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RUSH: "A Senate panel was told there was no torture at G'itmo." Club G'itmo featured no torture whatsoever. "The military investigation of interrogations at Club G'itmo found no torture occurred but one high-value al-Qaeda operative was subjected to abusive and degrading treatment when he was forced to wear a bra, do dog tricks, and stay awake for 20 hours a day. 'We look at this very, very carefully. No torture occurred,' Air Force Lieutenant General Randall Schmidt testified yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'Detention and interrogation operations across the board looking through all the evidence that we could,...

On a rainy afternoon in mid-October 2005, a white bus climbed the brush-covered hills near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, carrying a group of visitors to Camp Delta, the desolate spot on the island's southern coast where the U.S. military holds more than 500 prisoners captured in the war on terror. It rolled through the detention camp's stockade-style gate and turned onto the dirt track inside the outermost of three high fences. Like others in the small group of civilian doctors, psychologists, and ethicists visiting that day, I peered through the bus's windows, eager for a glimpse of detainees. Since our arrival...

What's Eric Holder trying to hide now! For an Attorney General of an administration that promised to be the most open and transparent in history the guy sure keeps a lot of secrets. Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact the friends of the White House, and continues to stonewall inquiries into why he is not investigating those incidents.

ustice Department on So-called ”Al Qaeda Seven”: We Will Not Participate in An Attempt to Drag People’s Names Through the Mud March 03, 2010 4:19 PM For several weeks, Republican lawmakers and a conservative group have been attacking the Justice Department for refusing to reveal the names of nine officials who have in some way advocated for or represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. "The administration has made many highly questionable decisions when it comes to national security, " Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a recent statement, arguing that the public has “a right to know who advises the Attorney...

Al Qaeda, Gitmo & National Security Bethany Stotts, March 9, 2010 Are the Obama Administration’s actions putting Americans at increased risk of a terrorist attack? Keep America Safe and its board members argue that it is. A recent ad released by KAS questions the loyalties of “The Al Qaeda 7,” the seven unnamed Department of Justice lawyers who have either represented terror suspects, worked on related cases, in some cases, advocated for detainees. In a February 18 letter to Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Assistant Attorney General Ron Welch wrote (pdf) that “To the best of our knowledge, during their employment...

Why, hire private investigators to take surveillance photos of CIA agents and hand them off to other latter day Adamses, who then showed them to top members of al Qaeda — thereby identifying for the terrorists the agency's interrogators and, potentially, tipping the terrorists off to the locations where the agents' families live. And while the lawyers are at it, why not call the whole enterprise the "John Adams Project." Actually, I would call the enterprise — just for starters — a wartime felony violation of the federal law barring disclosure of the identities of U.S. intelligence officers (Title 50,...

By labeling the U.S. anti-terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the "gulag of our times," the people of Amnesty International must think we're stupid or ignorant. Stupid or ignorant enough to fall for the assertion that whatever is happening at Guantanamo is the legal and moral equivalent of what happened in the hundreds of slave labor and concentration camps scattered throughout the former communist Soviet Union. Equivalent to a system that brutalized tens of millions, of which untold millions died of starvation, exposure, exhaustion, torture, illness or execution. OK, maybe in light of this generation's dismal ignorance of history, we...

More Afghan captives head for Cuba Security at the base has been massively beefed up Another 30 Taleban and al-Qaeda prisoners have left Afghanistan by plane for Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, it is reported. The prisoners, who were shackled and had white caps covering their faces, boarded a C-17 transport plane at trhe US base in Kandahar, the Associated Press reports. Each prisoner was flanked by two US soldiers as they walked across the tarmac to the aircraft. Most lights at the US base were switched off and security was tight. The first group of 20 detainees arrived in Guantanamo ...

Most people have to deal with the reality that confronts them. They start with that reality and try to do the best they can within its limitations and within their own limitations. But there are large and growing numbers of people -- especially among the intelligentsia -- whose starting point is some abstraction that they wish to apply to reality. For example, even in the face of a worldwide terrorist organization that has declared open warfare on every American man, woman and child, those whose starting point is abstraction focus on the "civil rights" of terrorists. No one in World ...

  www.thejakartapost.com Print January 23, 2002   Taliban's detention The premature and hypocritical concern voiced by otherwise reputable international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International over detention conditions of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba is not just utterly misplaced, but outright ridiculous. If given the choice, millions of destitute, hungry and freezing Afghan refugees would gladly change places with Taliban prisoners in their roofed, albeit open-air, wire cage accommodations with three square meals a day, medical attention, sanitary facilities, not to ...

Detainees or POWs? Ancient distinctions. By Mackubin Thomas Owens is professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport. His views do no necessarily reflect those of any agency of the U.S. government. January 24, 2002 8:55 a.m. as President Bush's decision launch a "war against terrorism" in response to September 11 now hoisted the United States on its own petard? That would seem to be the case as international organizations and even officials of allied countries such as Great Britain have intensified criticism of the United States concerning its treatment of captured al Qaeda and ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Since the United States leased land in Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1903, the government has used this site for incarcerating prisoners of war. Guantanamo Bay, officially still Cuban, is not subject to U.S. law, rendering activities there largely free from public scrutiny. Today it is the temporary home of 140 imprisoned Taliban and al-Qaeda combatants captured in Afghanistan. Despite the crimes of which these prisoners are accused, the United States has a responsibility under international law to respect certain standards of imprisonment. The International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations currently ...

Now that the fighting in Afghanistan is largely over, the sophisticated have emerged, blinking into the new sunlight to explain — again — why America is bad. As is usually the case with such storms, the America-bashing wind blows in from the East, picking up speed in Western Europe before it reaches our shores. But, not surprisingly, there are plenty of people watching Europe and nodding their heads like Weather Channel addicts. I had to read about them while I was writing about this absurd controversy over our treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo yesterday. I don't want to spoil ...

Guantanamo Detainees Said Plotting Sun Jan 27, 9:08 AM ET By TONY WINTON, Associated Press Writer GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Military guards at a detention camp at Guantanamo Bay say they have noticed a command structure emerging among the terrorist suspects being held there, camp leaders said Saturday. The leaders seem to surface during prayer sessions. Photos AP Photo Slideshows AP Photo Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Of the evolving leadership structure, Brig. Gen. Mike Lehnert said, "We have indications that many have received training, and that they are observing actions such as security procedures." Lehnert, a ...

The National Post's Stewart Bell reported from Afghanistan during the U.S. bombing of al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Yesterday he was the only Canadian among a group of foreign reporters granted access to the U.S. detention site at Guantanamo Bay. His report: The Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners held at the U.S. military base here on Cuba's southern coast are being guarded partly by female Military Police officers, a shocking role reversal for Afghan fighters unaccustomed to taking orders from women. During the Taliban's five years in power, women were banned from showing their faces, working or going to school. They were ...

U.N.'s Robinson: Cuba Detainees Are Prisoners of War Jan. 16 GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson said Wednesday the 50 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters being held at a U.S. Navy base in Cuba were prisoners of war and entitled to the protection of international law. Robinson said most legal experts disagreed with Washington's view that the fighters were "illegal combatants" and therefore not protected by the Geneva Conventions on prisoners rights. "The situation is complex (but) ... the overwhelming view of legal opinion is that they were combatants in an international armed conflict," the United Nations ...

The Rules of War Can't Protect Al Qaeda By RUTH WEDGWOOD NEW HAVEN — It makes no sense to win a trial but lose the war. With this in mind, a majority of the American public favors giving President Bush the option to use military tribunals against the Qaeda terror network. The tribunals are designed to permit a "full and fair trial" of war crimes without compromising our ability to track the network's future plans. Al Qaeda's skill at countersurveillance has made plain the need to protect sensitive intelligence sources at trial. But some international-law scholars suggest that President Bush's ...

Thanks to the New York Times, we now know the dreaded torture methods the sadistic CIA used on captured Al Qaeda big shots shortly after the 9/11 attack. I warn you: Reading this column any further will subject you to unvarnished brutality. According to a front-page article in the Times on Sunday, Sept. 10, Pakistani authorities captured Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda's personnel director, a few months after the terror attack five years ago. Zubaydah, wounded in the confrontation, was turned over to American authorities and whisked away to Bangkok, Thailand, where FBI interrogators began questioning him. According to unnamed sources...

Justice Department officials have stopped short of recommending criminal charges against Bush administration lawyers who wrote secret memos approving harsh interrogation techniques of terror suspects. A person familiar with the inquiry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says investigators recommended referring two of the three lawyers to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action. The person was not authorized to discuss the inquiry. The person noted that the investigative report was still in draft form and subject to revisions. Attorney General Eric Holder also may make his own determination about what steps to take once the report has been finalized....

Democrats demand CIA detainee documents By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer 53 minutes ago A Senate Democrat who will chair its Judiciary Committee next year asked the Justice Department to release newly acknowledged documents setting U.S. policy on how suspects in the war on terrorism are detained and interrogated. "The American people deserve to have detailed and accurate information about the role of the Bush administration in developing the interrogation policies and practices that have engendered such deep criticism and concern at home and around the world," Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., wrote Attorney General Alberto Gonzales....