No comprehensive files on many Guantanamo detainees

Politics International Politics
1

Guantanamo Case Files in Disarray

[quote]President Obama’s plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when i[b]ncoming legal and national security officials – barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees – discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is “scattered throughout the executive branch,” a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration’s focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.[/b]

But other former officials took issue with the criticism and suggested that the new team has begun to appreciate the complexity and dangers of the issue and is looking for excuses.

After promising quick solutions, one former senior official said, the Obama administration is now “backpedaling and trying to buy time” by blaming its predecessor. Unless political appointees decide to overrule the recommendations of the career bureaucrats handling the issue under both administrations, he predicted, the new review will reach the same conclusion as the last: that most of the detainees can be neither released nor easily tried in this country.

“All but about 60 who have been approved for release,” assuming countries can be found to accept them, “are either high-level al-Qaeda people responsible for 9/11 or bombings, or were high-level Taliban or al-Qaeda facilitators or money people,” said the former official who, like others, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters about such matters. He acknowledged that he relied on Pentagon assurances that the files were comprehensive and in order rather than reading them himself.[/quote]

The fact that around 95% of the detainees were turned over by Kurds and other sources for cash - rather than being actual ‘battlefield catches’ - underscores the fact that the this whole situation is exactly what Obama in his inauguration speech described as “compromising our principles for security” (a statement O’Reilly had the nerve to disagree with).

2

[quote=“Vay”]Guantanamo Case Files in Disarray

The fact that around 95% of the detainees were turned over by Kurds and other sources for cash - rather than being actual ‘battlefield catches’ - underscores the fact that the this whole situation is exactly what Obama in his inauguration speech described as “compromising our principles for security” (a statement O’Reilly had the nerve to disagree with).[/quote]

And don’t forget the fact that the “60 who returned to Al Qaeda” are allegations without evidence. When pressed for names, the Pentgram has backed off. Many of those who are listed have been shown to be people speaking about having been kidnapped and tortured. Only one out of more than 520 have been actually shown to join Al Qaeda - not return, join - because he wasn’t a terrorist before being abducted and sent to Gitmo.

Those responsible for this mess are the same asshats responsible for two bungled wars, responsible for neither preparing nor responding to hurricane Katrina in ten days (both five days before and after), responsible for FEMA, responsible for a heartless response to the tsunami of December 2004, responsible for Enron and MCI, responsible for the SEC’s failure to crack down on lenders, responsible for the “justice” department and the 150 imbeciles hired from “Liberty” “university”, responsible for the Walter Reed scandal, etc.

The only things that the Bushleague misadministrations likely kept accurate records on were their torture porn (the pictures of the abused), the leak to attack Joe Wilson, and the release of anthrax on reporters and democrat politicians.

From this item: http://www.serendipity.li/wot/conover01.htm

[quote]
Nicholas D. Kristof quoted [George] Bush’s childhood friend Terry Throckmorton: “‘We were terrible to animals,’ recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. ‘Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,’ Mr. Throckmorton said. ‘Or we’d put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.’”[/quote]

  • New York Times, May 21, 2000

Is it any surprise that Bushleague constantly exhibits sociopathic behaviours toward other human beings? Tucker Carlson (a rightwing Bush lover, not a liberal) once reported that Bushleague mocked Karla Faye Tucker before signing her execution, saying “Don’t hurt me!” in a feminine voice.

3

All I can say is that if Obama releases the detainees and they do end up committing more offenses, I sure to hell look forward to the political commercials. It’s gonna be Willie Horton X 100000.

livingroomcandidate.org/comm … lie-horton

4

Yes, I’m sure you will. It is precisely the sort of deep thinkers such as yourself that such ads would be aimed at.

Knock yourself out, big guy!

HG

5

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Yes, I’m sure you will. It is precisely the sort of deep thinkers such as yourself that such ads would be aimed at.

Knock yourself out, big guy!

HG[/quote]

:laughing: It was pretty effective in '88. :laughing: I’m sure it will be '12 with a few minor changes to it.

6

Don’t think they need to aim any ads at Chewy, for more reasons than one :slight_smile: preaching to the choir in the attic :slight_smile:

That’s a heck of a point. x100,000 sounds about right. The dems will really be sweating that one out.

7

You could probably randomly pluck one hundred American citizens off the streets of the U.S., lock them up for five or six years in Guantanamo without access to family or trial and tell them it’s because someone got paid to finger them as terrorists and then plop them back down in the U.S. somewhere without so much as an apology and a dozen or so of them would end up being full-fledged enemies of the United States with a suicidal desire for revenge. Like the Rambo movie.

8

For example, Tim McVeigh. He may not have been imprisoned, but he sure as hell got messed in the head by what he saw going on in Iraq.

9

To be frank … who cares?

10

[quote=“Sleepyhead”]

For example, Tim McVeigh. He may not have been imprisoned, but he sure as hell got messed in the head by what he saw going in in Iraq.[/quote]

Where did you hear that from? I never heard anything of that sort during his trial or in the lead up to the execution. Except for the training phase, nothing I’ve ever read said that he got his head all fucked up by Desert Storm. He got an honorable discharge so he didn’t fuck up while he was serving.

I was always under the assumption that McVeigh did it because he couldn’t land anything but a dead end job, he was being taxed to death and then the army came back and said he had been overpaid by a 1000 US. Where did you read/hear that it was Iraq I that did it to him?