Free Republic

A near-empty prison in rural Illinois has emerged as "a leading option" to house suspected terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an Obama administration official said Friday. PHOTOS As they work to shutter the controversial detention center, federal officials are talking to Illinois officials about buying the Thomson Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison about 150 miles west of Chicago. With Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and other key officials warm to the idea of a federal purchase of the prison, federal officials have stepped up investigations into turning Thomson into a super-maximum facility with a unit for former Guantanamo detainees....

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III:1 President Obama, we are at war. The Islamic Terrorists are not cooperating with your transformation of our society into a Politically Correct Utopia with nomenclature that neutralizes the ugliness of war. They do not chant Obama, Obama, they do not faint on cue, they pay no attention to subjective pandering by sexually mis-oriented news journalists like Chris Mathews. Their war is a fanaticism that welcomes death while destroying us, the Infidel. Although you may see yourself whispering Allahu Akbar during your death and accruing your place in heaven, the vast majority have no interest or...

November 14, 2009Exclusive: Decision to Try 9/11 Masterminds in New York a Slap in the Face to All Americans Pam Meister In an act that further makes a mockery of the Islamist threat that faces us, the administration has decided that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Gitmo detainees will be sent to New York City to stand trial in a civilian federal court for their role in the 9/11 atrocity. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, prosecutors will seek the death penalty.   No word yet if Lynne Stewart has offered to be on the defense team.  ...

In a move expected but feared, self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be brought to trial in a civilian federal courthouse in New York, blocks from site of the devastating 2001 terror attacks. Prosecutors expect to seek the death penalty. While the opponents of the move are fearful of moving the trial from a Military Tribunal in Gitmo, to a civilian court in NY may make it easier for the terrorist be found innocent, that is not the real problem with the move. Neither is the worry that New York will become...

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Be Sent to New York for Trial

Eight year ago today, on November 13, 2001, my family laid to rest a 9/11 hero on what would have been his 46th birthday. Outside the church, along with hundreds of friends and neighbors and 1,200 firefighters tearfully saluting their fallen brother, we felt our nation standing as one. Today, we ask that you stand once more, for your families and with ours, to support our troops, and in the common defense. We have appealed directly to the President. Below is that letter. If you wish to add your name to it, PLEASE CLICK HERE. (Note: 911FamiliesForAmerica.org is partners with...

Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday. The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning.

Source: 9/11 Terror Detainees Face Trial in N.Y. Friday, November 13, 2009 WASHINGTON — Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday. The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning. The official is not authorized to discuss the decision before the announcement, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

White House Counsel Greg Craig is expected to announce on Friday that he plans to step down from his post following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said. 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 policies that initially enjoyed popular support but have since become liabilities for Obama. These include the planned closure of the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the release of Bush administration-era national-security documents.

President Obama inherited more when he took office than just the 240 detainees who remained imprisoned at the US military base at Guantánamo Bay. He also inherited the legacy of a disastrous detention regime. The Bush administration created a prison camp specifically designed to exist outside the reach of the law. It did so because what it intended to do was transparently illegal: torture, indefinite detention and show trials that made a mockery of justice. Guantánamo became a symbol of American hypocrisy that did measureable damage to American security. Closing Guantánamo and changing US detention policy is not an elective...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison by Jan. 22 was followed by a series of mistakes and missteps by his administration that will delay the prison's closure for months, according to a report from a policy organization with close ties to the White House. Those mistakes — which ranged from initially having too few people on board to handle the workload to misreading Congress — have put the timetable months behind schedule and will push the prison's closure well beyond the January deadline, which Obama announced with great fanfare two days after...

South Carolina's state government has learned that it will take an act of the U.S. Congress in order to stop the president from sending Guantanamo detainees to Charleston. Washington has been eyeing the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig since President Barack Obama declared he would close the detention facility popularly known as Gitmo within one year of taking office. On Monday, S.C. Lt. Governor Andre Bauer (R) requested the state take legal action to prevent a transfer to the Palmetto State. But Attorney General Henry McMaster (R) pointed out, “The U.S. Congress is the branch of government with the jurisdiction and...

Palm Springs, CA -- In an effort to keep dangerous terrorists out of California, Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (CA-45) today launched today an online petition calling on President Obama to keep Guantanamo Bay detainees from being transferred to the State of California. "We as Californians need to band together to let the Administration and the Majority in Congress know that we do not want these dangerous criminals in our prisons or on our streets," said Bono Mack. "I join with the majority of Americans in being outraged by the Administration's decision to bring deadly terrorists to U.S. soil without a...

Just like a slap to reality, a Detroit Imam was shot by the FBI in Dearborn. Luqman Ameen Raids Michigan-MediaAbdullah was “‘advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States,’ FBI agent Gary Leone said in an affidavit…” The leader of the radical U.S. Sunni Muslim group has members that are, “mostly are black and some converted to Islam while in prisons across the United States.” Abdullah’s son was arrested in Canada. Gordon Cullulu, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, who spoke at a town hall in October in Standish, wrote a very detailed and informative article...

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...