Bin Laden’s death relieves U.S. of tough decision about legal prosecution
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is probably relieved that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed during the military operation in Pakistan rather than being captured.
A year ago, Holder drew some scrutiny when Republicans in the House of Representatives questioned him about how bin Laden would be prosecuted if captured, whether in a traditional federal criminal court or a special military court.
Republicans and even some Democrats have opposed federal trials for the foreign terrorism suspects because they would be afforded all traditional U.S. legal rights. Military courts have more relaxed standards for allowing certain evidence to be used during trials and do not require that suspects be advised of their legal rights, such as the right to a lawyer or to remain silent.
Holder has been criticized for attempting to have some of the accused Sept. 11 suspects prosecuted in a federal criminal court and had to back down in the face of intense fury from politicians. A year ago Texas Republican Representative John Culberson questioned whether bin Laden was similar to convicted mass murderer Charles Manson and thus eligible for full U.S. legal rights.
“Well granting Osama bin Laden the right to appear in a U.S. courtroom, you are clothing Osama bin Laden with the protections of the U.S. Constitution. That’s unavoidable,” Culberson said.
“The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom,” Holder said in response. “That’s a reality. That’s a reality.”
His remarks provoked many questions at the time, a year ago, when seemingly there was no indication that U.S. intelligence agencies were hot on the trail of bin Laden and that the trail had gone cold years ago.
ACLU gives Obama mixed first year rights grade
U.S. President Barack Obama has taken some bold steps on civil rights during his first year in office, such as ordering an end to torture and the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison, but his overall record is mixed, the American Civil Liberties Union said on Tuesday.
The civil rights group said Obama had acted on more than a third of 145 recommendations it made to him when he was elected. The recommendations focused on steps the president could take on his own without a vote by Congress.
“The Obama administration has made some significant strides toward restoring civil liberties and the rule of law,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero in a statement.
“But in other areas, the administration has fallen short by allowing some of the (George W.) Bush administration’s most troublesome practices to continue and by failing to take steps that would restore some very fundamental rights and values to American life,” he said.
On issues such as spying on Americans, monitoring of activists and terrorism watchlists, the ACLU said Obama had not acted on any of its recommendations.
For more Reuters political coverage, click here
Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Obama addresses closing session of the Jobs and Economic Growth Forum at the White House December 3, 2009)
Is swine flu vaccine going to Guantanamo? Define “going”
Conservative politicians and commentators got up in arms this week after the Pentagon said it would send doses of hard-to-get H1N1 swine flu vaccine to terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.
The White House denied it on Tuesday, emphatically, but also carefully — saying there is no vaccine at the U.S. military prison, or going there … now.
“There is no vaccine in Guantanamo and there’s no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said when queried about the burgeoning controversy.
“I don’t know what the Pentagon said. I know in asking yesterday whether or not there was any vaccine there or whether there was any vaccine that was on its way, the answer to both those questions was no,” he said.
The H1N1 swine flu virus has killed at least 1,000 Americans and infected an estimated 5 million. Many U.S. states and cities say they have received about one-tenth as much H1N1 vaccine as they had expected to get by now. Given the shortage, the vaccine is being saved for high-risk groups, such as very young children and people with underlying health conditions. In many areas even they have been turned away as clinics have run short of the flu jab.
After Gibbs’ remarks, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said H1N1 vaccines would go to Guantanamo detainees, but only after they’d been offered to every active-duty soldier, deployed U.S. contractors and civilians, and civilians working for the Department of Defense.
“Because there are limitations on supplies of H1N1 vaccine, we’ve established priorities… But we do have an obligation to provide appropriate medical care to everyone in our custody,” he said.
Bob, are you too stupid to read more than the headlines? The article says there is no (that is a negative) vaccine there or headed there. The conservative way is to pick a lie and yell it in unison til someone who reads about three words a day believes it. Mission accomplished.
Performers angry their music used in Guantanamo interrogations
Interrogators at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay liked to blast rock ‘n’ roll music at inmates to try to induce them to talk.
Now some of the folks that made that rock ‘n’ roll music are blasting back.
Trent Reznor, Tom Morello, Jackson Browne, T-Bone Burnett, Rosanne Cash, Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and other musicians have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo. The newly formed campaign, led by retired Lieutenant General Robert Gard and retired Brigadier General John Johns among others, is increasing pressure on the Obama administration to move ahead with the president’s pledge to close the prison.
“Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured,” Morello said in a statement released by the campaign, charging that some inmates had been subjected to loud music for 72 hours in a row.
“Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine,” he added. “The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me — we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.”
Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, said his group has obtained at least 20 declassified documents that refer to blasting Guantanamo detainees in an effort to “create futility” and encourage them to talk.
Gard, a senior military fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said “the torture that went on there is disgraceful and puts our troops at risk every day.”
Battle brewing over Guantanamo and its Chinese Muslim prisoners
A big battle is brewing over the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Chinese Muslim inmates held there.
The Supreme Court announced Tuesday it would decide whether federal judges have the power to order the release of the ethnic Uighur prisoners into the United States.
The White House and Congress argue the inmates have never been admitted into the United States under U.S. immigration laws, and judges should not be making those sorts of decisions.
To underscore the point, the U.S. Congress Tuesday approved a spending bill that includes a measure effectively prohibiting Guantanamo prisoners from being released into the United States. The measure would admit them only to face trial.
President Barack Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo by Jan. 22, 2010, but meeting that goal has become increasingly difficult.
Few countries are willing to accept any of the approximately 220 inmates, and the United States continues to debate what to do with them.
The 13 Uighurs — a Turkic Muslim ethnic group from Xinjiang in western China — have been cleared of being suspected terrorists by U.S. authorities.
The US government should stop digging a hole for itself, and promptly send these terrorists back to China where they are wanted as fugitives. As Reuters noted, these Uighurs, whose objective is to fight China, had traveled to Afghanistan for weapons training and religious indoctrination. In July, we saw the fruits of Uighur terrorism when babies were beheaded and elderly Han Chinese women were set on fire. By refusing to repatriate the Uighurs to China, and even contemplating the mind-boggling idea of resettling terrorist fugitives on the US mainland, the US government stands guilty of abetting terrorism. Let the US government show it has learned from the terrible tragedy of 9/11.
from Summit Notebook:
Napolitano defends bringing Guantanamo detainees to U.S.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the Obama administration's plans to bring terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States -- countering critics who questioned whether it would create security risks.
"There's no question in my mind that those detainees who would be moved to the United States would be held in such a fashion that they would not be any threat to public safety, and I say that as a former prosecutor," Napolitano said in an interview during the Reuters Washington Summit. She served as a U.S. attorney in Arizona during the Clinton administration.
President Barack Obama has pledged to close the controversial prison by Jan. 22, 2010, including bringing some of the terrorism suspects to U.S. soil for trial in military commissions or U.S. criminal courts. There have been questions and doubts about whether his goal can be achieved because of political, legal and logistical complications.
Napolitano held out hope that the administration could meet the fast-approaching deadline: "I would hope so." She declined to comment on the likely location of where the detainees could be held in the United States.
But Republicans have criticized the idea of bringing the terrorism suspects to U.S. soil, arguing that they are not entitled access to the criminal court system and could pose threats to the communities where they may be imprisoned.
Her remarks came as former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey issued a stinging condemnation of the Obama administration plan, writing in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that civilian courts were not the right place to try the terrorism suspects and could make communities, jurors and courts targets.
"Based on my experience trying such cases, and what I saw as attorney general, they aren't. That is not to say that civilian courts cannot ever handle terrorist prosecutions, but rather that their role in a war on terror—to use an unfashionably harsh phrase—should be, as the term 'war' would suggest, a supporting and not a principal role," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
The First Draft: Will Cheney spill the beans about Bush?
How would you spend the dog days of summer, if you were a former vice president? If you were Dick Cheney, you would be ensconced in your new office above the garage in McLean, Virginia (just down the road from the CIA!), writing your memoir of the administration of George W. Bush. But would you tell all?
The Washington Post indicates Cheney might. In a front-page story that was one of the paper’s most-viewed online, unnamed sources say the former veep was frustrated with Bush, especially in the second term.
When Cheney was asked at an informal meeting to discuss his memoirs if he had any regrets, one meeting participant told the Post: “(Cheney) said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took … The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming. It was clear that Cheney’s doctrine was cast-iron at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory.”
If Cheney does open up about his problems with Bush and others in that administration, that would be unusual. Cheney himself has shown public disapproval of those who leave office and then write about what went on behind the scenes. As former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the Post, “If he goes out and writes a memoir that spills beans about what took place behind closed doors, that would be out of character.”
Since he left office, Cheney has been one of Obama’s most vocal critics, taking aim especially at the current president’s opposition to harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo. He is also at the heart of a planned House of Representatives investigation into the concealment of a secret CIA program from Congress. One senator said the program was hidden on orders from Cheney; Republicans see a partisan attack.
Throughout his career, Cheney has remained largely silent on the inner workings of government and policy, but that could be at an end when his memoir comes out. According to the Post, Cheney has said “the statute of limitations has expired” on many of his secrets.
What do you think: should Cheney tell all, and let the chips fall where they may? Or would that be unseemly, impolitic and dangerous?
It will be interesting to hear the protests from the democratic leaders who were present when bush was given authorization to proceed with his push against Iraq.
What if a Gitmo detainee is acquitted? It’s hypothetical …
The Obama administration doesn’t want to talk about what might happen if a New York court acquits a Guantanamo Bay terrorism suspect. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian, Tuesday became the first Guantanamo prisoner sent to the United States for trial. He pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan court. Ghailani is accused of conspiring to bomb the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, killing 224 people. He had been held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba since 2006. His transfer to New York was seen as a test case for President Barack Obama’s effort to close the controversial prison for foreign terrorism suspects. A key question in dealing with the detainees has been whether to try them in military or civil courts. So has the issue of what to do with prisoners who are acquitted. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs refused Tuesday to say whether the administration would set Ghailani free if he was acquitted. He was asked the question repeatedly at a White House briefing. Here are his replies: “Well, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals.” “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about the court cases either.”
“Well, let’s discuss that if it ever comes to fruition.” “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about how certain cases may or may not play out.” “I’m not willing to get into playing hypothetical games.” “I’m not debating legal principles. I’m just not getting into the hypothetical back and forth of what happens on a case.” “I am not going to get into the hypotheticals about specific outcomes of cases.” “We will talk about what happens about a verdict when a verdict comes.” “And I’m, in this specific case, not going to get into those hypotheticals.” For more Reuters political news, please click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Gibbs at a briefing earlier this year); Reuters/Christine Cornell (Artist rendition of Ghailani at hearing on Tuesday in New York)
Some of the prisoners could be acquitted, or will get out after serving their terms. This is the case of Ahmed Ressam, the Millenium Bomber, who plotted to blow up the Los Angeles Internation Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999. Ressem is scheduled to be released as early as 2016 because of a plea deal in which ge gave up valuable information on terror camps in Afghanistan. So what? They won’t be allowed to loiter in my neighborhood. We have a system in place to deal with their deportation, although rendition for the purpose of torture is no longer allowed. At least that’s what the government wants us to think.
The First Draft: Now he’s talking!
Dan Quayle played golf in Arizona. Al Gore taught journalism in New York. But Dick Cheney is breaking with the tradition that former vice presidents quietly leave Washington and the public eye when they exit the White House. Even Cheney’s ex-boss, George W. Bush, has refrained from criticizing the Obama administration, saying the new team deserves his silence. But Cheney was positively gabby on a Sunday talk show.
While many in official Washington were recovering from Saturday evening’s White House Correspondents Association dinner — where President Barack Obama got off some memorable one-liners and comedian Wanda Sykes took aim at radio talk jock Rush Limbaugh, among others — Cheney gave a lengthy interview to “Face the Nation” on CBS television. The replay of clips from that chat were still reverberating on Monday’s morning shows on CNN, NBC and ABC.
On waterboarding terror suspects, which critics say doesn’t work in getting useful information — aside from it being torture — Cheney disagreed. “Khalid Shaikh Mohammed … an evil, evil man that’s been in our custody since March of ’03 … did not cooperate fully in terms of interrogations until after waterboarding. Once we went through that process, he produced vast quantities of invaluable information about Al Qaeda.”
Any regrets about his time in the White House? “No regrets. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. I’m convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.”
What about the detention center at Guantanamo, which Obama has said will be closed within a year? “We had to have a place, a facility, where we could capture these people and hold them until they were no longer a danger to the United States … we released hundreds already of the less threatening types. About 12 percent of them, nonetheless, went back onto the fight as terrorists. The group that’s left, the 245 or so, these are the worst of the worst.”
And what about Cheney’s Republican Party, now dealing with the defection of high-profile Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania? Should it move to the left to broaden its appeal to voters? “We are what we are. We’re Republicans … I think we win elections when we have good solid conservative principles to run upon and base our policies on those principles.”
If he had to choose between Rush Limbaugh and Colin Powell — the former Secretary of State and former head of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff — Cheney said he’d pick Limbaugh.
Cheney is right to keep up the pressure by talking out. The whole truth will come out.
For instance, first Nancy Pelosi (in typical democratic finger wagging style) insisted she was never informed or a part of any meeting where waterboarding was discussed. Now she is saying she was mislead by the CIA and Bush administration…
Well, doesn’t that make her a liar? Either she did or did not attend meetings where waterboarding was discussed.
She has lost credibility and the democrats better watch their step. As people want to forget, there were a lot of democrats who said “to do what ever it takes” right after 9/11. Now for political reasons, they want to run and blame. It is just like the WMD argument in Iraq. Lots of democrats gave speeches on the floors of congress saying how dangerous Iraq and their WMDs were and that we needed to go in and take care of it. Now they want to run and blame.
Yeah, the most ethical congress ever (FYI Nancy Pelosi said that)….
We’re being attacked. Training forces to carry out attacks is an act of war. Their members have declared this war publicly. Regardless they don’t have conventional military forces and weapons. They are not citizens, they are combatants, by their own will. Therefore military law applies. Whenever we get President Obama out of the presidential office, we’ll no doubt get a new Attorney General who can act and carry out his actions and responsibilities be they right or wrong or indifferent. We have a current administration who are all hand picked boot-lickers.