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POPSConservative Humor Glenn Greenwald and Steve Benen comment on Cliff May's hilarious joke about killing people because they are from Yemen.
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POPSSecurity Implications **** KATHLEEN SEBELIOUS**** Heard that name before????????????????? That reported plan came after the Obama administration tried first to move the suspected terrorists to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, and then to a prison in Michigan. On Jan. 28, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, then the governor of Kansas, wrote Secretary of Defense Gates to protest the transport.
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POPSTwo Of The Four Plotters Behind The Flight 253 Attack Were Released From Gitmo In 2007 both the Bush administration and the Obama administration. We can argue about the political pressures Bush was under, but the simple truth of the matter is that we should have created a process for dealing with these detainees long ago. The Military Commissions Act was this solution, establishing military commissions to establish the guilt or innocence of these detainees, but it came far too late in Bush’s administration to do any good (and was absurdly deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in yet another decision ignoring the constitution completely). And now our policy toward Guantanamo Bay is a mish-mash of conflicted and largely politically-motivated pap geared more, I think, toward pandering and backside-covering than any national security strategy. Some of the detainees are getting trials in civilian US courts. Some are being shipped off to Pacific islands for continued detention.
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POPSChristmas bomb bid complicates Gitmo plan Christmas Day bombing attempt aboard Northwest Flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, reportedly spent time in Yemen after graduating from a London university in 2008. According to ABC News, Abdulmutallab has told authorities that, while in Yemen, Al Qaeda operatives crafted the explosive device that was sewn into Abdulmutallab’s underwear. “Yesterday just highlights the fact that sending this many people back — or any people back — to Yemen right now is a really bad idea,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “It’s just dumb. ... If you made a list of what the three dumbest countries would be to send people back to, Yemen would be on all the lists.” “I think it’s a major mistake,” Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said about prisoner releases to Yemen.
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POPSMilitary Has “Zero Input” and “Zero Influence” on Gitmo Transfers Not content with the Friday bad-news dump, the administration announced on the Sunday before Christmas that it had transferred a dozen detainees out of Gitmo. ... The twelve detainees have been transferred to: Yemen, an al-Qaeda hotbed whose government makes common cause with jihadists (and has a history of allowing them to escape " or of releasing them outright); Afghanistan, which is so ungovernable and rife with jihadism that we're surging thousands of troops there (troops the jihadists are targeting); and Somaliland, which is not even a country, and which offers an easy entree into Somalia, a failed state and al-Qaeda safe-haven. At least one of the released terrorists, a Somali named Abdullahi Sudi Arale (aka Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad), was released notwithstanding the military's designation of him as a "high-value detainee"
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POPSTeenage Gitmo Detainee Goes Free After 7 Years The Young Afghani may have been only 12 years old at time of capture. More below: "While in U.S. custody, Jawad was held in solitary confinement and subjected to Guantánamo’s infamous "frequent flyer" sleep deprivation program. He attempted suicide in December 2003 by repeatedly slamming his head against his cell wall. Two judges -- first his military commission judge, then a federal court judge -- ruled that evidence gleaned through Jawad’s torture and coercion was inadmissible. Despite all this, there’s hope for Jawad’s future, as his habeas co-counsel, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, told us in May
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POPSBringing Guantanamo Detainees to US I think this analysis is correct as to those we picked up in Afghanistan. As long as we stay engaged militarily in Afghanistan we can probably keep these folks wherever we like (POWs - even if we don't call them that). Once the war is over we would need to repatriate them. Of course the worst of the worst need to go on trial at the Hague - but we don't recognize the World Court.
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POPSRep. Dan Burton Leading Save the SEALs Mission I hope you will stand with Dan and sign the petition to send a message that you do stand with Dan and the 3 Navy SEALs for defending America. The petition will go to Adm. Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations. Here's Dan talking about this case.
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POPSBlackwater In the News.........Again
More information on the perils of "outsourcing" military and intelligence agencies' responsibilities below: "“It became a very brotherly relationship,” said one former top C.I.A. officer. “There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency.” Representative Rush D. Holt, chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said in an interview that “the use of contractors in intelligence and paramilitary operations is a scandal waiting to be examined.” ... Mr. Holt said that the use of contractors in such operations “got way out of hand.” He added, “It’s been very troubling to a lot of people.” That gave Blackwater greater influence over C.I.A. clandestine operations, since company personnel helped decide the safest way to conduct the missions. “We keep finding functions that have been outsourced that common sense, let alone U.S. government policy, would argue should not have been handed over to a private company,” he said. “And yet we do it again
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POPS Terrorists In The Heartland?
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting Tuesday's announcement. A Durbin aide said the facility would house federal inmates and no more than 100 detainees from Guantanamo Bay. The facility in Thomson had emerged as a clear front-runner after Illinois officials, led by Durbin, enthusiastically embraced the idea of turning a near-dormant prison over to federal officials. The White House has been coy about its selection process, but on Friday a draft memo leaked to a conservative Web site that seemed to indicate officials were homing in on Thomson. The Thomson Correctional Center was one of several potential sites evaluated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to potentially house detainees from the Navy-run prison at Guantanamo Bay. Officials with other prisons, including Marion, Ill., Hardin, Mont., and Florence, Colo., have said they would welcome the jobs that would be created by the new inmates. Closing Guantanamo is a top priority for Obama
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POPSblistering indictment leveled against obama over his handling of bush-era war crimes yep- no accountability here- seems like- just set the tolerance level a whole lot lower- so we can cover up- hide and presumably get away with all the b.s. we are planning to do and are doing now- charging the past with accountability- opens a window into what the administration is working on now- i imagine.........and if they ok bush's war crimes- well we must really be up to no good.....and no! "i don't feel safer from the threat of terrorism- by means of torture-etc.......not anymore now than i did during the "daze" of bush"
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POPS 'O Brother Jihadi, Where Art Thou?' Obama Will Live to Regret Sending Gitmo Detainees to Illinois by Debra Burlingame Who would have believed after 9/11 that our own president, the commander-in-chief who recently announced that he was sending another 30,000 troops to risk their lives in Aghanistan, would order that the enemy combatants captured on the battlefield must be brought into the United States. We will live to regret this. Barack Obama continues to cast the closing of Guantanamo and the importation of Al Qaeda terrorists into the American heartland as a moral victory. But this is nothing more than moral vanity and rank political theater aimed at satisfying his liberal soulmates at the ACLU and Human Rights First. In truth, the security nightmare he is about to visit on this country will only be surpassed by the legal morass which will accompany the transfer of foreign terrorists to American soil.
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POPSAmerica's regression Pew Poll, today: Public opinion about the use of torture remains divided, though the share saying it can at least sometimes be justified has edged upward over the past year. Currently just over half of Americans say that the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can either often (19%) or sometimes (35%) be justified. This is the first time in over five years of Pew Research polling on this question that a majority has expressed these views. Another 16% say torture can rarely be justified, while 25% say it can never be justified.
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POPSAfghans Detail Detention in ‘Black Jail’ at U.S. Base 
The jail’s operation highlights a tension between President Obama’s goal to improve detention conditions that had drawn condemnation under the Bush administration and his stated desire to give military commanders leeway to operate. While Mr. Obama signed an order to eliminate so-called black sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency in January, it did not also close this jail, which is run by military Special Operations forces. Military officials said as recently as this summer that the Afghanistan jail and another like it at the Balad Air Base in Iraq were being used to interrogate high-value detainees. And officials said recently that there were no plans to close the jails. In August, the administration restricted the time that detainees could be held at the military jails to two weeks, changing previous Pentagon policy. In the past, the military could obtain extensions. The interviewed detainees had been held longer, but before the new policy went into effect. Mr. Hamid
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POPSMadness in Manhattan: A Criminal Trial Will Give the Terrorists What They Want I am unable to see Eric Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City as anything other than a lose-lose situation for the administration Many independents like myself are undoubtedly furious over this, and I am sure I speak for many of them when I say that even a speedy conviction, as promised by Mr. Holder, would not soothe my discomfort over his decision. Yet if such a speedy conviction does occur, it will undoubtedly infuriate Barack Obama's liberal base, who will denounce the trial as a farce and a travesty of "justice," whatever the left's fluid definition of that may be. http://bit.ly/8WXms8 (Part 1) ... 4min ... http://bit.ly/8Fa2aY (Part 2) ... 4min ... http://bit.ly/7IKtvD Eric Holder's Baffling KSM Decision By DAVID BEAMER Mr. Beamer is the father of Todd Beamer, who died on United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11. http://bit.ly/8pDddV
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POPSSmall Town To Liz Cheney: We Want Gitmo Detainees, Not Your Fearmongering But Standish’s City Manager tells us that local leaders and residents want the facility, and dismissed Cheney’s efforts as “fearmongering.” Cheney is “certainly not representing the views of our community,” the City Manager, Michael Moran, told our reporter, Amanda Erickson. While some local residents do appear to have expressed mixed feelings or opposition to the plan, Moran says that they’re an isolated minority that Ms. Cheney’s video elevates out of proportion in a way that’s “off base.” What’s more, the Standish city council recently passed a unanimous resolution expressing support for bringing Gitmo detainees, citing job losses in the wake of the closing of the facility. Seems that the good people of Standish just don’t have Liz Cheney’s understanding of the nature of the threat.
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POPSCIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy "The new members of NATO were so grateful for the U.S. role in getting them into that organization that they would do anything the U.S. asked for during that period," said former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "They were eager to please and eager to be cooperative on security and on intelligence matters."
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POPSHolder's former law firm representing 17 detainees - Conflict of Interest? The Senate shrugged at the glaring conflict of interest Attorney General Holder presents in handling Gitmo legal issues. Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Cucullu, author of Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay, makes the ethical problem plain: As a senior partner, he undoubtedly had significant input on what kind of charity cases his firm picked up. Even now, his Covington colleagues continue to allege rampant torture at Gitmo. They’re fighting hard to have detainees tried through the US court system—essentially given the same rights as US citizens. And their arguments and plans hinge largely on having Holder issue a bad report card. Recent polls indicate that at least half of Americans disagree with affording the detainees legal rights on US soil. Will they have the same access to Holder’s ears as his former colleagues do?
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POPSHolder stonewalled on potential conflicts of interest "Yes, I will certainly consider that request," he said. "But I asked you for information," Grassley responded. "Will you provide it?" "I will consider that request," Holder repeated, adding that the lawyers involved are "fine public servants" and "patriots" who have "national security uppermost in their minds." Grassley still wanted an answer. "The very least you can give me is a list of the recusals," he said. "I will consider that," Holder said again.
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POPSThe Misfired Martyrs Motel at Guantanamo Bay Actually, Gitmo seems too nice for terrorists. Let’s send them some place worse.. like regular prison. And don't miss the video at the end. That's the best part of the clip. So Gitmo shuts down and the liberals move the murdering terrorists to a place like Illinois....or in their own backyards. I guess you need big brainzzzz to understand that logic.
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POPSJustice and Guantanamo Bay
Two of the three detainees convicted of war crimes have served their sentences and today they are free men back in their home countries. But the more than 200 that remain inside the detention center have never been convicted, or in most cases even faced charges. The day after his inauguration, Mr. Obama ordered an evaluation of all the detainees to determine who should face criminal prosecution. Administration officials estimate that roughly a quarter of the remaining detainees will be recommended for trial in criminal courts. In a preliminary report submitted to Mr. Obama in July, the Detention Policy Task Force recommended the approval of evaluation criteria developed by the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. The task force stated its preference for trials in the federal courts, but added the decision would be based in part on "evidentiary issues" and "the extent to which the forum would permit a full presentation of the accused's wrongful conduct."
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POPSCase Review: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Stevens addressed the issue of whether military commissions can try conspiracy charges. He argued that military commissions are not courts of general jurisdiction, which are able to try any crime; that the court has traditionally held that offenses against the law of war are triable by military commission only when they are clearly defined as war crimes by statute or strong common law precedent (cf. Quirin). Finally, he found that there was no support in statute or court precedent for law-of-war military commissions trying charges of "conspiracy," either in the Geneva Conventions, in the earlier Hague Conventions or at the Nuremberg Trials. On June 5, 2007, Hamdan and Canadian youth Omar Khadr, had all charges against them dismissed.
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POPS They Came To Destroy America was also a U.S. citizen. The Nazis were captured before they could launch their terrorist attacks against rail lines, waterways and factories. President Roosevelt ordered them tried by military commission, but the detainees filed a petition of habeus corpus to challenge their military detention using the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Could the president arrest and detain such persons in the United States without involving the judiciary? Unanimously, the Supreme Court ruled that he could. Saboteurs without uniforms were "enemy combatants" and therefore subject to military jurisdiction. Even Haupt, the U.S. citizen, could be so held. The Supreme Court stated: "Citizens who ... enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention ..." Thus, as far back as 1942, the Supreme Court clearly described the legal status of enemy combatants. No President -- not Lincoln, not Wilson, not Roosevelt, not Kennedy -- no President has
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POPSBecause Every Circus Needs A Ringmaster Well, if that’s the case, then I exactingly demand a drumhead trial followed swiftly by firing squad. However morbidly entertaining the spectacle of Obama’s hearkening to his inner Kumbayah chorus with the most ridiculous of civil liberty sops may prove to be. While attacking Islamic terror support bases has been a great recruiting tool for jihad, trying terrorist war criminals under American criminal law in open court with full American constitutional will make them like us better. True or false. Like this isn’t a three-ring circus in the making at all, but some relatively normal, if high-profile, criminal prosecution. And, incidentally, no mention of the fact that some portion of the American public might consider this prospect to be a legal abomination and a travesty of justice. Never mind that. What KSM’s entertainment value? Well, he’s got undeniable star power and a certain terrorvoire faire:
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