Senate paralyzed on what to do about Guantanamo

[Sunni Man]

Senators on Tuesday illustrated their paralysis over what to do with the Guantanamo Bay prison, voting down dueling bills to loosen and tighten restrictions on transferring detainees.

The result fails to significantly advance President Barack Obama's long-standing goal of closing the facility for terror suspects, but prevents rules from being inserted into the Senate's annual defense policy bill that would have made it even harder to try detainees in the United States or release them overseas.

Almost 12 years after its creation and almost five years since Obama vowed on his first day in office to close the prison, 164 suspects remain at the U.S. naval facility in Cuba. Restrictions imposed by Congress have brought transfers to a virtual standstill even though more than half the men there have been cleared for transfer.

McCain read a letter from 38 former U.S. military leaders voicing their support. It called Guantanamo a "symbol of torture" and a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda.

Senate advocates of closing Guantanamo repeatedly cited the high cost of maintaining the facility: $2.7 million a year per prisoner.

Total spending on Guantanamo amounts to $454 million a year, according to the Defense Department.

Senate paralyzed on what to do about Guantanamo | Al Jazeera America

 

[waltky]

I dunno...

Obama administration won’t divulge cost of Guantanamo camp
February 2, 2014 ~ The Obama administration is refusing to divulge how much it spent to build the secret prison facility at Guantanamo where the accused 9/11 co-conspirators are held and has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit by a Miami Herald reporter demanding documents that would reveal the number.

In a filing Friday, the Justice Department said that the Pentagon had found just one document that would provide information relevant to a 2009 Freedom of Information Act request reporter Carol Rosenberg filed seeking that cost figure. That document was exempt from disclosure, the filing said, because it contained details of internal deliberations and the names of many officials who were entitled to privacy. The Justice Department also made a separate secret filing with the court that provided more details on why the document should remain secret. That filing was not shared with Rosenberg’s attorneys, and its contents are unknown.

Rosenberg, who has covered the detention center at Guantanamo since it opened in 2002, originally had sought the cost of the facility, known as Camp 7, as part of her reporting on how much building and maintaining Guantanamo costs U.S. taxpayers. The Defense Department had provided construction costs for all other portions of the prison facility. When it refused to provide any documents responding to her request for information on Camp 7, Rosenberg sued in federal court in the District of Columbia, accusing the Pentagon in part of not conducting a thorough search for documents.

The information is particularly relevant now because the Southern Command, the military entity that controls Guantanamo, is seeking $49 million to replace the 8-year-old facility, which apparently was built improperly and is suffering from serious structural defects, including a cracked foundation. The Pentagon has refused to say who originally undertook the work, and its responses to Rosenberg’s FOIA request would indicate that it has no record of a construction contract or bidding document for the facility.

The filing included a declaration from Karen Hecker, an associate deputy general counsel for the Pentagon, asserting that the Pentagon had conducted a thorough search for relevant documents. She said the assignment for finding relevant records had been made to the Office of Detainee Policy, which oversees Guantanamo, and that it had discovered only the one document. Hecker’s declaration described the document as “part of the DoD (Department of Defense) deliberative process and was prepared to assist and guide senior policy makers within DoD in their decision-making roles.” That made it exempt from disclosure, she said.

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[LuckyDuck01!]

Even though some prisoners have been cleared for transfer, various host nations don't want them and we sure don't want them here. Personally, I say put them all on a large transport plane and drop them into some Islamic nation, without the benefit of parachutes.

 

[DGS49]

Barry's "promise" to close Gitmo was just one of a long laundry list of "promises" he made out of ignorance and hope that his voters were too stupid to see through them.

Closing GITMO is a very complex matter due to the fact that the detainees are somewhere in a nether-world between convicted criminals and POW's - but not actually either one. Once released they are very likely to resume their activities in opposition to the U.S. and its interests, and there really isn't anything we can do about it. Every time someone is repatriated there is a fairly good chance they will be identified later in connection with some hostile action against the U.S., and the person responsible for releasing him will be in for a shitload of criticism and embarrassment.

Maybe we should just abandon GITMO to Cuba and let the Castro's figure it out.

 

[George Costanza]

Barry's "promise" to close Gitmo was just one of a long laundry list of "promises" he made out of ignorance and hope that his voters were too stupid to see through them.

Closing GITMO is a very complex matter due to the fact that the detainees are somewhere in a nether-world between convicted criminals and POW's - but not actually either one. Once released they are very likely to resume their activities in opposition to the U.S. and its interests, and there really isn't anything we can do about it. Every time someone is repatriated there is a fairly good chance they will be identified later in connection with some hostile action against the U.S., and the person responsible for releasing him will be in for a shitload of criticism and embarrassment.

Maybe we should just abandon GITMO to Cuba and let the Castro's figure it out.

Fairly decent analysis, but does not take into account the detainees who are not guilty of anything. I would bet there are quite a few of these.

 

[DGS49]

"Not guilty of anything."

Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think the U.S. Military and state department are in the habit of arresting and incarcerating people for "nothing."

Some people on the political Left in this country have bemoaned the fact that people were grabbed and sent to Gitmo with "evidence" that would not hold up in a U.S. court of law. True enough. But it gets back to the conundrum of "accused criminal" vs. "POW." When in a wartime situation, you look at all the evidence you have available, and it may just be a reliable accusation from a "friendly" in the country where we are fighting.

THere are undoubtedly some people incarcerated at GITMO who have not committed any "crimes." But POW's are incarcerated for WHAT THEY ARE (enemy combatants) not for what they have done. Traditionally, POW's are released at the end of hostilities, but these "hostilities" will never end.

Which is why our Senators can't figure out WTF to do about GITMO. It's complicated, very complicated.

 

[natstew]

LOOK GODDAMMIT!!

There's nothing wrong with having a Military Prison at the U.S. Naval
Base at Guantanimo Bay, Cuba, (GITMO). It's the ideal spot for it. In their rabid hatred of everything 'Bush' the Democrats purposefully and without just cause deamonized Gitmo to the World, in the process they aided and abetted our enemies around the World. Now they're too cowardly to admit their evil deed so they have to play it to the end.
Democrats represent everything Evil on Earth!

 

[natstew]

Barry's "promise" to close Gitmo was just one of a long laundry list of "promises" he made out of ignorance and hope that his voters were too stupid to see through them.

Closing GITMO is a very complex matter due to the fact that the detainees are somewhere in a nether-world between convicted criminals and POW's - but not actually either one. Once released they are very likely to resume their activities in opposition to the U.S. and its interests, and there really isn't anything we can do about it. Every time someone is repatriated there is a fairly good chance they will be identified later in connection with some hostile action against the U.S., and the person responsible for releasing him will be in for a shitload of criticism and embarrassment.

Maybe we should just abandon GITMO to Cuba and let the Castro's figure it out.

Fairly decent analysis, but does not take into account the detainees who are not guilty of anything. I would bet there are quite a few of these.

There are more Palm Trees at the North Pole than innocents at Gitmo!