NYT: Office Working to Close Guantánamo Is Shuttered

[SkinsHokieFan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/politics/state-dept-closes-office-working-on-closing-guantanamo-prison.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

4 years after this......

“I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that,” Obama told CBS’ Steve Kroft in November 2008.

Obama also signed an executive order shortly after taking office that declared the prison for suspected terrorists would be shuttered “no later” than January 2010.

.......the administration has shut down the office responsible for shutting down GITMO.

I have an idea Mr. President. Put everyone at GITMO on your secret kill list and send a few drones over it

Office Working to Close Guantánamo Is Shuttered

FORT MEADE, Md. — The State Department on Monday reassigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy for closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and will not replace him, according to an internal personnel announcement. Mr. Fried’s office is being closed, and his former responsibilities will be “assumed” by the office of the department’s legal adviser, the notice said.

The announcement that no senior official in President Obama’s second term will succeed Mr. Fried in working primarily on diplomatic issues pertaining to repatriating or resettling detainees appeared to signal that the administration does not currently see the closing of the prison as a realistic priority, despite repeated statements that it still intends to do so.

Click link for rest

And as for the fallacy that Congress prevented the administration from shutting down GITMO, it is debunked here

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/23/the_obama_gitmo_myth/

The Obama GITMO myth

Most of the 168 detainees at Guantanamo have been imprisoned by the U.S. Government for close to a decade without charges and with no end in sight to their captivity. Some now die at Guantanamo, thousands of miles away from their homes and families, without ever having had the chance to contest accusations of guilt. During the Bush years, the plight of these detainees was a major source of political controversy, but under Obama, it is now almost entirely forgotten. On those rare occasions when it is raised, Obama defenders invoke a blatant myth to shield the President from blame: he wanted and tried so very hard to end all of this, but Congress would not let him. Especially now that we’re in an Election Year, and in light of very recent developments, it’s long overdue to document clearly how misleading that excuse is.

Last week, the Obama administration imposed new arbitrary rules for Guantanamo detainees who have lost their first habeas corpus challenge. Those new rules eliminate the right of lawyers to visit their clients at the detention facility; the old rules establishing that right were in place since 2004, and were bolstered by the Supreme Court’s 2008 Boumediene ruling that detainees were entitled to a “meaningful” opportunity to contest the legality of their detention. The DOJ recently informed a lawyer for a Yemeni detainee, Yasein Khasem Mohammad Esmail, that he would be barred from visiting his client unless he agreed to a new regime of restrictive rules, including acknowledging that such visits are within the sole discretion of the camp’s military commander. Moreover, as SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston explains:

Link for rest

[Duckus]

Frankly, I don't know too much about the current GITMO situation.

I found myself agreeing with this wholeheartedly from Salon:

What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp). What made Guantanamo such a travesty — and what still makes it such — is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. President Obama’s so-called “plan to close Guantanamo” — even if it had been approved in full by Congress — did not seek to end that core injustice. It sought to do the opposite: Obama’s plan would have continued the system of indefinite detention, but simply re-located it from Guantanamo Bay onto American soil.

Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention — the defining injustice of Guantanamo — as his own policy.

I don't pretend to know what the best solution is to this situation, but the indefinite detention system is a travesty. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the best (and realisitc) answer is at this point.

[Stadium-Armory]

It was naive of Obama the candidate to so strongly suggest that he could shut down GITMO. Obviously he said it for political reasons.

Obama the President now knows that he is not in a position to right the wrong that was handed him by his predecessor.

[SkinsHokieFan]

I don't pretend to know what the best solution is to this situation, but the indefinite detention system is a travesty. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the best (and realisitc) answer is at this point.

Bring up charges, have a trial, and be done with it. Sort of like we did with every single trial from 1789-2001 in America.

President Obama has now given bi-partisan consent for indefinite detention. You think a President Rubio in 2021 is going to have any worries with opposition to indefinite detention?

[ABQCOWBOY]

It was naive of Obama the candidate to so strongly suggest that he could shut down GITMO. Obviously he said it for political reasons.

Obama the President now knows that he is not in a position to right the wrong that was handed him by his predecessor.

On the other hand, maybe his predecessor wasn't wrong on this?

[sideshow24]

It was naive of Obama the candidate to so strongly suggest that he could shut down GITMO. Obviously he said it for political reasons.

Obama the President now knows that he is not in a position to right the wrong that was handed him by his predecessor.

What does he care now? He has his four more years

[ABQCOWBOY]

What does he care now? He has his four more years

This is true. I feel certain that the President new that he could not close Gitmo well before now. You are right.

[DjTj]

Bring up charges, have a trial, and be done with it. Sort of like we did with every single trial from 1789-2001 in America.

What happens when they are acquitted? Do we give them a green card and let them live in the United States? :whoknows:

If there are American citizens there, the US courts have managed to resolve the situation, as with Hamdi and Padilla.

If another country will take them, we can negotiate a transfer like a POW exchange.

But if we catch someone on the battlefield and can't negotiate a transfer to another country, what are we supposed to do? Our court system is not designed to prosecute enemy soldiers. This is not a traditional war, and our traditional rules don't really work.

If Congress really voted down the transfer of detainees on ideological grounds, I think that was cutting off the nose to spite the face. I always thought that moving the prisoners to military bases on American soil would create the kind of tension necessary to resolve the situation. When the detainees were in Guantanamo, it was out of sight and out of mind. But if they were closer to home, then the American people would be more motivated to act. It also would have been easier for volunteer lawyers to work on behalf of the detainees.

I think that Greenwald is exaggerating a bit to say that Congress blocked the closure of Guantanamo because of civil rights concerns. The overriding factor was a NIMBY fear of transferring detainees closer to home. But if some legislators did vote against closure because they wanted a more clear plan to end indefinite detention, I think that was foolish. Closing Guantanamo would have been a first step to ending indefinite detention. But because we never took that step, we are still stuck where we were 4 years ago.

[SkinsHokieFan]

But if we catch someone on the battlefield and can't negotiate a transfer to another country, what are we supposed to do? Our court system is not designed to prosecute enemy soldiers. This is not a traditional war, and our traditional rules don't really work.

.

Now we no longer bothering capturing enemy combatants, we just kill them with drones, which is my solution would actually work. The drone problem has essentially solved the future GITMO problems, we are able to kill the combatant who was placed on the secret kill list, and anyone who happens to be around the particular combatant.

The people in GITMO now haven't had charges brought up against them for years now. Why not just bring up charges and put them on trial and get it done with? If found "not guilty" give them a 1 way ticket to Afghanistan.

Again, the major consequence of this non leadership by President Obama will be felt when the next Republican is in office and essentially has carte blanche to do whatever he wants overseas. We have full bi-partisan consensus for the worst of the Bush-Cheney policies

[Duckus]

Why not just bring up charges and put them on trial and get it done with? If found "not guilty" give them a 1 way ticket to Afghanistan.

I guess the #1 fear of President Obama and other leaders is that the US Courts can't handle trials based on cases made with Bush-era interrogation techniques.

The plan is to try the hard-core terrorists in federal courts, but the Bush Administration's authorization of legally questionable interrogation techniques at the prison now gives many detainees a get-out-of-jail card. "Anytime you try to use criminal courts to prosecute, there's a good chance they're going to be acquitted," says Padmanabhan.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1882168,00.html#ixzz2JaNXNMB0

What ever happened to the idea of military courts? As I mentioned, I haven't followed this issue closely - so this might be a stupid question but why can't we just do the trial them in military courts?

[DjTj]

The people in GITMO now haven't had charges brought up against them for years now. Why not just bring up charges and put them on trial and get it done with? If found "not guilty" give them a 1 way ticket to Afghanistan.

Will Afghanistan take them? What's stopping the Afghan government from buying them a one-way ticket back to America? And what if the detainee doesn't want to go to Afghanistan?

Finding a place for these people to live is a serious problem. We had to search all over the world to find places to send Uighers that we knew were innocent:

Abu Bakker Qassim is a pizza chef like no other. A Uighur from north-western China, he was detained in Pakistan in 2001, imprisoned at Guantanamo, and is now cooking halal Italian food in Albania.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18631363

[Predicto]

The people in GITMO now haven't had charges brought up against them for years now. Why not just bring up charges and put them on trial and get it done with? If found "not guilty" give them a 1 way ticket to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan would not take them. No one will. That is a huge part of this horrible problem.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Well, what is the solution now then?

Clearly it isn't being closed. Just have these guys in cages till they die?

[Predicto]

Well, what is the solution now then?

Clearly it isn't being closed. Just have these guys in cages till they die?

I honestly don't know. It is totally ****** up. I think they have to have open trials. Our Constitution and our general moral responsibilities absolutely require it.

At the same time, from a pure security point of view, if they are sure that these remaining guys are the worst of the worst, and are enemy combatants in an ongoing conflict with Al Qaeda, and that a trial would harm our legitimate security interests, I can understand why the situation has dragged on like this. Not condoning it, but understanding why it is happening.

[burgundyrush]

Guantánamo? moral responsibilities?

HA!

[DjTj]

Well, what is the solution now then?

Clearly it isn't being closed. Just have these guys in cages till they die?

Honestly, I think it has to be taken on a case-by-case basis, and it will continue to be a slow process as Habeas petitions and the results of various prosecutions make their way through the courts and both sides of the issue work to find solutions for each detainee.

SCOTUSblog has kept a good running commentary on the legal process: http://www.scotusblog.com/category/detainee-litigation/

Organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights has been fighting for the detainees for many years: http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/guantanamo-numbers-what-you-should-know-and-do-about-guantanamo

What stands out to me on the CCR list is that 86 men have been cleared for release but are still being held in Guantanamo. That is a diplomatic problem (getting countries to take them) rather than a legal problem.

We are at 166 people detained at Guantanamo, which is down from around 300 when Obama took office and over 700 at it highest point during the Bush administration. We just need to keep working that number down, and at this point I am not optimistic that we will get down to zero by the end of Obama's second term.

It might take a Republican President to really close Guantanamo and end the War on Terror, like it took Nixon to get us out of Vietnam.