Washington Extra – Talking with the Taliban
For most Americans and for many here in Washington, the idea that the United States could broker successful talks with the Taliban that lead to the end of the Afghan war is mind-bending. And yet, that is what senior U.S. officials have allowed themselves to entertain as 10 months of secret dialogue reach the point of breakthrough or collapse. It’s a small glimmer of hope where there once was none.
In our exclusive “Secret U.S., Taliban talks reach turning point,” we reveal that the United States is considering the transfer of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo to the Afghan government. The Taliban will have to correspond with its own confidence-building measures like denouncing international terrorism and entering formal talks with President Karzai’s government.
Judging from initial reactions, a reconciliation process will be no easy sell here at home (not to mention in Afghanistan, where a senior Taliban commander said talks had not even started).
Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss issued a statement today saying: “It sounds as if the administration has decided to negotiate with terrorists, something the United States does not do.” Prisoner transfers, he said, should only be done once hostilities have ceased and that Americans should know who the detainees are and what acts they have committed.
There will undoubtedly be much American soul-searching about dealing with an insurgent group that has not only killed U.S. soldiers but also advocates a strict Islamic form of government.
U.S. officials, however, believe the war can only end with negotiations. “The challenges are enormous,” one of them said. “But if you’re where we are … you can’t not try. You have to find out what’s out there.”
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Lawyers who worked on detainee issues now in Justice Dept. under scrutiny
(Updates to add comment.)
There has been a lot of attention lately on a small group of lawyers who were hired by the Obama administration’s Justice Department and previously worked on legal arguments for detainees seeking release from the controversial prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A few Republican lawmakers initially sought the identity of the individuals and their responsibilities, questioning whether they were working on detainee matters at the Justice Department.
Federal ethics rules limit government officials from being involved in specific cases they had previously worked on in the private sector.
Much of the controversy erupted when Keep America Safe, a group led by former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney, joined the chorus seeking their identity and ran an Internet video advertisement with a blistering attack on the Obama administration for employing them.
It called the lawyers “The al Qaeda 7″ and questioned whether the Justice Department was really the “Department of Jihad.”
That advertisement and criticism of the lawyers has drawn widespread condemnation from Democrats as well as Republicans, including former members of the Bush administration, who said that such defense work was critical to the American justice system and that providing individuals with defense counsel was critical.
When any family or other member of Dick Cheney’s entourage can prove they possess the slightest qualification to talk about ethics, wake me up.
Eric Holder – stand your ground.
Aaron Harison – go quail hunting with Dick.
Obama slams opposition to civilian trials for terrorism suspects
President Barack Obama didn’t mince words when he criticized Republican opposition to prosecuting foreign terrorism suspects in U.S. criminal courts rather than in military tribunals, calling it “rank politics.”
His administration was caught off guard last week when opposition mounted to trying the accused plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks in a lower Manhattan courthouse amid concerns about security and costs as well as potentially affording the suspects certain legal rights.
“One of the things that we’ve had to try to communicate to the country at large is that, historically, we’ve tried a lot of terrorists in our courts; we have them in our federal prisons; they’ve never escaped,” Obama said in an interview with YouTube.
“It’s been one of those things that’s been subject to a lot of, in some cases, pretty rank politics,” he said, referring to Republican opposition to the criminal trials. While much of the opposition has been by Republicans, a few Democrats have joined in the disapproval.
A group of senators, including Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln, plan to offer legislation on Tuesday that would prevent any funding of the criminal trials, though it was not immediately clear whether there was sufficient support or how they would seek to pass the measure.
Obama’s budget for fiscal 2011, which starts Oct. 1, includes $73 million to transfer, incarcerate and prosecute the Sept. 11 suspects, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The proposed budget also included $237 million to buy, fortify and upgrade a state prison in Thomson, Illinois, to house foreign terrorism suspects now at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Many Republicans have also opposed closing that facility, arguing it is the safest place to keep terrorism suspects.
Dash. You actually hit it right on the head.
No one wants the trials in their city. So, it makes the most sense to just try them in Guantanamo. It eliminates the problem of this taking place on our own soil.
Well, at least they are moving them out of NYC. What a slap in the face it was to try them there after over 3000 people lost their lives only to see the mastermind in court right down the street.
Why even waste money on a trial for someone who boasts of leading the plan to fly those planes into the WTC? Help him meet his 72 virgins sooner by saving money on a needless trial.
Obama misses a deadline on Guantanamo
Just because a president orders something done, that don’t make it happen.
A year after President Barack Obama ordered the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the facility is still open and holding 196 terrorism suspects the United States has captured.
The president had barely finished celebrating his inauguration when he signed an order Jan. 22, 2009, directing the Guantanamo prison be closed “as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.”
Any inmates still at the prison at the time of closure would be “returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”
Wishful thinking.
The timeline on Guantanamo closure began to slip soon after Obama signed the order as good intentions came up against hard realities.
Many U.S. allies who wanted the prison closed declined to take more than a handful of inmates apiece — particularly because the United States was not taking any. Returning prisoners to countries where they might be tortured was unacceptable.
If we can hold the likes of Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and the “Ice Man”, we can hold terrorists with no problem.
Judge blasts case against Kuwaiti held at Guantanamo
So how did an overweight, 43-year-old Kuwaiti man with bad knees and no real military training or experience suddenly become a logistics expert helping al Qaeda leaders organize the defense of Tora Bora in 2001?
That’s the question a U.S. federal judge said the government failed to adequately answer in trying to justify the indefinite detention of Fouad Al Rabiah at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Kuwait Airways engineer’s confessions to those charges, extracted with the use of extreme interrogation methods, “defy belief,” wrote Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in a decision issued today.
“If there exists a basis for Al Rabiah’s indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a 65-page decision, noting that his petition to the court for release under habeas corpus is the oldest pending. So far, 30 detainees have won their freedom from the court, while seven have been denied.
The government had accused Al Rabiah of providing money to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a July trip to Afghanistan and helping to coordinate and support Taliban fighters in the mountainous Tora Bora region in the country during a subsequent October trip. Bin Laden is believed to have escaped capture via that route.
However, the judge shredded the government’s case, meticulously going through Al Rabiah’s history and the evidence presented noting that he had only had two weeks of military training — a requirement in Kuwait — but he was discharged because of a knee injury and that he had a long history of doing charity work without any ties to terrorism.
Kollar-Kotelly also pointed out that Al Rabiah’s confessions were a result of harsh interrogation techniques, including one (which was redacted in the ruling) that the government was unable to provide evidence that its use was authorized as required.
She also pointed out that one intelligence analyst’s assessment was that Al Rabiah should not have been detained and that the interrogators “began using abusive techniques that violated the Army Field Manual and the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War” such as threats that he would be sent to places where he could be tortured or would never be found.
It is remarkable that a nationalized American has to defend America in these blogs.Eric h,Getplaning ,brian,how many of you guys have actually lived outside of America,not including vacations?TC why have these lefty loones got it in for America?
Democrat opposes sending Guantanamo detainees to Leavenworth
A senior Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday warned against sending detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas, saying it could endanger U.S. relations with Muslim countries.
It was also another thorn in President Barack Obama’s effort to quickly close the controversial U.S. prison in Cuba.
Representative Ike Skelton, chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, acknowledged the difficulties the Obama administration was having finding a place to move the detainees, but in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates he raised two problems with sending them to Kansas.
In addition to Fort Leavenworth housing a maximum security military prison, the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College is also located at the military installation which is meant to serve as a graduate school of sorts for military officers, including from abroad.
“I have strong indications that, if detainees from Guantanamo were to be transferred to Fort Leavenworth, a number of Muslim countries would decline to continue to send their students,” Skelton said in the letter. “This would have a very negative outcome for our military officers, the school, and the health of our relationships with Muslim nations.”
He also raised the issue of housing foreign individuals near American prisoners, saying that U.S. law bars it.
“Plans to transfer Guantanamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth would require additional expenses for military construction and enhanced security so as not to run afoul of the law,” Skelton said. “I feel strongly that Fort Leavenworth is not an appropriate option.”
they are proposing to clear out a percentage of the prisoners here in CA,because we cannot afford keep them incarcerated. But the inducement of say 200 000 000 dollars per bakers dozen{13)send them here then perhaps Arnold will not have sell off some of our more famous jails.when the criminals get let loose here, i can see people ordinary people asking to be locked up for safety.
Uighurs held at Guantanamo plead to Obama for release
A group of the 13 Chinese detainees held at the controversial U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba appealed directly to President Barack Obama for their immediate release, arguing that they have been cleared by the United States of any wrongdoing and they questioned why it was taking so long to go free.
The members of the Uighur ethnic group originally sent the appeal to Obama on March 8 but it was not cleared by the U.S. government for release until July 14, according to their attorneys. Two of the signatories have since been released to Bermuda, the lawyers said.
“After 6 years of investigations, the US military confirmed that we are innocent,” the Uighurs said in their letter. “We are innocent civilians, however, we are currently still being held in jail.”
In June four Uighurs were transferred from the Guantanamo prison to the Atlantic island of Bermuda. The entire group, who come from China’s largely Muslim far-west region of Xinjiang, were captured by the U.S. government during fighting in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in Washington and New York.
There has been some talk that the remaining 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo Bay could go to the tropical Pacific island of Palau, where the government has agreed to take them temporarily as a humanitarian gesture. China has demanded that they all be returned to Chinese soil but the United States has said it could not return them because they would face persecution.
“The State Department, in coordination with the Defense Department and other interested agencies, is working to make appropriate arrangements to carry out transfers of these individuals in a manner consistent with national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, as well as U.S. policies concerning humane treatment,” said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.
These people are fugitives from perscution, ethnic and religious. In the finest historical traditions of our country a refuge for such people we should give them asylum here and help them resettle.
The First Draft: From Gitmo to paradise
Barack Obama and Joe Biden head to the Midwest today.
The Chinese Gitmo detainees are heading to paradise.
No, they’re not winging to heaven to enjoy the company of 72 virgins. The Uighurs, as they’re known, are being resettled in various beachy, tropical locales as the Obama administration seeks to empty the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison.
The United States has struggled for months to find a home for the Chinese Muslims, who were scooped up in 2001 during the invasion of Afghanistan. The Uighurs had no beef with the U.S., their lawyers say, but were instead part of an independence movement in China’s far west.
China wanted them to face the music back home, but it sounds like they’ll be facing the music of Jimmy Buffett instead. The Pacific Island nation of Palau agreed to take on all 17 detainees yesterday; today the Justice Department said four have already been resettled in Bermuda.
Six other Uighurs were sent to Albania in 2006, a former Communist state better known for pyramid schemes and bunkers than beaches. Evidently, good things come to those who wait.
photo credit: REUTERS/Tim Wimborne (footprints on an Australian beach — not where the Uighurs are going, but possibly what they’ll be experiencing).
G.Din. Thanks for you post and let me address the points you raise.
First of all, the Uyghur men were cleared to be released into the United States until a few politicians decided to make this a party political issue. Mr. Gingrich and others were, rather cynically, looking to score some points off of the Obama administration by making slanderous accusations against an entire people and by extension the detainees in Guantanamo.
Why were they in Afghanistan? Again, I refer you to the court documents. They were there because they had fled from repression in their own country. The U.S. has routinely documented this systematic economic, social, cultural and political repression in numerous reports. Contrary to international agreements on non-refoulement, countries bordering the Uyghur region often send refugees back to China to face torture and worse for peacefully, and I repeat, peacefully, advocating for their basic freedoms. During the political process which led to the founding of the United States, Britain considered the people of America as British citizens. Wouldn’t it have been Britain’s right to have the founding fathers handed over to their custody? In fact, the Chinese did have a chance to find out what the Uyghurs in Guantanamo were up to. Chinese secret service agents were allowed into Guantanamo to interrogate these men. I’d like to add that the trip was partially funded by the U.S. taxpayer. This interrogation happened as two UNITED STATES congressmen were denied access to the Uyghurs.
I agree with you G.Din that we are all stakeholders in the security and safety of the United States despite our differing opinions. My views are balanced by yours and vice-versa and we hope that a reasoned policy will emerge from the debate. In the effort to secure our country, we also need to face our mistakes. No one enterprise is perfect, and when mistakes are made, we hope that citizens such as ourselves can examine it and correct it. The detention of the Uyghurs was one of these mistakes. That is why they have been given their freedom, something which is not guaranteed in China.
Lastly, you say you are not sure that I know what we are facing in regard to the terror threat. Although I don’t think this is an appropriate forum to discuss my credentials, I have the knowledge and experience on the region and the issues to understand that the denial of having made a mistake in the Uyghur case will not make our country any safer.
The First Draft: Hello, summer!
It’s almost Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial start of summer. No bottlenecks yet at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the gateway to Maryland’s Eastern Shore beach towns.
Traffic out that way is likely to get worse around 10:00 a.m., when President Obama delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He’ll also sign bills to limit abusive credit-card practices and reform the Pentagon’s weapons-buying process.
Vice President Joe Biden is in Lebanon, where he’s already managed to tick off Hezbollah. No, he hasn’t said anything unwise yet, they’re just upset that he’s there.
Folks still seem to be talking about yesterday’s Gitmo faceoff between Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who also served in Cheney’s administration, said that Gitmo is a fine facility but has a “taint.”
“The name itself is a condemnation,” he said on NBC’s “Today” Show.
Gates dismissed worries that any terrorism suspects would pose a security threat if moved to U.S. prison facilities.
“There’s a lot of fearmongering about this. We’ve never had an escape from a Supermax prison, and that’s where these guys will go,” he said.
The First Draft: Not in my backyard
Former House speaker Tip O’Neill famously said that all politics is local, and President Barack Obama has encountered a phrase all too familiar to city councils and zoning boards: Not in My Backyard.
Obama’s plans to shutter the Guantanamo Bay military prison have foundered on fears, drummed up by Republicans, that terrorism suspects could roam the streets and parks of America if they are set free from U.S. prisons.
Now even Obama’s Democratic allies in Congress have said they won’t give him money to bring the Gitmo suspects into the U.S. legal system.
At 10:00 today, Obama will explain his plans for closing Gitmo with the hopes of curbing the fears of NIMBYism and convincing Congress to cough up the necessary dough.
To get things rolling, his Justice Department plans to bring one suspect to trial.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, a primary architect of the terrorism policy now giving Obama headaches, will offer a lively counterpoint at a separate speech shortly after. He’s likely to raise the specter of coddled terrrorists, out on parole, plotting suicide bombings at the local middle school.
Do we see a new role for Cheney? America’s #1 Neighborhood Activist, perhaps? Hmm, that sounds sort of like a community organizer.
Although I agree with a couple of the points brought up below, this is a blog its all Andy’s point of view and he can basically say whatever he wants so some the comments about his comments are weird and are just out of place like, “Hmm, that sounds sort of like a community organizer.”
Is that comment news or simply an editorial comment buried in the “news story”?
No thats not news and yes thats a comment… this is a blog.
Sure there is information here but its not an unbiases NEWS story reporting straight up facts, ITS A BLOG!
