But…
They cannot be held indefinitely without some sort of hearing. Anyone not designated a POW falls in that category. We still have folks in Gitmo who have never been thru such a process.
because a military prison off the mainland is farther away and not subject to the nutjobs who would descend upon.
Who, specifically, hasn’t received a hearing between the 2006 Combatant Status Tribunals and the 2010 Task Force report? I don’t know for a fact that everyone has had a hearing, but I’d be very surprised - shocked even - if any have not by this point.
So, are superman prisons under some kind of threat of nut jobs descending on them? I’m not aware this is a real issue. I think it is imaginary.
I wasn’t aware that military bases were that insecure.
I think it would be about the nuisance of protesters camping outside the gates. Having the prisoners in Gitmo prevents that.
Nonsense. This has nothing to do with security. It’s about maintaining a legal fiction.
The Constitution says that all people within the jurisdiction of the United States government are entitled to certain rights. If the detainees were moved to the United States, they would undeniably be within American jurisdiction. But by holding them in a detention center that is physically located in another country - even though the United States government has full control of that facility - we were able to pretend they are outside the jurisdiction of the United States and deny them those rights.
It’s been a crazy start and stop process. I don’t have specific names (it’s hard to get much info about the whole system), but it appears that 45 prisoners are still awaiting some sort of hearing:
Yes, if they were to be moved to a US mainland military prison there will be a flurry of lawsuits as soon as their feet touch the ground from the planes gangway. I say let those lawsuits happen. Thats the way the system is supposed to work, and if it turns out that a few of them have to be released who are genuinely guilty, well thats also the way the system is supposed to work.
Some of them might go on to become recruiters or figureheads for ISIS or AQ. So what? I’m sure the US with its vastly powerful military and fleets of CIA drones is more than capable of dealing with that.
On first review, it looks like these people haven’t had a review under the Periodic Review Board beginning in 2013. I don’t think this means they have never had any review at all - just not from this particular board. I say that because it’s pretty clear how many detainees are supposed to be transferred, how many are planned to be prosecuted, and how many are likely to be detained indefinitely.
It’s not clear at all that the Task Force conducted anything that could reasonably be called a “hearing”. It looks more like they just went over the cases and made recommendations. Frankly, it’s very frustrating how difficult it is to get basic information about what is going on there.
Seems to me like the various agencies on the task force are just stalling as long as possible until Obama leaves office.
Gitmo is the jurisdiction of the United States. It’s a military base.
I agree. I didn’t say the government position was right.
If they were walking free in Yemen we could drone their asses without any problems. Gitmo is an offense to everything the US is supposed to stand for. Let them off a boat then drop a Hellfire on them. Easy-peasy.
Which is a big part of the reason Obama is so fond of his drones. Kill the fuckers on the battlefield and there is no mess to worry about in terms of what to do with a live body.
Or we could imprison enemy combatants, give them 3 squares a day and a soccer field to work out their aggressions. We get to keep our heads attached, they get a lifestyle that is arguably better than the one they came from or deserve.
Are you under the impression that a tribunal for the purpose of determining combatant status is like a courtroom proceeding?
Contrary to what you seem to believe “the battlefield” is not just anywhere Obama decides to kill some folks. If he can’t or won’t jump through the hoops to do things the right way, he should not be using airstrikes like they were some executive’s toy.
Even if we did have sufficient evidence to bring to trial, it would likely be inadmissible in a US court and/or compromise intelligence assets. It is clear, however, in many cases there is no evidence at all, to the point that people have been renditioned based upon a similar name or some informant’s say so with no corroberation whatsoever. A “fair court” would be a virtual impossibility at this point, even if officials made an ernest attempt to do so. On the other hand, the political backlash should one or more of the detainees joint a jihadist group and attack American servicepeople or interests is enough to keep anyone involved from taking responsibility for making the decision to release the detainees. The result is an indefinite limbo of continued moral and ethical abeyance of which no one is motivated to seriously challenge.
Like Major Major, they’re out when they’re in and they’re in when they’re out. “Bureaucratic malaise” is almost as effective as a 50’ containment wall, and what’s more, it’s cheaper, relying primarily on people’s disposition to not do anything about a problem that doesn’t directly effect them.
Actually, “the battlefield” is pretty much wherever we want it to be in our “War On Terror”, just as we did in Southest Asia circa 1970. The drones just make it that more convenient, and provide an additional layer of abstraction. For the people living in these “battlefields”, however, it is constant fear over an attack that could come at any time from a clear blue sky. Far more uninvolved bystanders have been killed than even suspected legitimate targets. Of course, this is hardly different from previous wars, but it is an effective way to make certain that Islamic terrorist and insurgency groups always have fresh pools of wiling recruits to fight against the hated America.
Do you live in some kind of altenate fantasy world where it isn’t readily apparent that the detainees housed at the Guantanamo Bay camp don’t get “3 squares a day and a soccer field…” or are you intentionally misrepresenting what even our own government acknowledges is harsh and often brutal conditions, where detainees have died under “mysterious circumstances”, where high officials have consistently blocked visits from imparial observers and medical aid, where detainees have been denied even minimal due process and legal counsel? Never mind the many detainees who have been released after years with no prosecution or explanation, several who were imprisioned because someone can’t be bothered to check the spelling of a name; even if all the detainees were legitimate malfeasencents, it would behoove us to show our magnamanity and evenhandedness to the rest of the would by giving them the same due process we offer to kiddy diddlers and serial murderers. Instead, we’ve become the big evil villain they’d like to portray is as, and managed to alienate many of our allies to boot.
And all of this over an attack that our own intelligence and law enforcement agencies had plenty of forewarning about but failed to take any effective action to deal with despite decades of warnings about this very type of attack. It’s not just locking the barn door after the horses have escaped; it’s setting the barn on fire and shooting the dogs and chickens as a warning to the neighbors, all in the titular name of national security, but actually just trying to cover up the preceeding years of incompetence on the part of our intelligence apparatus and executive imdecisiveness.
Stranger