Free Republic

Politicians fought Sunday to cast the ongoing Wall Street protests in a very different light, with two GOP presidential candidates calling them "class warfare" and prominent Democrats expressing support for the protesters' message. As lawmakers took to the political talk shows, a crowd of about 100 people protested outside the White House, part of a wave of protests spreading nationwide inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Secret Service said one person was arrested and will be charged with assault on a police officer after throwing a shoe at a uniformed officer. Lisa Simeone, one of the protest organizers,...

The Obama administration’s handpicked choice to run prosecutions at the Guantánamo war crimes court is pledging a new era of transparency from the remote base, complete with near simultaneous transmissions of the proceedings to victims and reporters on U.S. soil… Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins denounced military commissions system, which Barack Obama scorned as a candidate and senator then reformed with Congress as president. Gen Martins, Army lawyer starts the job of Chief Prosecutor for Military Commissions on Oct. 3, according to a Pentagon spokesman. The the war court where he prosecutes will “feature new measures to ensure transparency, including...

A Pentagon legal official has approved charges that carry a possible death penalty for a Guantanamo prisoner accused of planning the attack on the Navy destroyer Cole, the U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday. Abd al-Nashiri would face charges that include murder in violation of the law of war for allegedly planning the attack that killed 17 sailors and wounded 40 while the ship was stopping in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000. The United States must now bring him before a judge within 30 days for his arraignment before a military judge at the U.S. base in Cuba. This would be...

Isn't Holders statement that we'll close Gitmo before the 2012 a blatant political statement which should be an anathema when dealing with both the affairs of the Justice Department and National Security? Can you imagine the response if Bush's Attorney General made such a blatant political move to help his President with his base? The media pitchforks would be out over how inappropriate and wrong that was. Second is closing Gitmo essentially a new version of Fast and Furious. Letting dangerous "weapons" lose on world to advance political goals (in the case of Fast and Furious it was gun control)....

Look, I understand the the Obama White House has decided to shift to the extreme Left on policy this month. They want to pander to their base, which has been demoralized in discovering that their agenda has as much chance of passing Congress as … well, as Obama’s tax-hikes bill. But at some point, the pander will devolve into self-parody — and Eric Holder’s promise to really, really close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay qualifies as the tipping point: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Obama administration will do its utmost to close the U.S....

Eric Holder: We aim to close Gitmo before Election Day By: MJ Lee September 20, 2011 09:46 AM EDT U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday the Obama administration is doing everything it can to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before the 2012 presidential elections. Speaking at the European Parliament, Holder said the administration is focused on closing the controversial facility “as quickly as possible, recognizing that we will face substantial pressure,” the Associated Press reports. He added that the effort to shutter the detention facility would continue even after the 2012 elections if they...

Sen. John McCain, a critic of President George W. Bush's use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the war on terror, reflected on the “issue of torture” a decade after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. “Abu Ghraib and the torture of prisoners hurt us a great deal and did provide a propaganda tool for our enemies including Al Qaeda,” the Arizona Republican said on "Fox News Sunday." Noting that on the 10th anniversary of those attacks he did not want to dwell on his differences with the current and previous administration, McCain applauded both Bush and President Barack Obama for...

Ex-Gitmo detainee killed in AfghanistanKey al-Qaida ally organized attacks By Heidi Vogt and Rahim Faiez THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Sunday, September 4, 2011 KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO and Afghan forces have killed a former Guantanamo detainee who returned to Afghanistan to become a key al-Qaida ally, international officials said Saturday. The militant’s death was a reminder of the risks of trying to end a controversial detention system without letting loose people who will launch attacks on Americans. Sabar Lal Melma, who was released from Guantanamo in 2007, had been organizing attacks in eastern Kunar province and funding insurgent operations, NATO spokesman...

SmallBanner_050911JR_v1.jpg dss_lwj_ad2_final.jpg DVIDS: Accurate, Reliable Access 10th Anniversary of 9/11 Video, photos, and commentary from the US Military as they reflect upon and share the story of America's heroism, sacrifices and resilience. ADT Home Security LWJ Supports SoA.jpg Site Meter Link lwj-print-icon-2.jpg Comments (4) ShareThis AQAP releases biography for ex-Gitmo detainee turned 'martyr' By Thomas JoscelynSeptember 2, 2011 Salman-al-Sanaani.jpg Hani Abdo Shaalan. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. On Aug. 30, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released a video celebrating former Guantanamo detainee Hani Abdo Shaalan as a "martyr." Shaalan was transferred from Guantanamo to Yemen on June...

The nominating process for the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, the hub for threat assessment within the U.S. government, is typically a routine affair. But for Matthew Olsen, President Obama's pick to lead the agency, the nomination is in jeopardy amid accusations that he misled a member of Congress when he was in charge of the administration's Guantanamo task force to close the military detention camp in 2009. Earlier this month, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va.,who represents the district where the center is located, wrote to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, objecting to the nomination. Wolf said he believes...

Say, anyone have any idea how to handle a captured terrorist? Apparently not anyone in the White House, even after more than two years of running the war on terror, according to Vice Admiral William McRaven’s confidence-builder in yesterday’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. While Leon Panetta told Congress a few months ago that the Obama administration had a process figured out, they seem to have kept it from the people doing the capturing: The top military official involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden said Tuesday that the Obama administration has no clear plan for handling...

(Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday defended the Obama administration's use of criminal courts to try terrorism suspects after a renewed call to send them to military trials at the naval base in Cuba. Republicans and even some of President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats have sought to keep open the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and forced the administration to use military courts for the most significant terrorism suspects, those accused of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Prosecutors filed charges against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators, bringing the five a step closer to facing a Guantanamo military tribunal. The charges, which must now be approved by a tribunal official, set the stage for the highest-profile Al-Qaeda suspects in custody to finally face justice almost a decade after the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would reaffirm and arguably expand the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed just three days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In addition, for the first time, the administration is formally threatening a veto over Congress's efforts to limit his authority to release Guantanamo prisoners and to transfer war-on-terror prisoners held by the U.S. military to the U.S. for any reason. There is a belated quality to the veto threat since Obama previously objected to but ulitmately signed a series of bills which had provisions effectively...

FIELD TRIPS AND BIRTHDAY PARTIES CAN’T BE FAR BEHIND Just because the Obama Regime finally realized that closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison was a much better symbolic campaign promise to Bill Maher and Rosie O’Donnell than it was a responsible, big-boy executive decision made in the best interests of the United States doesn’t mean that we can’t have a kinder, gentler GITMO. After all, as our internationalist president says, America is different. During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama claimed that it was imperative for the United States to close GITMO because it was being used as a “recruiting tool”...

The Pentagon is considering allowing the families of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to visit them, an unprecedented step to ease the isolation of inmates who in some cases have been held at the U.S. facility for close to a decade, according to congressional aides. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which monitors conditions at the Guantanamo Bay military prison and facilitates videoconferences between detainees and their families, has been in serious discussions with the Pentagon about a visitation program, the aides said. Some Republicans, after hearing about the talks, appeared to balk at such access to the...

The Washington Post’s Outlook section just gave ex-jihadi Moazzem Begg a half-page this Sunday to lament the U.S. war on jihadis, and Begg repaid the Post by showcasing a photoshopped image of a dead President Barack Obama on his advocacy website. Washington Post editors did not return The Daily Caller’s phone calls. The Outlook section is edited by Carlos Lozada, who reports to Marcus Brauchli, the Post’s executive editor. The Investigative Project on Terrorism directed TheDC to the photo on Begg’s website. Begg’s action came just before Thursday, when shareholders are expected to protest financial losses by the newspaper’s parent...

Attorney General vows to close Guantanamo 2:30pm EDT PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday the United States would close the Guantanamo Bay facility holding terrorism suspects in Cuba, despite missing a previous deadline to do so. On an official visit to Paris, Holder stressed what he called unprecedented intelligence-sharing ties between France and the United States against a united enemy, al Qaeda, that he said still held the two countries and its allies in its sights. The recent killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was unlikely to affect the timing of the closure of...

There have been a number of pieces written about why the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has remained open. I believe Rush Limbaugh was alone in predicting it would not be closed by the Obama administration, and he maintained that even after the Exective Order issued by President Obama on January 22, 2009. Many analysts have expounded on why this was never accomplished. Basically, the thinking is that the Democrats cannot afford to be seen as being weak on Defense. What I find fascinating is HOW this was never accomplished. Did the military and political leaders say, "Just ignore...

Some liberals are trying to give all of the credit for the death of Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama and his enlightened leadership. But if we had fought the war on terrorism the way liberals wanted us to fight it, bin Laden would still be alive today and we wouldn’t have the first clue of how to find him. The New York Times and MSNBC have confirmed that the nom de guerre of a key courier for bin Laden, “Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti,” was obtained by interrogating detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. If we had listened to the liberals, Guantanamo...