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Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Sunday condemned the Obama Administration for placing a deadline on the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay without having a solid plan for what to do with its detainees. “What should have taken place, in my view, was the announcement of the closing and an announcement of exactly how we’re going to put these people on trial, (and) where you’re going to put people that are enemy combatants,” he said. . . . . . “I would say, I’m not going to close Guantanamo until I have a comprehensive approach to every aspect of...

With Obama's 120 day "pause" on military commissions about to expire on May 20th, and detainees still languishing away in the Cuban facility, the POTUS is preparing first to buy a vowel... er, more time. Task #1 is to punt.... kick the issue further down the field by asking for another 90 day extension. While the first thought is that Obama - renowned for his penchant for voting "present" and straddling fences when pressed on issues - is just trying to make up his mind about the course of action, it's actually necessary to comply with the mandate that the...

The Obama administration is preparing to revive the system of military commissions established at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under new rules that would offer terrorism suspects greater legal protections, government officials said. The rules would block the use of evidence obtained from coercive interrogations, tighten the admissibility of hearsay testimony and allow detainees greater freedom to choose their attorneys, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The military commissions have allowed the trial of terrorism suspects in a setting that favors the government and protects classified information, but they were...

U.S. lawmakers traded jabs Saturday over President Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo detention center, with Republicans calling the plan "dangerous" and Democrats saying it would restore America's moral standing in the world. Obama has pledged to close the detention center for terrorist suspects by January, but the White House has yet to say where the 241 detainees will be sent. Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, delivering the Republicans' weekly radio and Internet address, said Saturday that Obama's plan "is a dangerous case of putting symbolism over security," and he called on the president to disclose where the terrorists held...

SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON: The family of an Algerian national held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo for seven years is delighted he is due to arrive in France next week to start a new life. Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, would be the first non-French citizen from Guantanamo to be taken in by France since President Barack Obama pledged to shut down the prison camp when he took office in January. “I cannot hide the fact I am really happy. Soon, he is going to be freed,” his wife Abassia Bouadjimi told AFP Wednesday from Algeria. “He really is keen to be...

As Ed [Whelan, here] notes, this week's Obama administration Embarrassing Friday Night News Dump included alerting the Washington Post that the administration will be reinstating military commission trials for captured terrorists.  Typical of the Obamedia, the Post uncritically accepts the administration's fig-leaf that Obama's new and improved commissions will correct flaws that made Bush commissions (approved by Congress in 2006) unfair, and therefore — so the claim goes — the reinstatement should not be considered a gargantuan flippero from the Obama campaign position that the commissions were a kangaroo-court of a travesty.  So Post reporter Peter Finn tells us: The...

Government officials say the Obama administration is preparing to restart military commissions established at Guantanamo Bay, the Washington Post has reported. Obama obtained a four-month suspension of the commissions in the beginning of his administration that is set to expire May 20. Officials tell the Washington Post that Obama will seek a 90-day extension as early as next week. After the extension, it is expected that Obama will revive the commissions, under new rules that would offer terror suspects greater legal protections. A lawyer briefed on the plan told the Washington Post that the commissions will subsequently restart on American...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The United States has not provided Germany with enough information on inmates at Guantanamo Bay for Berlin to take a decision on whether to accept any of them, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told a German newspaper. [snip] Asked to list his criteria for accepting inmates, Schaueble said, "First, are we sure that these people do not pose a threat because this a worry of many citizens here. Second, why can't the United States take them on? And third, do they have a link to Germany?"

Washington, D.C. — On Wednesday April 29, in an East Room press conference, President Obama claimed, "We have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay." That simply isn't true. What he did do was to issue an executive order directing the facility be closed by January 2010, little more than seven months from now. Unfortunately, Obama in his naïve exuberance to fulfill a pledge that had earned standing ovations and rave reviews from the mainstream media during the presidential campaign, really didn't have a plan. That's now coming back...

WASHINGTON - A large federal security operation is in place to keep tabs on several Guantanamo Bay inmates who may soon be released in Virginia, the Daily News has learned. A half-dozen ethnic Chinese detainees known as Uyghurs will be flown by marshals from the U.S. naval base in Cuba to live in the Washington suburbs if lingering legal, logistical and political problems are ironed out, government officials said Thursday. Some lawmakers and counter-terror officials worry about terrorists living next door. Northern Virginia was chosen because it has an Uyghur Muslim community that could help the ex-prisoners adjust.

The House Republican leadership was out in force yesterday at a press conference announcing the introduction of the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, legislation aimed at stopping the release by the Obama administration of terrorists from Guantanamo Bay onto U.S. soil. Attorney General Eric Holder announced on his trip to Germany in late April that the Obama administration had cleared 30 Gitmo terrorists for release.  As reported on HUMAN EVENTS, subsequent leaks from the administration of the plan to release Uighur terrorists captured in an al Qaeda training camp into a northern Virginia city caused an uproar across the...

In February I was among a group of USS Cole and 9/11 victims' families who met with the president at the White House to discuss his policies regarding Guantanamo detainees. Although many of us strongly opposed Barack Obama's decision to close the detention center and suspend all military commissions, the families of the 17 sailors killed in the 2000 attack in Yemen were particularly outraged.

Given the media’s fawning coverage of President Obama’s first 100 days and the rock star image he projects to adoring crowds at his campaign pep rallies, er, “listening tour” events, you’d think conservatives stood alone in opposition to Obama’s agenda. But you’d be wrong. The GOP has been labeled the party of “no,” but increasingly there are signs of dissent from within the president’s own party. Obama has a moderate demeanor. He’s cool, calm and collected, as we are constantly reminded. But his agenda is ambitiously liberal. This is just fine for the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid,...

Worried that some former Guantanamo Bay detainees may end up on U.S. soil, congressional Republicans and Democrats are sharply questioning President Obama's plans for closing the military prison in Cuba.The Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee yesterday passed a bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while stripping the more than $50 million that administration officials had requested for closing the prison and starting the relocation of its 240 prisoners. Lawmakers criticized the administration for not yet offering a detailed plan on prisoner relocation. Republicans, who have said the issue is an example of Obama's weakness on national security, accused...

News reports described the meeting as a touching and powerful coming together of the president and these long-suffering families. Mr. Obama had won over even those who opposed his decision to close Gitmo by assuaging their fears that the review of some 245 current detainees would result in dangerous jihadists being set free. “I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you can’t help but believe in him,” said John Clodfelter to the New York Times. His son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole bombing. “[Mr. Obama] left me with a very positive feeling...

The Obama administration will not release terrorists from Guantanamo Bay into neighborhoods in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Thursday as he sought to reassure worried lawmakers. "We don't have any plans to release terrorists," Holder testified at a Senate hearing on the Obama administration's budget for the Justice Department. The budget proposal released Thursday requests up to $160 million to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But he also said some of the detainees at the facility will be let go, indicating the administration believes some held there are not terrorists. Asked after...

... Back then little specific information was released concerning the treatment of the Guantánamo gang, yet insinuated was that prisoners were being mistreated and that ‘torture’ was being practiced. This caught my attention because the media tossed the term ‘torture’ about with characteristic abandon. You would think that people who use words to earn their daily grub might take the same care of their tools that an auto mechanic does with his. Sadly modern reporters seem to be one step removed from journalist and two steps from literate. ... I decided to have the definition of ‘torture’ logged firmly in...

Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the Senate today: Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., pressed Holder to say whether he believed he had the authority to release someone with terrorist training into the United States. The attorney general did not directly answer Shelby's question, but said the government doesn't have any plans to release terrorists. "With regard to those who you would describe as terrorists, we would not bring them into this country and release them, anyone we would consider to be a terrorist," Holder said. [emphasis added mine] What does the law say? It says those who trained as terrorists...

"With regard to those who you would describe as terrorists, we would not bring them into this country and release them, anyone we would consider to be a terrorist," Holder said. He added the government has no plans to release anyone considered a terrorist in a foreign country, either.

Many of the tourists filing past the White House since Barack Obama's inauguration have been taken aback by the weekday sight of silent, orange jumpsuit-clad, black-hooded protesters standing on the sidewalk as a reminder to the president that approximately 240 men are still being detained at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison. When my daughters joined me Easter Monday morning to be part of the Catholic Worker 100-Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo, we donned our jumpsuits and hoods and proceeded slowly through Lafayette Park to take our positions along Pennsylvania Avenue. Children gawked in wonder, asking their parents why we were...