| Home Front: Politix |
| President Obama And The Real Shame of Guantanamo |
| 2009-04-22 |
| President Barack Obama has in the last few days, accelerated a process of dismantling the American security apparatus designed to protect American citizens at home and abroad. The administrations disclosure of the techniques used to gather critical intelligence in order to stop terrorist attacks has been made to the world, our enemies and the terrorists. Dismantling of Guantanamo has begun. The president has condemned the entire security process that was put into place after 9/11 as being not in accord with the principles of our nation. Have we forgotten already? Has the President forgotten? What was the historical basis for Guantanamo and the interrogation techniques used there? On Aug. 6, 2008, a military jury in Guantanamo convicted Osama bin Ladens driver of supporting terrorism but acquitted him on charges of conspiring with al-Qaida to wage murderous attacks in the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II. The American Civil Liberties Union called the tribunal at Guantanamo a betrayal of American values from start to finish and a monumental debacle of American justice. Human rights groups and civil liberties groups condemned the process. The New York Times condemned not only the process but the imprisonment of the terrorist suspects as enemy combatants. In his campaign, candidate Obama used similar language. In the face of an unbroken history of attacks on U.S. diplomatic, military and civilian personnel marking the years prior to 9/11, Guantanamo was established as an intelligence gathering detention facility. What triggered that decision? Seventeen American citizens were killed by a truck bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. Individuals identified as members of Hezbollah al-Hejaz exploded a fuel truck adjacent to an eight story building (Khobar Towers) on June 25, 1996. The building housed United States Air Force personnel from the 440th Wing), a deployed rescue squadron. In all, 19 U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 were wounded in that attack. The first World Trade Center bombing occurred Feb. 26, 1993, when a car bomb was detonated below Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City killing six people and injuring 1,042. The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmad Ajaj. They received financing from Khaled Sheikh Mohammed of al-Qaida. Marine Corps Lt. Colonel William Huggins was kidnapped and murdered by Hezbollah while serving with a U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon in 1988. United States diplomats George Moore and Cleo Noel were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum on March 1, 1973. Richard Welch, CIA station chief in Athens, was assassinated by the November Group in 1975. Rodger Davies, U.S. ambassador to Cyprus, was assassinated in Nicosia in1974. Adolph Dubs, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan was kidnapped and killed by Islamic terrorists in 1979. Francis E. Meloy Jr., U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon was assassinated in 1978. William Buckley, CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon was kidnapped and murdered by the Islamic Jihad in 1984. Capt. William Nordeen, defense attaché in Athens, was gunned down in cold blood in1988. Navy Capt. George Santos was assassinated by the November terrorist group in Greece in 1983. American Consulate employees Gary Durell and Jacqueline Van Landingham were gunned down in Karachi, Pakistan in 1995. Twelve Americans were killed in the US embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya in 1988. The attack responsibility was claimed by al-Qaida. The USS Cole suffered a suicide bombing attack against it on Oct. 12, 2000 while it was harbored in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen sailors were killed and 39 others were injured in the blast. The attack was organized and directed by Osama bin Ladens al-Qaida terrorist organization and carried out by suicide bombers Ibrahim al-Thawr and Abdullah al-Misawa. On Sept. 11, 2001, a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaida hit the United States. Terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the building, causing both buildings to collapse within two hours, destroying at least two nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Somerset County, after passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft attempted to retake control of their plane, which was said to have been heading for The White House. There were no known survivors from any of the flights. More than 2,900 people died in the attacks. Another 24 were missing and presumed dead. The U.S. government responded to these repeated acts of murder with a new vigor and determination. We declared a War on Terrorism and launched an invasion of Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaida terrorists. Many other nations also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. The NATO council declared that the attacks on the United States were considered an attack on all NATO nations and, as such, satisfied Article 5 of the NATO charter. Within the United States, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security, representing the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history. Congress also passed the Patriot Act, stating it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes. Numerous countries, including the United Kingdom, India, Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, Jordan, Mauritius, Uganda and Zimbabwe introduced anti-terrorism legislation and froze the bank accounts of businesses and individuals they suspected of having al-Qaida ties. Thousand of Americans have been killed in this declared war against us. NATO declared it an attack on all nations. The President didnt act alone. Congress passed the Homeland Security Act and the Patriot Act. The United Kingdom, India, Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, Jordan, Mauritius, Uganda and Zimbabwe introduced anti-terrorism legislation. The United States responded to the attacks by declaring a War on Terrorism. Guantanamo was set-up to detain, interrogate and process known terrorists and enemy combatants. The Department of Defense and the CIA, acting with presidential and congressional authority under the Homeland Security and Patriot Acts directed and authorized interrogation techniques which had a historical basis in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Since the passage of these laws and the implementation of authorized interrogation techniques, dozens of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, diplomats and civilians have been thwarted. There have been no successful attacks in the U.S. or on U.S. personnel serving overseas. President Obama is now dismantling this security system and in the process, apologizing to the world for the measures the U.S. implemented to protect itself. His characterization of the process sounds as if it was written by the terrorists themselves. Additionally, Congress continues to threaten criminal prosecution of Justice department lawyers and CIA personnel who participated in this successful program to protect the U.S. During the entire period of years that this dis-honor roll of murder and horror took place, during this entire chain of evil events, during all the funerals and grieving by Americans for Americans during this on-going declared war against America, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and The New York Times remained silent. There were no cries of shame directed at the terrorists for killing babies , women and children. There were no calls for justice against these murderers and assassins. There was no cry that these behaviors were a betrayal of human values. Nothing. A shameful silence enveloped this organization with the oxymoronic name, American Civil Liberties Union. But they did rush to the defense of Muslims in the U.S. being investigated by the FBI and they now scream of the inhumanity of waterboarding They have sued to disclose the internal policy memos of the U.S. intelligence efforts. The real shame of Guantanamo is that President Obama has taken a position condemning and apologizing to the world for our self-protective efforts. Will we now be safer? Will the terrorists be moved by the presidents mea culpas and cease all murderous operations against us? If that isnt the audacity of hope, what is? |
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| Feds ask to halt inmate access at Supermax after letter leaks | ||||||||||
| 2008-02-03 | ||||||||||
A group of Denver law students fighting to overturn some regulations at the Supermax prison in Colorado has found that the very rules they are fighting might bar them from continuing to represent the convicted terrorists.
The government is now arguing that the rules, called special administrative measures, or SAMs, should also forbid prison visits by University of Denver law students who are representing two of the terrorists in a civil-rights lawsuit against the government. The suit, filed in Denver's U.S. District Court, alleges that the measures violate the inmates' civil rights. In January, Judge Wiley Y. Daniel granted the students access to Nidal Ayyad and Mahmud Abouhalima over the objection of the U.S. attorney's office. But on Wednesday, the government asked the judge to reconsider and filed a motion to put the students' access on hold while an appeal is pending. The government argues that, because the students aren't yet lawyers, they might be more willing to pass messages from the terrorists to outside contacts. Even if caught, the reasoning goes, they would not lose their licenses to practice.
Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales first imposed the special administrative measures in March 2005 after he learned letters sent from Supermax were being used to recruit suicide bombers in Spain.
One of Mohammad Salameh's letters was found in possession of Mohamed Achraf, the leader of a radical Muslim cell who is charged with plotting to blow up the National Court in downtown Madrid. Salameh is serving 116 years in Supermax for his role in the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center. Originally, the special administrative rules were to be in effect for just one year, but they have been extended annually since then. The inmates say that they now only receive certain newspapers, such as USA Today but the classified ads and editorial-page letters are cut out.
The prisoners, through their student legal representatives, have argued there was never a hearing to decide whether the letters they sent to Spain contained messages of violence.
After the special administrative measures were imposed in 2005, Salameh stopped eating for 89 days. When the rules were extended in 2006, he fasted for 72 days and again for 20 days, his lawsuit says. Salameh has retained his own private attorney in the suit against the rules. "Mr. Salameh was subjected to more than 100 force-feedings via naso-gastric tube," the suit says.
Ayyad, an American citizen serving 117 years in prison for procuring chemicals used in the World Trade Center bombing, said that he wrote to a prisoner in Spain for one year and that he gave his letters to prison staff for review before he sent them.
Eid says the government has a responsibility to make sure that inmates do not continue to commit crimes or influence terrorist attacks. "When we have a known threat, we have to be prudent," he said. "The public expects that of us. We are supposed to see justice through from the beginning until they leave the system." | ||||||||||
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