentagon to spend U.S. taxpayer funds for a domestic search of "possible Guantanamo detainee
relocation" sites, according to documents obtained by the Free Beacon. United States law bars the administration
from spending taxpayer money on its effort to move Gitmo inmates onto American soil.
It
cost $7,158 to see if terrorists can be held at Navy brig in Hanahan. Some angry politicians are questioning
the amount of money spent by the Department of Defense to visit the Naval Consolidated Brig in Hanahan and two others sites
deemed suitable for housing terror detainees. In all, the DoD spent $25,909.53 last year traveling to Charleston,
Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., and the Supermax prison lockup in Florence, Colo., to see how they might hold suspects now kept
at the U.S. military installation in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The cost of the Charleston visit was set at $7,158 to cover
airfare, per diem and incidentals for the undisclosed number of visitors who made up the survey delegation.
The Disgraceful
Gitmo Exodus. As Barack Obama prepared to enter the final year of his presidency, he sat down for an interview
with Olivier Knox to discuss a bold new policy change. He had announced a year earlier that the United States would be
ending its decades-long isolation of Cuba and seeking rapprochement with the authoritarian Communists who run the island
nation 90 miles from Florida. In this December 14, 2015, interview, Obama described his new approach in greater
detail. The change he proposed dominated headlines for days. There was other big news in the interview —
though this the media didn't treat as such. The president declared that he remained committed to closing the detention
facility at Guantánamo Bay, despite strong objections from Republicans and some Democrats.
Where did the Gitmo Terrorists Go? As
of August 15, 2016, 710 detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been transferred out of the facility. [...]
Most of these terrorists are believed to have returned to terror activity. Such a return has been documented in over a
third of cases. Interesting to note that two of the Guantanamo terrorists were released into the USA — one
Saudi, and one from Tanzania.
More
ex-Gitmo detainees returning to terror, as Obama faces closure complications. President Obama is facing fresh complications
in his push to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp after the U.S. intelligence community revealed in a new report that two more former
prisoners have returned to the battlefield — bringing the total number of detainees who have returned to terror under the Obama
administration to nine. The recidivism report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Wednesday [9/14/2016],
covers a six-month period that ended July 15. In it, the government confirmed that at least two Gitmo prisoners released during
the Obama administration, and at least two more released under former President George W. Bush's administration, have returned to
"terrorist activities" during the first half of 2016.
White
House threatens to veto bill that would halt Gitmo transfers. The White House issued a formal veto threat
Tuesday on a bill to stop transfers out of Guantanamo Bay that the House will consider this week. The bill, introduced
by Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., would prohibit any prisoner transfers until either Jan. 1 or the National Defense
Authorization Act becomes law, whichever comes first. It would essentially end any hope the president has of closing
Guantanamo Bay before his presidency ends in January.
It's a little late now, isn't it? Sounds like this is just for show. House
to vote next week to block Gitmo transfers. Next week's vote would come a month after the Obama administration
said it would transfer 15 detainees to the United Arab Emirates. Twenty additional detainees have been approved for
transfers, with the U.S. seeking countries to take them in. The bill, authored by Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.),
would prohibit transfers of any of the remaining 61 detainees at Guantánamo Bay until either the end of this year or
the enactment of the 2017 defense authorization. Republicans want to deny the Obama administration the ability to move
any more detainees before the president's term ends.
House
votes to block Guantanamo closure. The House voted Thursday [9/15/2016] to block any more transfers of
detainees from Guantanamo Bay under President Obama, striking a symbolic blow after he signaled last week he still believes
there's a chance to shutter the prison before he leaves office. The 244-174 vote, which broke chiefly along party
lines, is the latest in a series of measures that have tied Mr. Obama's hands, keeping him from having free rein in
disposing of the remaining 61 detainees.
Obama
Remains Hopeful of Closing Guantanamo Bay Before Term Ends. U.S. President Barack Obama said he remained hopeful of being able to close the
military detention center at Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office in January. "I am not ready to concede that it may still remain open because we're
still working diligently to continue to shrink the population," Obama said Thursday [9/8/2016] at a briefing following a summit with Southeast Asian leaders
in Vientiane, Laos. "It's not necessary and it's hugely expensive for taxpayers." While the president vowed before he took office to close the
prison he's been stymied by members of Congress who have placed restrictions in defense spending bills on the government's ability to close the facility.
The Editor says...
Barack H. Obama is not concerned about the taxpayers' expense, but even so, the perpetual imprisonment of Guantanamo-grade terrorists saves money in the long run.
Complying
With Obama's Order, A 100-Cell Camp Is Shut Down At Gitmo. President Obama has vowed to close our detention
center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and this could be one of the first steps in meeting that goal. According to the Miami
Herald, a 100-cell camp, called Camp 5, has ceased its operations. There are now only 61 detainees left at Gitmo,
with the remainder of Camp 5's population being transferred to Camp 6. In addition, the closure of Camp 5
means that 400 fewer troops will be stationed at Gitmo.
House
Intel Committee Members: Largest-Ever Gitmo Release Endangers U.S. Troops. Republicans on the House
intelligence committee said Wednesday that the Obama administration's largest release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay
endangers American troops, and that the president will be fully responsible for any American casualties resulting from the
transfer. Fourteen Republicans, including all GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
penned a letter to Obama objecting to the release of 15 detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base,
arguing that the administration's decision to release "increasingly dangerous terrorists" from U.S. custody jeopardizes U.S.
forces operating abroad.
House
Intel Committee Members: Largest-Ever Gitmo Release Endangers U.S. Troops. Republicans on the House
intelligence committee said Wednesday that the Obama administration's largest release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay
endangers American troops, and that the president will be fully responsible for any American casualties resulting from the
transfer. Fourteen Republicans, including all GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
penned a letter to Obama objecting to the release of 15 detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base,
arguing that the administration's decision to release "increasingly dangerous terrorists" from U.S. custody jeopardizes U.S.
forces operating abroad.
White
House Won't Say if It Pays Other Countries to Accept Guantanamo Bay Transfers. White House spokesman Josh
Earnest would not say Friday whether the United States pays other countries to accept in transfers from the Guantanamo Bay
terrorist prison, despite being asked directly twice. The Obama administration transferred 15 prisoners earlier this
month, leaving just 61 remaining at the Cuba detention facility. The 12 Yemenis and three Afghans were sent to the
United Arab Emirates. Since taking office in 2009, President Obama has repeatedly stated his goal to close Gitmo.
Fox News reporter Kevin Corke, after Earnest said he didn't have advance notices of any more pending releases, asked whether
the U.S. pays other countries a "fee" for detainees they're willing to take on.
Biden's
'Expectation' is Obama Will Close Gitmo Prison. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Thursday he still
expects that the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will close before the Obama administration leaves office in
January. "That is my hope and expectation," Biden said during a press conference in Sweden. His remarks came
several days after President Barack Obama's chief spokesman revealed that the president still intends to shutter the
controversial terrorist detention center before his last day in office on Jan. 20 next year.
Obama
can't Gitmo satisfaction. Only 61 detainees remain in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp now that 15 have been
transferred to the United Arab Emirates. After the single largest transfer out of the camp by President Obama, the
chief executive appears dead-set on closing the prison before he leaves office, a goal with an arbitrary, or perhaps
legacy-focused, deadline. Obama's campaign pledge to close the prison was foolish. It is one of many promises
made before he had to deal with the realities of governing.
U.S.
transfers 15 Guantanamo detainees to United Arab Emirates. Fifteen prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention
center were sent to the United Arab Emirates in the single largest release of detainees during the Obama administration, the
Pentagon announced Monday [8/15/2016].
Fifteen
inmates are sent from Guantanamo Bay to the UAE as Obama continues push to shut down the controversial camp before he leaves
office. Fifteen prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center were sent to the United Arab Emirates in the
single largest release of detainees during the Obama administration, the Pentagon announced yesterday [8/14/2016]. The
transfer of 12 Yemeni nationals and three Afghans to the UAE comes as President Obama is seeking to reduce the number of
detainees at the prison in Cuba. The Pentagon says 61 detainees now remain at Guantanamo, which was opened in January
2002 to hold foreign fighters suspected of links to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.
Obama
Releases 15 More Jihadists From #Gitmo. The Obama administration has approved the release of 15 detainees from
the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United Arab Emirates, a move derided Monday night by a leading member of
Congress as reckless. Rep. Ed Royce, the California Republican who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, called
the released detainees "hardened terrorists" who will be a threat for years. "In its race to close Gitmo, the Obama
administration is doubling down on policies that put American lives at risk," Royce said in a statement. "Once again,
hardened terrorists are being released to foreign countries where they will be a threat."
Obama's
biggest-ever release of Gitmo detainees blasted by Trump, lawmakers. President Obama faced renewed criticism of
endangering national security a day after the announcement that the administration is transferring another 15 inmates from
the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, as Donald Trump and Republican congressional candidates vowed to keep the prison for
terrorists open after Mr. Obama leaves office. Critics fear a rush of releases as Mr. Obama's term ends, with
the Gitmo debate reviving just as the leading presidential candidates were clashing over national security and how best to
wage the war on terrorism in the years to come.
15
Guantanamo Detainees Sent to UAE in Major Transfer. Fifteen prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center
were sent to the United Arab Emirates in the single largest release of detainees during the Obama administration, the
Pentagon announced Monday [8/15/2016]. The transfer of 12 Yemeni nationals and three Afghans to the UAE comes amid a
renewed push to whittle down the number of detainees held at the U.S. prison in Cuba that President Barack Obama aims to
close. The Pentagon says 61 detainees now remain at Guantanamo, which was opened in January 2002 to hold foreign
fighters suspected of links to the Taliban or the al-Qaida terrorist organization.
Pentagon:
Nearly half of remaining Guantanamo detainees slated for transfer. Nearly half of the detainees remaining at
Guantanamo Bay are slated for transfer, a Pentagon official confirmed to Fox News. Of the 76 remaining detainees, 34
have been approved for transfer to countries that have agreed to accept them, according to spokeswoman Valerie
Henderson. Thirty-two other detainees are slated to have their cases heard by a Department of Defense review
board. Not all the detainees that get transferred to other countries will go to prison, however, and the details
of the terms of each transfer with other nations remain a secret.
Ex-Guantanamo
detainee who disappeared in Uruguay shows up in Venezuela. A resettled former Guantanamo prisoner who
disappeared last month in Uruguay, setting off alarm bells in neighboring countries and recriminations in Washington, has
reappeared in Venezuela, the government said Wednesday [7/27/2016].
Brazil: Still
looking for the Gitmo guy. Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a.k.a. Jihad Ahmad Diyab, a.k.a. Abu Wael Dihab,
a.k.a. Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab, is still missing. The forner Gitmo detainee was released to Uruguay last year,
and visited Argentina last February, where he declared he was "ready to fight." He had tried to enter Brazil three
times but was turned away at the border.
The
latest Gitmo detainee Mr. Obama decided to spring. For those who doubt the cold-hearted nature of the man
currently leading this nation, Barack Obama's sham commission is releasing a high risk GITMO prisoner with extensive training
in poisons, an al-Qaida member of bin Laden's 55th Brigade. Never a good prisoner, he didn't try to give the appearance
of being reformed. He was sent to Italy. Our military likely died at his hands because he was on the front lines
and military risked their lives to capture him. He is a high risk candidate to go back to the fight and continue his
goal of attacking US targets.
US
transfers Yemeni inmate from Guantanamo to Italy: official. The United States has transferred Saudi-born Yemeni
inmate Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman to Italy, the Pentagon announced Sunday [7/10/2016], as President Barack Obama seeks to
close the reviled American military detention center in Cuba. Suleiman, who was recommended for transfer in January
2010 by the Guantanamo Review Task Force, was originally brought to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002.
U.S.
Transfers Two Guantanamo Inmates to Serbia. Two inmates from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay were
transferred to Serbia on Monday as the Obama administration pressed ahead with its long-held goal of shutting the widely
condemned facility at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The transfer of Yemeni national Mansur Ahmad Saad al-Dayfi and Tajik
national Muhammadi Davlatov to Serbia reduced the number of detainees at Guantanamo to 76, with 27 of those approved for
transfer once an appropriate country can be found, U.S. officials said.
Disappearance
of ex-Guantánamo Bay Prisoner Raises Alarms. The disappearance of a former Guantánamo Bay prisoner
who was transferred to Uruguay is sharpening debate here over the wartime prison, even as a House committee prepares to hold
an oversight hearing on Thursday [7/7/20167] about the Obama administration's policy on releasing detainees to other countries.
The former detainee, Jihad Diyab, is a Syrian who was among six lower-level detainees resettled in Uruguay in December 2014.
Early last month, he told several people that he was going on a religious retreat that would last beyond the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan and into next week — and that he would be unreachable by telephone or email.
Turkey
Terror Attack Suspect Freed from Gitmo, Part of "Russian Taliban". Surprise, surprise; one of the suspects
arrested in connection with last week's terrorist attacks in Turkey spent time at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. The U.S. released him to his native Russia along with six other detainees who subsequently became known as the
"Russian Taliban," according to an alarming report published by a Washington D.C. think-tank that studies totalitarian
societies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. One of the members of the so-called Russian Taliban, Airat Vakhitov,
is among 30 people arrested by Turkish authorities in connection with the attack at Istanbul's Ataturk airport that killed
dozens and injured more than 100, a U.S. government-funded news service reports.
Former
Gitmo detainee's location unknown in South America, airline issues alert. The growing mystery about the
whereabouts of a former Guantanamo detainee who resettled in Uruguay has led a South American airline to issue an alert to
its employees. The Colombia-based Avianca Airlines issued an internal alert asking its employees to be on the lookout
for Syrian native Abu Wa'el Dhiab, whom according to Uruguayan is visiting neighboring Brazil. The Brazilian
government, however, has said there is no record for Dhiab entering the country.
Good job, Barry! Olympic
Countdown: Al Qaeda Terrorist Released from Gitmo to Uruguay Sneaked into Brazil, Whereabouts Unknown.
With the summer Olympics just a few weeks away in Brazil, a veteran Al Qaeda operative released from Guantanamo to Uruguay
has gone missing and authorities in Latin America believe he sneaked into Brazil after being denied legal entry. The
Islamic terrorist's name is Jihad Ahmad Diyab an in late 2014 President Obama sent him to Uruguay along with five fellow
Gitmo inmates as part of a misguided plan to shut down the U.S. military prison at the Naval base in southeast Cuba.
Now officials from Uruguay, Brazil and the United States are scrambling to find Diyab, according to news reports in Uruguay
that quote high-level government officials.
Justice
Department Blocks White House Attempt To Speed Up Detainee Transfers. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is
blocking a White House proposal to speed along the process of shuttering Guantanamo Bay, further deepening the rift between
the White House and Department of Justice over how to handle Gitmo. The proposal is an attempt to permit detainees to
plead guilty over video conference, but Lynch is convinced that such a confession constitutes a violation of criminal
procedure, Reuters reports.
Law
enforcement searching for former Guantanamo detainee in South America. A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner
transferred to Uruguay in 2014 has vanished and is believed to have left the country under uncertain circumstances, U.S.
officials said. Law enforcement is now searching for the former detainee, Syrian national Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab, in
Brazil, a U.S. official said. "We are coordinating with officials in Brazil and Uruguay to determine his whereabouts,"
the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive incident. While the Obama administration
declined to comment publicly about the case, officials believe that Dhiab may have crossed into Brazil without documents that
would allow him to enter that country legally.
Senate
defies Obama on defense spending — and Gitmo. Not even Democrats seem all that impressed with a veto
threat from Barack Obama these days. When the White House leaked that it would abandon executive-order strategies to
close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, it had to know that no other path would remain open. A Senate vote today
removed all doubt. On an 85-13 vote, the upper chamber overwhelming passed a national defense authorization act
(NDAA) that slams the door shut on transfers of terrorist detainees to the US.
Reuters:
Obama gives up on using executive power to close Gitmo. Reuters is reporting that the Obama administration is
reluctantly giving up the idea that it can close the prison at Guantanamo by issuing an executive order under his authority
as commander in chief.
To
Keep Guantanamo Open, Conservative Senators Push to Declassify Detainee Records. President Barack Obama is
running out of time to fulfill his campaign promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and bring some detainees
to the United States. As the last months of Obama's term approach, a new Republican measure could now make that a
political impossibility. An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act spearheaded by Sens. David
Perdue, R-Ga., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., would require the director of national intelligence to declassify and make public the
terror records of former detainees. The more information that's available, the freshman duo are betting, the less
likely the public will be to allow the White House to empty and close the prison.
About
12 released Guantanamo detainees [have been] implicated in attacks on Americans. The Obama administration
believes that at least 12 detainees released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have launched attacks against U.S. or
allied forces in Afghanistan, killing about a half-dozen Americans, according to current and former U.S. officials. In
March, a senior Pentagon official made a startling admission to lawmakers when he acknowledged that former Guantanamo inmates
were responsible for the deaths of Americans overseas. The official, Paul Lewis, who oversees Guantanamo issues at the
Defense Department, provided no details, and the Obama administration has since declined to elaborate publicly on his
statement because the intelligence behind it is classified.
Obama
threatens veto of military funding bill over Guantanamo. The White House threatened on Tuesday to veto a
Defense funding bill in part because it included a provision designed to ensure the Obama administration cannot transfer
prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas or elsewhere in the United States. Ft. Leavenworth
was surveyed by Department of Defense officials as a possible site to house Guantanamo prisoners, although current federal
law forbids the transfer of the detainees to U.S. facilities. President Obama has threatened to veto legislation three
times in 2015 and 2016 over Guantanamo provisions, yet he has signed them into law every time, said Republican Sen. Pat
Roberts of Kansas, who added language about the prison to the funding bill as an amendment.
Guantánamo
is planning for prison after Obama. Military leaders are thinking about whether they will need to put a
wheelchair lift into their showcase communal prison three or four years from now, widen some some cell doors, add ramps for
geriatric captives. Not one of the 80 prisoners is now in a wheelchair and most are in their 30s or 40s. The
oldest is 68. But briefings by senior military officials here made clear that they are starting to actively think about
operating an offshore Pentagon detention center long after President Barack Obama leaves office.
Two
dozen Guantánamo detainees poised for release under Obama deals. The Obama administration has quietly
seeded the diplomatic bed for its next push to transfer detainees out of Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian has learned, as
Barack Obama aims to reduce the prison's population before leaving office. According to US officials, the
administration has deals in place to send approximately two dozen longtime Guantánamo detainees to about half a dozen
countries. While it is unclear if the transfers will occur in one wave, as with the April transfer of nine detainees to
Saudi Arabia, there is an expectation that the departure of 22 or 23 men will occur by the end of July. There are
currently 80 men detained at Guantánamo, the lowest number since the US opened the wartime prison in 2002.
Senate
defense bill includes funding to design Gitmo alternative. A previously undisclosed provision in the Senate
version of an annual defense policy bill specifies that the Pentagon could use funds to plan or design new facilities in the
United States to house Guantanamo Bay detainees. The provision was not included in a summary of the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) released by the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. The committee released the full
text of the bill Thursday night [5/19/2016]. "The Secretary of Defense may use amounts authorized to be appropriated or
otherwise made available for the Department of Defense for designing and planning related to the construction or modification
of such facilities," the bill reads.
Gov.
Haley testifies on possible transfer of Gitmo detainees to U.S. Naval brig. Gov. Nikki Haley wrapped up
testimony in Washington, DC about her concerns over the possible transfer of Guantanamo Bay terror suspects to sites in this
country, including the Naval Brig in Hanahan. The hearing before the U.S. Homeland Security Committee is addressing the
potential impact on the Palmetto State's future of moving potentially dozens of Guantanamo detainees to United States.
Haley said one of the concerns is the economic impact of moving detainees here to South Carolina.
The
Ringleader: Obama Organizes Mass Jailbreak from Gitmo. Despite warnings that Muslim terrorists remain a
grave threat to the United States, President Obama gave two dangerous veteran jihadists at Guantanamo Bay get-out-of-jail-free
cards earlier this month. Emptying out Guantanamo is a longtime goal of Obama. Shuttering the terrorist detention
facility located on U.S.-held territory in Cuba has been a goal of President Obama, going back at least to the campaign trail
in 2008. He wants to close the prison camp and unleash the worst of the worst among Islamic terrorists, allowing them to
wreak havoc and kill more Americans. Violent Muslim militants are merely misunderstood people from a foreign culture, in
Obama's view. Obama doesn't [care] about the prospect of these hardened terrorists returning to the glories of
jihad-fighting after leaving Gitmo. Terrorists, freedom fighters — why quibble? They're all
more or less the same to the president.
Hundreds
of Convicted Terrorists Are Already Held in U.S. Prisons. Republican leaders have blocked the closing of the
prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, because they say they do not want terrorists held on United States soil. But
American prisons currently hold 443 convicted terrorists, far more than the 89 men who remain imprisoned in Cuba. The
New York Times was able to confirm locations for about a third of the terrorists, shown on the map above. The Department
of Justice would not release the names or locations of the other prisoners who had been convicted of terrorism.
Gitmo
population drops below 90 with release of two detainees. The population of Guantanamo Bay dropped below 90 for
the first time since it opened in 2002 when two prisoners were transferred to Senegal, the Pentagon announced on Monday
[4/4/2016]. The two Libyan nationals, Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby and Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar, were
unanimously cleared for transfer by the Guantanamo Review Task Force and the Periodic Review Board, respectively. The
Pentagon release said the U.S. worked with Senegal to "ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate
security and human treatment measures," though it did not specify what security measures are in place.
Obama
removing 'hardened terrorists' from Gitmo. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says the Obama
administration, in its zeal to close Guantanamo, is sending "experienced, hardened terrorists" back into the fight against
the United States. In remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday [4/5/2016], McConnell argued that it is "the wrong time" to
release fighters who he says have been judged "likely" to resume hostilities. On Monday, the Pentagon announced the
transfer of Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby and Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar from the U.S. military detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay to the government of Senegal.
Al
Qaeda explosives experts transferred from Guantanamo Bay. Two of Al Qaeda's former explosives experts were just
transferred out of Guantanamo Bay and sent to Senegal, the Defense Department confirmed Monday, marking the latest detainees
to be shipped out of the prison camp despite the risk they could return to the battlefield. [...] Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby is
believed to have fought coalition forces at Usama bin Laden's Tora Bora complex in Afghanistan "and was associated with
senior members of Al Qaeda." Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar was assessed to be likely to "immediately
seek out prior associates and reengage in hostilities and extremist support activities" upon his release, according
to a 2008 government document.
Pentagon to send about
a dozen Guantanamo inmates to other countries soon. There are now 91 prisoners at the U.S. naval base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Most have been held without charge or trial for more than a decade, drawing international
condemnation. Obama, who last month presented Congress with a blueprint for closing the prison, is seeking to make good
on his long-time pledge before he leaves office in January. But he faces stiff opposition from many Republican
lawmakers, as well as some of his fellow Democrats.
John
Hickenlooper blocks Obama, opposes transfer of Gitmo detainees to Colorado. Colorado may have been President
Obama's best bet as a destination for detainees from Guantanamo Bay given the lack of opposition from the Democratic
governor, but no longer. Gov. John Hickenlooper now says that he will support the wishes of Fremont County
residents living near the two prisons under consideration by the Defense Department if Mr. Obama follows through with
his plan to close the U.S. Naval Station in Cuba. "The reports we've gotten over the last couple months is the people
are fairly united — they don't want to take that risk," Mr. Hickenlooper said at a press gathering, according to
The Denver Post. "I respect that." His comments mark a shift from his previous position in which he said he would
weigh the costs and risks.
US
official: Next round of Gitmo transfers begins this weekend. The next round of Gitmo transfers will begin this
weekend with two detainees going an undisclosed country in Africa, a U.S. official told Fox News. In January, the
Pentagon conducted a bulk transfer of 10 detainees at once, the largest transfer from the U.S. Naval Station at
Guantanamo, Cuba to date. This next transfer of Gitmo detainees can't happen all at once because the Pentagon is required
by law to notify Congress 30-days before any transfers. Capitol Hill sources tell Fox News that period has not elapsed yet
for all the transfers.
Raul
Castro has more demands for his U.S. guest. [Scroll down] Castro also made it clear he has additional demands
before allowing the American leader to pursue the fully-normalized relations he appears to so covet. (Does anyone else sniff
that same desperation for a deal as Obama had over Iran's nuclear weapons program?) "In order to move forward towards
normalization," the little fellow declared, "it will also be necessary to return the territory illegally occupied by Guantanamo
Naval Base." The lease on that 45-square-mile facility, an offshoot of Cuban liberation from U.S. occupation after the
Spanish-American War, is perpetual. It can only be voided by mutual agreement or failure to pay the $3,400 annual rent.
Castro neglected to mention the nearly 4,000 Cubans employed there.
Members
of 'Leavenworth 10' languish in military prison, while Gitmo detainees freed. The Obama administration is emptying the military's
Guantanamo Bay detention facility of avowed terrorists captured fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but several American service members languish
in another military prison for actions on those same battlefields that their supporters say merit clemency, if not gratitude. Among the
prison population at Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas, are remaining members of the so-called "Leavenworth 10," convicted service members doing terms
ranging from 10 to 40 years for heat-of-the-battle decisions their supporters say saved American lives.
Castro
demands U.S. give back Guantanamo, lift embargo. Cuban President Raul Castro told President Obama Monday [3/21/2016] that
the U.S. must return the Guantanamo Bay naval base and lift the embargo against Havana for the countries to fully normalize relations.
"The blockade stands as the most important obstacle to our economic development," Mr. Castro said as the two leaders emerged from a meeting
on Mr. Obama's historic trip to the island. He also said in order for the countries to move forward, "it will also be necessary" for
the U.S. to return Guantanamo, which is based on the eastern end of Cuba.
Intel:
Twice as Many Former Gitmo Inmates Returning to Terrorism. In July 2015, DNI flagged six former detainees who
were believed to have rejoined the terror movement. One year later that estimate has increased to 12, as the Obama
administration attempts to shut down the detention facility and relocate at least 60 remaining inmates onto U.S. soil.
A total of 118 out of 676 freed former detainees were confirmed of having reengaged in terrorist acts since 2009. Around 30
have been killed on the battlefield, while 25 have been taken back into custody. At least 63 remain at large, according
to the DNI's latest findings.
More
Ex-Gitmo detainees suspected of returning to terrorism. Of the 144 detainees released under Obama, the number
now confirmed to be back in the fight is seven, according to the report from the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence. The number of Obama-era releases suspected of re-engaging is now 12. In addition, one more former detainee
who was released under President George W. Bush is now suspected of rejoining the fight. Overall, 118 of the 676 prisoners
released under both presidents are confirmed to have participated in terrorism, while another 86 are suspected.
Don't
Get Complacent on Guantanamo. Last week, President Obama formally submitted his plan to Congress for closing
down detention/interrogation operations at Guantanamo Bay. It's a plan that, if implemented today, would be a violation of
federal law — but don't assume that's the end of the story for this president as he sprints, during his final year
in office, to fulfill an ill-conceived campaign pledge to close Gitmo.
We
pay the price for Obama's obsession with Gitmo. The president is so obsessed with closing Guantanamo Bay, he'd
release high-risk heathens, knowing many head right back to exact horror on innocents. [Video clip]
Obama's Gitmo Guilt Trip. Barack Obama rode to
his 2008 victory on the enormous unpopularity of George W. Bush. Obama made his opposition to the Iraq war his campaign centerpiece,
and he made much of his promise to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which he claimed was a stain on our nation's
history. Last week Obama took his last shot at closing Gitmo. Of the hundreds who have been detained at Gitmo over the last fourteen
years, only ninety-one are left. Part of the reason for this is that Obama has refused to incarcerate any captured terrorists there since
his inauguration. Instead of being confined there, some have been parceled out to other nations and a great many have been released.
Closing
Gitmo is just a distraction from Obama's ISIS failures. The president says Guantanamo Bay makes us less safe because terrorists use it as a
propaganda tool. But terrorists use just about any type of military response as a propaganda tool. That's no reason to unilaterally disarm.
And, I can tell you that when we're talking about Gitmo, we're talking about the worst of the worst terrorists in the entire world. The president isn't
talking about trying to move people to the United States prison system that are low level criminals or terrorists. These are the worst of the worst,
including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the mastermind behind 9/11. Not only that, but 30 percent of former Guantanamo prisoners are either
confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terrorism. In fact, just this week, a former Guantanamo prisoner was arrested in Spain after trying to
recruit for ISIS. There's a reason these terrorists are in Guantanamo. And we should keep them there.
The
Real GITMO: Free Healthcare, Movies, TV, Video Games and Detainees Throwing Feces. For years President Obama
and the progressives who support him have classified the prison at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States has housed the
world's most dangerous terrorists and enemy combatants for nearly two decades, as a medieval dungeon rife with human rights
violations and horrifying conditions. The prison is so bad, according to Obama, it must be shut down in order to protect
U.S. dignity. But the real GITMO is quite another story, with detainees regularly watching movies and cable TV, spending time
outside, playing video games, taking advantage of their religious freedom afforded to them by U.S. values, being given medical
treatment and more. But as they say, no good deed goes unpunished and detainees often times urinate on guards and throw feces.
AG
Lynch says Obama can't enact his Gitmo plan on his own. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday [2/24/2016] that
federal law flatly prevents President Obama from sending the detainees from Guantanamo Bay to U.S. territory, hurting his ability to
follow through on his new closure plan. "That is the state of the law," she said, pointing to the most recent defense policy law
passed late last year, which cleared Congress on a bipartisan vote and which Mr. Obama himself signed into law.
Ryan:
House will block Obama's Gitmo closing plan in court as well as in Congress. That should prove relatively easy,
since transferring Gitmo detainees to the US remains illegal — under a law signed by Barack Obama. Paul Ryan
promised a fight in both the legislative and judicial arenas to stop Obama's latest iteration of his demand to shutter the
detention facility at the Guantanamo naval base: [Video clip]
Genius in charge of the State Department: Kerry
on Gitmo Detainee Who Rejoined Al Qaeda: 'He's Not Supposed to Be Doing That'. Secretary of State John Kerry
responded to the news that a former Guantanamo Bay detainee had returned to terrorism Wednesday [2/24/2016] by saying that "he's not
supposed to be doing that." Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee to discuss the State Department's budget
requests, Republican Mark Kirk asked Kerry about Ibrahim al-Qosi, who was transferred from Gitmo to Sudan in 2012 to serve out a
fourteen-year prison sentence. In December 2015, he resurfaced as the public face of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. "Now
that he's out, I would hope we would end the policy of issuing terrorists to terrorist nations, where they can get out," Kirk said.
Kerry
on Gitmo Detainee Who Returned to Terrorism: 'He's Not Supposed to Be Doing That'. [Scroll down] Sudan,
where al Qosi was released, has a long history of terrorist activity with Sunni jihadist groups and individuals like al Qaeda
and Osama bin Laden as well as with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Sudanese government has also been internationally
accused of committing genocide in Darfur. Kerry paused for a moment before saying to Kirk, "Well, Senator, he's not supposed
to be doing that. And there are consequences for that, and there will be. But apart from that, the fact is that we've
got people who've been held without charges for 13 years, 14 years in some cases. That's not American, that's not
how we operate."
It's a little late now, isn't it? Speaker
Ryan: 'We Are Making Legal Preparations if the President Tries to Break the Law'. President Obama "can try" to
go around Congress in his attempt to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, House Speaker Paul Ryan told news
conference on Wednesday [2/24/2016]. "He has no authority to do so," Ryan added. Ryan reminded reporters that Congress voted
overwhelmingly for the National Defense Authorization Act, which contains a provision saying the president may not move Guantanamo
inmates to U.S. soil.
Former
Guantanamo detainee among 4 arrested in Spain, Morocco for Islamic State ties. Spanish and Moroccan police on
Tuesday arrested four suspected members of a jihadi cell that sought to recruit fighters for the Islamic State group,
including one described as a former Guantanamo detainee who once fought with militants in Afghanistan.
White House declines to say if Gitmo executive action
off table. The White House declined to say whether President Barack Obama would pursue executive action to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay on
Tuesday [2/23/2016], blaming members of Congress for their unwillingness to consider the proposal. "Congress specifically requested this plan on this time frame
and we have provided it to them," press secretary Josh Earnest told ABC News White House correspondent Jon Karl in an extended back and forth over whether Obama would
act unilaterally, despite pledging not to do so in submitting the proposal. "So again, they're going to have to decide whether or not they would actually want to
take a look at this."
Obama
says he will close Gitmo — give terrorists Miranda rights. Giving Gitmo back to the Castro brothers must be another
part of his 'historic' deal with Cuba. Since this is against the law, don't you find it a bit ironic that Obama's announcement to close
Gitmo comes just a week after Justice Scalia's sudden and surprise death? Chew on that. There are currently 91 Muslim terrorists still at
Gitmo. What does closing Gitmo mean for this country?
Obama's
foreign policy now boils down to 'let's pretend'. President Obama's policy — well, his lack of
one — when it comes to confronting America's enemies was on full and embarrassing display Tuesday [2/23/2016].
First, the president unveiled his long-delayed plan to close the terrorist-detention center at Guantanamo Bay, saying that
keeping it open is "contrary to our values." It was dead before arrival. Even Democrats weren't rushing to endorse it.
After all, just three months ago Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill that bans moving the detainees to the United States. (The
Senate vote was 91-3.) And moving them here is the only way to close Gitmo.
Former
Bush adviser: Obama not interested in detaining terrorists. Former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden charged
Tuesday [2/23/2016] that President Obama has no interest in using his wartime ability to detain and hold terrorist suspects, which is making it
easy for him to proposing closing the facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "One of the elements of making war is to actually capture people and
hold them, not for the criminal justice system, but hold them under the laws of armed conflict," the former adviser to President George W.
Bush told host Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "As part of this arrangement, I want our government to fully and publicly embrace we reserve the right
to grab enemy combatants and hold them whether or not we ever intend to put them into court." Hayden blasted the Obama administration for not
embracing this standard war practice.
Ignore Obama's Grandstanding and Keep Gitmo
Open. Ninety-one detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay, down from nearly 250 at the beginning of Barack Obama's administration and 800 at
the facility's peak. The president views this as a moral victory, to be crowned by the closure of the facility altogether: "This is about
closing a chapter in history," he waxed on Tuesday. In reality, it's about the president's fulfilling a long-postponed campaign promise, and
the Congress, now tasked with approving or disapproving the president's plan, should keep that firmly in mind. The president's plan calls for
the continued transfer of Guantanamo detainees to willing countries and, where that is not possible, housing remaining detainees on American soil.
Both have always been, and remain, bad ideas.
Obama
unveils plan to close Guantanamo Bay detention facility. President Obama unveiled Tuesday his long-anticipated proposal
to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, saying it undermines national security and is contrary to American
values. "For many years, it's been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security,"
Mr. Obama said at the White House. Transitioning to a U.S. detention facility would entail one-time costs between $290 million
and $475 million, but within three to five years, the lower operating cost of a U.S. facility with fewer detainees could fully
offset the transition costs, according to a plan released by the Pentagon.
Close
Gitmo? Obama puts our national security at risk to fulfill campaign promise. It began many years ago. Then-presidential candidate Barack
Obama making a campaign promise to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO) — a facility that houses the worst of the
worst — radical jihadists intent on destroying America. It's been something he has been fixated on since his presidency began more than
seven years ago. Now, with just months before he leaves office, President Obama is making one final push to close GITMO — submitting a
plan to Congress that puts America at risk — a plan that ultimately would call for the transfer of some of the most dangerous terrorists to the
United States — putting these barbaric terrorists on U.S. soil. We have repeatedly detailed the disastrous impact of President Obama's
political ploy to close GITMO — as he released ten more battle-hardened terrorists just last month — as jihadist after jihadist
returns to the battlefield to kill again.
Guantanamo Bay: Obama in bid to close
controversial prison. The White House has presented to Congress a plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention
facility, one of the president's long-standing goals. He wants to transfer the remaining 91 detainees to their home
countries or to US military or civilian prisons. But Congress is deeply opposed to terror suspects being held on US
soil and is expected to block the move.
Obama's incredibly
shrinking chance to close Gitmo. President Barack Obama's options for closing the military prison at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, are shrinking fast, even as the Pentagon prepares for Tuesday's [2/23/2016] release of a plan to move some of the remaining
inmates to the mainland in a final push to fulfill the president's 2008 campaign pledge. High-ranking members of the Obama
administration have all but ruled out the swiftest path to shuttering Guantanamo: unilateral action. Attorney General
Loretta Lynch acknowledged in November that current law bars the detainees from being moved to the United States. And the
president's top military generals vowed last month not to "take any action contrary to those restrictions."
Obama
Gitmo Policy May Force Pentagon to Release Newly Captured Terrorists. President Obama's push to close the Guantanamo Bay
detention facility may be forcing the Department of Defense to release suspected terrorists newly captured by U.S. forces overseas,
according to a Republican lawmaker and former Marine. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.) recently penned a letter to Defense Secretary
Ash Carter expressing concern that Obama's refusal to send new terrorist suspects to Guantanamo Bay is allowing them to return to the
battlefield to fight U.S. forces and resume acts of terrorism.
Obama:
I'm Not Running for Re-Election And Don't Worry About Politics. President Obama stated that "a lot of the
American people" are worried about closing Guantanamo Bay and this is part of the reason some in Congress do, and later said
that "the fact that I'm no longer running, Joe is no longer running, we're not on the ballot, it gives us the capacity to not
have to worry about the politics" during a statement on Tuesday [2/23/2016].
The Editor says...
Political pressure is apparently the only incentive Mr. Obama has for wise, proper and lawful behavior.
This is exactly why he should be impeached. In the absence of an upcoming election, he is a loose cannon.
He apparently believes he can get away with anything.
Exclusive:
Ex-Gitmo Warden Slams Obama's Release of Detainees. During a radio interview on Sunday, Col. Michael Bumgarner, formerly the commander
of the guard force at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, slammed President Obama for "throwing national security out the window" by continuing to
release Gitmo detainees. Bumgarner said he was particularly dumbfounded by the release of Ibrahim al-Qosi, who went on to become one of the
top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Qosi last December starred in an audio message urging deadly attacks on New York
and Paris.
Acceptance
of Mistakes, Credible Desire to Not Repeat Them Gets Taliban Terrorist Out of Gitmo. In the frantic effort to
close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo the Obama administration keeps freeing the world's most dangerous terrorists,
this month a Taliban soldier who served as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard. The Yemeni, Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmed, will be released
to an Arabic-speaking country with "appropriate security assurances" and "reintegration support," according to the Periodic Review
Board (PRB) created by the president to clear out the compound at the U.S. military base in southeast Cuba.
Pentagon
poised to submit plan for closing Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon is poised to submit a plan to Congress for closing the
Guantanamo Bay detention facility, a spokesman said Monday [2/22/2016]. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said the administration will meet
the Tuesday deadline for submitting a proposal for closing the facility and moving its terrorist detainees. "We understand that
the deadline is tomorrow, and it's our intent to meet it," Davis said. The plan will call for the closure of the detention
facility and lay out several options on how to do so, Davis said. President Obama is pushing to close the prison and fulfill a
long-standing campaign promise before leaving office. There are 91 detainees remaining at the prison.
GITMO Is Now a Muslim
Resort. Obama paints an unrealistically rosy picture of our enemies and views Republicans and US allies as the
enemy which is why his decisions are dangerous. GITMO will be closed unlawfully by Obama and it's one more bad decision
according to an Army Major who served at GITMO who says it's been turned into a country club for the terrorists. Four
Republican senators want to prevent Obama from emptying out GITMO by the end of this year and want to cut off foreign aid to
the receiving countries if the prisoners we send them escape. They are proposing legislation to do exactly that.
Major Granger called the senators heroes. The prisoners are the worst of the worst. They have DOD dockets thirty
pages long and 30% of these terrorists are returning to the battlefield, some as leaders, he said, and we don't know what
happened to the other 70%.
Ash Carter: Transferring
Gitmo Detainees to U.S. Is Against the Law. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during an interview aired Sunday [1/24/2016]
that it is currently illegal to transfer detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the American homeland.
Carter hopes Congress will change the law to make it legal, however, and told CNN's Fareed Zakaria, who conducted the interview, that he
submitted a plan to President Obama to close Guantanamo and move the remaining detainees to a secure facility in the United States.
"I've made a proposal for the president, and he has indicated that he's going to submit that to the Congress," Carter said. "Why is
that? Because it's against the law now to establish another detention facility [in the U.S.], so therefore we have to get the support
of Congress."
Pentagon releases al Qaeda bomb expert
from Guantánamo. The Pentagon on Thursday [1/21/2016] announced the transfer of two Guantánamo detainees, including an al Qaeda
explosives expert who developed bombs to target U.S. forces. Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al-Sawah, 58, was transferred to Bosnia, where he holds
citizenship. He is an admitted member of the terror group who developed specialized bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to
use against U.S. military forces and civilians, according to his official file posted by The New York Times.
Whose
side is Obama on? The dangerous decisions of a lame duck. It was hard to avoid all the really important media coverage
of the Eastern winter storm that had not hit anywhere by Thursday [1/21/2016]. So, you may have missed the trivial news about
Barack Obama releasing yet more terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility, including one particularly dangerous man.
Mr.
Obama, here's why closing Guantanamo is a big mistake. In his final State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Obama
promised to "keep working to shut down the prison at Guantanamo" and said "it's expensive, it's unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment
brochure for our enemies." But he couldn't be more wrong. Guantanamo Bay is a first-rate detention facility that's kept terrorists
off the battlefield and kept America safe. It's critical role in our national security cannot be overstated. Early last year, I
visited Guantanamo Bay and witnessed prisoner operations. I saw firsthand that it is not the barebones prison camp President Obama
purports it to be. In fact, it couldn't be further from the picture he's painted for the public.
Obama
saves his most dangerous betrayal for last. It's now clear that despite escalating jihadi attacks and threats
worldwide, nothing will dissuade President Obama from releasing or bringing in some of the world's most vicious Islamic
killers. Within 24 hours of the Islamic State attacks in Paris last November, Mr. Obama released five Yemeni detainees
from Guantanamo Bay to the United Arab Emirates. The timing, optics and dangerous reality of a terrorist release coming
immediately after mass slaughter committed by their fellow jihadis-in-arms did not concern him. After all, he's done it
before. Just a week after the jihadi massacre at Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January, he released five Taliban leaders from
Guantanamo to Qatar, where they stayed in "luxurious" confinement until their release one year later.
The Terrorists Freed by
Obama. The Obama administration in recent days has proclaimed a "milestone" in its efforts to close the detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after achieving its long-held goal of reducing the remaining population to fewer than 100
detainees. With the expedited release this month of 14 detainees, the total now stands at 93. This is nothing
to celebrate.
Ten
Yemeni prisoners transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Oman. Ten Yemeni prisoners held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo have
been transferred to Oman, two days after President Obama said the military prison was 'expensive and unnecessary'. The move brings the inmate
population at the controversial Cuban detention center below the symbolically important milestone of 100 as the administration renews its efforts to
shut it down. Oman's state news agency had earlier cited an official of the Gulf monarchy saying the Yemenis had arrived.
Guantánamo
Detainee Freed Monday Said He Would 'Kill Americans' if Released. The Obama Pentagon announced Monday
[1/11/2016] that Guantánamo detainee Muhammad Abd Al Rahman Awn Al-Shamrani, 40, will be transferred back to his home
country of Saudi Arabia. With the Monday announcement, Al-Shamrani became the fourth Guantánamo detainee released
in 2016. U.S. officials determined him to be a "high risk" for recidivism, warning he would likely re-engage against
the West should he be released from the detention facility. He also allegedly told guards at the facility that he would "kill
Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan if released," according to his leaked confidential file.
Obama
to shut Guantanamo before he leaves office, says White House chief of staff. [Scroll down] The president
has argued the facility has outlived its usefulness, including being too costly to keep open, an argument [Denis] McDonough
repeated on Sunday [1/10/2016]. Congressional Republicans have led efforts to keep open the facility and stop the
administration from releasing the detainees to Middle East countries, for fear they will return to terrorism. Republicans
and others are concerned that Obama will use executive orders to close the facility, on a U.S. Naval base, on Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, like he tried to do with immigration and now with gun control issues when Congress has blocked his efforts.
WH:
'We Will Close Gitmo Because It is Bad for Our National Security and Because It's Too Costly'. Congress has
expressly forbidden President Obama from transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the United States, but White
House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough shrugged it off on Sunday [1/10/2016]. "What the president just said is, he's going
to work with Congress, present them a plan to close (the prison), and then he'll make some final determinations," McDonough
told Fox News Sunday [1/10/2016].
The Editor says...
Guantanamo costs about half
as much as Obama's annual Hawaii vacation.
Two detainees sent to Ghana from Guantanamo:
Pentagon. The U.S. Department of Defense said on Wednesday [1/6/2016] that two detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military
prison had been transferred to Ghana. It said in a statement that 105 detainees remained at Guantanamo Bay.
Obama
and the Insanity of the Liberal Mind. Anyone questioning the liberal mantra that Islam is a religion of peace,
despite data to the contrary, is labeled an Islamophobe with the aim of shutting down honest debate. Islamists declared war
on the U.S. well before 9/11 and yet liberals still refuse to name the enemy. To liberals, political correctness trumps
common sense. Irrationally, they are importing hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees despite knowing that terrorists are
entering the country. FBI training materials were insanely scrubbed of any mention of jihad, Islamic extremism or other terms
potentially offensive to Muslims, likely resulting in Tamerlan Tsarneav slipping through the cracks. And while logic would
dictate expanding the number of terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Obama is releasing known terrorists back to the killing fields,
common sense — and his oath of office — [notwithstanding].
Obama
to Transfer 17 Gitmo Detainees Including 'Al Qaeda Followers'. The Obama administration is expected to release
17 detainees as early as next week, including "al Qaeda followers" who have been cleared for release from the Guantánamo
Bay prison by a board established by the president. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told lawmakers last month that 17
Guantanamo prisoners would be sent to other countries in January.
Obama
makes threats, but can't close Guantanamo through executive action. Leaders in Congress and the U.S. attorney general say
President Obama simply doesn't have legal authority to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility through executive action, but that fact
didn't stop a supremely confident president last week from threatening to act on his own if lawmakers won't cooperate. At a year-end
press conference on Friday — the same day Mr. Obama signed a massive spending bill that seems to prohibit him from closing
Guantanamo on his own — the president said he will explore the limits of his executive power if the House and Senate don't
pass legislation to shutter the prison.
Ex-Pentagon
chief Hagel: White House tried to 'destroy me'. Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says White House aides
tried to personally "destroy" him. In an interview with Foreign Policy, Hagel opened up about his tenure in the
administration, discussing the uncertainty over Syria strategy and accusing the White House of micromanaging the Pentagon,
echoing similar criticisms from predecessors Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. [...] Hagel and White House national security
adviser Susan Rice "frequently butted heads" over Syria policy and the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, according to
the Foreign Policy report.
Pentagon
proposing big release of Gitmo detainees. The Obama administration may be moving toward one of the biggest transfers of Guantanamo
Bay prisoners in years, as part of the president's slow-moving and still-controversial push to empty the camp. A congressional aide
confirmed to FoxNews.com on Thursday [12/17/2015] that the Pentagon has floated to lawmakers the possibility of transferring another 17
detainees. The aide said lawmakers will be briefed on the plan Friday — while voicing concern that the strategy is to reduce
the prison camp population to "as low as they can get," even if it involves "a good deal of risk."
Lying About Gitmo. Let's begin with the
conclusion: Barack Obama is releasing dangerous terrorists against the recommendations of military and intelligence professionals, he's doing so at a
time when the threat level from radical Islamists is elevated, and he is lying about it. He is lying about how many jihadists he has released
and lying about their backgrounds, all part of his effort to empty the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. We write this knowing the
accusation is a strong one and that the word lying will offend the sensibilities of the establishment media. There is an unwritten rule
that requires euphemizing lies with gentler descriptions, especially when talking about the president of the United States. There is a veritable
thesaurus of verbal politeness one can deploy: [...] Not this time. The president is lying.
This
would be the worst possible time to close Guantanamo. The Obama administration's decision to send the Joint
Special Operations Command into battle against the Islamic State is a small step toward getting rid of the counterproductive
prohibition on "boots on the ground" — really a prohibition on U.S. troops going into combat — that has
hindered attempts to defeat the terrorist state. The Special Operations task force that apparently will be stationed in Irbil
in northern Iraq will not, by itself, be a game-changer. But it will be a real help, especially in gathering intelligence
about the Islamic State.
Obama:
7 Years, 7 Major Islamic Terrorist Attacks On U.S. Soil. In May 2009, Obama vowed to defeat terrorism using
"all elements of our power." "My single most important responsibility as president is to keep the American people safe,"
he said. "It's the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning. It's the last thing that I
think about when I go to sleep at night." The next month, Obama traveled to Cairo to apologize to the world's Muslims for
the War on Terror. Then he canceled it, along with enhanced interrogations used to obtain information about plots against
the homeland from captured terrorists. Next, he set out to release as many terrorists as he could from the prison camp at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also ordered the FBI and Homeland Security to delete "jihad" from counterterrorism manuals and
fire all trainers who linked terrorism to Islam.
U.S.
terror policy: 'Catch and release'? Whether it was the five Taliban battlefield commanders who were exchanged
for the American traitor Bowe Bergdahl, or the hundreds of former Gitmo detainees who have been "transferred" elsewhere, the
idea of "catch and release" ought to be trademarked by the Obama administration as the official slogan for its terrorism
policy. You don't have to take my word for it. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence for President Obama,
released a report in March of this year that showed that 116 out of 647 of the "transferred" prisoners had "re-engaged" in
terrorism or insurgent activities. Another 69 were suspected of "re-engaging, which means at least 25 percent
of the freed Gitmo detainees were back on the street trying to kill Americans.
Obama:
People 'Worked Up' Over Paris Attacks Could Hurt Gitmo Closure Plan. President Obama reiterated his determination to
close the prison at Guantanamo Bay despite the attorney general's affirmation to Congress that the administration would be breaking
the law by moving detainees to U.S. soil. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday [11/17/2015], Attorney
General Loretta Lynch acknowledged that "as the administration has stated, the closure of Guantanamo Bay is something that is part
of the administration's policy and the Department Of Justice supports that as well."
Attorney
general: Law 'does not allow' Gitmo detainees in the US. The Obama administration is legally prohibited from bringing detainees
from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the U.S., Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged on Tuesday [11/17/2015], even as
the White House searches for ways to close the facility. "With respect to individuals being transferred to the United States, the law
currently does not allow that," Lynch told the House Judiciary Committee.
Pentagon
sends five Guantanamo Bay inmates to the United Arab Emirates. Five men who have been held for more than 13 years at the
U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been released and sent to the United Arab Emirates, the Pentagon said on Sunday [11/15/2015].
The five Yemeni men were accepted for resettlement in the Persian Gulf nation after U.S. authorities determined they no longer posed a threat,
the Defense Department said in a statement. Their release brings the Guantanamo prison population to 107.
WH: If Gitmo Closure Ends Up
in Court, Blame Congress. White House spokesman Josh Earnest couldn't say when President Obama will release his "top priority"
plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but on Thursday [11/12/2015], he did assure reporters it will be "relatively soon,"
maybe after Obama leaves Washington on Saturday for a trip to Turkey, Malaysia and the Philippines. The bigger question is whether
President Obama will use his executive authority to order the transfer the remaining Gitmo detainees to prisons in the United States.
That would invite a legal challenge from Congress, which has passed a law specifically prohibiting those transfers.
Paul Ryan Warns Obama against
Closing Guantanamo Bay. House speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) warned President Obama Tuesday [11/10/2015] against defying the
lawmakers who have voted to prevent him from transferring prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to the U.S. "He doesn't
have the authority to do it," Ryan told Bloomberg's Mark Halperin last night. "The law is the law. It's just that clear."
McCain
threatens to sue Obama over Gitmo. Congress would "go to court" if President Obama tries to close the military prison
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by executive action, Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain said Tuesday [11/10/2015]. The Arizona
Republican said closing the prison without submitting a plan to Congress for approval would be outlawed by legislation senators sent
to the president Tuesday [11/10/2015], which White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president would sign. But the White
House has been hinting for days that Obama may act on his own to close the prison if Congress does not approve its proposal.
Obama's
little secrets on Gitmo closure. What irony. Despite violent jihad sweeping the planet, President Obama is
busily preparing another push to close Guantanamo, perhaps even by executive action. So it's the perfect time to discuss his
little secrets: Secret #1: If and when detainees are moved stateside, judges could release them across America.
That's right, onto Main Street, USA.
Pentagon
to release Guantanamo detainee relocation plan, as Obama pressed ahead with closure. The Pentagon is expected
to release a plan next week on President Obama's years-long effort to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center that suggests
a Colorado prison dubbed "the Alcatraz of the Rockies" as one suitable site to relocate expected life-long detainees, Obama
administration officials say. [...] However, critics of the promise, including many Republicans, fear transferring detainees
to the U.S. mainland as part of an overall closure plan poses too much of a homeland security risk.
Pavlich
Tears Into Susan Rice Over Gitmo Comment. Katie Pavlich went after White House official Susan Rice for declaring this
week that "we're going to die trying" to close Guantanamo Bay prison before President Obama leaves office. "I can't say with
certainty that we're 100 percent going to get there, but I can tell you we're going to die trying," said Rice, who serves as
Obama's national security adviser. The comment came amid a new push by the White House to close the facility. Reuters
reports that the new plan will be unveiled soon by Obama's counterterrorism chief, Lisa Monaco.
Pentagon
Gets Ready To Submit Report On Housing Hardened Gitmo Detainees In America. Pentagon officials are finishing up
a report regarding which facilities in the United States seem suitable to house Guantanamo Bay detainees. Now that the Pentagon
has finished surveying the two facilities in Colorado, Federal Correctional Complex in Florence and the state prison in Canon City,
the team is set to prepare a report that will soon end up in the hands of Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who will then forward it
over to the White House, Defense One reports.
Senators
blast order barring female guards from transporting Gitmo inmates. Female soldiers serving at Guantanamo Bay are not
being allowed to transport inmates following a court order issued in response to prisoners who complained on religious grounds,
according to Republican senators who recently returned from a visit to the prison camp. Inmates apparently complained the
female soldiers' actions were an insult to their Islamic faith, but the senators blasted the court decision as an "insult to
women." Top U.S. military leaders agreed the directive is "outrageous," while suggesting they're currently bound by the order.
Obama makes final push to close
Guantanamo. The White House's decision this week to reject a massive defense policy bill — partly
for its restrictions on closing the Guantanamo Bay naval prison in Cuba — comes as the administration makes a
final push to close the facility in the remaining 15 months of President Barack Obama's tenure. Obama hopes to
leave office with the prison shuttered, since he campaigned on a vow to close it and has argued that it serves as a recruiting
tool for terrorists. On his second day in office, he signed an executive order to shut down the prison at Guantanamo,
pledging to have it done within a year.
The Editor says...
I challenge you to find any mention of Guantanamo Bay on a terrorist web site or recruiting poster anywhere in the world.
Gitmo Extended Stay America
Suites in Colorado? If there was ever a time for Coloradans of all political stripes to unite under the "Not in My Backyard"
banner, this is it. [...] On Friday [10/2/2015], White House officials disclosed to the press that a U.S. Defense Department fishing
expedition will take place over the next two weeks at both state and federal prisons here in the Rocky Mountain State. One of the
potential Gitmo Extended Stay America sites is a medium-security area of supermax — home of convicted 9/11 conspirator Zacarias
Moussaoui, shoe bomber Richard Reid, 1993 World Trade Center plotter Ramzi Yousef, millennium bomb plotter Ahmed Ressam, "dirty bomb"
plotter Jose Padilla and 1998 African U.S. embassy bomb plotter Wadih el-Hage. President Obama has bragged repeatedly about his
administration's ability to ensure public safety inside and outside any jihadist hotels in our own backyards.
Guantanamo detainees could be moving
to Colorado. A team from the U.S. Defense Department will visit both a state and a federal prison in Colorado to assess
their possible use for housing detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, senior U.S. officials said Friday [10/2/2015].
Obama overrules six national security
agencies, releases "terrorist all-star". As the Pope's plane landed outside D.C., the White House announced the release.
All but Fox ignored it or didn't notice it. It is, however, an extremely important story because Barack Obama has succeeded in
completely politicizing the Department of Defense. Obama wants to close GITMO and will send vicious terrorists back to their homes
to kill more Americans in order to do it. He just did it over the recommendations of six intelligence agencies and Ash Carter.
He formed his own select committee of compliant minions to make the decision about the release and they, of course, found it was safe to
send him back to Saudi Arabia.
Sen. Cotton slams Obama for
latest Gitmo transfer. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wants assurances that Saudi Arabia will monitor a recently transferred
Guantanamo Bay detainee. "Congress should be provided with the memorandum of understanding regarding this transfer so we can
fully understand the commitments made by Saudi Arabia to monitor this individual," Cotton said in a written statement Wednesday
[9/23/2015]. On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced Abdul Shalabi has been transferred back to his home country, bringing the
number of detainees at the military facility to 114.
Once
deemed too dangerous to release, Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay prison has been repatriated. A Saudi detainee
and a longtime hunger striker at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who was once deemed too dangerous to release
has been repatriated, U.S. officials said Tuesday [9/22/2015]. A military review board in June cleared Abdul Rahman
Shalabi, 39, for release. The board said that the effectiveness of the Saudi rehabilitation program that he is to
enter and the country's ability to monitor him were important factors in its decision.
To
Close Gitmo, Obama Frees Sept. 11, 2001 '20th Attacker'. How much does President Obama still want the Guantanamo
Bay terrorist prison shuttered? He just released the man trained to be the 20th hijacker for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
U.S.
frees Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard from Guantanamo Bay. The United States said on Tuesday [9/22/2015] it
had transferred Abdul Shalabi, a longtime hunger striker at the Guantanamo Bay prison and described as a bodyguard for former
al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to his home country of Saudi Arabia. His departure after more than 13½ years at the
Guantanamo facility leaves 114 detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, the Pentagon said in a statement. The U.S.
Defense Department has described the 39-year-old Shalabi as a member of al Qaeda and a longtime bodyguard for bin Laden, who
received 'specialized close combat training for his role as a suicide operative in an aborted component' of the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks on the United States.
Defense
secretary: We're looking at U.S. sites for Gitmo detainees. Pentagon teams are examining sites in the United
States to move terror detainees currently held at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said
Thursday. The first two sites are the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and the naval brig at Charleston, S.C.,
Carter said. "That does not mean those sites will be chosen," Carter said.
The Editor says...
You can be assured that the most dangerous Islamic terrorists in captivity won't be parked
in one of
these zip codes.
DoD
teams surveying US military sites for potential Gitmo transfers, lawmakers vow fight. The Department of Defense
notified lawmakers Friday [8/14/2015] that teams will visit two military installations in the United States — Fort
Leavenworth in Kansas and the Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C. — to conduct "site surveys" looking into transferring
a "limited number" of Guantanamo detainees, Pentagon and Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The move, coming on the same
day Secretary of State John Kerry marked the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, has already triggered a backlash on Capitol
Hill. But, despite existing congressional restrictions on moving the detainees to U.S. soil, the notice itself suggests
officials are wasting no time exploring transfer options for those at the controversial Cuba prison camp.
The Editor says...
I've never thought of Fort Leavenworth as a halfway house, but that's what it will be if Obama transfers these terrorists there,
in his pro-Islam haste. Then, of course, on his last day in office, he'll probably release them all somewhere in Dearborn,
Michigan, where they can blend into the population and start their teaching careers. If the Guantanamo Bay facility must be
closed, I suggest building a facility about 200 miles this side of Barrow, Alaska.
Issue
of where to move Guantanamo detainees threatens closure plan. A renewed push by the White House to close the
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been bogged down by an internal disagreement over its most controversial provision —
where to house detainees who will be brought to the United States for trial or indefinite detention, according to U.S. officials.
The White House had intended to provide lawmakers with a new road map for shuttering the facility — a top priority for
President Obama's remaining time in office — before lawmakers went on their August recess.
No Means No: Keep Gitmo Jihadists Out
of the U.S.A.. The Obama administration is plotting to break a major promise made under oath — and jeopardize
our nation in the name of social justice. This week, top White House officials floated renewed plans to close down Guantanamo Bay
in Cuba. Pentagon and Justice Department bureaucrats have been powwowing over how to shutter the facility and import up to hundreds
of detained jihad suspects into the U.S. It's a longtime legacy promise President Obama wants to fulfill to progressives before
he rides off permanently to Martha's Vineyard and Hawaii's lushest golf courses.
Obama's Gitmo déjà vu. If President
Obama wants to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office, it's looking like he'll have to appoint himself
secretary of defense. The president is in yet another increasingly public conflict with his defense secretary over the prudence
of emptying out the prison. All the guys left at Gitmo are still there for a reason, after all.
The
Pentagon Is Keeping Half of Gitmo Locked Up — Against The White House's Wishes. The
White House wants to quickly cut the number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. One man is standing in
the way: President Obama's Defense Secretary, Ash Carter. Carter and the White House are increasingly
at odds about how to whittle down the number of detainees held in Guantánamo Bay, hampering the administration's
push to close the detention center by the end of its term.
New
Obama Plan To Close Gitmo Would Transfer 9/11 Monsters Here. An Obama security aide reveals the White House plans to
step up the release of 52 al-Qaida detainees — high recidivism rates [notwithstanding] — and move the rest,
including the worst of the worst, to prisons inside the U.S. Don't worry, the administration says, the public will be safe.
"That doesn't mean just unlocking the door" and letting terrorists "go willy-nilly," Deputy National Security Advisor Lisa Monaco
assured skeptics gathered at the Aspen Institute's security forum. "It means a painstaking establishment of security protocols."
Current
Obama Plan to Close Guantanamo Bay has One Tiny Flaw: It's Illegal. Not that appears
to have ever stopped this particular president. [...] Say, I've got an idea: let's have Lois
Lerner and John Koskinen do all the planning for this patently illegal operation and the cover-up
which is sure to follow.
White
House finalizing plan to close Guantanamo prison. The White House is in the "final
stages" of a plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, spokesman Josh Earnest said
Wednesday [7/22/2015]. [...] "The administration is in fact in the final stages of drafting a plan
to safely and responsibly (close) the prison at Guantanamo Bay and to present that to Congress,"
Earnest said.
Obama
administration in 'final stages' of planning the Guantanamo Bay closing. The Obama
administration is in the "final stages of drafting a plan to safely and responsibly" close the
terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday
[7/22/2015]. [...] Any plan would have to be approved by Congress, which has placed significant
obstacles in the way of transferring detainees out of the prison. Currently a ban exists on
moving detainees into the United States, a significant impediment to emptying the prison of the 116
alleged terrorists currently housed there.
Obama
Gives Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Cards To Osama's Bodyguards. Chances are that the terrorists will
return to the battlefield or carry out other acts of terror against the U.S. Obama's own intelligence czar
has documented that nearly 30% of prisoners transferred from the Cuban prison have been confirmed or
suspected of having re-engaged in terrorist activities. That means for every three freed from Gitmo,
one has returned to holy war against us. Military analysts say that their ability to track all former
detainees is limited, so the recidivism rate may, in fact, be much higher.
Obama
transfers six more Gitmo detainees, including alleged bin Laden bodyguards. Six
detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, including two alleged Usama bin Laden bodyguards,
have been transferred to Oman, the Pentagon said Saturday [6/13/2015]. The terror-related
detainees are all from neighboring and embattled Yemen. They departed Friday from the U.S.
detention center, at a Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, created in the aftermath of the 9/11
attacks to get terror suspects off battlefields. This is the first time in roughly the past
five months that Guantanamo suspects have been transferred, as Congress considers new restrictions
on such moves.
John
McCain: White House Preparing New Plan to Close Guantÿnamo. The Obama administration is
drafting a new plan to shut down the U.S. detention facility at Guantÿnamo Bay, Defense One reported on
Thursday [6/4/2015] based on comments by Arizona Sen. John McCain. The chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee told the publication that he has been in talks with the White House and proposed an outline
for the closure of the Cuba-based prison camp that could win support in the Republican-majority Congress.
Report:
Obama Plans to Free Up to 10 Detainees from Guantanamo Bay Soon. The Obama administration, while
the Senate debates halting transfers out of the Guantanamo Bay detention center and keeping the prison operable
indefinitely, is planning to free up to 10 detainees, possibly in June, Defense One has learned.
"You're likely to see some progress in June," an unnamed senior defense official told Defense One.
Obama's
Two Obsessions: Weaken Israel and Empty Gitmo. We learned on Wednesday [3/25/2015]
that the United States Army is going to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior
before the enemy. If convicted, Mr. Bergdahl could face life in prison. This charge hardly came
as a surprise to those who served with Bergdahl; they had immediately suspected him of desertion when he left
his post in Afghanistan in 2009. Both President Obama and Susan Rice surely must have known all this before
(a) Mr. Obama celebrated the deal in the Rose Garden last May with Bergdahl's parents and (b) National
Security Adviser Susan Race declared Bergdahl had served his country with "honor and distinctoin." [sic]
Only if you believe desertion and misbehavior before the enemy is honorable and a mark of moral distinction.
Why Hasn't
Obama Closed Gitmo? In 2009, two months after President Obama took office, an unclassified
government report concluded that of the 530 Gitmo detainees released since the camp's creation some
14 years ago, 27 had been confirmed, and another 47 suspected, of re-engaging in terrorist activity.
Since then the number of confirmed recidivist cases has steadily swelled to more than 116, with another
69 suspected of re-engaging.
Obama:
I Should Have Closed Guantánamo Bay on Day One. During a Q&A session following
his speech on middle class economics to the City Club of Cleveland Wednesday afternoon, President
Barack Obama revealed on thing he would do differently if he could start his presidency over knowing
what he knows now. "I think I would have closed Guantánamo on the first day," he told the
crowd. The reason he didn't, Obama said, is that at the time there was bipartisan agreement that
the detention facility should be closed. Instead of making it happen right way, the president chose
to sign an executive order that tasked a group with figuring out how to close it within a year.
Over
100 freed Gitmo detainees have returned to jihad. Why wouldn't Muslims rejoin the jihad?
They are still devout Muslims, are they not? Any other outcome would be impossible, which is something
the delusionists in the Obama administration and the enemedia refuse to recognize — reality.
Obama
leaves al Qaeda war resolution intact, keeping Guantanamo open. The push for a new war authorization to
fight the Islamic State group does nothing to change the 2001 fight against al Qaeda, leaving the detention facility at
Guantanamo Bay open and meaning President Obama's successor could refill the prison he has rapidly been emptying.
Mr. Obama called for repealing the 2002 resolution authorizing war in Iraq but wants to leave the 2001 authorization
passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks intact, meaning the U.S. is still formally in combat and the prison
can remain operational.
Gitmo's
Worst Terrorists Skype as Part of "Humane Treatment". In the latest of many fringe
benefits extended to the world's most dangerous terrorists the Obama administration is allowing
Guantanamo Bay prisoners — including a senior Al Qaeda operative — to speak
with family via video chats similar to Skype. The captives are "high-value" detainees locked up
in a special top-security wing of the military compound at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba.
Chuck
Hagel Admits He Was Pressured by The Obama White House To Release GITMO Detainees. It
has long been suspected that President Obama took the direction to empty GITMO of detainees as a
strategic maneuver once he was politically unable to put them into Federal DOJ custody for trial.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel confirms the pressure in that regard. President Obama and his
leftist ideologues want GITMO closed. Sending the detainees to Qatar or Mid-East allies became the
politically strategic direction.
Hagel
Admits Disagreement with WH Over Pressure for Swifter Release of Gitmo Detainees. In an
interview with CNN that aired during Friday's [1/30/2015] "The Situation Room," former Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel admitted there was some disagreement between he and the Obama White House over the pace of the release of
Guantanamo Bay detainees during his tenure. In her line of questioning to Hagel involving the prisoner
swap of five Taliban Guantanamo detainees for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara
Starr got Hagel to admit there had been some pressure from within the White House.
The Elites
bow to Mecca. The aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre has confirmed something
widely suspected: this country's elites have no interest in defeating terrorism. [...] At the end of
the same week, five Yemeni terrorists — associated with the Al Qaeda offshoot that sponsored the
CH murders — were freed from Guantanamo, evidently on Obama's orders. Not only does this
defy widely-discussed findings that from 10 to 20% of all released detainees return to terrorism, it also
gives the back of the hand to the French and the victims. With this action, the administration's
long-suspected reluctance to engage with terrorism has been formalized.
Obama
Releases Convicted terrorist al-Marri. Long War Journal reports that the Obama
administration has released Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri from a U.S. prison — not from
Gitmo, but from a civilian jail after a federal terrorism conviction. Al-Marri is an
al-Qaeda operative who was planted as a "sleeper" in the United States by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed to
await instructions on carrying out a second wave of attacks after the 9/11 atrocities —
against water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. military academies, and other targets.
There
Is Only One Way to Stop Obama from Setting Jihadists Free. You're not going to like
this. Our commander-in-chief is recklessly releasing jihadists from Guantanamo Bay. The
president's Bush-deranged base is buoyed by the all-out effort to fulfill his vow to shut down the
detention camp. But the vast majority of Americans remain opposed, and increasingly alarmed.
The pace of releases has surged since November's midterm elections, with over two-dozen detainees
sprung — aiding the enemy even as the terror threat intensifies. But if you want it
stopped, the president has to be impeached.
Obama
rush to empty Guantanamo alarms lawmakers. It took a while for Republicans to catch on
to what President Obama is doing with the U.S. terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But now
that it's clear Obama is rushing to empty the place, Republicans are stepping up efforts to stop him.
Whether they succeed could have a serious impact on national security, as well as on more general GOP
efforts to rein in runaway executive power in the White House. Obama has accelerated Guantanamo
releases and transfers since last November's midterm elections. Other than the five senior Taliban
leaders released in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl last May — a deal Obama made in secret,
ignoring the law that required him to notify Congress — the president released just one other
Guantanamo inmate in 2014 before the elections.
Thanks to Barack H. Obama... Freed
Gitmo Detainee Opens ISIS Base in Afghanistan. As President Obama frees droves of
terrorists — including five Yemenis this week — from the U.S. military prison
in Guantanamo news reports confirm that a Gitmo alum who once led a Taliban unit has established the
first Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) base in Afghanistan.
Guantánamo:
five more prisoners freed. Five men from Yemen have been freed from the Guantánamo Bay prison
after more than a dozen years of captivity and sent to Estonia and Oman for resettlement, US officials have said
Wednesday [1/14/2015]. It is the latest in a wave of releases that have alarmed congressional opponents of
closing the detention centre. Four of the men went to Oman and one to Estonia, according to a Pentagon statement.
Sen.
Barrasso: We Will Block Obama From Closing Gitmo. Tuesday [1/13/2015] on Fox News Channel's "On
the Record with Greta Van Susteren," Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) discussed Republican senators introducing
a "time out" today in the form of new legislation to block President Barack Obama from releasing any more
terrorists from Guantanamo Bay. [Video clip]
Obama
Still Determined to Close Guantanamo. For those keeping count, Obama has released a
total of 111 prisoners from Guantanamo, including the five he exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's
release, an American soldier held as a POW in Afghanistan. Obama was widely criticized for the
decision, which was perceived as his negotiating with the enemy. Guantanamo Bay prisoners are
placed there for a reason. [...]
A fire sale at Gitmo?
If it seems like the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has seen a lot of media attention of late,
you're not imagining things. Noah covered the release of five more detainees on Tuesday, but the
accelerated rate of transfers has just begun to gain notice — as well as the timing.
With Barack Obama's authorized transfer of five more Gitmo detainees over the holiday, the total
comes to 22 over the last two months.
Obama
is Closing Gitmo, One Terrorist at a Time. President Obama pledged to close the terrorist detainee
facility at Guantanamo Bay, but Congress wouldn't let him move the prisoners to the U.S. So Obama is de facto
closing the facility by releasing the terrorists held there. The population is down to 127, after the administration
released 28 in 2014. The release of the last five was announced on Tuesday; they will be "resettled" in Kazakhstan.
The administration describes these five detainees (three from Yemen and two from Tunisia) as "low risk," but we've
heard that before.
Obama
Releases 5 More Gitmo Detainees With Ties to Al Qaeda. Five men who were held for a
dozen years without charge at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been sent to the
Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan for resettlement, the U.S. government announced. The two men
from Tunisia and three from Yemen had been cleared for release from the prison by a government task
force but could not be sent to their homelands. The U.S. has sent hundreds of prisoners from
Guantanamo to third countries but this is the first time Kazakhstan has accepted any for resettlement.
In exchange for ... nobody. Four
Guantanamo Bay Detainees Repatriated To Afghanistan. Four Guantanamo Bay inmates have
been returned to their home country of Afghanistan, the U.S. Department of Defense announced
Saturday — the latest in a flurry of prisoner releases from the controversial detention
facility in recent weeks. The four repatriated to Afghanistan were identified as Shawali Khan,
Khi Ali Gul, Abdul Ghani, and Mohammed Zahir. All the men had been held at the Cuba detention
facility for more than 11 years.
Pentagon
prepares for more detainee releases from Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon is preparing to
transfer more detainees from Guantanamo Bay in coming weeks despite continued Republican opposition,
according to defense and congressional officials. The Wall Street Journal reports that, after five
detainees were transferred last week, there will be another round in December, but defense officials
refused to disclose further information on their numbers or nationalities.
Down
the Road: Amnesty For Gitmo Detainees. [I]f you think granting de facto amnesty to
millions of illegal aliens was a reach, wait till you see what he might do about Guantanamo. As is
well known, Obama promised on Day One of his presidency to close Gitmo within a year. But then
reality intruded, plus congressional legislation, when Democrats still controlled both houses,
blocking him from bringing Gitmo detainees to the U.S. I'm guessing Obama remains determined to
close Gitmo, and the one executive action he could take to accomplish this is simply to declare an
amnesty for all of the remaining residents of Gitmo, and releasing them. If he does this in his
last week in office, what could Republicans do? Impeach him?
Guantanamo
Bay prisoners released to Slovakia and Georgia included 'high risk' al-Qaeda members.
Five prisoners released Thursday from the U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba included hard-core
al-Qaeda members who traveled and worked closely with terror leaders Osama bin Laden and Abu Zubaydah.
The move is being seen as part of the Obama administration's effort to shutter the military detention center,
a promise the president made during his 2008 campaign but which he has yet to fulfill.
Obama releases Gitmo detainees, setting
up fight with GOP. President Obama has opened a new front in his hard line against the
incoming Republican Congress by releasing more detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, against
lawmakers' objections. The Pentagon announced Thursday that four al Qaeda fighters from Yemen,
including a senior figure who facilitated travel to Afghanistan for Arab extremists, and a Tunisian
extremist would be transferred to Slovakia and Georgia.
Our
Roost, Obama's Chickens. The American public hardly noticed when Obama recklessly withdrew every
peacekeeper from Iraq. Did he not boast of "ending the Iraq War"? It did not mind when the U.S. posted
dates for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trashing all the Bush — Cheney anti-terrorism protocols, from
Guantanamo to renditions, did not make much sense, when such policies had worked and, in fact, were of use to
Obama himself. But again, most Americans took no note. Apparently the terrorists did, however, and
they regrouped even as the president declared them "on the run."
Obama
Quits Afghanistan. Bringing Bergdahl home is part of sporadic negotiations with the
Taliban about easing Americans out of the war, and also useful for closing down Guantanamo. Obama
is wagering that the public does not care all that much whether Bergdahl is a deserter. Or whether
the administration has negotiated with terrorists such as the Haqqani network or the Taliban. Or
whether the released Taliban militants will soon return to fight in Afghanistan. Obama is also
betting that Americans are sick of Afghanistan, and don't really care how American soldiers leave
or what they leave behind, as long as they all leave.
Obama
Submits To Taliban Demands, Allows Praise For Allah. President Barack Obama
apparently traded five jailed jihadis held in Guantanamo for one American soldier, despite federal
law, which requires Congress to be notified before prisoners are transferred. Obama used a Rose
Garden press event to tout the surprise trade — which he won by making critical,
last-minute concessions — while the parents of the freed soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, stood
alongside. At the end of the brief event, the soldier's father, Bob Bergdahl, recited the most
frequent phrase in the Koran — "Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim" — which means "In the name
of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate." After Bergdahl finished his statement and his
praise for Allah, Obama hugged him.
Obama:
Must close Gitmo before I leave office. President Obama said Thursday [5/29/2014] he's still
determined to close the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before the end of
his presidency. Asked if he'll be forced to turn over the problem to his successor, Mr. Obama
told NPR, "Not if I can help it." "I'm going to keep on pushing because I want to make sure that
when I turn the keys over to the next president, that they have the ability, that he or she has the
capacity to make some decisions with a relatively clean slate," Mr. Obama said.
KSM's Prison Communiqués: Enemy Combatants
Back to Being Criminal Defendants. I was invited to provide commentary Tuesday night [1/14/2014] on Megyn Kelly's Fox News
program ("The Kelly File") regarding the all too predictable but nevertheless appalling news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed —
al Qaeda heavyweight, 9/11 mastermind, decapitator of Daniel Pearl, jihadist warring against America for the better part of two decades, and
murderer of nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens — has been permitted to transmit propaganda out of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
Ramadan Ding-Dong. As is customary, President Obama and
wife Michelle released their annual Ramadan greetings last Friday. Also customary for Obama, it was full of platitudes about Islam's
supposedly invaluable contribution to American culture, and devoid of any acknowledgement of the dark reality of the Arab Spring that he helped
facilitate. [...] Even if many Muslims around the world weren't respectful of Ramadan, at least American officials in Guantanamo were.
In deference to the Muslims who are vacationing — sorry, I mean incarcerated — there, they graciously postponed
any court hearings to allow the murderous 9/11 plotters their time of contemplation and joy.
What have we done to ourselves, — and
why? Many Americans have been convinced for some time that Obama is a closet Islamic. After reading
the headlines in the January 22, 2009 Fox News First 100 days of the Presidency "Obama is expected to
sign 'several' executive orders Thursday [1/22/2009], directing the CIA to close secret foreign prisons and
Guantanamo Bay, and limiting detention and interrogation methods" he has given more credence to these convictions.
He is apparently making it softer and easier for Islamic/Muslims to damage the United States.
Obama
Gives First TV Interview To Arabic Network. President Barack Obama gave his first formal
television interview as president to an Arabic cable TV network, telling Al-Arabiya that when it comes to
Middle East matters "all too often the United States starts by dictating." ... "My job to the Muslim world is
to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama said. "We sometimes make mistakes.
We have not been perfect."
Begging
for Terror. Military judge Susan Crawford on Thursday dropped all charges against
Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the mastermind of the 2000 suicide-bomb attack against USS Cole — a
cowardly act that took the lives of 17 US Navy sailors, and a clear precursor to the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. An outrage, you say? True enough. But don't blame the judge. She was
acting in full compliance with President Obama's executive order halting trials at the Guantanamo Bay
terrorist-detention facility.
Trade,
not pork, is the key. President Obama has announced policies that make it more likely that we
will be attacked, to wit, the cessation of aggressive interrogation of captured terrorists, and shutting down
the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The attack on 9/11 cost our economy a trillion dollars, and the next
attack could do the same or more. In these economic times, we should be increasing our efforts to stop
terrorism, not decreasing them and hoping terrorists will suddenly stop hating us.
Obama takes a different tone, and Muslims say
they like it. In 10 days, President Barack Obama has transformed the U.S. dialogue with the
Muslim world. His tools have been carefully chosen words of reconciliation, the decision to close
Guantanamo Bay prison and the early dispatch of a Middle East peace envoy.
Obama
The Appeaser? President Obama's broad scheme for foreign policy has been something of a puzzle, short on
specifics and long on talk about forging alliances, extending hands and "engaging." In his first address to a joint
session of Congress on Tuesday evening, Obama offered a further hint — repeating the gist of the argument with
which, as one of his first acts in office, he ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay: "Living our values doesn't
make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger."
Obama's
Remarkable 9/11 Blindspot. Whether anyone chooses to notice or not, President Obama put himself
out on the very edge of a very long and fragile limb on the issue of how to handle terror suspects at Guantanamo
Bay. ... In fact, if it turns out that we do have another 9/11 and there is even a shred of evidence that the
closing of Guantanamo had anything to do with our inability to prevent it, I don't think that Obama could have
closed off any more of his plausible escape hatches if he had actually tried to do so.
Obama Dealing Terror. Obsessed with
closing Guantanamo Bay, Obama began releasing dangerous detainees almost immediately upon entering office. Ignoring the threat that these terrorists pose,
Obama jumped at the opportunity to trade the Taliban Five for traitor Beau Bergdahl. Deceiving the American people, Obama used Bergdahl's parents as props
in his Rose Garden victory speech ignoring the minor detail that Bergdahl was a deserter who placed his entire platoon in jeopardy. Just like his
announcements that Benghazi was caused by a video and the Iran nuclear deal will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Obama lied to Americans
understanding the complicit media would fail to vet his actions. He shipped the Taliban Five to Qatar for one year of "supervision" before allowing
them to reunite with their murdering colleagues and resume their terrorist activities — as they are now doing.
With
10 more detainee releases from Guatanamo, Obama's goal draws near. The last time there were fewer than 100 detainees at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, was Jan. 16, 2002. That month, shortly after the military prison opened, detainees in orange jumpsuits arriving from overseas
locations were forced onto their knees in outdoor pens. Their wrists were bound, their hands covered with mittens. To isolate the
men from their surroundings, their eyes were covered and they wore industrial earmuffs. It became an enduring image of the excesses of America's
response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This week, with the expected resettlement of 10 Yemeni detainees, the prison population will
once again dip below 100, this time symbolizing President Obama's sprint to close Guantanamo before he leaves office.
FBI
Has Nearly 1,000 Active ISIS Probes Inside U.S.. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has nearly 1,000
active probes involving the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) inside the United States, dozens of law
enforcement officials disclose in a letter to President Obama. The officials are elected sheriffs in Colorado making a
case against the administration's plan to transfer terrorists held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to
facilities in the state. Forty-one of Colorado's elected sheriffs fired off the letter after two federal prisons in Florence
(Supermax and the U.S. Penitentiary) along with a state complex near Canon City were reviewed by the Pentagon for the potential
transfer. The plan is part of the president's longtime promise to close the top-security compound at the U.S. Naval
base in southeast Cuba. The big question is what will the government do with the remaining captives, indisputably the
world's most dangerous terrorists?
Obama
Fighting With Another Defense Secretary Over Freeing Terrorists. After fighting hard to make Hagel the Secretary of
Defense, Obama fired him because he was delaying the release of Islamic terrorists from Guantanamo Bay. [...] You would think that
Obama would have found a toady this time around willing to let anyone out of Gitmo, but he's having Defense Secretary troubles again.
Pentagon
prepares for more detainee releases from Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon is preparing to
transfer more detainees from Guantanamo Bay in coming weeks despite continued Republican opposition,
according to defense and congressional officials. The Wall Street Journal reports that, after five
detainees were transferred last week, there will be another round in December, but defense officials
refused to disclose further information on their numbers or nationalities.
Our
Roost, Obama's Chickens. We were told that only Obama-haters at home had catalogued the president's
apologies abroad, his weird multicultural bowing to authoritarians, his ahistorical speeches about mythical Islamic
achievements, his surreal euphemisms for radical Islam, terrorism, and jihadism, his shrill insistence about civilian
trials for terrorists and closing Guantanamo, or the radical cutbacks at the Pentagon, coupled with the vast increase in
entitlement spending. But after six years of all that, our allies have got the message that they are on their own,
our enemies that there are few consequences to aggression, and neutrals that joining with America does not mean
ending up on the winning side.
We Shouldn't Import Known
Terrorists Into the United States. At a time when the world is becoming more dangerous and al Qaida and affiliated
groups have reconstituted and grown, we should not be importing known terrorists into the United States. Sounds simple,
right? Not to one member of Congress. According to an article in The Hill newspaper last week, U.S. Rep. Adam
Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, plans to offer an amendment to this year's defense
spending bill that would do just that. Smith's amendment would reverse existing law that forbids the administration
from importing Guantanamo detainees into the United States. He claims the detention facility cannot "effectively
close... until the congressionally mandated restrictions are removed."
Government Gave Zero
Dark Thirty Filmmakers Classified Info. The alleged intentional leak of classified information to Zero Dark Thirty filmmakers has come back to
haunt the government during the war crimes trial of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. The defense of Ammar al Baluchi, the detainee whose torture experiences
supposedly served as the model for the popular film, is now requesting classified information about the treatment of his client that was provided to filmmakers
but is still currently withheld by the prosecution. The lawyer alleges that the information was provided to the filmmakers to spin a "curated narrative"
in the government's favor and justify enhanced interrogation techniques.
Obama's war on decency.
On Dec. 1, the story broke that Bethesda-based Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where wounded
veterans convalesce, apparently had banned visitors from bringing in Bibles or other religious items. ... The
policy was rescinded, but that it was imposed at all is a reminder of the culture President Obama has fostered
in the armed forces and executive agencies, where extreme environmentalism, moral relativism and sexual immorality
have replaced traditional American values. We shouldn't really be surprised when a bureaucrat tries to bar
Bibles in a U.S. military stateside hospital while other bureaucrats make sure terrorists in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, get copies of the Koran.
Gitmo
Detainees Serve Time By Playing Games. President Obama has not fulfilled his pledge to close
Guantanamo Bay, but he has brought detainees Skype, Playstation 3 and "life skills" classes.
While the 181 detainees currently being held in the prison on Cuba wait to learn their fates after the
administration fell through on its January 2010 deadline to move detainees out of the facility, 90 percent
now live in a "communal" environment that includes Skype, the online video chat service, and access to
a 17,000-book "library."
Obama's Moralizing Tone May Not Wear Well.
Two days into his presidency, Barack Obama delivered on his most celebrated and ardently pledged campaign
promise — the imposition of stringent limitations on the ways in which U.S. agents can question
terror suspects, an executive order mandating the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and the
freezing of all detainee prosecutions. That last request brought an eloquent reply from Col. James
Pohl, Guantanamo's chief military judge, who promptly said no. He declared the directive to freeze all
trials "not reasonable" — a description that could as well apply to the whole of the
administration's program for our moral cleansing and reformation in intelligence gathering.
Just Because. The AP reports
that Eric Holder was impressed with Guantánamo Bay. "Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday
the Guantanamo detention center is a well-run, professional facility that will be difficult to close-but he's still going to
do it." Well, naturally. The Obama administration is only interested in keeping poorly run enterprises going.
Nobody
wants a terrorist for a neighbor. President Barack Obama made a serious mistake when he decided
to close the U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without first figuring out where to put the
240 detainees held there. Most of these people are hard-core jihadists whose main goal in life
is to kill Americans. Obama can call it an "overseas contingency operation," but for the Gitmo
detainees it is a declared war against us and terrorism is their weapon of choice.
Guantánamo Prison
Horrors. [Scroll down] Prisoners, as we all know from the thirteen gazillion MSM
articles, also exist in the U.S. enclave of the Guantánamo province. And as we learn from a Spanish
reporter named Marc Bassets who recently visited the U.S base, many of these prisoners were horribly anguished
of late. (No reporters, by the way, dare venture anywhere near Castro's prisons. Their employers'
Havana press bureaus would be "seriously jeopardized" by such insolence.) At any rate, the anguish
among the prisoners on the U.S. side stemmed from their concerns about securing good front-row seats at the
prison hall to watch the World Cup. The prison's wide-screen TVs capture over twenty channels, including
Al Jazeera, so some observers felt the anguish was a bit overblown.
What's next
at Gitmo, off-brand mints on the pillows? You can stop asking why the terrorists hate us.
The Daily Mail reports: ["]Detainees' diets at Guantanamo Bay have been a controversial issue for some time
and now the U.S. prison is said to be rationing ice cream.["]
Three pillars of Obamaism: Barack
Obama signed three executive orders on January 22, 2009. One provided for closure of Guantanamo and the
review of the cases of the detainees held there. One provided for the termination of the CIA program of
enhanced interrogation. One provided for the review of detention policy options. Following on these
orders Eric Holder promulgated the insane protocol establishing a presumption in favor or the trial of Guantanamo
detainees in federal court.
Justice Department on So-called "Al Qaeda Seven": For several
weeks, Republican lawmakers and a conservative group have been attacking the Justice Department for refusing to
reveal the names of nine officials who have in some way advocated for or represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Senators
blast order barring female guards from transporting Gitmo inmates. Female soldiers serving at Guantanamo Bay are not
being allowed to transport inmates following a court order issued in response to prisoners who complained on religious grounds,
according to Republican senators who recently returned from a visit to the prison camp. Inmates apparently complained the
female soldiers' actions were an insult to their Islamic faith, but the senators blasted the court decision as an "insult to
women." Top U.S. military leaders agreed the directive is "outrageous," while suggesting they're currently bound by the order.
The White House and
Guantanamo: Today [4/24/2011] the Washington Post published a lengthy investigation
into administration's failure to close Guantanamo Bay, and its findings won't be a surprise to anyone who
was skeptical of Obama's vow to shutter the detention center. Obama's plan ran into the predictable
obstacles. From a practical standpoint, many Guantanamo detainees simply couldn't be prosecuted
because much of the evidence against them couldn't be introduced at trial.
Another Reason To Keep Gitmo
Open. Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the attempted destruction of Flight 253 were
released from Guantanamo two years ago. The case for indefinite detention has been made once again, and
not in Illinois.
Do Terrorists Captured on the Battlefield Have
Constitutional Rights? At a Senate hearing Tuesday on the use of military commissions to prosecute terrorists
being held at Guantanamo Bay, some members of the Armed Services Committee took offense at the Obama administration's view
that the detainees should have the same legal protections under the Constitution as U.S. citizens.
Freed
to kill again. Yes, you could argue, were you so inclined, that Benazir Bhutto might well
be alive today if only Washington had not leaned on her to return to Pakistan for the sake of a
U.S.-brokered political deal that was perhaps not in her personal best interest. More to the
point, you could argue that Benazir Bhutto might well be alive today if only Abdullah Mehsud
had not been let loose from Guantanamo, where he plainly belonged, regardless of what the
bleaters and hand-wringers thought about that.
The Geneva Convention and the
Guantanamo Detainees: Breaking with other Cabinet officials this week, Secretary of State Colin
Powell urged President Bush to ensure that, in the event of a surprise attack by North Korea, the Office of
Homeland Security have full resources and authority to respond to any anti-Korean hate crimes. Mr.
Powell was expressing the concerns of our allies and human-rights advocates. Actually his real beef
concerns the technical procedure by which the United States concludes that the terrorists held at Guantanamo
are not "prisoners of war."
Report:
Released Guantanamo Detainee Now al-Qaeda Leader in Yemen; Will Media Cover? According to a Wednesday night [12/9/2015]
post on the website Long War Journal by Thomas Joscelyn, a former detainee held at Guantanamo Bay named Ibrahim Qosi has rejoined the
world of Islamic terrorism and ascended to a leadership post in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) following his release in July
2012. With this shocking story coming as the Obama administration still hopes to close the prison, the question going forward from a media
standpoint is this: Will the media show any interest in this threat to national security and failure on the part of the adminstration?
Obama signs bill making Gitmo closure
tougher. Away from public view, US President Barack Obama signed a defense bill Wednesday [11/25/2015] barbed with measures
designed to undo his bid to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. In a terse statement, the White House said Obama has signed the
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2016, along with several other pieces of legislation.
Gitmo's
Worst Terrorists Skype as Part of "Humane Treatment". In the latest of many fringe
benefits extended to the world's most dangerous terrorists the Obama administration is allowing
Guantanamo Bay prisoners — including a senior Al Qaeda operative — to speak
with family via video chats similar to Skype. The captives are "high-value" detainees locked up
in a special top-security wing of the military compound at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba.
Unilateral
self-flagellation: Upon arrival at Camp Delta [Guantanamo Bay], detainees
are issued a blanket, a sheet, two orange jump suits, flip-flops, a foam sleeping pad, two
bath towels, a washcloth, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, a prayer rug and a Koran. They
are allowed two 15-minute showers per week; they get recreation time and three culturally
sensitive meals per day. Schedules are respectful of Islamic traditions, prayer calls
are broadcast five times a day, and arrows painted on the floors point to Mecca. Their
regular quarters include a flushing toilet, running water and an off-the-floor
bed. Detainees who ask for them are provided with soccer balls, playing cards,
chessboards and paperback books. All of this courtesy of the American taxpayers
the detainees have sworn to kill.
Somehow,
a Gitmo Detainee Was on Match.com. [A]ccording to reports, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner was looking for love on Match.com,
declaring himself "detained but ready to mingle." Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, who was believed at one time to have close ties to
Usama bin Laden, maintained the dating profile for three years, according to his attorney, Carlos Warner. The prisoner's location
is set to Guantanamo Bay, and his tagline reads, "Detained but ready to mingle." Still, he reportedly gets matched with other
users daily.
Older news and commentary about Guantanamo Bay:
The truth
about Guantanamo Bay: Have there been abuses? Yes. But here is
the rest of the story — the story that the Islamists and
their sympathizers don't want you to hear.
It's Still
Club Gitmo. Of the camps currently in use, none come close to justifying the concerns of the
Gitmo's critics, let alone Amnesty International's feverish judgment that it is the "gulag of our
time." ... Camp 4 offers a number of diversions, courtesy of American taxpayers. There is an
outdoor basketball court, and a 6,000-book library, from which detainees can check out everything from hobby
magazines like Bird Watcher's Digest, to commentaries on Islam, to Agatha Christie thrillers. The
latter come complete with white stickers blocking the author's photo, lest the detainees deem the grande
dame of the mystery novel too much of a seductress.
There is No Good
Reason to Close Gitmo. While billions are victim to the regular abuse and
tyranny of governments such as those of Sudan and China, much of the world's media and
non-profit "human rights" resources focus on the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. Not a single person has been killed at the facility since it opened, and
yet the drumbeat of criticism grows by the day.
Unilateral
self-flagellation: Upon arrival at Camp Delta [Guantanamo Bay], detainees
are issued a blanket, a sheet, two orange jump suits, flip-flops, a foam sleeping pad, two
bath towels, a washcloth, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, a prayer rug and a Koran. They
are allowed two 15-minute showers per week; they get recreation time and three culturally
sensitive meals per day. Schedules are respectful of Islamic traditions, prayer calls
are broadcast five times a day, and arrows painted on the floors point to Mecca. Their
regular quarters include a flushing toilet, running water and an off-the-floor
bed. Detainees who ask for them are provided with soccer balls, playing cards,
chessboards and paperback books. All of this courtesy of the American taxpayers
the detainees have sworn to kill.
Gitmo
by any other name is still necessary. There's a lot I don't understand
about the current hysteria over our prison facility at Guantanamo Bay. At the top
of the list is why no one has mentioned Louis Pepe or Mamdouh Mahmud Salim.
Gitmo - if I were a judge. I,
and other Vietnam POWs who suffered real relentless torture, would have loved to be so
blessed as to have had to suffer under conditions like those in Gitmo.
On
a serious note, Gitmo tactics are far from torture. Some readers
are angry that I made light of the politics surrounding the treatment of suspected
terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay. They're upset that I didn't take it
seriously. OK. I'll take it seriously, particularly statements by U.S.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who compared Guantanamo to Hitler's camps, Stalin's
gulags and the Cambodian killing fields of the Khmer Rouge.
Will we defend
ourselves? Recently, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., equated our military's treatment
of captured Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist suspects, held at Guantanamo Bay, with something
that would have "been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol
Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings." That statement not only
demonstrates ignorance of the horrors committed by the Nazis, Soviets and Pol Pot, but it supplied
ammunition for people seeking to destroy us.
Debunking
another Gitmo myth. Every single detainee currently being held at Guantanamo
Bay has received a hearing before a military tribunal. Every one. As a result of
those hearings, more than three dozen Gitmo detainees have been released. The hearings,
called "Combatant Status Review Tribunals," are held before a board of officers, and permit the
detainees to contest the facts on which their classification as "enemy combatants" is based.
Where
have all the good spines gone? Perhaps the most emasculating whining in
the past couple weeks has come from folks who actually believe Gitmo is a "gulag." When
dealing with the would-be 20th hijacker of 9/11, these folks believe that loud Christina
Aguilera music, dripping water, exposure to females, proximity to dogs, and thorough medical
care constitute "torture." Democrat leaders and weak-kneed Republicans are mewling
about closing Gitmo altogether.
Conservatives
Tout Guantanamo Bay's Cuisine. Conservatives angered by the frequent calls of
congressional Democrats and anti-war activists to close down the military prison at Guantanamo
Bay in Cuba, are conducting an unusual counter-attack. "The Gitmo Cookbook" emphasizes
the high quality of life for prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility.
Clinton's
latest outrage: Let's remember who is imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. About
520 prisoners with links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terror
network. These are people who support bin Laden. These are people who kill
for bin Laden. These are people who may have information that can help us catch
bin Laden. These are people who, if given the chance, would conduct attacks on
the United States like those directed by bin Laden on September 11, 2001.
Time for
unanimous outrage at Durbin. It's not just that Al Jazeera is gleefully broadcasting
Durbin's infernal indictment throughout the Muslim world; it spouts anti-American propaganda every
day. It's that the entire Democratic Party, in effect, is affirming the substance of his
charges. We can't just chalk this up to the usual partisan bickering. The Democrats'
recklessness in permitting such a negative impression of America transcends party politics by
light years.
Words have
meaning. In failing to comprehend the consequences of their words and actions,
the Fonda-Kerry-Durbin trio serves as an archetype of the far left in misunderstanding the
antipathy most Americans feel toward those who aid and abet our enemies.
