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Shipp was a CIA Anti Terrorism expert and was assigned as a protective agent for the Director of Central Intelligence. He is the recipient of a Medallion for overseas covert operations, two CIA Meritorious Unit Citations and three Exceptional Performance Awards. Zerohedge published a partial transcript of Ship's comments made to USAWatchdog.com's Greg Hunter: "They are terrified, they are terrified right now. They did not expect Trump to do what he is doing now. The reason they tried to get him even before he was elected is they knew he was uncontrollable, and they knew if he got in there,...

WASHINGTON, DC — Attendees at a protest Thursday expressed frustration over former U.S. President Barack Obama’s failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, which he promised to do on the first day of his presidency. The protesters also denounced President Donald Trump. An imam calling for Gitmo, as the facility is commonly known, to be shut down also urged authorities to detain U.S. President Donald Trump in a similar facility for refusing to give into the demonstrator’s demands. Many demonstrators placed the blame on the fairly new U.S. President Donald Trump for keeping the detention center, ignoring his predecessor’s eight...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Behind the scenes, the U.S. military is planning for nearly a half-billion dollars in new construction during the Trump administration, including a Navy request to build a $250 million, five-bed hospital here that has been singled out for study by a Senate committee. Despite President Donald J. Trump's campaign promise to reduce costs at the remote U.S. Navy base -- at one point he mused that his new Cuba policy might import cheap, local labor from across the minefield -- the Pentagon's appetite to spend at this outpost of about 5,500 residents and 41...

An Arizona Army National Guard unit will begin the New Year in Cuba. They're deploying to Guantanamo Bay for approximately nine months. "There was some discussion some time back about actually shutting it down. Right now that's not what's going to happen so it's still very important for us service members to be prepared to go and continue that mission," said Arizona Army National Guard Command Sergeant Major Fidel Zamora. That's exactly what nearly 50 Arizona Army National Guard soldiers will soon be doing. These soldiers leaving for Guantanamo Bay in the coming days in support of Operation Enduring Freedom....

Boyle was previously married to the sister of Omar Khadr, a Canadian imprisoned for 10 years at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after fighting US troops in Afghanistan. A senior official said Boyle refused to board an American military plane over concerns he could face arrest. Boyle said his family had been delayed due to a medical emergency surrounding one of his children. According to Canadian media reports, the charges include: - Eight counts of assault - Two counts of sexual assault - Two counts of unlawful confinement - One count of uttering death threats - One...

Pentagon battles college trying to sell art by ‘terrorists’ A New York City college is at war with the Pentagon over exhibiting and helping to hawk artwork created by suspected al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Thirty-six paintings and sculptures by Gitmo detainees have been on display at John Jay College, but the Department of Defense now wants them destroyed, and administrators at the taxpayer-funded school are bracing for a possible seizure of the works.

A criminal justice college in New York City is embroiled in a battle with the Pentagon over exhibiting and helping to sell artwork by suspected al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. John Jay College of Criminal Justice is displaying 36 pieces of art by Gitmo detainees but the Department of Defense wants the paintings and sculptures destroyed. The school is funded by tax payers. Families of 9/11 victims were particularly upset to learn about the artwork. 'I can't understand how this college in particular would allow such a thing. Where's their decency? Where's their dignity? . . . It's denying...

The lead defense attorney for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl said he wants him to receive the Prisoner of War medal. His civilian lawyer, Eugene Fidell, on Friday said his client should be recognized for the five years he spent in Taliban captivity after deserting his post in Afghanistan, according to an article by USA Today. "We have long felt he was entitled to the POW medal," Fidell said, the newspaper reported. It wasn't immediately clear whether Bergdahl's defense team plans to push for the award as part of the process to appeal his dishonorable discharge.

Shot… ThinkProgress reporter Elham Khatami noticed in a now-deleted tweet that President Donald Trump didn’t say that Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock should be treated as an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba for interrogation: Chaser… Who wants to tell her?

The USS Cole case judge Wednesday found the Marine general in charge of war court defense teams guilty of contempt for refusing to follow the judge’s orders and sentenced him to 21 days confinement and to pay a $1,000 fine. Air Force Col. Vance Spath also declared “null and void” a decision by Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, 50, to release three civilian defense attorneys from the case, and ordered them to appear before him in person at Guantánamo or by video feed next week. At issue was Baker’s authority to excuse civilian, Pentagon-paid attorneys Rick Kammen, Rosa Eliades and...

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would consider sending Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek national who plowed a rented truck through a bike lane full of cyclists and pedestrians on Tuesday, to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 'I would certainly consider that, yes. I would certainly consider that. Send him to Gitmo,' Trump said. Separately, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain, a Republican who has tangled with the president on taxes and Obamacare, said Saipov should be considered an 'enemy combatant' and denied Miranda rights by police. The president also declared that he is already moving...

FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will appear Monday before a military judge who will determine his punishment for endangering comrades by walking off his post in Afghanistan. Before delivering his sentence, the judge will have to resolve a last-minute defense argument that new comments by President Donald Trump have tainted the case. Bergdahl faces up to life in prison after pleading guilty last week to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Prosecutors made no deal to cap his punishment, so the judge has wide leeway to decide his sentence after a hearing expected to take several days....

In common with the people of Pakistan, Americans have a rich history of peaceful protest when their government strays from its proper purpose. We remember the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War demonstrations and the millions who turn out on the Mall in Washington for any important issue. Today, I am writing about another peaceful protest — that of a fellow Pakistani citizen who has had his rights stripped from him, Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Rabbani. Ahmed’s family originally come from the persecuted Burmese Rohingya; he is a rather humble taxi driver from Karachi, Pakistan. In 2002, he was sold...

The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision that the alleged mastermind of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors should face a trial by a military commission. The court on Monday declined to take up the case of Saudi national Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri. Al-Nashiri had sought to challenge the authority of a military commission in Guantánamo Bay hearing his case. But an appeals court ruled last year that al-Nashiri’s challenge would have to wait until after his trial. …

Bergdahl’s decision to admit his guilt rather than face trial marks another twist in a bizarre eight-year drama that caused the nation to wrestle with difficult questions of loyalty, negotiating with hostage takers and America’s commitment not to leave its troops behind. President Trump has called Bergdahl a “no-good traitor” who “should have been executed.” It’s unclear whether the Idaho native, 31, will be locked up or receive a lesser sentence that reflects the time the Taliban held him under brutal conditions.

The coauthor of the Washington Post’s bombshell story on the National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance program is a long-time activist filmmaker who has railed against U.S. counterterrorism policies put into place after the Sept. 11 attacks. Filmmaker Laura Poitras, who shared the lead byline with former Post journalist Barton Gellman on the paper’s front-page NSA story, is not on the Post’s staff and is not a print reporter. Poitras has criticized the “illegal” Guantanamo Bay detention facility, described enhanced interrogation techniques as “legalized torture,” and criticized the intelligence community’s surveillance methods in her films and public comments. While traditional media...

Top White House officials have reportedly been holding private meetings with lawmakers this week to boost support for the president’s foreign policy strategy, although the outreach effort appears to have left some lawmakers confused and upset. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) described a meeting with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and National Security Adviser Susan Rice earlier this week as “one of the most bizarre I've attended on Foreign Relations on foreign policy in our country.” “I know several of us were involved in a very bizarre discussion last night. This continues a very bizarre discussion,” Corker added, according...

Two psychologists who devised the CIA’s brutal interrogation program have settled a lawsuit with several victims less than three weeks before a jury trial was set to begin in a federal court in Spokane, Wash. The settlement, reached Wednesday, caps a remarkable case in which for the first time former top CIA officials were forced to testify about their roles in the program launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The case unearthed CIA records that shed new light on the program’s creation and how controversial it was within the agency.

The Trump administration appears to be making its first moves toward fulfilling a campaign promise to fill the Guantanamo Bay prison camp with “bad dudes.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein visited the prison on Friday to get an update on current operations, the first concrete action the administration has taken on the facility since taking office. Up until now, Guantanamo has been running on autopilot; the executive order from former President Obama calling for the facility to be shut down is still technically the law of the land. But President Trump promised during the campaign...

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier in Afghanistan has received a multimillion-dollar payment from Canada’s government after a court ruling said his rights were abused, a Canadian official said Thursday night. The official confirmed that Omar Khadr has been given the money. A different official also familiar with the deal said it is for $10.5 million Canadian dollars (US$8 million). Both insisted on speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly.