And now it begins....

[Cail]

You are incorrectly asserting that, "(t)he legal issue of the US maintaining an illegal prison will be addressed". You're making an assumption. It hasn't happened, and it may not.

[Lord Mhoram]

Will be addressed. May be addressed. That was my assertion in response to yours that closing Guantanamo itself has no legal ramifications. It does.

[Cail]

It might.

[wayfriend]

Its a damn sight better than one week ago's "not until you pry Gitmo out of my cold, dead hands".

In fact, given the practical limitations, this announcement reaches the utmost improvement that is achievable.

[Vain]

I'm a big Bush fan so I won't be lambasting him

I'd be happy to ship him over to you, Vain, so he can f*ck up your country too!

Cool We kicked out a liberal government here in recent elections (took 9 years) - I have faith that America will do so at Carteresque speeds

[Avatar]

Avatar,

It's not meaningless at all. It's hugely politically significant, and rectifies the illegality of the current situation.

Not yet...and not until we know that the situation that arises from the end of the current one is workable either.

Hey, don't get me wrong, it should be closed and the inmates processed and either freed or sentenced. But saying it will be done is only one, the smallest, step. Next I'd like to hear where they're going, when/how they'll be tried, etc.

--A

[Cail]

Exactly Av. All that's been done is announcing the closing of the prison. That's it.

[Plissken]

Not entirely true:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Promising to return America to the "moral high ground" in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.

During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inauguration pledge that the United States does not have "to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals."

The president said he was issuing the order to close the facility in order to "restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism."

A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terrorism interrogations. That essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.

"We believe that the Army field manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don't torture, but that we can still effectively obtain the intelligence that we need," Obama said.

"This is me following through ... on an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it's easy but also when it's hard."

A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.

The task force, Obama stated, will also "provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal [with] the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States."

www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/guantan ... index.html
Which is, of course, what I've been saying. Things take planning. Planning's being done.

[Cail]

Planning isn't doing. Kind of a no-brainer that they've got people trying to figure out what to do. Doesn't change the fact that at this point, there's no plan.

[Plissken]

Again: Eight (Okay, nine) days. If he had his plan to close Gitmo all ready to go at this point, I think we'd both be outraged - or at least a little worried.

And, before you say it, let me just say that: If Obama had said "we're not going to talk about closing Gitmo 'till we've got all the details worked out to the last jot and tittle," you'd have been all over his ass for not being change-y like he promised.

How do I know this?

'Cause for the last week or so, I find myself thinking, "You're right C-Man! Obama uses words to communicate, just like every other politician - and, and pointing out that he actually uses grammar properly as well to demonstrate a change would just be pathetic, as Bush has been gone for over a week, and, and this just isn't change we can believe in!"

[Cail]

Very pithy, but wrong.

Had he come out and said that beginning in a month (or two months, or whatever) we were going to begin applying due f*cking process to the people at Gitmo then I would have stood up and applauded. Instead, he chose to make a symbolic, but empty gesture.

[Plissken]

Instead, he came out and told you that he was beginning the process of figuring out how to apply due process to Gitmo detainees and provided a specific timeline for closing the facility.

That's not symbolism.

That's open government communicating openly and immediately with the citizenry (despite only having 50/50 support for the closure, no less).

I don't want to offend you by using any recent examples, so you'll just have to trust me: It's a good thing.

[Lord Mhoram]

SCOTUS found that the Guantanamo tribunals were "inadequate" (Justice Anthony Kennedy, majority opinion, Boumediene v. Bush, 2008). Given all the external circumstances here (the enormous political unpopularity of Guantanamo internationally, the probable illegality of the detention center itself, desire to change direction of war on terror, Obama's campaign pledge, etc.) and given that the highest court of law in the land has found the legal system of the detention center itself to be "inadequate," it makes sense to try them within the defined United States.

[Cail]

Yes LM, it would. But that's not the plan at the moment. That's what you're hoping for. I happen to agree with you about that.

But where would you put them?

[Rawedge Rim]

Yes LM, it would. But that's not the plan at the moment. That's what you're hoping for. I happen to agree with you about that.

But where would you put them?

and of course....nobody wants them, not in the US, nor overseas; and the only ones that will take them are the ones that we can't legally send them to because of torture issues.

[Cail]

That's exactly the problem. Look, I agree that they should receive due process, but you can't put these people in a regular prison. I'm not beating on Obama for the Hell of it; I honestly don't know what he can do with these people.

[rdhopeca]

That's exactly the problem. Look, I agree that they should receive due process, but you can't put these people in a regular prison. I'm not beating on Obama for the Hell of it; I honestly don't know what he can do with these people.

Call me uninformed, but why can't they be put in a regular prison? If we have secure facilities for the Bundys and the Dahmers of the world, why not them?

[finn]

Yes LM, it would. But that's not the plan at the moment. That's what you're hoping for. I happen to agree with you about that.

But where would you put them?

Ahhhh! The $64,000 question!


First I see political problems ahead which will inevitably have to be traversed. If they are tried and found guilty will that justify the previous administration's stance or question further their reluctance to process and presumably punish. If they are innocent will that be a flag to wave against the previous adminstration and might some political hack try to "time" that for points scoring. If they are "innocent" and by that I mean there is insufficient evidence to convict, will that signal a weak position on the war on terror and the security policy of the new guys.

My guess is there will be a mixture, but given the charges, the type of evidence required to conclusively convict and the credibility of the circumstances under which the evidence was obtained, the latter is likely to be the case in many instances. The fall out from that is Republicans (and the odd libertarian) claiming that they are "actually" guilty but the courts were weak or the insufficiency of evidence was why they were still being detained and Obama has hijacked that. Due process may mean a lack of guilt rather than a determination of innocence, but those are amongst the standards that this fight is supposed to be about.

So what do we do with them. Having treated them so shamefully (even the guilty) there has to be something appropriate to the sets of circumstances. For the guilty, what jurisdiction are punishments under, military, civil or what? For the completely innocent, repatriation or a choice of locations? $50 bus fare or $2 million compensation? Certainly there'll be a bevvy of lawyers wanting to pursue actions against the US government for abuse, wrongful arrest, detention, torture etc etc.

I think most of that can be settled with the only large issue arising is in the severety of punishments for the guilty, especially if they are capital charges, the real problem lies with the not-guilty-but-not-innocent. They will no doubt claim all the benefits that may be offered to genuinely innocent persons, they'll condemn the US and shake their fists and incite racial/religious outrage; they may well be too dangerous to keep within the US. I'm sure there will be places that can be persuaded to take them, but equally they may now (even if they were not before) be "people of interest" to security services.

Politics being what it is, these people will embarass the previous administration up to a tipping point when they will then start to become the Obama Administration's problem. The fact that Obama has acted to resolve Gitmo will mean nothing to these people who will not differentiate between the two faces of the great satan. There will be little graciousness that the Satan has stopped it persecution of the faithfull.....and of course there will the amount of compensation!

Unfortunately from all perspectives this is the bed that has been made and now has to be layed in!

[The Laughing Man]

That's exactly the problem. Look, I agree that they should receive due process, but you can't put these people in a regular prison. I'm not beating on Obama for the Hell of it; I honestly don't know what he can do with these people.

Call me uninformed, but why can't they be put in a regular prison? If we have secure facilities for the Bundys and the Dahmers of the world, why not them?

actually it's the McVieghs and the Yousef's,

held at the high-security Supermax prison ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado

.

our intelligence, law enforcement, judicial, and penal systems have always been adequate to the task at hand. We never needed the entire military or Gitmo to handle these problems before.

In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the {WTC} bombing: Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmad Ajaj, Nidal Ayyad and Mohammad Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. And in November 1997, two more were convicted: Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb.

[Cail]

That's exactly the problem. Look, I agree that they should receive due process, but you can't put these people in a regular prison. I'm not beating on Obama for the Hell of it; I honestly don't know what he can do with these people.

Call me uninformed, but why can't they be put in a regular prison? If we have secure facilities for the Bundys and the Dahmers of the world, why not them?

Dahmer was killed in prison by (allegedly) prisoners and guards.

Name me one community that would welcome international terrorists into their prison. That would make their community a terror target.