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STANDISH, Mich. -- Federal officials visited a maximum-security prison in rural Michigan on Thursday to assess its suitability to house Guantanamo Bay inmates. Representatives of the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments toured the prison in Standish, 145 miles north of Detroit. The Standish prison and a military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are being considered to house the detainees if the prison in Cuba is closed by 2010, as ordered by President Barack Obama. The Guantanamo Bay facility houses 229 suspected al Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters. Some locals favor bringing the detainees to Standish if necessary to keep...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has won improvements in conditions and treatment of U.S.-held terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay by dogged but confidential scrutiny, its president said Tuesday. Jakob Kellenberger-Wanker, also welcomed the Obama administration's stated support for the pact's laying down of rules for treatment of prisoners and civilians in armed conflict. The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, which opened after the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, became a symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge under the previous administration of George W. Bush. "If you take the...

As a former Marine, I know that the men and women of our armed forces, including those at Fort Leavenworth, are more than capable of securing these terrorists. In fact, they already secure them very well at Guantanamo. The real threat lies beyond the terrorists themselves. For places like Leavenworth, there is a virtual top 10 list of external threats ... 2. Security experts estimate that Fort Leavenworth would need to acquire 2,000 privately owned acres of land by eminent domain to establish a stand-off zone around the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, which is situated near the perimeter. Imagine the lawsuits,...

The Obama administration is fighting on multiple fronts - in courts in San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and London - to keep an official veil of secrecy over the treatment of a former prisoner who says he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay. The administration has asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reconsider its ruling allowing Binyam Mohamed and four other former or current prisoners to sue a Bay Area company for allegedly flying them to overseas torture chambers for the CIA. Obama administration lawyers also argued that Mohamed's attorneys had violated secrecy procedures by writing a letter to...

The Obama administration's counterterrorism chief appeared to provide the first indication the administration may not make its January deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay in remarks Thursday that aimed to outline a new path for combating terrorism. The administration is folding measures to combat terrorists into its broader effort to engage other countries and improve social conditions overseas, said John Brennan, the president's senior counterterrorism adviser who also served as a senior intelligence official during the Bush administration.

The Obama administration's counterterrorism chief appeared to provide the first indication the administration may not make its January deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay in remarks Thursday that aimed to outline a new path for combating terrorism. The administration is folding measures to combat terrorists into its broader effort to engage other countries and improve social conditions overseas, said John Brennan, the president's senior counterterrorism adviser who also served as a senior intelligence official during the Bush administration. In defense of the Obama administration's national-security policies, which have come under fire from the left and right, Mr. Brennan...

Here is a video called "Denied by Democrats" which documents Sen. James Inhofe's attempts to keep the Guantanamo Bay Terrorist Prison open, and terror suspects out of the United States. But at every turn, his attempts have been "Denied by Democrats." . . . . . (Watch Video)

This is an update on the "4 Gitmo Guys Living it up in Bermuda" article. While more and more Americans are losing their jobs we don't have to worry about the Gitmo guys, they are doing just fine. Join the jihad against the coalition troops and President Obama makes sure that you are well taken care of.

Michigan Democrats recently unveiled their new economic development plan for Michigan: turning the state into a penal colony for federal prisoners, the detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay and even part of California’s inmate population.. In a rush to fulfill an ill-advised campaign promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, press reports indicate that President Barack Obama is considering transferring terrorists currently housed there to a prison in Standish, Mich. It is a plan apparently supported by Michigan’s Democratic Senator Carl Levin and U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee. The reports follow a letter sent to California by Democratic Gov....

For some service members, serving at Joint Task Force Guantanamo is one more chapter in the book they call life. For others, the significance of the mission holds a deeper meaning -- more personal -- especially for service members who have lost friends, loved ones or know someone affected by the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. For the Soldiers of the 189th Military Police Co., the mission became more personal when family members of September 11 attack victims, visiting Guantanamo during the recent military commissions proceedings, made a special effort to say “thank you,” and convey gratitude, face to face,...

President Obama’s pledge to shut Guantánamo Bay appeared beset by confusion last night with the emergence of conflicting plans over how to close the prison. Under one leaked proposal the Administration is considering a transfer of all 229 detainees to a single complex on the US mainland. Officials said two sites being looked at for such a military-civilian prison, where terror suspects would be tried, were the military jail at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a soon-to-be-closed maximum security facility in Standish, Michigan. However, officials at the US Justice Department said last night that dozens of detainees had been referred to...

WASHINGTON -- Obama administration officials are holding discussions that could result in White House counsel Gregory Craig leaving his post, following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Craig, the top lawyer at the White House and a close aide to President Barack Obama, has helped lead the administration's efforts on several national-security issues that have stirred political problems for Mr. Obama. These include the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the release of Bush administration-era national-security documents, and efforts to find legal ways to indefinitely hold some detainees who can't be put on trial....

Not in my backyard! Not in my state! Not in my country! That was the response from politicians and business leaders in Kansas on Monday to moves by President Barack Obama to transfer terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to facilities in the United States, perhaps including Kansas. "This is a patently bad idea," Republican Senator Sam Brownback told reporters in the northeast Kansas riverside community of Leavenworth ... The Washington Post reported on Sunday that a government task force was considering as possible sites Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a 604-bed maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan, that is scheduled...

The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison. Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is considering a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum-security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site... The officials outlined the plans - the latest effort to comply with Obama's order to close the camp by Jan. 22 and satisfy congressional and public fears about incarcerating terrorism suspects on American soil...the White House considers the courtroom-prison...

Dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainee cases have been referred to federal prosecutors for possible criminal trials in the nation's capital, Virginia and New York City, officials told The Associated Press on Monday. The Justice Department's strategy of holding trials in East Coast cities could be a sharp departure from a Pentagon plan to hold all Guantanamo-related civilian and military trials in the Midwest. The politically volatile decisions about where and how to try Guantanamo Bay detainees ultimately will rest with President Barack Obama as he tries to meet his self-imposed January deadline for closing the island prison. Obama administration officials,...

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison. Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. The officials outlined the plans the latest effort to comply with President Barack Obama's order to...

Fox News is reporting that sources within the administration are saying that the latest Obama administration idea for moving GITMO detainees has them going to Leavanworth and a maximum security prison in Michigan. The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison.

I don't know the president and so I want to be careful in making character observations. That usually requires reading some one's mind. Instead, I want to analyze his actions which I believe speak for themselves. Right now, health care reform is on life support. If that doesn't pass, it will also spell doom for cap and trade. Without either initiative passing, the president will face mid term elections in which we'll have near double digit unemployment, near two trillion dollars in deficits, and no major legislative accomplishments. That will create a bloodbath for any Democrat running in November of...

Today, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled 'Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’: The terrorist sues to resume his jihad from prison. The Obama administration caves in,' Debra Burlingame writes: On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier [June 9, 2007 pdf file at link], the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner -- Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the “Shoe Bomber” --...

WASHINGTON – A judge who has grown impatient with the Obama administration's handling of a young Guantanamo Bay detainee is preparing to decide whether he'll go home to Afghanistan or to the United States for prosecution. U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle was scheduled to hear arguments Thursday in the case of Mohammed Jawad. He has been held for 6 1/2 years at the U.S. detention facility in Cuba for allegedly wounding two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter by throwing a grenade at their jeep in Afghanistan. Government attorneys said in court filings Wednesday that they were prepared to release Jawad,...