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We strongly object to the President creating a two-tier system of justice for terrorists in which those responsible for the death of thousands on 9/11 will be treated as common criminals and afforded the kind of platinum due process accorded American citizens, yet members of Al Qaeda who aspire to kill Americans but who do not yet have blood on their hands, will be treated as war criminals. The President offers no explanation or justification for this contradiction, even as he readily acknowledges that the 9/11 conspirators, now designated "unprivileged enemy belligerents," are appropriately accused of war crimes. We believe...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says detainees at Guantanamo Bay are not receiving vaccinations against the swine flu vaccine. Robert Gibbs on Tuesday said concern that terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba were receiving vaccines was misplaced. Gibbs says no vaccines are at the naval base and none are on the way

James Galyean is a candidate running for South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District. Prior to that time, Galyean was an Assistant United States Attorney and also has some pretty direct connections to the War on Terror. It was Galyean who helped helped write both the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. As a result, he has a bed of knowledge and massive amounts of contacts that others do not. And his contacts are telling him that, protestations to the contrary from the Pentagon, Barack Obama has every intention of sending GTMO terrorists to the Charleston,...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base will soon get swine flu vaccines, despite complaints that American civilians should have priority, a military spokesman said Sunday. Army Maj. James Crabtree, a spokesman for the U.S. jail facility in southeast Cuba, said the doses should start arriving this month, with guards and then inmates scheduled for inoculations. He acknowledged there may be an "emotional response" from critics who argue that terror suspects should not be allocated swine-flu medications while members of the U.S. public are still waiting due to a vaccine shortage. But he...

Six Chinese Muslims who were held in the Guantánamo Bay prison camp for almost eight years have arrived on the tiny Pacific island of Palau. The detainees from the Turkic Uighur minority were arrested in Afghanistan during the opening days of military operations in 2001 and held as suspected militants until last year when a US military tribunal decided they were not 'enemy combatants'. The release of the men, who were greeted on arrival by Palau's President, Johnson Toribiong, is another small step in US President Barack Obama's struggle to close the controversial prison camp by January. Palau, situated 500...

As President Barack Obama's deadline to close Guantánamo looms, some occupants of the notorious detention centre would rather prolong their stay than be sent to maximum security prisons on the US mainland, according to camp officials. Despite its reputation, the regime at the Pentagon facility on Cuba's southern coast offers privileges that would not be enjoyed at the federal "supermax" prison at Florence, Colorado, the likely alternative for the most dangerous al-Qaeda suspects. Sensitive to criticism that the detention centre was not meeting international standards, the Pentagon has gradually improved living conditions at Guantánamo... Peter King, a Republican congressman who...

Peoria, Ill. - A federal judge sentenced an Al Qaeda "sleeper" agent to eight years in prison Thursday -- about half the time prosecutors had requested -- because the agent received what the judge called "unacceptable" treatment in a U.S. Navy brig. U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm could have sentenced Ali Marri to as much as 15 years. Prosecutors had endorsed that, presenting testimony that he remained a threat. But Mihm handed down the lighter sentence of eight years and four months in consideration of what he called "very severe" conditions under which Marri was kept during the almost six...

<p>The Pentagon will offer the H1N1 vaccination to detainees at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, officials there said Friday.</p> <p>The Pentagon made the decision based on U.S. government assessments that people held in detention facilities are at high risk for the pandemic, said Maj. Diana R. Haynie, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay, which is in charge of holding the suspected terrorists.</p>

From the FBI press release on last night’s Dearborn, MI raid-turned-shootout that left radical Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, aka Christopher Thomas dead: Abdullah was the leader of part of a group that calls themselves Ummah (“the brotherhood”), a group of mostly African-American converts to Islam, which seeks to establish a separate Sharia-law governed state within the United States. The Ummah is ruled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rapp Brown, who is serving a state sentence in USP Florence, CO, ADMAX, for the murder of two police officers in Georgia.Interesting to note the active tense used in the...

When it comes to the thorny issue of Guantanamo, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is the closest thing President Barack Obama has to an ally on the Republican side of the aisle. But with the White House’s drive for Congressional approval to close the prison stalled for nearly six months now, Graham is sounding increasingly restless and is even opening a battle with the administration that could be politically damaging to Democrats. “I’m a bit frustrated. The interaction I was hoping for has kind of come to a standstill,” Graham complained in an interview with POLITICO. “Some of the things being...

Even as some Americans await the arrival of their swine flu vaccines, the Pentagon has decided to vaccinate both soldiers and terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There was no word Wednesday on when the the first vaccines would reach the remote base in southeast Cuba. But U.S. military there were notified late last week that service members would get their H1N1 virus vaccinations first. Private contractors and sailors' wives and children could get theirs afterward ``as the supply permits.'' And that means the 221 war on terror captives would also be vaccinated first, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt,...

The word "fair" conjures up images of merry-go-rounds, fluffy, pink cones of spun sugar, candy apples and popcorn. Not if you are invited to the White House. Excited Washington DC school children, disembarking from yellow school buses on the South Lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were in for a big shock! The Obamas' idea of a kid's fair included sermons extolling the benefits of replacing cake and French fries with vegetables. Imagine finding out you have the afternoon off and are going to the White House for a "fair." When you get there you realize the festivities include Michelle doing...

If one were to believe what many on the Left in America say, the inmates at the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are nothing but innocent pilgrims and goat herders who all ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The latest is a distinguished gentleman named Yousef Mohammed al Shihri. This innocent shepherd (we’ll call him “Yo Mo” for short) was no doubt improperly incarcerated by the evil American empire after being snatched from his benevolent wanderings in beautiful, picturesque Afghanistan several years ago.

Some of those musicians -- Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine -- say their music has been played at ear-splitting level to torment terror suspects and coerce confessions at the detention facility. Other petitioners want to know whether their works have been used in such capacity, including R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne and Billy Bragg. "The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me," said Tom Morello, former lead guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, an industrial rock band whose song "March of the Pigs" has been linked to torture tactics at...

And the winner for most torturous sounds to a jihadi's ears is..... Was the theme to "Sesame Street" really played to torture prisoners held at Guantanamo and other detention camps? What about Don McLean's "American Pie"? Or the Meow Mix jingle? Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A."? A high-profile coalition of artists -- including the members of Pearl Jam, R.E.M. and the Roots -- demanded Thursday that the government release the names of all the songs that were blasted since 2002 at prisoners for hours, even days, on end, to try to coerce cooperation or as a method of punishment....

October 22, 2009, 0:00 a.m. The Kitty-Cat Who RoaredThe loud reformer Obama himself proves even emptier in his promises than Bush. By Victor Davis Hanson President Obama keeps roaring out deadlines like a lion — only later to meow like a little kitty. Remember, for example, how he bellowed to cheering partisan crowds that he would close down the detainment facility at Guantanamo within a year? The clock ticks — and Guantanamo isn’t close to being shut down. It once was easy for candidate Obama to deplore George W. Bush’s supposed gulag. Now it proves harder to decide between...

The US Supreme Court has said it will hear a case about the rights of Chinese Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay.The 17 have been in Guantanamo Bay for nearly eight years A number of ethnic Uighurs are still being held despite no longer being deemed a threat to the US, after the Pentagon cleared them in 2004. The court will decide whether federal judges have the right to order their release into the US when no other country can be found to take them. US President Barack Obama wants to close Guantanamo by early next year. An appeals court ruled...

Gitmo commander: I can empty the prison in 10 days By Jordan Fabian - 10/20/09 06:31 PM ET The U.S. military can comply with a White House order to clear the Guantanamo Bay prison camp of its prisoners within 10 days, said the prison's commanding officer on Tuesday. The base commander, Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman, told the Miami Herald and Fox News that if the Obama administration ends up calling for the prison's closure by its self-imposed Jan. 22 deadline, the base's staff can comply in a timely matter. "If they say on Jan. 12, 'move them out,' we...

AMHERST, Mass.—Amherst leaders are backing a resolution offering the Massachusetts college town as a possible resettlement home for two Guantanamo detainees if they are released from the military prison. The board voted 2-1 on Monday to endorse a warrant article filed on behalf of the two men by the group Pioneer Valley No More Guantanamos. The resolution would require approval from Town Meeting. It also calls on Congress to lift a ban on relocating former Guantanamo prisoners -- even those cleared of wrongdoing -- from resettling in the U.S.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Is the Obama administration keeping America safe? DEBRA BURLINGAME: When Barack Obama was sworn in as president, I actually had a sliver of hope that he would surprise his worst critics and govern from the center — the smart pragmatist. That hope pretty much evaporated on January 22 when he signed a series of executive orders shutting the Guantanamo Bay detention center by a date certain and suspending the trial of 9/11 conspirators — who were at that moment sitting at Gitmo, crowing about their role in the murder of 3,000 of our fellow human beings. Surrounded...

US House backs Guantanamo prisoner transfer 15 Oct 2009 17:26:42 GMT Source: Reuters WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted to allow the Obama administration to bring foreign terrorism suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison to the United States to face trial. The 307 to 114 vote removes one of many roadblocks the administration faces as it tries to empty the internationally condemned prison by January.

Republicans in the House have lost a bid to block the transfer of any detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison to the United States. Instead, the House stood by a Democratic plan to allow suspected enemy combatants held at Guantanamo to be shipped to U.S. soil only to be prosecuted for their suspected crimes. President Obama has ordered the facility closed in January but has yet to offer a plan to accomplish that.

Handing President Barack Obama a partial victory in his effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, House Democrats on Thursday repelled a Republican effort to block transfer of any of the detainees to the U.S. Instead, by a 224-193 vote, the House stood by a Democratic plan to allow suspected enemy combatants held at the controversial facility in Cuba to be shipped to U.S. soil — but only to be prosecuted for their suspected crimes. The Guantanamo restrictions were attached by House-Senate negotiators on a $42.8 billion homeland security appropriations bill. The measure subsequently passed by a 307-114 vote.

Yesterday, 223 House Democrats (and Ron Paul) voted down a motion to recommit H.R. 2892. In effect, they voted: 1) to bring Guantanamo al Qaeda detainees into the U.S., 2) to delete the requirement that all detainees who once were or currently are being held at Gitmo be placed on the Department of Homeland Security's 'no-fly' list, and 3) to delete this additional requirement: "the Secretary of Homeland Security shall conduct a threat assessment for each such individual who is proposed to be transferred to the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, or the United States Territories."...

U.S. President Barack Obama while signing executive orders about the closing of the military prison at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba, in the Oval Office on second official day at White House in Washington, January 22, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing The White House is only now admitting to this? With little hope for meeting President Obama's deadline for closing the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, a new message is emerging from the administration: Disregard our timetable. "We're not focused on whether or not the deadline will or won't be met on a particular day," said White House press secretary...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Here in the land of limbo, the news of President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize landed with more of a whimper than wild enthusiasm among those waging their part in the war on terror. Most troops interviewed this week reflected the surprise of their commander in chief on waking up to the news Friday morning. More than a few hadn't heard about the award for the president who pledged to empty the prison camps here until they were asked about it in an interview with The Miami Herald. ``I've been fishing,'' said Navy Petty...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, October 9, 2009 United States Transfers Two Guantanamo Bay Detainees to Kuwait and Belgium WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice today announced that two detainees have been transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the control of the governments of Kuwait and Belgium. As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009 Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of each of these cases. As a result of that review, these detainees were approved for transfer from Guantanamo Bay. In accordance with Congressionally-mandated...

Town Hall Rallies in Response ToObama’s GITMO Maneuverings Folks, this is the critical moment we have been waiting for. Many concerned citizens in Standish and all across Michigan are holding their breath to see what’s next for their state. Sources on the ground say that “Standish Max” prison is being emptied out now and will be completely empty and shut down by the end of October. Is this the empty prison Obama has been looking to put the GITMO terrorists? The people of Michigan, who hear the rumors circulating day by day, know that an empty prison and a...

Professor Noam Chomsky may be among America's most enduring anti-war activists. But the leftist intellectual's anthology of post 9/11 commentary is taboo at Guantánamo's prison camp library, which offers books and videos on Harry Potter, World Cup soccer and Islam. U.S. military censors recently rejected a Pentagon lawyer's donation of an Arabic-language copy of the political activist and linguistic professor's 2007 anthology Interventions for the library, which has more than 16,000 items. Chomsky, 80, who has been voicing disgust with U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War, reacted with irritation and derision. "This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes,'' he told...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that it will be difficult to meet the administration's Jan. 22, 2010, deadline to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The president promised to close the prison at Guantanamo Nava Base nearly every day of his campaign. He was promising to close Gitmo on his first day in office and promised to prosecute the prisoners or “detainees” or turn them loose, after evaluating each case individually. The Liberals were ecstatic, on the campaign trail, the Liberals were comparing Obama to “The Great Emancipator” Lincoln. On his second day in office, he signed a law that was meant to close Gitmo in one year. Liberals were dismayed by the sudden delay of closure, but disappointment was expressed in hushed tones. One...

AG Eric Holder became the latest administrative official to announce that GITMO isn't going to close when it's supposed to on January 22nd, 2010. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that it will be difficult to meet the administration's Jan. 22, 2010, deadline to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. "It's going to be difficult for us to make the January deadline," Holder said in a press conference with reporters on Tuesday, adding, "It doesn't mean we're not going to try to do that."

Being Supreme Leader of the Free World is a tough job; but someone's got to do it. Enter Barack Hussein Obama. Mmm....mmm...mm. When he's not pushing Obamacare, bashing FOX News for linking him to ACORN and other radical associations, hiding in the closet on gay rights, what's he doing? Why he's busy taking heat from all sides in the Afghanistan debate. I guess you just can't please all the people, all of the time. Or in this case, any of the people on all sides of the debate. Health care legislation has been hard for President Obama, but Afghanistan...

Another epic failure? President Obama never had a plan to close Camp Delta, the detainee facility for the worst of the worst terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Like many liberals, he felt it was the right thing to do, made a big deal about the issue during the campaign, and kicked off his term by committing to close the facility in one year. Epic Fail.

Greg Craig, the top in-house lawyer for President Barack Obama, is getting the blame for botching the strategy to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison by January — so much so that he’s expected to leave the White House in short order. But sources familiar with the process believe Craig is being set-up as the fall guy and say the blame for missing the deadline extends well beyond him. Instead, it was a widespread breakdown on the political, legislative, policy and planning fronts that contributed to what is shaping up as one of Obama’s most high-profile setbacks, these people say.

An odd story is developing out in the tiny city of Hardin, Montana. A private security company has taken over a jail and seems intent on creating a police department there. American Police Force, a little known company which claims to specialize in training military and security forces overseas, has seemingly taken control of a $27 million, never-used jail, and a rural Montana town’s nonexistent police force. After arriving in this tiny city with three Mercedes SUVs marked with the logo of a police department that has never existed, representatives of the obscure California security company said preparations were under...

For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed can also use that time to visit a media room to watch movies of his choice, read newspapers and books, or play handheld electronic games. He and other detainees have access to elliptical machines and stationary bikes. At Guantanamo, such recreational activities interrupt an otherwise bleak existence, according to a Pentagon report of conditions at Camp...

WASHINGTON – The House went on record Thursday against allowing detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to be transferred to the United States, even to face trial or to be jailed in maximum-security prisons. The 258-163 vote on a nonbinding recommendation put Democrats controlling the House in a difficult spot and prompted senior lawmakers to postpone unveiling a House-Senate agreement on a homeland security funding bill. If such a ban were to become law, the Obama administration would be hard-pressed to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by January as Obama has promised. Last week the administration acknowledged for...

Democrats abruptly postponed agreement on an estimated $42.8 billion Homeland Security budget Thursday after a House vote betrayed continued nervousness among rank-and-file lawmakers over the transfer of any Guantanamo detainees into the U.S., even for the purpose of prosecution. A June war funding bill already bars the administration from relocating prisoners permanently into the U.S. but the White House and Justice Department have sought to retain the discretion to bring detainees in and out of the U.S. and hold them in American prison facilities during trails. The precise language in the Homeland bill—covering the new fiscal year that began Thursday—has...

WI Cong. Dems just voted to bring Gitmo detainees to the US, not add them to the no fly list, and not require the bill be public for 72 hrs

This is from an e-mail I received. I can not attest to it's truthfullness, can you? Anyway, take it with a grain of salt: Hello All, By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask...

About a dozen retired generals and admirals, trying to add momentum to President Barack Obama’s effort to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, are accusing former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz of scaremongering about the dangers of closing it. “It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed,” retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, told POLITICO Tuesday. “Some...

Yesterday State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley referred to Gitmo terrorists as “refugees.�  During the daily State Department briefing, the Assistant Secretary of State unveiled the new terminology (Video here at 24:10 minutes): REPORTER QUESTION:  Talk to us a little bit about response and talks and any commitments that you may have gotten from our European and other friends in the international community about taking in   Guantanamo detainees as the camp in Guantanamo   is expected to close at some point in the near future.  Have you gotten any commitments from our European friends and anybody else? ASSISTANT SECRETARY PHILIP J. CROWLEY:  Ambassador...

Judith Miller, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a FOX News contributor, was given a tour of Gitmo a couple of weeks ago, and reports that ... the detainees get a level of medical care that few Americans can afford - even if they were covered by “Cadillac” health insurance plans, like members of Congress. ...Assuming the 226 detainees all see a healthcare provider the same number of times a year [each makes] 34 visits [to the medical center] per year – without any co-pays or other out-of-pocket fees. And with a 1:2 ratio of healthcare providers to...

WASHINGTON (AP)— A federal judge has ordered the release of a Kuwaiti man held at Guantanamo Bay and rebuked the U.S. government for relying on scant evidence, uncredible witnesses and coerced confessions to hold him for more than seven years. In an opinion declassified Friday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said government attorneys presented a “surprisingly bare” record during four days of classified hearings last month to oppose Fouad Al Rabiah’s request for release from the U.S. naval detention facility in Cuba. She said the aviation engineer is being held almost exclusively on confessions obtained through abusive techniques and that...

BAHTIYAR MAHNUT, a detainee at the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, learned a few weeks ago that the Pacific island nation of Palau had invited him to settle there. It should have been cause for celebration, especially for a man who desperately wants to be free. But, to the surprise of his lawyers, Bahtiyar has turned down the offer. He wishes to remain a prisoner, they say, so he can look after his older brother, a fellow detainee. The brothers’ saga, as related by their attorneys and military records, could transpire only in the context of Guantánamo Bay and...

<p>As one of its very first promises after the inaugural showing of Aretha Franklin's huge hat last Jan. 20, the Obama Democratic administration promised to close the terrorist-housing facility in Guantanamo Bay within one year.</p> <p>They're not going to make that deadline, Obama officials now admit. A big problem is where to put these fellows who want to kill Americans enmasse. The last Bush administration deemed communist Cuba a good spot.</p>

The Department of Justice Saturday evening announced that two detainees had been transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Ireland, and one had been transferred to Yemen. There are more than 220 detainees remaining at the prison. In the last couple months, the White House has made it increasingly clear that the President will not make his self-stated January 22, 2010 deadline to close to prison. Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a native of Yemen, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and returned to Yemen today. The Yemeni Embassy to the US issued a statement saying the country welcomed, "with enthusiasm, the...

(snip) STEPHANOPOULOS: So you fully expect there will be prisoners in Guantanamo after the deadline? MCCAIN: All I know is, frankly, what I briefed on, and apparently they’re certainly not going to make that deadline. But we should continue to work towards the closure of Guantanamo Bay because of the image that it has in the world of brutality and harms our image very badly.(snip) STEPHANOPOULOS: But it’s going to take more than a decade to succeed, isn’t it? MCCAIN: I think you will see signs of success in a year to 18 months, if we implement the strategy right...

The administration is finally revealing to the public what most of us already knew. Yesterday, unnamed administration officials first revealed that GITMO will most likely still be open come January 22,2010, when it was scheduled for closure. Today, here's what Defense Secretary Robert Gates revealed. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said trying to close down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay has proved more complicated than anticipated. Gates said "it's going to be tough" for the president to meet his goal of shutting the prison in January. He said there are difficulties in completing the lengthy review of detainee files and...