Obama’s Guantánamo Appeasement Plan

1) Those who violated the laws of war will be tried in military commissions.

Obama's plan would backtrack on an early promise to shut down the military commissions. Obama now claims that such commissions can be fair because they will no longer permit the use of evidence obtained by cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation methods. He fails to mention, however, that the Pentagon is using "clean teams" to re-interrogate people who were previously interrogated using the prohibited methods. When they once again give the same information, it miraculously becomes untainted. Obama also fails to acknowledge that those tried in the military commissions are forbidden from seeing all the evidence against them, a violation of the bedrock principle that the accused must have an opportunity to confront his accusers.

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2) Those who have been ordered released from Guantánamo will remain in custody.

Seventeen Uighurs from China were ordered released after they were found not to be enemy combatants. But they continue to languish in custody because they would be imperiled if returned to China, which considers them enemies of the state. Suggestions that they be brought to the United States have been met with paranoid NIMBY (not in my backyard!) protestations. So, under Obama's plan they will remain incarcerated in a state of legal limbo.

3) Those who cannot be prosecuted yet "pose a clear danger to the American people" will remain in custody with no right to legal process of any kind.

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Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, noted that Obama's new system of preventive detention will just "move Guantánamo to a new location and give it a new name."

4) Those who can be safely transferred to other countries will be transferred.


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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/26

President Obama has not yet articulated how each category of detainee will be managed, handled, adjudicated, released, or detained.

He hasn't, and all the statements out there the suggest he has are misinformation.

:patriot:

If not fully accurate it will likely prove pretty much accurate. There is a sickeningly familiar pattern being replayed again and again.

"It can't be both opinion and misinformation but nice try"---EFerrari

:patriot:

Or, "If you can't fix it, paint it a pretty color."

Guantánamo, he is going to turn it into a Pontiac dealership...(rimshot please)