gitmo – Moe Lane

Gitmo alumnus now working for Al Qaeda. …Great job there, folks!

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released a new video featuring a former Guantanamo detainee, Ibrahim Qosi, who is also known as Sheikh Khubayb al Sudani.

In July 2010, Qosi plead guilty to charges of conspiracy and material support for terrorism before a military commission. His plea was part of a deal in which he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors during his remaining time in US custody. Qosi was transferred to his home country of Sudan two years later, in July 2012.

Continue reading Gitmo alumnus now working for Al Qaeda. …Great job there, folks!

Kansas and South Carolina decline to passively accept Gitmo detainees.

Let me add a little subtext here:

Republican state leaders and lawmakers are pushing back against the Pentagon’s potential plans to relocate Guantanamo Bay detainees at prisons in their states.

“Simply put, we do not want them in our states,” reads a letter from Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sent Tuesday to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“Please know that we will take any action within our power to make sure no Guantanamo Bay detainees are transferred to South Carolina or Kansas.”

To wit: …and you so-and-sos in Dizzy City have done your level best in the past to get rid of both of us – and failed. Elections have consequences, bub. Kansas, especially. Anybody here think that Paul Davis would have stood up to the administration on this one? No? Me, neither.

Moe Lane

PS: There’s a real easy solution to Gitmo, by the way: stop acting like it’s a problem.

So, there was a riot at Gitmo.

Good luck finding it leading the news cycle anywhere except on Drudge at the moment, though.

Anyway, would somebody – and by somebody I mean “President Barack Obama” – care to explain to me, not to mention the American people, just how this was allowed to occur?

The violence erupted during an early morning raid that military officials said was necessary because prisoners had covered up security cameras and windows as part of a weekslong protest and hunger strike over their indefinite confinement and conditions at the U.S. base in Cuba.

Prisoners fought guards with makeshift weapons that included broomsticks and mop handles when troops arrived to move them out of a communal wing of the section of the prison known as Camp 6, said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, a military spokesman.

…because I’m pretty sure that a basic concept in both civilian and military detention is not to give bad people* access to clubs. At least it wasn’t, prior to January 20th, 2009; God only knows what the rules are now…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Pardon me: obviously I meant to type “illegal combatants held in indefinite confinement.”

A not-friendly reminder to the Activist Left about Gitmo.

In three parts:

The current President of the United States campaigned on a platform that included the closing of the prison for international terrorists at Gitmo.
Gitmo is, in fact, still open. But they’ll get to it Real Soon Now (SPOILER WARNING: they won’t).
The Right noted at the time that Gitmo was going to remain open. On more than one occasion. We, in fact, told people time again and again and again and again that Barack Obama was not going to close Gitmo. Which means that nobody really has an excuse for being surprised.

Continue reading A not-friendly reminder to the Activist Left about Gitmo.

Former Kerry staffer arrested for blowing agents’ cover.

Mind you, you wouldn’t know that from the Washington Post’s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou. While the Washington Post – from appearances, somewhat reluctantly – reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for – which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA). Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that “[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter” in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years – including to the, well, Washington Post. One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians… like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)… Continue reading Former Kerry staffer arrested for blowing agents’ cover.

#rsrh Holder: WH will eventually close Gitmo. (pause) HAHAHA!!!!!

(Via Hot Air) And here I thought that Eric Holder was a humorless toad. This is some high, high humor that he’s laying down, here:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Obama administration will do its utmost to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay before next year’s presidential elections despite political opposition.

Holder said at the European Parliament that even if the current administration fails to close it ahead of elections, it will continue to press ahead if it wins the November 2012 presidential vote.

Two things:

No, they’re not going to close Gitmo. But if you believe that the While House really will this time, just because they promised to and everything, then please give me money instead of Barack Obama. He and I are equally contemptuous of you, you understand – but I’ll just spend the money on roleplaying game supplements and the latest Terry Pratchett BBC miniseries, which means that I won’t be spending it on anything that actively harms or upsets you. Obama won’t make that promise!
“If.”

Moe Lane

Obama administration caves on indefinite detention.

They’re readying an executive order right now that will confirm that certain detainees – read: the murderous, terrorist scum that we already weren’t releasing – can be continued to be held indefinitely without trial. The fig leaf here is that the new proceedings (unlike those of the wicked, wicked Bush administration!) will be ‘more adversarial’ – which means whatever you want it to mean, of course – and that lawyers for the murderous, terrorist scum can ask again after the administration refuses to let said murderous, terrorist scum go the first time. Maybe even every year.

What’s going on here is, of course, that Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that would effectively make it impossible to transfer the cases of murderous, terrorist scum to regular American courts. Congress is doing this, earlier Democratic rhetoric to the contrary, because there are actual limits to legislative stupidity, and it’s pretty stupid to put murderous, terrorist scum into a civilian court system not particularly designed to handle it. For that matter, the Obama administration itself is unlikely to have really believed any of the nonsense that it spouted off on the subject in years past… but they have to do something, seeing as progressives are already fairly livid with them over the tax issue.

Continue reading Obama administration caves on indefinite detention.

#rsrh Dems to punish WH by… keeping Gitmo open.

Wait, what?

In a striking move, the Appropriations Committee late Wednesday attached a provision to a $1.1 trillion resolution to keep the government funded next year that would prevent Obama from spending any funds to try terrorism suspects in civilian court instead of military commissions.

The language would essentially prevent the closing of the detainee prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.

The Judean People’s Front released a statement in support:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_12E1EN6fs

Umm… thanks?

Moe Lane

#rsrh Gitmo rationing prisoners’… ice cream.

I believe that James Taranto calls this sort of thing “Bottom of the News.”

Detainees’ diets at Guantanamo Bay have been a controversial issue for some time and now the U.S. prison is said to be rationing ice cream.

The frozen dessert is allegedly being tightly measured, with only one ice cream allowed for each of its 147 detainees.

Via Hot Air Headlines. Honestly, I mostly posted this because I need an excuse to throw out a link to Taranto: his “Best of the Web” is pretty good. You see, I find that I can somehow handle the strain quite well of hearing that an inadequate ice cream ration is being provided to people who want to cut my head off…

Moe Lane

PS: Because decent rations is a time-honored way of getting prisoners to talk, that’s why. Or, in this case, unlawful combatants.

Gitmo is not going anywhere.

‘Zounds (Via Hot Air Headlines):

Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

The “‘zounds” (which, by the way and in case you ever wondered, is short for ‘God’s wounds’) is not quite sardonic, but only because it’s aimed at those poor unfortunates who are relying on the NYT for their news, instead of, well, me. I have been waxing most sarcastic about about this administration’s Gitmo policy, which upon review seems to have fallen out of the Stupid Policy Decision Tree and hit every branch on the way down. It takes skill to find a working methodology that both the Left and the Right can equally despise, but this administration seems to have been up for the challenge when it comes to our detention policy.

But as whines go, this one from the White House is fantastic:

“The president can’t just wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking on a sensitive issue.

Continue reading Gitmo is not going anywhere.