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Guantanamo Bay detainee Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, in an undated photo provided by his attorney.
The Guantanamo detainee found dead in his prison cell last weekend had been cleared for release three years ago by an Obama administration task force that concluded that his detention was no longer necessary, NBC News has learned.
The disclosure that the detainee, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a 32-year-old Yemeni citizen, had been approved for repatriation could raise new questions about the handling of his case and those of scores of others held in Gitmo who also have been cleared for release. Instead, the detainees remain stuck in legal limbo in the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists with no prospect for getting out any time soon.
A special Obama administration task force review found in 2009 that Latif, who had been held at Gitmo since early 2002 and had waged a long legal battle for his freedom, could be released, a conclusion that could only be reached by a unanimous vote of all U.S. intelligence agencies.
That finding was buttressed a year later when U.S. Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that the U.S. government's initial evidence that Latif had links to al-Qaida and the Taliban was "unconvincing." Despite both findings, the Obama administration appealed the ruling -- because it did not want to return him to Yemen, a country it viewed as too unstable.
That stance provoked criticism from human rights groups. At the time of Latif's death, Amnesty International was about to launch an international campaign calling for his freedom, according to David Remes, who headed a legal team that represented Latif.
"Adnan spent more than ten years in Guantanamo-- nearly a third of his life -- but like most Guantanamo detainees, he was never charged with a crime or accused of violating any law," Remes said in a statement released Tuesday.
He "endured great suffering at Guantanamo -- physical and spiritual -- and lived in constant torment" but "could see no end to his confinement," it said. "However he died, Adman's death is a reminder of the injustice of Guantanamo and the urgency of closing the prison."
Remes told NBC News Tuesday that Latif had been “in despair” over his plight and had told him he would take any opportunity he could to commit suicide. He also said that Latif had been heavily sedated by guards there.
In a statement on its website Tuesday, Amnesty International USA called Latif’s death, “a tragic reminder of the numbing cruelty of the USA’s indefinite detention regime at its Guantánamo Bay detention facility, and the urgent need to resolve the detentions.”
Latif's death is the ninth at Gitmo since the U.S. prison for terrorists opened in January 2002 and the third since last year. The case is now the subject of an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Military officials say that Latif, who had no serious medical problems, was found unconscious and unresponsive in his cell at Camp 5 on Saturday afternoon. After efforts to revive him failed, he was rushed to a hospital at the base and pronounced dead. An autopsy was conducted on Sunday, but the results have not yet been released.
Military officials say that Latif had been a disciplinary problem: He had been on a hunger strike that he ended in June and recently had hurled a "cocktail" of food and bodily fluids at guards, causing him to be placed in a special disciplinary cell in Camp 5, where he was isolated from other detainees.
But Remes said that Latif had ample grievances. Pentagon officials had first recommended he be released from Gitmo as early as 2004, but he was caught up in seemingly endless legal battles over the status of detainees. He was brought to the prison in early 2002 after being turned over to Pakistani police to the U.S. military following the invasion of Afghanistan. Latif had said he suffered from brain injuries as a result of an auto accident in Yemen and had gone to Pakistan for free medical help.
U.S. military officials originally claimed that he had been encouraged to leave Yemen by an al-Qaida facilitator named “Abu Khalud” and had received military training at a camp in Afghanistan. But Judge Kennedy noted in his ruling that there was no corroborated evidence that Latif ever met Khalud and that Defense Department officials had previously concluded that Latif “is not known to have participated in combatant/terrorist training.”
In letters from Gitmo, Latif repeatedly asserted his innocence. “This prison is a piece of hell that kills everything, the spirit, the body, and kicks away all the symptoms of health from them,” he wrote in one letter that was widely cited by human rights advocates.
Noting President Barack Obama's one-time pledge to close Gitmo, Remes said: "The only detainees who have been released from Gitmo in the last two years have been in caskets."
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And this is why Guantanamo hasn't been closed yet. I hear people who say that everyone in Guantanamo should be shot and then the base closed, but few understand the reality of its existence and reasons. If this person has never conspired against american citizens and has not participated in a conspiracy against us why would we continue to hold them?
Like this guy, some trials have been held. Some of them have been found innocent of any charges. Many of these 'terrorists' are political dissidents in their own country, whose only crime was to not believe whatever the current ruler-in-power believed. When the US asked the world at large to give them terrorists who might have been connected with 9/11, they got a lot of people whose government simply didn't want anymore.
Problem is that no one wants them here. Even if they are innocent, the assumption is that if you were in Guantanamo, then you're a terrorist. So even if they are innocent of any crime or conspiracy to commit a crime against America and its citizens, their country refuses to accept them back, and we can't let them stay. We can't execute them, because they are innocent. And so, because of this stalemate, there's nowhere for them to go. And because no one can figure this out, they have no options except lifelong indefinite detention, with no possibility of parole, freedom, or ever seeing their families again.
With all the military brainpower in the government, surely someone could come up with better idea that indefinite detention for an innocent man!
P.S. not to mention which Guantanamo Bay is a strategically placed US military base and it takes a lot more than just the president's order to close it...
Amanda, try to stay on topic, Obama didn't promise to close the naval base he promised to close the prison. Shees, some people'posts are just out there.....
Chris:
You're right, he promised to close the detention center. There are a lot of people who think the whole thing should be closed and the tail end of my post is supposed to address that in advance of those posts. There are a lot of people out there who think the one is synonymous with the other, when the reality is that the base would do just fine without the prison.
This is a reminder of one of those unfulfilled promises Obama made. He said he'd close this prison.
There never has been any intent to close Naval Base Guantanamo Bay. There are over 5,000 sailors and Marines stationed there that have zero to do with the prison. The prison is a tenant on the base and any mention of closing Gitmo has meant the prison only. Get your facts straight.
Like we're going to give up sovereign territory in Cuba.
Obama promised to close Gitmo full stop. Clearly he continues to support torture as evidneced by this death and his ongoing illegal drone attacks.
Shoot them in the head twice, then release them.
That'sF'inCrazy, The good old USA is creating far more terrorists then we are killing by the way we treat citizens of other countries. We are supposed to be the good guys, remember?
Amanda is slow, give her a break. There is an downside though of her, she votes.
"illegal drone attacks." They are not illegal, he is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, you think that is not illegal? And how do you even define "illegal" when it comes to wars? Would you rather have your children or parents going off to fight with the significant chance they may not return, or would you just allow the drones to do the nasty work? Think about it, I know you Teapublicans can be very slow most of the time. You rely on Fox News to do the thinking for you.
From the administration and the government, yes, 'closing Guantanamo Bay' has only meant the prison.
However, on other comment boards on this topic, there have been some comments on how the whole thing should be closed, and I figured, since I had the advantage of being the first one to post to this article, I could head off all of those uninformed comments ahead of time.
I do not vote. I'm with George Carlin on this one...'You're not blaming me for putting these fools in office!'
However, that also means you won't hear me complain about the president. I'll complain about departmental and financial oversight, human and civil rights, animal rights, but I don't criticise the president. If I didn't have a hand in voting the person into power I don't have the right to complain about who does.
While not voting is your right, it doesn't absolve you from owning the problems of the nation that you hold citizenship in. You OWN Guantanamo indefinite detention just as much as you OWN the torture at Bagrahm and Abu Graib by the previous administration. I OWN IT TOO.
The difference is I am willing to associate myself with the lesser of two evils in order to make progress. You, are lying down on the tracks hoping the express isn't late.
And if you think presidential politics doesn't have a role in those 4 items, you're just ignorant.
Members of a democracy should never be forced to vote between "the lesser of two evils". Refusal to vote is as much a valid and rational choice as any. If politicians want those votes, try giving us more than two options.
I didn't think POW's could get early releases,, Do the so called people we are at war with trreat the POW's they have as well as we do? No they do not.. You whiners whine for the men that are cative with the so called enemy. Why call them terriost this is a enemy same as any other war the american men and women have be placed in by the leaders of the country while they keep their children home safe.................
obama is recruiting for al-qaida etc even more than bush did. our country is so removed from it's foundings and our constitution is a dead letter. any more blowback we get in the future cannot be blamed on anyone but our government and the brain-dead "they hate us for our freedom" electorate who put them there ...
I hold a second-class citizenship. There are certain rights the rest of you have that I don't. So you'll forgive me if I sound a bit bitter and possibly slightly paranoid.
Look, I know what indefinite detention feels like; I was adopted as an infant, never told before my parents passed away in a car accident. When I was 18 USCIS found they lost my adoption paper and comes to me for a copy--having never known I was adopted I couldn't give it to them so I was declared 'illegal' and placed in a deportation camp. Human Rights Watch called the camp I was in 'Ritmo' after Guantanamo Bay because they said the place felt the same. Food deprivation, sleep deprivation, unsanitary conditions, physical and sexual abuse were all common (the camp was in was in Raymondville, TX--google Ritmo. It was one of those private, for-profit deportation camps and even the government was unhappy about the human rights violations.)
Since I was abandoned as an infant with no birth certificate, there was no 'home country' to deport me to. I was simply told I would remain in detention indefinitely until I could locate the adoption paper and give them a copy. It took me three years of writing to every courthouse in every state we had ever lived in to find that paper.
You people have NO idea how damned lucky you were that you were BORN here!!!
When Homeland Security/ICE finally let me out, it was with the knowledge that should my name come up in front of Homeland Security ever again for any reason, they can strip me of my naturalized status and place me in deportation again, this time permanently.
This is really the reason why I don't vote--I don't know if running my name through Homeland Security to verify if I can vote will trigger that lifetime indefinite detention. So for this reason I do not drive or own a car--can't risk traffic tickets. I stay away from social media, FaceSpace or whatever; have a very very small internet footprint. When the Supreme Court held hearings on the 'papers, please' AZ laws, a spokesperson from Homeland Security said there's no national database of citizens--the only way to conclusively prove you are a citizen is through the passport reistration system. I can't get a passport because I don't have an original birth certificate.
And this is why I DON'T VOTE.
i want to make a video of prophet Mohammad giving another guy a rim-job, and put it all over the web... think if the guy getting it was a priest, that would go over good?
on a more serious note... NObama did say he was going to "close gitmo", as well a lot of other things... he just didnt have the time to do.
Cleared for release from Gitmo in 2009.....died in 2012.
Now, who was President during those years ? Let me think.....ah yes, the Progressive reply would be Mr. Bush.
Amanda-2017567....go to Hawaii, they will issue you one. Maybe even Washington State where you can get a driver's license without question, then get your birth certificate there.
The only real issue is should we put his body in a pig pen or just simply let the birds have a meal.
he's dead - who cares???? one more extremist eliminated one down how many more to go? we need to kick up the pace
This is so sad. Obama clearly sold his consitiutency down the drain by promising to close Gitmo in his first year. And then, he essentially kept the Bush policies in place with the exception of illegal drone attacks....he definitely accelerated those vs. Bush.
I wonder how many innocent dead civilians Obama is responsible for. Too many to count...
But the thing is, Ternan, he wasn't an extremist. I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune if you were wrongfully thrown in there, held, had your release posted years ago, only to never have it follow through. Our legal system is so screwed up, and one more cases like this start popping up around the world... countries might actually start asking questions, especially the ones that'll hold us responsible for our Government's actions.
Obama ran his campaign on the ideal of closing Guantanamo, and in ending the wars running currently. I do hope that bites him in the butt, but in a way that causes him to finally cash in on those promises. I'm tired of the fighting, tired of the paranoia, and tired of the flag waving turbo Patriots who've let their Government get away with lying to them. You sure as hell aren't helping, and if the world actually decides to get ticked as heck at us for our antics... well, we're going to be playing the part of Axis Germany.
So tell me, do you think the USA could take on the entire world, should it decide it's tired of the invasions and call to arms in whatever crusade the USA takes up? Because I sure as hell don't think so. Not to say I'm not proud of my country, it does do a lot right, but dammit, we aren't in a war, and we shouldn't be acting like it. This isn't World War 3. The paranoia has to end. Besides, we could actually be paying off our debt if we weren't dropping so much case into a "defense" fund that isn't needed.
All I can say is this; we didn't start all this. The a-holes who bombed an apartment building where U.S servicemen and their families lived in Saudi Arabia, the ones who bombed two U.S. embassies, in Kenya and Tanzania, and who killed 2819 Americans on 9/11 are the ones who started it.
Maybe next time these "innocent" people will reject extremist terrorists in their own country, and do something to stop them from setting up training camps and safe houses.
Oh and by the way, I hope we find out who is responsible for the most recent US Consulate bombing in Libya, and pay them back with a copper-jacketed hairdo
We cannot allow these little grease-balls to push us around. They need to know that they will DIE if they do anymore of this crap.
That's DIE as in not become a martyr, not get 72 virgins, and not become a symbol of honor within the Islamic culture.
Its DIE as in a miserable, painful, and isolated DEATH, NOTHINGNESS, EXTINCTION.
Once they see that we mean it, this kind of non-sense will stop.
But, it will continue for as long as we show the slightest little bit of weakness or unwillingness to retaliate.
So, I feel for Amanda, she seems like a nice sincere person.
But there were 2819 nice sincere, people who were brutally murdered on 9/11, and yes the ends of stopping that sort of thing DO justify the means even when some inniocent people get locked up.
Like I said; next time SAY SOMETHING and DO SOMETHING about the A-Holes moving into your country for the purpose of setting up a headquarters for an international terrorist organization, and we won't have this problem anymore.
Has anyone on this thread actually been to guantanamo... because i worked there and know what goes on and know that this detainee in particular was given everything he asked for. He was treated better than poor in america andall you talk about is how unfairly they are treated. I was a detention facility guard and had the detainees tell me constantly how they would kill me right away if i had been captured by their organization. Lets think before we speak and if you havent been to GTMO then please refrain from talking about it like you have. - A Former US Sailor.
Amanda, please take your medication and chill out. Repeat after me, "I am not a babbling liberal idiot." "I am just a liberal idiot that is babbling." Now, go take your medication before you speak on any topic that might require intelligence and something called brains. Wow, save another liberal idiot.
ZMan2012 Your a turbo Patriot and thats sad, I have a feeling your no more than 15 years old and have defiantly been exposed to a bullying dynamic, Unfortunately, you sound like the bullied not the bully.
Being bigger, stronger or the 800lb gorilla in the room doesn't always mean your right. The US's policies historically have been the very foundation for a lot of what ails the world today and our treasury as well.
Sometimes we just don't have all the answers and our solutions and or cures have often been worse than the disease. 1st of all, do no harm.....the rest will usually take care of itself.
Peace
jeffery f - I cannot argue with you on most of your talking points. Two of the biggest blunders the West always makes are trying to introduce democracy into a theocracy which does not except your existence without strict rules; hence, enter Islam. Secondly, occupation in any foreign country without similar democratic values and free market economy will not work. But we never learn past history lessons. Occupiers usually end up becoming besieged occupiers during their occupation, as is the case with the U.S. and our NATO Allies. But there is an answer, don't occupy, and destroy them from a distance without the need of deploying ground troops.
I pray to Allah that ALL the Muslim Extremist' leave GITMO in a casket !!!!!!
You do know that Obama tried closing Gitmo but was outvoted by Republicans who refused to let him do it? They didn't want the prisoners transferred to prisons in the USA.
You do know this, don't you?
Rocco: take your own meds and leave Amanda alone. This is the land of the free and the home of free speech, is it not?
State your case. Otherwise, sit down.
Since most of these people are denied a trial, how do we know they are guilty? We've gone to guilty until proven innocent and now, we're killing our prisoners. We've tortured. We've flown prisoners to countries which torture.
This entire episode is blatantly against what America is supposedly about. We should hang our head and stop pretending we have any moral high ground left.
You don't try prisoners of war (or "armed conflict" as defined in the 4th Geneva Convention). You hold them until the conflict is over.
How convenient is that? We're going to wage a "war against terrorism" until it's over, but there will ALWAYS BE TERRORISM. You can't eradicate an ideology with a couple of air sorties and tanks.
Some of these people that are "prisoners of war" aren't even enemy combatants, and our government has failed to prove time and time again that they are, yet they indefinitely detain them still.
Let me throw your ass in a jail cell for shaky evidence and little reason and deny your right to a trial, and let's see how quick you change that line of reasoning.
denver bill 2:
Are you serious? Everyone is protected and has rights under the Geneva Conventions.....do u not remember Bush denying Gitmo prisoners any protections from the Geneva Conventions....he revoked that and as a result they are being held indefinitely. US is holding these men "illegally," and denying them basic human rights.
On the other side of that coin... We released a terrorist to the Saudi's for reeducation. Didn't he go right back to committing acts of terrorism afterwards? This time a drone strike killed him but this isn't the only example.
"...one would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally."
I'd say it's pretty inconvenient for the terrorists. Not so much for me.
Name one.
Since I'm an American citizen (who is fairly law-abiding) and not a terrorist, that's gonna be a tough one.
What laws are being broken? Please be specific.
What human rights are they being deprived of, other than the freedom they chose to relenquish the right to when they decided to become terrorists?
The people in Guantanamo will never have a chance to strike to Americans on American soil again. we have their names, pictures, fingerprints, we even probably have their DNA. They will never be able to set foot on US soil again. Governments all over the world are watching these people once they get out. We the American people have been burned once; we are never going to allow this to happen again.
So why not release them and let them go home? It shows them we aren't the infidel barbarians they think we are, that we have kindness and compassion, and that is how you start to win a war against an idea--you change the mind of the one who thinks that way.
The guy in this article. Did you read it, or did you just read the headline, form your own conclusions and skip right down to the comments?
U.S. military officials originally claimed that he had been encouraged to leave Yemen by an al-Qaida facilitator named “Abu Khalud” and had received military training at a camp in Afghanistan. But Judge Kennedy noted in his ruling that there was no corroborated evidence that Latif ever met Khalud and that Defense Department officials had previously concluded that Latif “is not known to have participated in combatant/terrorist training.”
The Constitution says 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process.' It doesn't make the distinction between terrorist, suspected terrorist, or citizen. It simply says 'no person'.
Because he wasn't a terrorist. He was a Yemeni found in Pakistan and turned over to the us simply because they didn't want him. A judge concluded he had no terrorist training and nothing to do with 9/11. He was declared innocent yet still continued to be held.
Do you have more than 7 days' worth of food in your house? Does your religion espouse hatred to a marginalized group? Do you support animal rights? Do you have your money in a bank with overseas branches that may be in a country that has terrorists? Do you own multiple guns? Do you browse alternate media sites on the net? Do you think that the borders should be closed to ALL immigration because we have enough people in our country and we don't need any more?
See below the list of what is currently considered terroristic indicators:
Alternative media
Anarchist extremism
Animal rights extremism
Anti-abortion extremism
Anti-immigration extremism
Anti-technology extremism
Aryan prison gangs
Black bloc
Black nationalism
Black power
Black separatism
Christian Identity movement
Cuban independence extremism
Decentralized terror movement
Denial-of-service attacks
Direct action (including lawful acts of civil disobedience)
Environmental extremism
Ethnic extremism
Extremist groups
Green anarchism
Hacktivism (technology-enabled social/political activism)
Hate groups
Jewish extremism
Leaderless resistance
Left-wing extremism
Lone terrorists
Mexican separatists
Militia Movements (including conspiracy theorists)
Neo-Nazis
Patriot Movement
Phineas Priesthood
Primary targeting(directly supporting/funding terrorists)
Puerto Rican independence extremists
Radical Norse mysticism practitioners
Racialists
Right-wing extremists
Single-issue/multiple issue extremist groups
Skinheads whose ‘dress may include shaved head/short hair, jeans, thin suspenders, combat boots or Doc Martens and a bomber jacket’
Sovereign citizen movement
Tax resistance movement
Violent anti-war extremism
Violent religious sects (includes those who stockpile food and weapons)
White Nationalists
White Power advocates
White Supremacists
There's a bill currently coming up though Congress called the Enemy Expatriation Act that, if it passes, will allow the government to strip citizenship from you and hold you as an 'illegal terrorist' indefinitely under the terms of the NDAA for FY2012 if you are suspected of any of the items in the above list. Not proven--no charge or trial needed just suspected.
amanda,people are still not going to beleive this.theyre to far gone,thinking this is america,the land of the free blah blah blah.this is the "new american century". theyre trying to turn this country into a dictitorial police state. if we learn anything its "WE" the people and "WE" are the ones that need to defend our constitution.at all costs.
I read it. Did you? Did you miss the part where it says "the Obama administration successfully challenged the ruling", or did you just ignore it?
Let's ignore for the moment the fact that the United States Constitution was written for United States citizens. Since they have obviously been deprived of liberty, all you need to do here is prove that it was done "without due process."
Since the judge's ruling was successfully overturned, can you answer my question?
Since your list is so exhaustive, rather than address each item individually I will fall back on my original statement: I am an American citizen who is fairly law-abiding. I will also point out, for those less paranoid or polemic, that you can belong to every group in your list and still not be in violation of the law.
I saw that. And I also saw that while the administration challenged the unlawful detention ruling, thy couldn't deny the DoD's own evidence that he was never involved in any terrorist activity. It's my understanding that habeas corpus would have been needed to be proven by the government in order to continue detention. Ergo, the continuing detention as unlawful and an appeal should have been allowed.
The Constitution does not differentiate between citizen or non-citizen, it was not written just for citizens, but for all people.
Due process broke down when the accusing party (the government) did not allow the accused the right of habeas corpus and convene an appeals court to rule on the validity of the evidence considered and allow for the challenged ruling to either stand or be overturned.
Since the judge's ruling was successfully overturned, can you answer my question?
The supreme court pronounced that detainees who have been cleared of charges have a right to challenge their ongoing confinement. When the government challenged the order to allow the detainee go free and won, the detainee then had a right to file an appeal. The government then refused to consider the appeal that they themselves declared he had a right to file;
Four years after pronouncing that detainees who face no charges have a right to challenge their ongoing confinement, the justices rejected appeals arguing that the federal appeals court in Washington has largely ignored the high court’s command.
"By refusing to hear these cases, and any Guantánamo cases since its 2008 Boumediene decision, the court abandons the promise of its own ruling guaranteeing detainees a constitutional right to meaningful review of the legality of their detention," said Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
The appeals court threw out the release for Adnan Latif, ruling that the district judge in Latif’s case did not give enough weight to government intelligence reports that Latif might have been seeking military training in an al Qaida camp. Latif was captured by the Pakistani government near the Afghan-Pakistani border in late 2001.
U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy had found that the government had failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the Yemeni man was an actual part of al Qaida or an associated force. Latif has been at Guantánamo since 2002.
You don't have to have broken the law. All you have to do is be suspected of having supportedterrorism.
I will end up on that list. I have a weapons stockpile (sword collection) more than 7 days worth of food in my house, am active in my municipality's anti-animal cruelty task force, have my money in a bank that has overseas branches which may or may not have members who launder money for terrorists, and I have donated money to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who have been declared terrorists by the Japanese because they interfere with the Japanese whaling industry's ability to harvest hales in defiance of the International Whaling Commission's edicts.
Have I broken any laws? Not yet. But if the EEA passes, I will have broken the law referring to supporting terrorism by donating money to the Sea Shepherds and I could be stripped of my citizenship and indefinitely detained.
I know what indefinite detention feels like;I was adopted as an infant, never told before my parents passed away in a car accident. 18 years after my adoption USCIS finds they lost my adoption paper and comes to me for a copy--having never known I was adopted I couldn't give it to them so I was declared 'illegal' and placed in a deportation camp--without ever having done anything illegal or broken any laws. There was nowhere they could deport me to, as i was abandoned as an infant with no birth certificate--there was no 'home country' to deport me to so i was simply told I would remain in detention indefinitely until I could locate the adoption paper and give them a copy. It took me three years of writing to every courthouse in every state we had ever lived in to find that paper.
Let's just say I know what this guy feels like.
There is also the fact that many Americans like to forget that the U.S. signed covenants of humans rights - such as the the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 - and is obliged to uphold the Human Rights of every person on its soil. Since they leased the Guanatanamo Bay facility, it is a legal shenanigan to say it is not on their soil. The U.S. government deliberately created a legal limbo for this guy and stole him eight years of his life, since his innocence had been established in 2004. They had become responsible for the fate of this human being, and if they did not want to repatriate him to Yemen, they could have offered him admittance to the U.S. under probationary rules, letting him learn the language, find a job, etc. You cannot just take a person, destroy his life, and then pretend you just follow some rules that when inspected have nothing to do with the rule of your own law, let alone international law.
@ sceptic
"they could have offered him admittance to the U.S. under probationary rules, letting him learn the language, find a job, etc."
Really? This model inmate who was just recently throwing human waste at the guards in the prison? That is who we should be inviting into our country?
Even if we were to release this guy. You are assuming that Yemen or Pakistan would even want him back.
Hey Bill,
Selectively misquote much? Putting quotes around it doesn't make it true, not after you add the word sucessfully: Bills quote
What the article says:
Doesn't say successful anywhere in there, liar.
the terrorist is dead, the terrorist is dead, hiho the terrorist is dead and who gives a @!$%#
If I was held prisoner for 10 or so years without actual charges, three of which occurred after the parties involved in my detention agreed that there was no evidence against me--but one decided my home country was too unstable to return to--I just might get a little gross and aggressive, too.
Denver Bill is obviously retarded. This guy WAS INNOCENT !
He did NOTHING wrong, you racist hick !
Using "Im a citizen" is the lamest excuse out there, just cuz you caught a lucky break on what land your parents had you on, does not mean you are entitled to any more safety or privilege than anyone else.
The need to use Gitmo for all the corrupt and abusive US police officers.
Amanda is right....what are we suppose to do if the original country of orgin denies to take back the detainees? We don't want them here in America innocent or not
Seems to me that if the US committed the wrong by imprisoning innocent people without charge and without evidence for a decade (and illegally tortured quite a few), that we owe them big time.
Maybe they should be relocated to a red state and given a pension?
shrekk - You might have a point there. So, just to be safe, how about executing them all right now? In fact, I volunteer to assist in this sacred mission. I promise each dog, I mean prisoner, will be allowed to hold a copy of the Quran and one pack of Bar S Bacon shoved in his mouth before I do him. So what do you think? Let me know and take your time on it, there is no hurry.
These people need to be given CIVILIAN trials immedeatley that was a promise Obama made and it's one he should have kept it would be the humane thing to do. Then they should be released if found innocent and given compensation as well as a free pass to where ever they want to go.
One of the reasons I will never support Obama (and I can't stand Romney either, for that matter). So many of those first year campaign promises that never came to fruition.
He's nothing more than a successor to Bush, IMO. And the guy wins a Nobel Peace Prize? Give me a god damn break.
What you fail to understand is that any moves here need to be approved by congress. And this is where the effort died. Obama can't do this without approval.
You do realize he can sign executive orders to close the facility, which he did, but then rescinded his position?
Ummmm.....Obama did sign that order, and then Congress promptly blocked any funding used to implement the order.
Obama didn't rescind his order.
The "Obama wanted to but Congress blocked him" argument holds no weight. Obama's stated intentions (once he got into office) were never to end the practice of indefinite detention, but merely to move the facility to Illinois. Congress blocked this transfer. The prison at Gitmo wasn't and isn't an affront to our values because it's located in Cuba; it's an affront to our values because it has been and still is used to hold men, many of them demonstrably innocent, without charges or trial as prisoners in a "war" that seems designed to never end.
False. Obama said most should be repatriated or found homes in third countries, and others should be tried in federal court. Congress blocked the latter option, leaving the prisoners in limbo.
No, your claim is false. Obama's plan, while allowing for the release of some prisoners, divided the remainder into three classes: those who would be tried in federal criminal courts, those who would be tried by military tribunals, and those who would be interned indefinitely with no trial whatsoever. This is why the ACLU called his proposed facility in Illinois "Gitmo North." According to the administration itself, "any detainees at Guantánamo who continue to be held, and for whom no prosecution is planned, will be held only under authority granted by Congress in 2001 under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, as informed by the law of war." Now explain to me how this statement squares with your claim that he would release them or trie them in federal court. I eagerly await your apology.
That's correct, but the only reason for that is because of Bush's torture program which made certain prisoners untriable, since any legitimate court would reject "evidence" derived from torture. For example, it's unlikely any legitimate court would convict KSM but there's no way the US will release him.
So then your statement that, "Obama said most should be repatriated or found homes in third countries, and others should be tried in federal court" and that Congressional Republicans were ultimately responsible for preventing this from happening doesn't really mean much. And your assertion that my claim was "false" is itself, in fact, false.
Here's a question for you: what do you think we should do when we "know" that we have arrested a dangerous criminal but a judge rules the evidence inadmissible? Presumably you wouldn't advocate for indefinitely imprisoning this person, would you?
a whole lot of extremist muslim terrorist still waiting to be exterminated but got to start some place this idiot looks like a good start
Did you read the article? The DOD didn't even think this guy was a terrorist. He was more than likely a poor shlub in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you're calling him an extremist? Disgusting.
I believe in due process, so I think such people should be released if they can't be convicted. I also realize that to do that in these cases isn't politically viable. That's just one more reason why we should never torture, because it corrupts our system and our values.
I have an honest question for you, mostly because I'm interested in the psychology of those who still support Obama: what do you think about Obama's tendency to shift towards killing people without any due process rather than capturing and torturing them?
Lev, I think that's very problematic. I don't think it's any different from what any other President has done during wartime, but we're not actually at war. When used outside of the scope of war powers I think it's a very dangerous authority for any president to have.
At the same time it probably does reduce the overall casualty rate on both sides, even if things like drone strikes have a very high collateral damage rate and error rate. Whether it's actually productive from a foreign policy standpoint is yet to be seen, but I suspect "death from the sky" causes less blowback than boots on the ground.
Thanks for your thoughts. Two things:
1) The difference between wartime actions and peacetime actions is rather significant, isn't it? What is acceptable during war is called murder in any other context.
2) It strikes me as a major mistake to compare drones to traditional weapons and/or "boots on the ground." The advent of drones has made it possible to wreak violence on targets that we would never have considered pursuing with traditional weapons due to risk, expense, or logistics. It has allowed us to expand the war on terror into god knows how many countries. What would have been a major political decision in the recent past can now be conducted more or less in secret.
(By the way, do you remember when Clinton bombed what turned out to be an aspirin factory during the Lewinsky scandal? That was huge major news. It would hardly be a blip today.)
Lev, I think you and I are pretty much in agreement.
LOL! I love where his lawyer says "he was widely loved by fellow detainees." O well if the other terrorists and muslim extremists think he's a great guy then let's have him over for dinner.
"Noting President Barack Obama's one-time pledge to close Gitmo, Remes said: "The only detainees who have been released from Gitmo in the last two years have been in caskets"
President and I agree on the method to close Gitmo!
i wouldnt even waste the plywood on a casket. wrap them up in pig skin and drop their rotting carcasses from a c130 over whatever 3rd world muslim @!$%#hole they came from.
If our government handed you to another country thinking you were guilty of breaking that country's laws, you spent ten years there, they found you not guilty, but the US stripped you of your citizenship and refused to let you come back to your family and friends, would you want your body dumped when you died?
So what do you tell all the captives in Gitmo that have little to no evidence against them, and perhaps weren't guilty of what they're being detailed for?
I can't believe Americans support this crap. I guess all you have to do is change the nationality and religious beliefs and you have rabid support by this country's own Taliban.
Uncle Henry:
People like you make "international peace" IMPOSSIBLE. You clearly lack knowledge on Gitmo.....can you tell us when the US leased Gitmo from Cuba? Is the naval base really ours or Cuba's? Exactly you probably cannot; therefore, you cannot argue any history on the base or what is going on inside nor who these men being held in there really are? Yes, i will say this......you are a bigot.
Sounds like you know absolutely nothing about this case.
In the case of this particular detainee the DoD itself found in 2004 that there was no evidence against him, and yet they let him rot in prison and tortured him anyway.
Uncle Henry, you should first separate the guilty ones from the innocent. A proper trial should be had.
Latif died, thus proving he was guilty, as a just God would never allow an innocent man to die in detention.
You are joking right?
That's an interesting viewpoint.
There have been people who were cleared of charges posthumously.
So the newborn baby on the news who was killed by his mother and dumped in a dumpster behind a cheap motel must have been guilty of something, since 'a just God' would never have allowed an innocent baby to die...
There is no limit to how plainly sarcastic you can be, and someone on the Internet will take you seriously.
RonB: heh heh
A just God is always already the case eternally waiting to embrace, turned away we cause violence and unspeakably tragic events to unfold upon us, then we ask why God why did you do this to us.. it's our own action, this world is what happens when we turn away from the Source of Creativity. Turned away for so long not many can recognize the action now, like a closed fist that's cramped shut. So it seems we are just here, and Reality Itself has turned away from us and disgusting things happen to everyone no matter how hard they pray. In praying we aren't prying the fist back open but clenching it ever tighter. Who will be the first to open their hand and disolve back into the Light of Love and Bliss and start the chain reaction that will end this mundane nonsense!!!
I thought Obama promised to close Gitmo? Oops...
Didn't he also promise to create jobs? Oops...
Energy policy - F
Homeland Security - F
Annual Budget - F
Four (4) years of BS -
PRICELESS
The YOYO section has arrived.
Well, J. Matthew is right. He did promise to close the prison at Gitmo (either immediately or within a year; can't remember off the top of my head), and it's still open.
A sane person would blame the Congress which blocked all funding used to close Gitmo, rather than the President who issued the order to close it.
A sane person? Anyone who could struggle their way through 5th grade civics would blame Congress. This isn't even debatable, and yet the right continues to debate it.
Well, what passes for debate these days, anyway.
I'd think it would cost more to keep it open than to close it.
Absolutely true, but that's not how funding allocation works. Funds are allocated for specific purposes and Congress prohibited any funds used to close Gitmo.
Blame congress all you want. The fact is congress, senate and white house were all controlled by the Dems when Obama took office. If he really wanted to he could have "persuaded" congress to go his way.....just like he "persuaded" congress to ram that POS healthcare bill through without any thought.
In my opinion, Obama realized quickly after getting into office that closing gitmo was politically unwise. Therefore, he pushed the bill through(knowing it wouldn't pass without persuasion) and when it failed he looked the other way. Clearly it is no longer a priority to him.
The other fact is that every Republican voted to block all funding to close Gitmo.
Skrekk, that is true.....but what part of dems controlling did you not get? The republicans at the time did not have enough votes to stop the bill from going through on their own. There were more then a few democrats that didn't want to see gitmo close as well.
What part of "every Republican voted against it" did you not get?
And the guy who controlled the purse strings in the House was a Republican, Frank Wolf from Virginia. He vetoed every attempt to do the right thing.
Like I said "THE YOYO" section.
He's free now. Hope Obama gives him a burial at sea too.
How many Americans really know how these men were captured???
Only 5% of these men were actually captured on the battle field. The rest.....were bought with leaflets/bounties that the US promised to locals in Afghanistan/Iraq/Yemen. Many of these men were doctors, cab drivers, farmers etc.
THE AUDACITY THE UNITED STATES HAS TO GO INTO THESE COUNTRIES AND BUY MEN AND INCARCERATE THEM IN ORDER TO PROVE THAT WE ARE THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY. Our country's hands are stained with blood and forever will be......
jess you can't be an american. Did you forget 911, did you forget the beheading of american soldiers by these pure unadulterated as@holes. Gitmo was probably a better living condition than these sewer rats were living in. They should have shot every one of them when they first captured them, wrong true, but 911 was wrong and they would or will try it again, so why don't we just let them all go and blow something else up?
its funny.yesterday everyone was talking tough about the death of a "terrorist". wheres the gungho rambo u.s.a. chanting nitwits now? the love it or leave crowd? fn retarts you didnt know s..t yesterday + today proves it.oh, and wheres that dildo talking about "beacon of freedom"? welcome to the real world.
bobt:
You clearly did not read nor understood my message nor its logic!
The guy in the article, Latif, was a Yemeni citizen who was in a bad car accident and went to Pakistan because they have free medical there. The Pakistani turned him over to the US as a terrorist in exchange for money/bounty; the Department of Defense, however, could find no evidence that he was ever in a terrorist training camp. A judge concluded he was innocent, not guilty, but the us refused to let him go and he finally died in detention, how is currently unknown.
He is sporting the same beard as Gary from Team America.
http://www.bagsnob.com/images/teamamericagary1.jpg
This is just another example why there are no "winners" in War.
It would be great if our elected officials understood that fact one day and stayed our of everything except a World War III.
The US and its allies stood together in WWI and WWII and prevailed following great loss of life. Everything after those two has only resulted in the loss of young Americans and hate from citizens of those countries on whose land we fought and destroyed.
Gitmo is the ONLY Prison on the ENTIRE Island of Cuba with any regards to Human Rights and Dignity. These Terrorists are spoiled and lucky. The Terrorist go the to best Prison in Cuba while those who wish for freedom in Cuba are sent to some of the most atrious prisons in the World by the Despotic Castro Regime
http://www.therealcuba.com/Page7.htm
@ Kurt,
Are we talking about the same Gitmo... the one where prisoners were routinely tortured, waterboarded, deprived of sleep, subjected to heat and cold, etc. without a single bit of proof to substantiate any charges against them???
I would expect Castro to be a brutal dictator - why is the U.S. one when we claim to be a peace-loving democracy that is ruled by law???
Ummmm.......Bush located the camp there in a failed and misguided attempt to be out of reach of the US constitution.
The whole point of Gitmo was that it wasn't subject to the rule of law and the DoD and CIA could do whatever they liked without awkward things like due process, habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions......and avoid inspections from the ICRC to monitor compliance with the Convention Against Torture.
Of course Bush was flat wrong as a constitutional matter, but it would still be far better if we kept these prisoners on US soil where they had access to the courts and their attorneys had full access to them. Human rights abuses happen where the full light of the constitution doesn't shine.
Yep, BobbyG, the SAME Gitmo, the ONLY prison on the ENTIRE island of Cuba with any dignity and rights for its prisoners. ALL religious material banned on all Cuban Prisons except for Gitmo. Gitmo is the ONLY prison which all the prisoners are actually known unlike the Castro controlled ones where there are people thrown in & forgotten about. So BobbyG, can you counter my point, name a SINGLE Cuban Prison that has more rights for its prisoners than Gitmo. God Bless the US Military in their fight against Militant Islamic Fanatics and God Bless the Pro-Democarcy Prisoners in the Castro Controlled Prisons of Cuba.
Skrekk, get a clue, the US Constitution does NOT apply to foreign Militants wanting to OVERTHROW the US Constitution. It is not apply the Barbary Pirates in the late 1700s when the Constitution was ratified. Get a Clue, the US Constitution applies to US Citizens and those living/visiting LEGALLY within US Jurisdication
"oh well"
And what, Kurt, does any of your comment have to do with the price of potatoes?
George NY;
Obama did give the order to close gitmo, but the Greedy Obstructionist Party blocked all funding to relocate the prisoners. The order still stands.
Same with the jobs bill, sent to the House a year ago but never voted on.
Absolute nonsense. Obama merely proposed moving the prison to Illinois where they would still be subject to indefinite detention. This is what the GOP blocked. Get your facts straight.
(I voted for Obama, so no need to call me a "Rethuglican" a "Repukelican" or any other childish names).
Unbelievable.
Mr. President! Close this HELL HOLE you call Gitmo and get your ASSet Over to Isreal and do your job or you're going to be fired. You promised you were going to close Gitmo a long time ago. As the story says, only 2 detainees have been released from Gitmo in the last 2 years. And they were in caskets! How long is our country going to go down the road we're on. We caught captured and killed the one supposedy resonsible for Sept 11th. then why are we still in that god forsaken country when all those Billions that are going over there could be used here at home to shore up our poor and middle class people. Give them a enough $$ to get them out of dept, so we can start spending and feel good about our government. But whom the Fudge cares anyway!?
Thank You
Danny Hinkle
Elect The Dude for President!
Lock all the cells, pull out all the prison personnel, and hand the keys to Castro. Then bomb the place to kingdom come.
Guilty unless proven innocent. Isn't that the way it is now??? I'm starting to think that there is no such thing as innocent until proven guilty anymore. It was more obvious that Casey Anthony was guilty then this man and she walked! Obviously something fishy is going on here. This is just plain cruelty. The article said that they didn't want to release him back to Yemen? Seriously?
Obama tried to close Gitmo but the do-nothing traitors in the Congress did what they have done all session: Veto and obstruct.
Go ahead and blame the president if you want. It just makes you wrong.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/20/barack-obama-guantanamo-congress-veto
yeh i blame this guy for being a dumb assss and bowing to our enemys and apoligizing to them. get a life liberal.
Oh...we were suppose to release him three years ago? My bad......next!
and we should believe anything that comes from obamma get a life this guy is a liar and so is moochelle. they hate america.
for our freedom. or for being locked up for 10 years for no reason..
I am so sorry for this man.
I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood you. Was that an expression of sympathy for a person who was born in another country and had a funny name? It can't possibly be the case that you are on these boards acting like a human being. Presumably you meant, "We should bacon-bomb all them Muslim children" or something like that.
No I weep for this man and his family but most of all I weep for the ones that think the thoughts that keep him prisoner. The thoughts that endanger the freedom of all. Evil lives and no matter who or what is said it tries to take the world down to Hell. The answer in not in this Time.
Well-said, warren.
Let these animals have sex with each other, kill each other and break, burn and mutilate anything THEY OWN. How? Leave that 6th century rat infested hole and never go back. We have PLENTY of our own oil.. Reserves for 225 years are under the midwest without including Alaska or the Gulf of Mexico.. Let these freaks have their freedom.. Close air and sea travel to that part of the world and profile like crazy.. They are stupid people in general so once we take away the tools of destruction we were stupid enough to give them they will soon be back to throwing rocks and pushing carts full of donkey dung. Isolationism is the answer when it comes to our muslim brothers.. Give them exactly what they want..
It wouldn't hurt my feelings if they all died. Better him than letting them go, having them rejoin the terrorist groups and kill dozens of innocents.
You know, he probably was fed very well in Gitmo and really didn't want to return home and eat sh_t again.
"It wouldn't hurt my feelings if they all died. "
I'm not surprised. In this one short post you've given us pretty strong indication that you don't have much in the way of a soul.
"Better him than letting them go, having them rejoin the terrorist groups and kill dozens of innocents."
Hmm... what if he was never part of a terrorist group in the first place? Then he would be one of those "innocents" that you profess to care about.
"You know, he probably was fed very well in Gitmo and really didn't want to return home and eat sh_t again."
Yep. He must have been really comfy down there. That must have been why he wrote, “This prison is a piece of hell that kills everything, the spirit, the body, and kicks away all the symptoms of health from them.” It also must have been why he was throwing his own feces at guards and had to be heavily sedated, or why he had already attempted suicide. He was just so darn happy, right?
Good Lord are your a disgusting person.