Basically, the judge drew a distinction between people caught “on the battlefield” in Afghanistan and those caught elsewhere and transferred to Bagram.
Simply calling it a POW camp, particularly when you are not treating the detainees as POWs didn’t cut it for the judge.
Needless to say, the Obama administration is expected to appeal this decision, in yet another case of going to the wall to support Bush era assaults on civil rights.
I’m not sure how to deal with a spy agency that is so focused on an eventual war with India that it allies itself to terrorists, short of some of those predator strikes should hit ISI HQ.
So the issue of indefinite detention is unresolved, though according to ScotusBlog, we have half a loaf:
The Fourth Circuit Court, in a splintered decision, upheld that authority under the 2001 Resolution, but did not rule on the government’s alternative claim that the President’s constitutional power as Commander-in-Chief supported the action. While the Supreme Court’s order Friday does not indicate how the Justices would have ruled had they gone ahead with their review, the order “vacated” the Circuit Court ruling, meaning that it no longer is a binding precedent on the issues it decided.
I’d rather see a ruling declaring the detention illegal, but the dismissal a bit better than the status quo.
So, in their eagerness to torture people, it appears that Bush and His Evil Minions™ never bother to assemble files on the Guantanamo detainees, which makes an evaluation, much less a fair trial of the detainees.
As Hilzoy notes, “It takes, well, a special kind of administration to detain people for years on end without bothering to assemble case files on them. I’m just glad they’re finally gone.”(emphasis original)
Notwithstanding Bush’s insistence that the military commissions were the only way to try these folks, this makes it clear that they never wanted trials, just torture.
How bad was it? Here are the last two ‘graphs of the WaPo article:
In a court filing this month, Darrel Vandeveld, a former military prosecutor at Guantanamo who asked to be relieved of his duties, said evidence was “strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks.”
He said he once accidentally found “crucial physical evidence” that “had been tossed in a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten.”
This is not a serious attempt at competent prosecution or trial.
The mail was postmarked in Kentucky, and received sent to people working on the 11th and 9th floors of the office building, which are, “shared by executives, editorial and opinion-page employees.”
Hmm…I wonder what it can all mean, with white powder being bailed to floors 9 and 11….9-11…How convenient.
I smell wingnut.
So, the Pentagon is reporting that 61 ex-Guantanamo detainees have engaged in terrorism after being released from our Southern Gulag.
Remember, this is under the auspices of the regime established by Bush and His Evil Minions™ that worked from guilty before innocent, accepted torture derived information, and used torture routinely on these folks.
So, the ones that they let go? They were not playahs in terrorism, if they were, they would still be locked up.
On the other hand, when you torture people, if they get out, they tend to take it personally:
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed and 43 suspected of “returning to the fight.”
We will be seeing blowback from what we did to these people for years.
We also know that Guantanamo is only a part of the problem. Bagram probably has 10 times as many people that we are mistreating, and a non zero percentage of them, and their friends and family, and their countrymen and coreligionists, will be outraged and moved to action by this.
Not a typo. They CIA is using Viagra to win friends and influence tribal leaders in Afthanistan:
The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.
Four blue pills. Viagra.
“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills.
At least this cannot be turned into an IED.
No, this is not the Onion.
I don’t know that I would be strong enough to argue for due process rights for terrorists who killed my family:
Two dozen people who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks issued a statement on Wednesday denouncing the Guantanamo war crimes trials as illegitimate, shameful and politically motivated.
Seriously, these are people who are doing I’m sure is a very difficult thing.
Well, it appears that Pakistan is refusing to hand over suspects in the Mumbai bombing to India.
Given the level of tension between the two nuclear armed neighbors, there is only reason for this that I can see, that Pakistan knows that if they turn over these guys to India, there is a fairly good chance that some of them will finger their handlers at the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Trust Gary Brecher to cut to the chase:
So what you see here is something economists would understand as well or better than traditional military analysts. I hate to sound cold-blooded, putting it this way, but what happened is that Pakistan’s Islamists had a surplus of raw labor, and thought of a way to get it to a place where it maximized its global value in terms of pure blood and destruction.
It is remarkable just how badly Carter and Brezinski’s purchase of a civil war in Afghanistan in the 1970s has screwed up that entire region.
Go read the rest.
We capture him, we torture him for 7 years, we put him in front of what was intended to be a Kangaroo court, which promptly rules that Salim Ahmed Hamdan was not a terrorist mastermind, he was just a driver, and he should be sentenced to time served plus enough extra time to make sure that Bush and His Evil Minions&trade are out of office.
Well, it looks like Bush has given up on having his trophy, because Hamdan is to be shipped back to Yemen in the next few days.
Good for him, but this exercise that could best be described as Kafkaesque has harmed the United States and its interest at every step in the process, all because authorizing torture is the only way that Dick Cheney can get a hard on.
Well, it now looks like there was Syrian foreknowledge and support of the raid, only they were told that it would be a snatch and grab, and it turned into a John Wayne shootout:
In the time-honoured tradition of covert US operations in the Middle East, this one seems to have gone spectacularly wrong. The Syrians, who had agreed to turn a blind eye to a supposedly quiet “snatch and grab” raid, could not keep the lid on a firefight in which so many people had died.
So it appears that they Syrians were expecting a quiet op, and they got a bunch of citizens killed in the process.
I’m sure that this will make them much more likely to support such an operation in the future.
There will be a an expedited briefing and hearing on November 24, but this still sucks.
Even the milirary admits that they are innocent, and they are still held as prisoners, though we aren’t torturing them at the request of the Chinese any more.
This is a no brainer for them.
When you have to choose an opponent, you always want the stupid one.
They are openly considering a terrorist attack on the US to boost the McCain campaign.
Not without precedent. Osama bin Laden released a statement a few days before the election in 2004, because he realized that Bush and His Evil Minions™ made his job a lot easier.
The decision to release these detainees into the United States, who were not only innocent of actions against the united states, but were tortured bu US officials at Chinese request is long overdue.
Unfortunetely, it’s still overdue, as the appeals court stayed the request for release until they can review the appeal by the government.
This is disgraceful.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Hamid Karzai, who the US installed as Afghan president, is hip deep in the heroin trade in Afghanistan.
Heck of a job, Bushie.
It appears that Kathleen Parker is surprised to get hate mail when she writes an article suggesting that Palin should step down from the ticket.
After years of spewing hate towards Democrats, Women, and Minorities, Ms. Parker appears to have finally come to have a frank discussion with the children of her bile.
Just in case you are wondering, that is the world’s smallest violin, and it’s playing just for her.
Ummmm….Folks, this is so not Tikkun Olam.
I hope whoever did this gets caught and prosecuted to the full extant of the law…..And hung from a flag poll by their eye lids.