Eric Holder: Seriously, We’re Going to Close Gitmo Pretty Soon
September 20, 2011
Eric Holder: Seriously, We’re Going to Close Gitmo Pretty Soon
Holder: Obama Regime Hell Bent on Closing GITMO
September 20, 2011
Holder: Obama Regime Hell Bent on Closing GITMO
In keeping with Obama’s deep affection for America.
(POLITICO) — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Obama administration is doing everything it can to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before the 2012 presidential elections.
Speaking Tuesday at the European Parliament, Holder said the administration is focused on closing the controversial facility “as quickly as possible, recognizing that we will face substantial pressure,” The Associated Press reports.
He added that the effort to shutter the detention facility would continue even after the 2012 elections if they can’t shut it down before then.
“We will be pressing for the closure of the facility between now and then — and after that election, we will try to close it as well,” Holder said. “Some people have made this a political issue without looking at, I think, the real benefits that would flow from the closure of the facility.”
The failure to keep his campaign promise of closing Guantanamo has been a headache for President Barack Obama throughout his presidency.
In December, Congress passed legislation that barred the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to the U.S. — one method that Obama said would aide the process of closing the prison. In March, Obama said military trials could resume at the detention center, prompting some to accuse the White House of stepping further from the possibility of shutting down the facility.
Earlier this month, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said the administration will not send any new war-on-terror prisoners to Guantanamo, saying, “It’s this administration’s policy to close Guantanamo and, despite some congressional hurdles that have been put in our path, we’re going to continue to pursue that.”
Meanwhile, Holder also reiterated on Tuesday that the United States would maintain its “fundamental break” from some harsh interrogation techniques.
“We have indicated that certain techniques that were used previously are in fact torture, and will not be engaged in again by the United States,” he said.
Former Club Gitmo Guest Killed in Afghan Raid
September 4, 2011
Former Club Gitmo Guest Killed in Afghan Raid
This is one of those terrorist celebrities used as a mascot by the so-called “human rights” groups, decried by the left as an anonymous victim. Of course, as soon as we go and free the guy he takes up arms against us once again.
Well, not any more.A former Guantanamo Bay detainee sent home to Afghanistan took up arms with al Qaeda — and, like Osama bin Laden, he ended up shot dead by US
Another Released Gitmo Detainee Returns To The Battlefield, Killed Fighting In Afghanistan…
September 3, 2011
Another Released Gitmo Detainee Returns To The Battlefield, Killed Fighting In Afghanistan…
I love a happy ending.
(LWJ) — The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced on Saturday that a “combined Afghan and coalition security force” had killed “a key affiliate of the al Qaeda network during a security operation in Jalalabad district, Nangarhar province.” The deceased “insurgent leader” has been identified as a a former Guantanamo detainee named Sabar Lal Melma.
Melma was “responsible for attacks and financing insurgent operations in the Pech district, Kunar province” and was “in contact with several senior al Qaeda members throughout Kunar and Pakistan,” according to an ISAF press release.
Afghan citizens helped security forces locate Melma, who emerged from his compound “with an AK-47 rifle and was killed.”
Melma was transferred to Afghanistan on Sept. 28, 2007. According to a leaked threat assessment, Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) identified Melma as a “medium risk,” who “may pose a threat to the US, its interests and allies.”
In the leaked file, dated June 3, 2005, JTF-GTMO recommended that Melma be “transferred to the control of another country for continued detention.” JTF-GTMO previously recommended that Melma be retained in US custody. Like many former Guantanamo detainees approved for transfer to Afghanistan, however, Melma was released at some point after his repatriation.
ISAF reports that Melma is one of “more than 40 al Qaeda insurgents” killed or captured in eastern Afghanistan this year.
The Hunt for Huntsman
June 2, 2011
The Hunt for Huntsman
(Steven Hayward)
Like John, I am puzzled by the media elite fascination with Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. Actually, I’m not puzzled at all. He perfectly fits the specs of Beltway consultants and journalists for a non-ideological, technocratic Republican who won’t threaten fundamental change in Washington, even though he hails from the outré state of Utah, which for most of the Eastern Establishment is barely America at all, except for the Sundance Film Festival, the cultural Guantanamo Bay of the Bee Hive state.
Morgen Richmond of the sprightly Verum Serum blog put together this terrific faux-campaign ad detailing everything that is wrong with Huntsman (the rhino at the very beginning is a nice touch), from his support for cap and trade and the whole climate claptrap generally, to his embrace of universal health care as “a right,” culminating in his boast of being different from “a traditional Republican.” Huntsman has managed the dubious achievement of having “grown in office” without even going to Washington.
The very first time I ever heard of Huntsman was way back in 1999, when I was supposed to debate him in Sun Valley on the subject of “smart growth,” which was the environmental crusade of that time against “urban sprawl.” At that time Huntsman was still in the private sector in Utah, but he was an enthusiast of “smart growth,” which is a euphemism for giving government bureaucrats more planning power over private property and economic development. Did Utah suffer from urban sprawl? I planned to point out that less than 2 percent of Utah was developed, and that two-thirds of the state still fit the Census Bureau’s year 1900 density definition of “frontier.” But Huntsman cancelled out of the debate at the last minute. (By the way, it is worth noting in passing that the whole “smart growth” enthusiasm of the late 1990s and early 2000s played its own role in the housing bubble, which the great analyst Wendell Cox explains in a new paper. NB: Randall O’Toole of the Cato Institute has also made this case with equal persuasion.)
Back around 2006, a year after Huntsman became governor of Utah, I saw him up close in Pebble Beach, at a swanky gathering of top California Republican donors. (I was there to talk about Reagan.) I wondered why the governor of Utah would want to be talking to a group of California Republican donors, but five minutes into the speech it became obvious: this man intends to run for President some day, and he’s getting started early on the networking part of the enterprise.
He’s a very smooth speaker, exuding confidence and energy. The one fully conservative trait on display–in fact the main subject of his speech–was school choice. He’s strongly for it, and gave a compelling case for it and his attempts to get it across the goal line in Utah. But I wonder if his enthusiasm for school choice has less to do with latent conservative principle and more to do with Utah’s Mormonism, which is more naturally hostile to the secularism of contemporary public education than most denominations. (I’d argue that Mormons run the world’s only truly successful private welfare state–a subject that fascinated the late Edward Banfield. But that’s a subject for another day.)
Otherwise he appears even more technocratic than Romney. Is there really room in the Republican nominating process for two Mormon technocrats? The rivalry between these two men could get interesting.
UPDATE: I filed this original post before noting George Will’s column about Huntsman today. (I left for an early breakfast meeting without even glancing at my Washington Post.) Will makes the best case for some of Huntsman’s conservative positions, especially his embrace of the Ryan plan, and his opposition to ethanol subsidies (which, I predict, will become the required position for all GOP candidates before this is all over). Huntsman’s foreign policy views, Will thinks, may be a little more dodgy, though Will clearly sympathizes with them. But Will concludes:
So it is difficult to chart Huntsman’s path to the Republicans’ Tampa convention through a nominating electorate that is understandably furious about Obama’s demonstrably imprudent and constitutionally dubious domestic policies. Even if that electorate approves Huntsman’s un-Obamalike health-care reforms in Utah and forgives his flirtation with a fanciful climate-change regime among Western states, he faces the worthy but daunting challenge of bringing Tea Party Republicans — disproportionately important in the nominating process — to a boil about foreign policy.
I think Will underestimates here the dislike of our foreign commitments among Tea Party types. There may be more traction to be had here, except that Ron Paul may have this segment of the right-leaning vote cornered.
