Category Archives: Guantanamo Bay

Al Qaeda’s “Goebbels” to Be Released From Gitmo

Posted on by mjgranger

He wore no swastika on his arm or skull and crossbones on his cap, but if ever there were an Al Qaeda “Goebbels,” Faiz Mohammed Ahmed al Kandari is him. Captured in December of 2001, while leading Al Qaeda fighters out of the Tora Bora section of Afghanistan into Pakistan, was a religious advisor to Usama bin Laden, and has spent the last 13 years of his life at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Kandari, Kuwaiti citizen, is a religious leader, Al Qaeda recruiter and fighter, was a known associate of bin Laden. He is also known to be a university trained student of Islamic Studies (Sharia Law), and applied this knowledge when producing multi-media recruiting materials that included the success of the attacks of 9/11/01 in his appeals for young recruits to join the fight against the infidels. He indoctrinated Al Qaeda fighters, and spread the word of jihad, issuing fatwas even from Gitmo.

Surely, he would have made a great Nazi.

Why then, is his time at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, coming to an end?

The Daily Caller announced that he is slated for return to Kuwait, stating that “The [Periodic Review] Board determined the detainee’s threat can be adequately mitigated by the Kuwaiti government’s commitment to require and maintain the detainee’s participation in a rehabilitation program and to implement robust security measures to include monitoring and travel restrictions.”

Imagine if Joseph Goebbels, once named Reich Chancellor by Hitler himself before his suicide, had been captured and then, instead of being tried and then executed for war crimes, had been subsequently released to a German rehab program, promising to be good from now on?

As it was, Goebbels committed suicide, just as did his evil role model, Adolph Hitler. If only Kandari had been so bold he could have saved 13 years of incarceration. Apparently, his patience has paid off.

Obama era detainees, some of the “worst of the worst,” have been released for some of the most incredible reasons. The famous Taliban Five, known leaders of the Taliban, were released in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. Army soldier who walked away from his post in Afghanistan, came under Taliban control and was later accused of desertion.

How much longer will the American people tolerate this indignity and treason?

Article III, Section 3, Clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution defines treason this way:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

What part of this repeated exchange or release of known enemies is not treason?

Gitmo is neither corrections nor punishment, it is simply detention.

During WWII the U.S. held over 400,000 lawful combatant POW’s without one call for extra-legal privileges or trials for them. Why? The Geneva Conventions and Law of Land Warfare (Army FM 27-10) do not call for trials unless POW’s or unlawful combatant detainees (spies, saboteurs) were accused of war crimes. Captured soldiers who followed the rules were simply held “until the end of hostilities,” and then repatriated to their country of origin.

So too, should unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill us be incarcerated, “until the end of hostilities.”

Human rights groups and Islamist apologists cry “foul,” saying keeping detainees incarcerated “indefinitely” and “without charge” is unfair and “un-American.”

In fact it is VERY American to hold detainees until the end of hostilities. After the First Gulf War, U.S. forces held tens of thousands of lawful combatant Iraq soldiers who surrendered en mass rather than face the wrath of the world’s finest fighters. This was a smart move that kept them alive and fed until the end of combat activities in Operation Desert Storm – which lasted only ten days.

As per the Conventions, only days after the end of the conflict, Iraqi POW’s began to be repatriated.

What’s different now is that there are no lawful combatants being held at Gitmo. Captured for their intelligence value potential instead of being shot on the battlefield, all unlawful combatants being held at Gitmo are lucky to be alive.

U.S. forces do not train to run gulags or concentration camps. We train to provide detention and POW operations in war. So, when then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld told us in 2002, to treat Gitmo detainees “within the spirit of the Geneva Conventions,” he was making a two-fold statement. One, we recognize their legal status cannot be that of Prisoner of War because they did not follow the Geneva Conventions. And two, we will treat them with dignity and respect, within the spirit of Geneva, because we are the benevolent good guys.

“No one does [detention operations] better than the United States,” so said International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) physicians I worked with at Gitmo in 2002, and then later at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, after the abuse scandal there in 2005.

The current nonsense about closing Gitmo and moving the remaining detainees to the United States aside, it is treasonous at worst and pure folly at best to release any of them at this point.

As if by Miracle Grow, Islamists have become healthy and robust globally because of our lack of leadership and commitment in the Global War on Terror.

We must, like the Crusaders of Old Europe, and the Americans of the Barbary Wars, rise up in order to defeat the surging forces of evil that would destroy us.

Until all Islamists are dead, or no longer have the will or means to kill us we must defend ourselves. Gitmo is a small price to pay in that essential effort.

Judge Contradicts Obama’s Declaration of the End to the War on Terror

Posted on by mjgranger

United States District Court Judge Royce L. Lamberth, in his decision dated July 30, 2015, in the case of Mukhtar Yahia Naji Al Warafi vs. Barack H. Obama, et. al., denied Warafi’s petition challenging the legality of his incarceration at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Warafi’s argument rested solely on his assertion that because President Barack Obama had declared hostilities over and the war in Afghanistan ended, that he was no longer legally in conflict with the United States and therefore must be freed.

In his speech, on December 15, 2014, Obama said, “[t]his month, after more than 13 years, our combat mission in Afghanistan will be over,” and that “[t]his month, America’s war in Afghanistan will come to a responsible end.”

Judge Lambreth reasoned that the President alone is not the only source of fact that determines whether or not a thing is true. His speeches are not law, nor are they solely conclusive. “Using all relevant evidence [is] the Court’s responsibility [in determining] the objective existence or nonexistence of active hostilities,” she wrote in her opinion.

The judge reminded Warafi, who has been kept in detention at Gitmo since after his capture on the battlefield in Afghanistan in November, 2001, that his “detention is lawful under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force.”

The AUMF provides:

“[t]hat the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of International terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

The judge points out that “when it expires or how it may be revoked is left unsaid.”

In Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld, the judge points out, it was affirmed that when Congress authorized the AUMF that that authorization included “authority to detain for the duration of the relevant conflict.”

“The court concludes that active hostilities continue,” wrote the judge.

The mainstream media will no doubt ignore this fresh decision contradicting the President’s mantra that all is well in the world, and that there is no such thing as a Global War on Terror nor Islamist terrorists bent on killing us all.

Head-in-the-sand Obama apologists will not get a pass on this from me.

Too much American blood and treasure have been spilt and spent on protecting us from Islamist murderers. And what’s more, the murdering continues.

Why does it take a U.S. District Court judge to tell us all what is plainly true: there are bad guys out there who are still doing everything they can to kill us.

Further, the implication of her reasoning still gives credibility to the notion that we should be keeping detainees at Guantanamo Bay, not releasing them.

If hostilities have not ended, and we are still at war with “nations, organizations or persons” who wish to do us harm, then we need a place to keep those whom we capture in this effort.

The best, safest and most secure place for this is Gitmo.

Although not explicitly covered in Judge Lamberth’s decision, she has firmly closed the door on any rational thought behind the misconceived notion that Gitmo should be closed.

There is no wiggle room here.

The judge’s decision that the War on Terror is alive and well, and that those who wage that war on us may still be lawfully detained, is another nail in the lid on the coffin of Obama’s campaign promise to close the most famous U.S. military prison in history.

Plan to Close Gitmo Ignores Reality of War on Terror

Posted on by mjgranger

Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, at the recent Aspen Security Forum, said that troops used to guard detainees at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba could be put to better use.

Maybe Ms. Monaco would prefer we use the Military Police at Gitmo to protect military recruiting stations at home instead. But right now, with the Islamic State, we are experiencing the most aggressive expansion of an enemy of the United States in over 70 years.

It took two nuclear bombs to end it the last time against Imperial Japan; closing Gitmo would send a different message.

“This is not something that the president wants to turn over to his successor,” Monaco said. As if President Barack Obama gave a rat’s rear end about his successor.

At a cost of $3 million per detainee, “We can be spending that money on a host of national security threats,”

Monaco said. Like what, shadowing the Taliban Five Obama released for Bowe Bergdahl?

The required “plan” to close Gitmo is no plan at all. It’s a fantasy.

The administration would “transport the 52 detainees deemed eligible for transfer to countries with appropriate security arrangements,” said Monaco. And the remaining detainees who are too dangerous to transfer? Either prosecute them under the Law of War, or transfer them to the U.S., according to the plan.

Both incredible and inappropriate actions. Some detainees don’t meet the criteria for prosecution under Obama’s 2009 Military Commissions Act, which gave Gitmo detainees virtually the same rights you or I would enjoy in a federal court of law. But the Law of Land Warfare states we can legally detain even lawful combatants, without charge, “until the end of hostilities.”

These are not jaywalkers. These are murderers and savages.

Transferring them to U.S. soil would cause lawfare opportunists to double-down on false accusations of abuse and torture, re-open habeas corpus arguments, and expose those who work and live near the facility holding the detainees to unfair danger from those who would want to free or kill the detainees.

Over 660 detainees have been RELEASED from Gitmo, and NONE have been executed, beheaded, hacked to death, blown up, dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, or BURNED ALIVE. But at least 30 percent have rejoined the fight.

What Monaco, Obama and the liberal mainstream media WON’T tell you about is the 70 percent of released Gitmo detainees we DON’T know about.

Why did we capture the detainees in the first place?

Unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill us were first captured on the battlefield in the fall of 2001, just months after the attacks on September 11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people.

Soon thereafter we took the fight to the bad guys. CIA operative Johnny Michael Spann was the first American killed in our offensive against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He was killed during an uprising in a prison in Mazar-e Sharif.

It was determined that no prison in Afghanistan could be sufficiently secured to affect a safe operation to get lifesaving information from the bad guys. We needed a different plan.

Quickly, my U.S. Army Reserve unit, the 800th Military Police Brigade (now the 333rd Military Police Brigade), out of Uniondale, New York, was tasked with making recommendations for an incarceration mission.

The leadership of my unit were summoned to the Pentagon. When they returned they told us we were to suggest locations and mission scenarios for detaining unlawful combatants in the Global War on Terror.

We discussed Guam, Guantanamo Bay, Diego Garcia, and Hawaii. Hawaii was the obvious favorite, but the fact was, we kept going back to Gitmo.

Gitmo was ideal for many reasons: It was isolated, secure, logistically appealing, and the legal limbo it would provide would give enough time, it was thought, for either the conflict to end, or a better solution to be found.

Nearly 15 years later, neither of those things have happened.

So what?

The war hasn’t ended, and in fact has mutated into something no one predicted: An Islamist Caliphate right smack in the middle of Iraq, a place we had once pacified.

It’s true that there were some detainees who eventually had no intelligence value and did not pose a threat to the United States. They were released very early on.

Those who remained were the worst of the worst. Sworn enemies: Al Qaeda, Taliban and Islamist operatives, Soldiers of Fortune and mercenaries who would just as soon kill you as look at you.

I know, I took care of them from February to June 2002, as the ranking U.S. Army Medical Department officer with the Joint Detainee Operations Group, Joint Task Force 160, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The only reason they were taken from the battlefield and not killed was to obtain lifesaving information from them. They are all lucky to be alive.

As I told Fox News’ Fox and Friends co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, “it’s insane” to let enemies go free while their colleagues continue to actively wage war against us and kill us.One of the most powerful psychological weapons we had was telling detainees that unless they cooperated with us they would never leave Gitmo. Now that’s the going joke, as we are in the eyes of our enemies.

Thank Obama and his host of anti-military advisers and czars, only five of 55 of them who have any military experience, and none who have any Army or Marine Corps officer combat experience. Of course they are going to loathe the military and military solutions; they are completely ignorant and fearful of the military.

Obama is trying to ensure his place on the leftist wall of fame by pandering to Islamists and to Communist Cuba. Gitmo is a pawn and the U.S. military the whipping boy. When things go wrong, it’s the military’s fault. When things go right, Obama and his crew can’t get out of their own way trying to take credit.

What was it, two hours after the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage that the White House was awash in the colors of the rainbow supporting homosexual relationships?

How long did it take Obama to attempt to protect Americans in Benghazi? Thirteen hours?

Sometimes it’s not so much what you do, it’s whom you do it for and when.

Saying you support the troops is meaningless if you wait too long to stand up and DO something meaningful. The bottom line is, do you feel safer with detainees IN or OUT of Gitmo? If your answer is IN, then you need to tell your Congressman/woman about it, NOW.

DO something NOW – call your congressman/woman and tell them, “HELL NO, KEEP THEM AT GITMO!”

RELEASING GITMO DETAINEES IS NO GOOD FOR NATIONAL SECURITY

Posted on by mjgranger

Some say that President Obama is closer to closing the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba because of pending approval for changes in the law that would allow detainees to be transferred back to the countries of their origin.

But closing Gitmo should not be anyone’s goal. Closing the facility would only play into the agenda of al Qaeda, the Taliban, Islamists and their apologists. Gitmo is a result of a need to keep captured enemies safe and secure in order to obtain valuable information that may save many lives, to prosecute suspected war criminals, and to keep known Islamists who want to kill Americans on the battlefield and in the streets.

Releasing Gitmo Detainees is No Good for National Security

Furthermore, closing Gitmo will not end the Global War on Terror, nor will it make Islamists want to kill us less. But it would pose a grave danger to Americans and our allies. More than 600 detainees have already been released. None have been executed, beheaded, hacked to death, blown up or dragged naked and lifeless through the streets – things our enemies do to us.

According to the Director of National Security already more than 28 percent of released Gitmo detainees have returned to the fight, including Abu Sufian bin Qumu, the mastermind of the Benghazi attack.

Gitmo is in fact the finest military detention facility in the world, and is a necessary and important part of keeping us safe. I worked at Gitmo with an International Committee of the Red Cross physician who told me, “no one does [detention operations] better then the United States.” Gitmo is in fact the furthest thing from being a “gulag,” an unearned tag pinned on by a liberal media and Islamist apologists.

Until Islamists are dead or no longer have the means or will to kill us, we must defend ourselves.

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Even though military operations are winding down in Afghanistan, we still have troops in over 150 countries world wide defending us in the Global War on Terror. Until Islamists are all dead or no longer have the means or will to kill us, we must continue to defend ourselves. That means we need a safe and secure location for unlawful combatants who are not killed, and who may have valuable information which could save many innocent lives, including yours.

The Geneva Conventions were written to PROTECT innocent civilians during war, not to protect those who PRETEND to be civilians in order to murder them. Our enemies choose NOT to wear uniforms – not because they can’t afford them, but because they don’t want you to see them coming.

Releasing Gitmo Detainees is No Good for National Security

They won’t stop if Gitmo closes. They won’t stop if we leave Afghanistan, or bring all of our troops and planes and ships home. And we cannot stop doing what’s necessary for our survival and that of our great experiment in democracy.

Some argue that repatriating Gitmo detainees back to their countries of origin is illegal and cruel if there is likelihood that the detainees would be killed or tortured. If that’s the fear, then retain them “until the end of hostilities,” just like the Law of Land Warfare and the Geneva Conventions stipulate even for lawful combatant Prisoners of War.

There should be no sense of urgency about repatriating unlawful combatants when there is a good chance they will return to the battlefield. Political expediency is no excuse for recklessness with the safety and security of innocent people, namely U.S.

America Loves Defending What’s Right In A Fight

Posted on by mjgranger

Barack Hussein Obama began his speech on national security by saying “Americans are deeply ambivalent about war.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In defending what’s right, Americans love a good fight. It’s what makes us who we are. The “ugly American” abroad has always come through on the battlefield, and it’s only been politics and the media who have defeated the greatest fighting force the world has ever known. In his speech on May 23, at the National Defense University, the President wanted us to believe that we could win the War on Terror simply be staying the course, wrapping up here and there, and that everything would be as it was “prior to 9/11.” Really? And prior to 9/11 we were safe? Whilst Islamist extremists, especially al Qaeda were strengthening, and we were turning a blind eye to multiple attacks on our ships, embassies and personnel, the threat grew. I have never doubted that the “tip of the spear” in the Global War on Terror has been our special forces & the CIA, our Shadow Warriors & Spooks, as it should be. But these bravest of Americans need a support system. We need the power and influence to suppress adversaries, and we need it close to where the bad guys are. We needed to keep bases in Iraq, instead the President threw that country to the wolves – Iran, al Qaeda and other Islamists – who are now supporting the Assad regime in Syria, and further destabilizing Iraq. We need to maintain bases in Afghanistan, which is poised to rise as the regional leader in democracy, long into the future. We need better relations with Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries in the region so as to maintain the pressure on Islamist groups there and in surrounding areas. Our forces need logistical power projection platforms from which to launch and then support freedom-fighting missions. The President failed to mention we have troops in 70 countries, CIA operatives in over 90 countries and Diplomatic Security Service agents in over 200 countries world wide, all with one thing on their plates: defend the interests of the United States of America. The days of huge battlefields and tremendous casualties and destruction are virtually over. The fight is now played out on the Internet, in remote locations, and in limited ways on the streets of our great cities. Saying we should be concerned about a “legacy problem” instead of turning up the heat on our adversaries speaks only to our president’s desperation to build his own legacy, not that for our children. Saying the military detention facility at Guantanamo “has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law,” and that “our allies won’t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at Gitmo,” is cheap brinkmanship about a place and process that, before his meandering legal giveaway to unlawful combatants of extra legal privileges they did not deserve in the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2009, is completely legal, moral and ethical. The same laws, policies and procedures that were in place at Gitmo when it opened in late 2001 – early 2002, were virtually unchanged since the Second World War, when from capture to execution it took the government about four weeks to prosecute 8 German saboteurs caught dry-foot on U.S. soil, using a Supreme Court approved Military Commission and having suspended habeas corpus for the enemy. In WWII, the U.S. held over 400,000 lawful combatant POWs without one call for extra legal privileges for them, and they were all released, as per the law, when hostilities ended. The same happened in 1991, when after a brief but hard fought First Gulf War against Iraq, we released thousands of lawful combatant Iraqi POWs within days after the end of hostilities. The Geneva Conventions and Law of Land Warfare were written to protect innocent civilians in time of war, not to protect those who would pretend to be civilians in order to murder them. The laws still apply, but because of the 2009 MCA all detainees enjoy the same legal protections you or I would have in a Federal Court of Law. Detainees charged with war crimes enjoy the presumption of innocence, and the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of conviction. Non government organizations count higher body counts of civilians killed in war, by conventional as well as by drone technology, because our enemies don’t wear uniforms, rank, or carry their weapons openly; they are in effect “civilians” to anyone who lays eyes on them. But the reality is they are unlawful combatants, flauting the rule of law and manipulating it and those who sympathize with them in order to bend the political will of the Unites States and anyone else who will listen. The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is not a person. It is a place, and no matter how hard they try, Pagan utilitarian humanist Islamist apologists and terrorists cannot change the fact that it is also legal, humane and ethical. Self-starving Gitmo detainees are using a known al Qaeda detention disruption technique in an effort to manipulate U.S. political will. There are no U.S. military medical protocols that authorize us to allow detainees to hurt themselves. And in fact, they will tell you that the point of their self-starvation is not to die, but to gain sympathies, and these sympathies are aimed at manipulating U.S. government political will in order to effect their release so that they can get back into the fight. There is a documented recidivism rate of released Gitmo detainees of at least 27%. One of these recidivists, known as Bin Qumu, led the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This is unacceptable. Knowing this, and knowing the probability that many of the current Gitmo detainees “cleared” for release will return to Islamist extremism once let go, doing so would be tantamount to giving the enemy aid and comfort – treason. The comments from the President on Guantanamo are misguided at best, and treasonous at worst. Not only do we have to fight and stay one step ahead of an insidious enemy, but we must do so with one hand tied behind our back because of our President’s relentless assault on our proven, legal, moral, and ethical operation at Guantanamo Bay. Gitmo needs to remain open as long as we continue our struggle with Islamist extremists. We need to maintain as many bases around the world as is necessary to support our clandestine and overt operations. We need to take and then hold the high ground in the Global War on Terror, such as maintaining good working relationships for military bases (back) in Iraq and in Afghanistan; like we still have in countries we defeated in WWII, such as Germany, Japan, and Italy. We are strong, we are winning, and now we need to close the battle with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and groups that support and mimic them. Keeping Gitmo open and then using the base to prosecute through military commissions those who are suspected of war crimes, and to keep other detainees out of the fight until hostilities end, just like the International laws on warfare stipulate we may do even if the detainees were lawful combatant POWs, will allow us to live in peace. Americans love defending what’s right in a fight, but even more, we love to win!

Keep Gitmo Open

Posted on by mjgranger

Gitmo remains the best, safest, most secure place for unlawful combatant Islamist extremists who want to kill us. 9/11/01 REALLY happened. 13 terrorist attack attempts on Manhattan were REALLY thwarted. A terrorist attack inside Ft. Hood, Texas, REALLY took place. Benghazi REALLY happened. We are at war, a Global War on Terror/struggle against Islamist extremists. And until al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist/extremists put their hands up and their weapons down, and promise never to kill or harm or destroy again, we will remain at war. Gitmo is a legal, professional and appropriate place for detainees, and calling for its closure gives aid and comfort to the enemy, and clouds the serious purpose of the finest military detention facility in the world.

Military Commission due process for KSM et. al., is unprecedented

Posted on by mjgranger

(Author’s Note: The statement below is in response to an April 9, 2012, editorial in the Long Island, New York newspaper, Newsday, which can be found at http://www.newsday.com/opinion/9-11-terror-trials-it-s-about-time-1.3647063 )

Dear Editor,

The delay you mention in “On al-Qaida trials, it’s about time” [Editorials, April 9], regarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM) prosecution was due largely to first, a two year wait for the Supreme Court to rule on legal challenges from the left, and second, a re-writing of the Military Commission’s Act (MCA) of 2006, due to extended political and legal challenges from the left.  Our current MCA of 2009 is governing the proceedings, not the aforementioned as you state in your editorial.  You also fail to mention what “due process” means in the context of the Commissions.  The newest MCA gives unlawful combatants unprecedented extra legal privileges, and these new privileges include “presumption of innocence until convicted beyond a reasonable doubt.”  A quick visit to http://www.mc.mil allows a fingertip study of U.S. military commissions, their origins, history, and current application.  It’s worth a look to see that there is virtually NO DIFFERENCE between a U.S. Courts-Martial, U.S. Federal Court proceedings, and a Military Commission, to the advantage of our enemies; how could this not be, in your words, “optimal?”  And optimal for whom, us or KSM?  By the way, the Nuremberg trials of World War II lasted about four years (1945-1949), and suffered no delay due to attempts to extend extra legal privileges to Nazis, and took place AFTER the end of hostilities. May I remind Newsday we are still very much in armed violent struggle with Islamist extremists, like KSM, who want to kill us.