I concur with this. This whole situation is mostly do to with the (incorrect) perceptions of normal Americans re: Guantanamo and the detainees there.
At worst, this gentleman, who apparently was deemed by everyone who matters to no longer be a threat, or ever a threat, but had no country to release him to (on our terms), should have not been locked up at Guantanamo with people who were deemed a threat. Move him out. He did not belong there. It was a mistake. Correct it.
Of course, the perception of doing something other than holding forever or releasing a “terrorist” to another “safe” country kept Adnan Farham Abdul Latif in legal limbo until it was too much.
I don’t fault the US with detaining him (it was a mistake), I fault the US with being impotent on an Executive, Judicial, and Congressional level in being able to deal with that mistake in a timely manner.
Not enough people really care. Today maybe, but not really. So yea, let your representative know you care.
So you’re arguing he tried something more conservative than this and they fought him over that. So that implies…
And everybody else refused to fund the relocation because they didn’t want suspected terrorists on U.S. soil (nevermind how nonsensical it was).
Any day of the week.
Shit yes. As noted, they already did this the last time.
It’s true that releasing an individual is different from changing the way these situations are handled. He doesn’t need Congressional authorization to free an individual and the administration has freed most of them. But if you’re asking if Congress would have a fit over releasing or relocating anyone if they found it politically convenient to have a fit, the only possible answer is “of course they would.” No, there’s no realistic way Obama could release them all (or relocate them to the U.S.) in the situation you propose. Republicans and Democrats would both oppose it. It’s a shitty situation and you’re correct about how it came about - a semi-improvised policy and a cavalier attitude toward torturing people - but that doesn’t make it any easier for Obama to undo it because you can’t unring the bell and he’s the one responsible for handling the situation now.
No, what I’m saying is his political opponents would treat him like Ned Beatty in Deliverance, and his supporters would abandon him while he squeals like a pig.
Since the events of your wiki link took place in the 1940’s, there has been a legion of debate and law around captured combatants treatment. Bluntly, Everyone gets (at least) Geneva Convention Article 3 protections (the bold part applies to summary execution):
Or basically, as John Mace states, they must be treated humanely. Shooting upon capture is not humane treatment.
They’re not POWs in the normal sense, because there is no enemy government to parlay with, end hostilities, and exchange prisoners with. Also, the above quote doesn’t apply because the conflict was international in nature.
But the Geneva Convetion should still apply. By letter, it might not, but we shouldn’t let the enemy drag us down to their level.
Bullshit. I’m tired of the apologists for Obama and his horrible record on human rights. He’s barely a step above Bush, and no amount of crying “he’s doing the best he can” or “Congress won’t let him” won’t change that.
If he wanted to, he could create, or have created, a system of due process for the trial of the detainees. But he didn’t want to. Why? Because of fucking politics. I’m sick and tired of President Spineless getting a pass for allowing this kind of shit to continue.
And just so you know, I’m not pissed at you at all. I’m pissed at Obama.
This strikes me as a huge overreaction to what might happen if Obama did as suggested, for reasons others have pointed out. But I want to ask how this might lead to impeachment. What would the charges be?
Must…resist…urge…to…hijack…and…ask…why…you…believe…this… Because the only movement I’m seeing in the polls is in Obama’s favor, and he has a good lead in the electoral college right now.
Pretty much anything a pissed off House wanted them to be. “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” is full of wiggle room.
Definitely not saying I’d encourage such a course, or even think it could stick on a trial in the Senate, but it is possible.
The OP severely underestimates how much his proposal would piss off most of the country for one reason or another. Laymen have very little patience for legal argument. Particularly those that rely on fairly sophisticated constitutional analysis…such as the plight of those presently incarcerated at Gitmo.
I do not know, but I strongly suspect a majority of the country believes that those at Gitmo are dangerous terrorists, largely because their government has told them this is so. The majority of voters aren’t going to react well to such people being released.
Disclaimer: I am both highly cynical and more than a little pragmatic here. Winning politics is not about what is right, it is about what is effective at drawing votes.
“Fairly sophisticated”? What’s so difficult about “innocent until proven guilty”?
It doesn’t. A lot of the people who ended in Gitmo were simply unlucky bastards who were rounded up and sold to the United States as so-called terrorists. They were not combatants, lawful or otherwise.
He wasn’t being held because he committed a crime, so no need to meet that standard.
Adnan Latif was not being held for taking part in the 9/11 attacks or being apart of al qaeda, he was held for being a low-level soldier for the Taliban. The Taliban harbored terrorists in Afghanistan and we went to war with them for that reason. This is the US Govt’s assertion, and if true, it’s about as close to a lawful combatant as you can be. Bush nitpicked the lawful part because they didn’t follow the Geneva Conventions to a T. (For the record, Adnan Latif has always claimed he was just there seeking medical treatment for a prior head injury which would not make him a combatant).
Using the Govt’s own version of the facts that he was a legit combatant, the US vs. Afghanistan war ended about a decade ago and Adnan Latif had been cleared for release since 2004. However, he never left Guantanamo because he was a Yemeni citizen and Bush/Obama halted releases to Yemen (it’s an unstable country), even in light of a 2010 Judge’s order that he be released anyways (Obama appealed the ruling and won). This was the breakdown that is tragic. But if he’s not a threat, then let him go there, that’s his country. He just wasn’t a threat and any chance of recidivism for him was so minutely low, even in Yemen, to be perfectly acceptable by anyone’s standard.
He should have been released to Yemen a long time ago with our sincerest apologies.
The reason he should have been cleared for release is not merely because he’s a prisoner of war from a war that has ended - it’s because there is no credible evidence that he was an enemy combatant. The government knew that there was no evidence that he’d met his so-called recruiter, and no evidence that he had been trained to fight against America, and definitely no evidence that he had ever fired a bullet at Americans. You could have been locked up as a prisoner of war for the rest of your life on those grounds - sure, you’ve never met Osama Bin Laden, you might not be trained as a soldier and you’ve never shot at US soldiers, but why let a little thing like facts get in the way of keeping an innocent man locked up!
Because the United State is not a totalitarian dictatorship like Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany but a constitutional republic as our Founding Fathers intended.
Bush really screwed the pooch on the detainee issue. All captured enemy should have just been called POWs and that should have been the end of it. The fact that they are POWs does not mean they can’t be tried for war crimes later. But at least it would have put a stop to the “why haven’t they had trials?” chorus.
The facts are debatable, or at least not conceded by the Government. Surely people like me will never honestly know them. I know what Latif claims. I know what the Gov’t claims. The Gov’t still believes he was much more involved in the war than he claims, they just don’t think it mattered anymore and he could be released (either in 2004 or 2006). The evidence for his alleged combatant activities comes from Latif himself and is summarized in a “Report.” In 2010, a district court said the “Report” was not reliable and Latif must be released due to lack a of compelling evidence and that Latif’s version seems credible enough. The appellate court said the Report was reliable and was enough to continue holding Latif if the Gov’t wanted to. The only reason they wanted to is because they didn’t know where to release him to.
What both sides agree on is that in early 2001 (i.e., that’s pre-9/11) Latif left Yemen at someone’s request. He went to Pakistan, then to Kabul. He stayed in Kabul for 5 months. Then fled to Pakistan where he was caught with a group of other men.
Latif says: he was going to Afghanistan for medical treatment and the man in Yemen worked for a charity that could help with that; and his 5 months in Kabul were spent at an Islamic Center studying under an Iman. During the war in Afghanistan, he tried to flee to the Yemen Embassy in Pakistan, but was arrested before he made it. Latif had medical documents on him and his head injury he wanted treatment for is documented and occurred in 1994.
The US says: the man in Yemen was a recruiter and the route traveled was used by many other jihadists; and his 5 months in Kabul were spent training under the Taliban. His medical treatment “trip” is a well-known cover story and we’ve heard it before.
So, he’s either completely innocent of anything, or at worst, a low-level nobody.
Here’s a what the appellate court thought of what he says he was doing and the Gov’t allegations of what he was doing. From the DC Circuit Opinion that vacated the district court’s findings:
I’m much less concerned that he was caught and detained (maybe I should be). Extremely saddened he was never released when that’s what everyone wanted for a very long time. Even worse, other Yemenis were released to Yemen, even during the “we’re not releasing anyone to Yemen” period that’s been ongoing the past couple years. Why not this guy? Why does the Gov’t put itself in the bizarre position of fighting to detain a guy they’ve recommended for release?
What gets me is that the whole Gitmo issue was a major issue and illegal and immoral when Bush Jr. was doing it but it’s almost a non-issue now with Obama in office.
Because the only movement I’m seeing in the polls is in Obama’s favor, and he has a good lead in the electoral college right now.