Moving the few hundred remaining prisoners at Guantanamo should be something conservatives rally behind. The reason for this is in the numbers: A Bureau of Prisons spokesman on Monday revised upwards the cost of housing a captive in federal detention, days after the bureau said it spends a tiny fraction of what the military spends […]
Can we have more of this please? There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war […]
To keep the record straight on the details about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, I want to do a quick recap: In 2007, under Bush, two of Abdulmutallab co-conspirators were released from Gitmo and sent to Saudi Arabia. (source) Abdulmutallab was given a visa to the United States in June 2008, despite being on the terrorist watch […]
I am really curious to hear how the wingnuts spin this one: Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al […]
This is one that I didn’t see coming: Three prominent conservatives warned in a joint statement against Republican “scaremongering” on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying the prison in Thomson, Illinois would be fine to handle them. Former Republican Congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union and Grover Norquist, […]
Today is the day that the “holy grail” report of prisoner abuse is supposed to be released, highlighting torture techniques used at Gitmo. So far the leaked details have been very disturbing. On the heels of this release we also find out that a Justice Department report is suggesting to open/reopen a bunch of investigations: […]
Following the news the other day of a former Gitmo detainee now heading al Qaeda’s Yemen group, now we have a report of two more former detainees showing up in an al Qaeda video: Two men released from the US “war on terror” prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have appeared in a video posted on […]
Obama signs an executive order closing Gitmo within a year. He also signed another one saying we will interrogate pursuant to the Geneva Conventions and Army field manual
Last night President (shiver) Obama ordered the prosecutors at Gitmo to halt all cases for 120 days. Most likely this is so he can figure out what to do with the inmates and finally close down the black eye of the beacon of freedom. One of the big arguments about Obama closing down Gitmo is […]
It looks like Team Obama will have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to leaks, saying “if you leak, you’re gone”: Several Obama transition staffers have put a version of that quotation in transition co-chief John Podesta’s mouth. Many of the major staff appointments so far – Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff, Greg […]