Really?
We all know that Think Progress was founded with George Soros seed money but you'd think they'd at least try to be a bit more careful with their attacks on America.
Think Progress reported today that:
"Report: Scalia’s Claim That Released Gitmo Prisoners Have Killed Americans Is An ‘Urban Legend’"
A new report from the Seton Hall University School of Law explodes the myth that some 30 detainees released from Guantanamo Bay prison have “returned to the battlefield” against American forces.** Notice how Think Progress distorted Scalia's words-- He did not say they "killed Americans" just that they "have returned to the battlefield" against Americans.
This conservative urban legend was recently parroted by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissent from the Court’s Boumediene decision. Scalia wrote that granting habeas corpus rights to Gitmo detainees “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,” and supported this view by asserting that “at least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield.”
The authors at Think Progress back up their inaccurate statements with this shoddy report that Seton Hall law professors threw together this past week:
The new Seton Hall report (pdf) states that “Justice Scalia’s claim of 30 recidivist detainees is belied by all reliable data."This is a wonderful report by the law professors at Seton Hall- law professors? - if it were true.
According to the Department of Defense’s published and unpublished data and reports, not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans.
But, it's not.
* * * * *
In their haste to attack Justice Scalia the law professors missed this news from last month:
Former Gitmo detainee Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi recently blew himself up in Iraq.
Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi was released from Gitmo in November 2005.
The WaPo reported that in a lengthy martyrdom audio recording before his death, Ajmi implores people to take part in suicide bombings to attack Americans. He blew himself up in Mosul last month and was able to kill a few Iraqis at the same time.
Then there is Monhammed Nayim Farouq:
Monhammed Nayim Farouq from Afghanistan, is named on a "most wanted" poster issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was released in July 2003 he quickly renewed his association with Taliban and al-Qaida members and has since become re-involved in anti-Coalition militant activity.
And, of course, there are the other terrorists who after leaving Club Gitmo went out and attacked the Russian pipeline, the Russian city of Nalchik, Pakistani forces, Morocco, etc.
For some reason, Think Progress and the law professors at Seton Hall missed these former Club Gitmo detainees in their misleading report.
You'd expect as much from Think Progress-- But the fact that Seton Hall released such a dishonest report is a big disappointment.
Previously On Released Gitmo Detainees:
Gitmo Detainees Re-Arrested in Russia
Former Gitmo Prisoner Arrested for Terrorism in Moscow
Three Former Gitmo Detainees Held in Morocco
Former Gitmo Inmate Involved in Russian Terror Attack on Nalchik
Camel-Riding Former Gitmo Detainee Blows Himself Up
Former Gitmo Detainee Re-Arrested in Pakistan
Seven Percent of Gitmo Detainees Return to Battlefield.
Former Club Gitmo Detainee Carries Out Suicide Mission in Iraq
McClatchy: Gitmo Turned Innocent Afghans Into Terrorists
UPDATE: Ace adds that professors, and especially law professors, are supposed to be concerned about perjured testimony.
When there is lack of due process, guilty as well as innocent people are let go, as we have seen. For example, because of the lack of due process in the case of Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, we'll probably never know the actual facts of why he was released. They are undeclared and classified. Why?
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that the process of law that the Constitution allocates is the best system in teh world. Not using it to it's advantage puts us all at great risk in a myriad of ways. Not supporting the full implentation of a Constitutional based system of due process of law in regard to terrorists allows scumbags like this to go free. We see that working without it is a failure.
If it's good enough for a traitor like Timothy McVeigh, it's good enough for terrorists. Let the system work.
Before trashing a report as "shoddy," you might actually take 15 minutes or so to read it. Each of these individuals whom you claim the report "missed" are, in fact, discussed in the document.
ReplyDeleteThe report also points out that ISN 220 (Al Ajimi) identified himself in his status review as a terrorist who would kill Americans. In spite of this admission -- which the Administrative Review Board used as the basis for its recommendation that he not be released -- the DoD went ahead and shipped him out anyway.
This was a decision that had nothing to do with habeas rights being inadvisably granted. It was incompetence -- which is precisely the term we'd use to describe a blogger who yowls about a document he links to but hasn't actually looked at.
Ah, its 12 rather than 30. That makes all the difference.
ReplyDeleted, yeah, but that's gateway pundit. facts schmacts, as long as it's propaganda. the solution here is to apply rule of law in it's best incarnation, and that is American constitutional law. As you note, Al Ajimi is by the DOD's own admision a self described terrorist who wanted nothing more than to kill American's. Yet, for reasons no one is willing to discuss, he was released. This in a system that had rather limited oversight. They could have simply put him on a rendition plan and that would have been that... So, why are obviously dangerous terrorists being released from a military system?
ReplyDeleteOne possibility is that they were hoping he'd report back to his masters... There is value in such programs, but at what cost?
Meanwhile, tools like GP are caught up in the polarized partisan and unpatriotic atmosphere of ideological left versus right.
Talk about giving the enemy a loaded weapon.
Anonymous(es),
ReplyDeleteCute comments, but, given the fact that you aren't willing to even remotely identify yourselves, what you're saying is irrelevant to any serious discussion as it is factually wrong.
Actually in the report it states "At most 12, not 30, detainees “returned to the fight.”
ReplyDeleteSo the Professors themselves admit they have returned to the battlefield.
Mark, nice application of a tired logical fallacy. Unfortunately, not all of have the luxury of being identified in public forums, and certainly not one where the proprietor is one of the more ultra right wing tools out there.
ReplyDeleteBut, nice that you care enough to notice, if not enough to engage beyond your own narrow parameters.
Thanks for playing!
First, had we treated these thugs as POWs, (much less granting them some of the same rights as citizens), we would have been making a mockery of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions impose requirements upon the combatants that POW status is contingent upon.
ReplyDeleteThese thugs did not meet those requirements.
Second, military tribunals do not lack oversight ... they answer to a chain-of-command that is subject to applicable laws, in particular the UCMJ, and not just to the whim of a President. And furthermore, if there is no oversight ... why has Gitmo been visited repeatedly by Congresscritters? Is the beach that good down there?
This Administration, in stark contrast to its predecessors made a prudent decision early on ... to not to give away our sources and methods to the enemy, by conferring upon them more respect than they were due.
I think that what y'all want is an open process that you can feel all-warm-and-fuzzy in your "progressive" heart about ... that no one can come back and accuse you of "injustice".
The last half of the last century was permeated with that kind of thinking ... and all it does is make the thugs' job easier, both by providing opportunities to lawyer up, "game the system" through technicalities, and walk-to-kill-again, and/or by blowing the cover off how we were able to (temporarily) put a stop to the killing, rendering source and/or method useless for future applications.
How about -- instead of using Gitmo as just another convenient club of distorted thinking to beat up a President you probably already didn't like for other reasons -- you propose how we can better assure what rights these thugs have (see below), without providing them opportunities to game the system, and without disclosing the means by which they are being successfully interdicted.
Instead of stating MoveOn talking points, deliver some CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, for a change. You think you have a better way of doing business, that doesn't give away the nation? Run it up the flagpole, and we'll see if it's worth saluting.
So far, I don't see anything worth that here.
Keep in mind that the only "process" these thugs have traditionally had a right to, is the process of direct cranial or cardiac ventilation through the application of a fully-metal-jacketed ballistic instrument.
That process is compliant with the requirements of the Geneva Conventions, BTW. Anything beyond that is a product of our respect for humanity in general ... and that cuts both ways.
Because they are human, we don't torture these thugs (despite their reluctance to reciprocate in kind).
Because we respect humanity, we do not hastily return them to the global battlefield ... but we do work to gather information from them that will save human lives.
The question is, is all the "process" and exposure y'all advocate, truly respectful of humanity -- beyond the thugs themselves, and beyond those who place such high value in warm-and-fuzzy "progressive" thoughts?
Well, d, if you had "actually take(n) 15 minutes or so to read" Scalia's dissent, which was the subject of the Think Progress post, you would have seen that Scalia actually noted that the DoD approved their release and had nothing to do with habeas rights being inadvisably granted:
ReplyDelete"These, mind you, were detainees whom the military had concluded were not enemy combatants. Their return to the kill illustrates the incredible difficulty of assessing who is and who is not an enemy combatant in a foreign theater of operations where the environment does not lend itself to rigorous evidence collection. Astoundingly, the Court today raises the bar..."
I'd also add that if the Seton Hall professors actually showed that "not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans", I don't see where it is in the report. Near as I can see, they just say that "the Department of Defense’s disclosures in this area provides no basis for confidence in its accuracy or completeness". As though the fact that the number was not 30, and two (possibly 3) cases of misidentification by the DoD means that "not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans". For example, ISN 930: Mohammed Ismail. In Appendix 1 the release states he "wasrecapturedfourmonthslaterinMay 2004,participatinginan attack on US forces near Kandahar." But there's no debunking in the Seton Hall report.
ReplyDeleteIn any case the report debunks itself. How they can say "not a single released Guantánamo detainee has ever attacked any Americans" and then later in the same bullet-point list say "The only indisputable detainee who took up arms against the United States or its allies was ISN 220" is beyond me.
"When there is lack of due process, guilty as well as innocent people are let go, as we have seen."
ReplyDeleteNot quite the case here.
The problem being of course that this is not a US criminal court. Witnesses are not available and the court is far removed from the scene of "the crime."
US Constitutional law was never meant to apply to enemy soldiers or combatants from foreign countries and to try to apply it, is a stretch.
Second, military tribunals do not lack oversight ... they answer to a chain-of-command that is subject to applicable laws, in particular the UCMJ
ReplyDeleteYou haven't been paying attention. The criminal Bush regime ignored the UCMJ despite being warned by military lawyers.
You think you have a better way of doing business, that doesn't give away the nation?
ReplyDeleteYes, follow American law.
Steve J.
ReplyDeleteObviously anyone who would refer to the Bush administration as criminal has no self control, no respect for the truth and no sense of decency or patriotism.
So please fuck off Steve J. and don't pretend to lecture us on the law, you leftist partisan moron.
Terry Gain
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSteve J ...
ReplyDeleteAmerican criminal law does not apply to enemy combatants. Never has.
Neither does the UCMJ apply to them. Those military lawyers are simply wrong on that ... but they did give people like you a convenient, but corked, bat to beat the Administration with.
However, the UCMJ applies to the conduct of military personnel dealing with these combatants, so my statement stands -- there is still a chain of oversight in place.
The UCMJ reinforces the physical implementation of oversight -- the chain-of-command -- while still functioning as a standard that the members of that chain can be measured against ... a check-and-balance that exists all the way up and down the chain.
The problem y'all seem to have, is in what that oversight authority will allow ... anything tougher than 3-halal-hots-and-a-cot, and y'all scream "torture".
Go back and read what TaSS just posted ... in war, you don't have the time, resources, and security to treat every battle as though you were on CSI: Wherever.
Never has been that way ... never will be. That is a fantasy of the Utopian Left.
And they know it.
This is just another effort to tie America down like Gulliver, in order to put her "in her place".
Terry Gain: The great thing about the American form of government is that it's checks and balances allow for the people to decide and for the three branches of the government to decide when our leaders have overstepped the bounds of law without being accussed of having "no self control, no respect for the truth and no sense of decency or patriotism." That's the point.
ReplyDeleteApparently lost in your ideological haze of Bush worship and partisan generality.
Anonymous enemies of America,
ReplyDeleteThe only breach of law overstepped was that of 5 activist Judges in puttting American citizens lifes in peril and under the foot of stateless, enemy combatants.
Terrorist that have no international agreements, treaties or follow the Geneva Convention. They legally have no claims to American Domestic Justice under our Constitution and never have as has been practiced up to this very moment in time.
This is a made-up decision by activist judges. 5 Judges that originally requested of Congress a legal law they could approve and uphold under the Constitution. Acting in good faith to their request our President, lawyers, the Congress together did as asked by SCOTUS and passed a law to meet their requirements.
These 5 judges then double-crossed our entire nation, not just the President or Congress. They made our nation's leaders jump thru hoops for no reason at all. They then stabbed everyone of us in the back. For that traitorous action, the deserve the contempt of an entire nation and thru out history.
But this kind of action is meaningless to you. The SCOTUS is out of control and has been for years. It was never given this type of power in the past, nor was it ever intended to be so powerful by our Founding Fathers.
This is not justice, this is a kangeroo court system of anarchy of which the far left, liberal fascist thrive in. Where peaceful people living orderly in life have no rights and the criminals run the system.
The far left's continued excuse of eliminating American's rights in favor of a foreign, stateless enemy is tantamount to treason.
In George Washington's day, most likely they would'be been treated as traitors to our country and hung. With little ceremony and much disgust at enabling our enemies.
Enemy Combatants were never guaranteed Constitutional Rights as American citizens. One look at history points this out.
Our Justice system is being carved up and torn apart by far left activist nutjobs.
Far left supporters of Obama like William Ayers will continue their activist tradition of trying to defeat America from within as we know it by continuing to push forward their radical agendas.
Ayers, himself a Communist, a Terrorist who tried to start a revolution by bombing America, still wants to start a revolution in our country. He is but one aspect of the far left.
Obama retains over 34 Law Firms as Financial Bundlers - thru backdoor processes - that are lobbyist. Obama is a liar when he says lobbyist do not support him. They do so thru the backdoor of billion dollar law firms. Law firms that work for globalist positions.
But this is the way the far left works. Truth is what you perceive, not what you do behind closed doors.
The left is now supporting a candidate that would see our nation become a socialist state. Where all people must answer to global authority and nanny gov at home. The activist judges are merely flexing their muscle now that their Marxist messiah is in line for the Democrat party.
In the name of liberal fascism, you would put all others rights under your thumbs. That is the liberal fascist way.
The truth is the 5 judges made history in destroying America's rights as a nation to defend itself while at war against terrorist that do not follow any laws in this world, except the law of chopping off heads.
In your arrogance you take yet one more swipe at our freedoms. This is not for the sake of any humanitarian cause. You don't give a damn about our Constitution or fairness.
It is specifically to halt any progress against the terrorist and against Bush whom you hate. This is where you get your strange joy in life. Promoted thru psuedo-humanitarian causes, yet you'll stand by while 45 million babes die and not spend a minute to defend one of them.
You are the same pathetic excuses of Americans that will force defeat in Iraq and allow 25 million Iraqi people go back under the thumb of tyranny, all to have your egos stroked. The tenured positions of far left, or Marxist Professors who have nothing to do anymore in life but continue to screw our country over. They do not stand for freedom or diversity. They stand for liberal fascism.
Snobbery, intellectualism, does not replace commonly shared values of protection of the citizens of this country. But by sodding off all Americans thru elitist positions, you will in fact lead eventually to your own demise. And like lemmings falling from a cliff wonder why you ever took the left at the fork in the road.
By allowing the terrorist into our nations court proceedings, you do not bring justice. You bring a mockery of America and this is exactly what you want in life.
Much like Rev Wright, "anonymous scums" say, "G__ D______ America"
just as long as 5 judges back your idiotic vision. Damn this nation, damn our military, damn our citizens rights for justice against an enemy that murdered 3000 Americans.
Truth is however at treacherous times, when enemies like you justify the findings of activist judges, We the People know who the enemies are that sit amongst us today. And if you think that this will not boil over in the future and snap off your pinheaded rulings, you're wrong.
If you think the ruling of 5 corrupt justices will stand. your not only arrogant, but naive at how times change in a nation and very rapidly when chaos is left to stream forward by people like you.
You pimp around blogs sloshing out self-righteous holier-than-thou humanist rhetoric, devoid of any real thought for the long term effects upon our nation.
Good for you chum-bait... good for you, score one for the far left.
Yet another reason to vote against Obama come November.
And yet another reason to begin the real revolution to eliminate far left tools that only continue to add more bureaucratic nightmares to all of our federal systems. And that cost us billions of wasted tax dollars, work and space.
Orwell speaks today here thru the far left, anonymous post, twisting truths, and rearranging words for their beneficial but unbenign cancerous tumors in our nation.
But the future will be much more different than you think. The body politic may be slow to react, but once they do discover the cancer, they will work quick to eliminate it yet again as has been done in the past.
Don't gloat for long. This is only the beginning of what is to come. And if you think you'll be on a winning side, think again, pause and think carefully for what you lust after in life, seeking you own petty grievances against reason. For what you lust after will be given to you in cups running over.
You reject truth for your cause at any means necessary. And any means necessary will one day come back to haunt you in ways not yet fathomed by your blind insistence of anyway in life but the American way.
Speaking of worship, Now... go back, bend over to your Che posters and read your Communist Manifesto. Get down on your knees to chance and mutations and suck down another whiff of Red Mao.
Your ideology is nothing new under the sun, just a repeat of failures long known to reap disaster upon and unsuspecting and blind people.
But we are not blind here. Nor are we without recourse to set this nation straight again if need be.
If so true to spirit of your beliefs, Cuba is a few miles from Florida. Make good of your wasted lives and go teach the Commies you so adore what Constitutional Rights are to the Cuban citizens they oppress daily in jails.
Teach it to the Murderous Thugs that actually need to learn Rule of Law. Teach it to your idiot bretheren like Michael Moore, that lied to our nation thru his documentaries about Cuban healthcare.
You stand for nothing but blind stupidity, rape, pillaging and oppression of millions around the world.
You'll rant all day against Bush, but not think one split second about Fidel, Raul, Chavez, and the rulers of Sudan, Iran, China.
In fact, I bet you suckers went to Michael Moore's Cuban Propaganda film, didn't you?
Pathetic losers.
Go worship at the altar of Red Hell Commie nations you so adore for dripping the blood of over 100 million.
When your done, then come back and share your experiences. Tell us how evil Bush is, how evil America is, and how evil small town America is for believing in a Creator, like your Master, Obama teaches you to think.
Driveling Twits. The only reason you have freedom is because better man have gone before you to secure it.
in war, you don't have the time, resources, and security to treat every battle as though you were on CSI: Wherever.
ReplyDeleteThe US has expended seven years and has spent an utterly impressive amount of resources to create one of the least transparent institutions -- unless you count Potemkin tours offered to supportive members of Congress and the press as "transparency" -- on the planet. To claim that expedience is a believable rationale for staying the course is, well, just fucking stupid.
++
ReplyDeleteHT : Pajamas Media
Physicians Report on Torture:
A Questionable Case
==
d ... another in a long line who believe that the prevention of hypothetical American misdemeanors is a far higher concern ...
ReplyDelete... than the direct, timely, resolute, and DECISIVE interdiction of the DEMONSTRATED INTENT of thugs who threaten the life and liberty of our civilization.
It is this viewpoint that is a prime example of being stuck on stupid ... for it advocates treating enemies committing acts of war, as common criminals worthy of Miranda warnings and the Exclusionary Rule.
Grow up, d ... it is the idea that acts of war can be addressed with the law-enforcement paradigm, along with the idea of tying this nation down like Gulliver in the name of "civil liberties" and "peace", that created the conditions that made the events of 11 Sept 2001 possible.
We won't get fooled again ...
the direct, timely, resolute, and DECISIVE interdiction of the DEMONSTRATED INTENT of thugs who threaten the life and liberty of our civilization
ReplyDeleteAgain, there's nothing "timely" about leaving alleged combatants locked up without charges for six years; and the problem of "demonstrated intent" is entirely the point here. Lacking procedures that carry legal as well as moral legitimacy, the US has no way to demonstrate "intent" much less affirm guilt or innocence. Unless you define "demonstrated intent" as "picked up by the Pakistani ISI" or "turned over to the Northern Alliance for cash," in which case your logic is impeccable!
d, when I talk about "timely", it is in regards to our response to terrorism ... which you, from what I see, would like to inhibit through tying our government down like Gulliver to "protect" us from said government.
ReplyDeleteThis is war ... and as I said, you can't execute that like CSI: Wherever.
To save the few who do need to be extracted from this system, you seek to throw out the baby with the bathwater ... as in, hobble our ability to detain these thugs, and gather intelligence to detain even more, so we don't see another 2,996 (or more) lose their lives in a day.
Read my lips: while our sense of humanity does apply (and protection of the innocent cuts both ways ... keeping the thugs at Gitmo protects the innocent, too), the American legal system doesn't apply to captured combatants in a war ... and misapplying that system to them places this nation at risk in multiple ways.
Figure out a better way to extract the harmless from the thugs, and I'll listen. This doesn't have to be all-or-nothing.
What is not being said is we have been there, done that and failed miserably.
ReplyDeleteDuring the first world trade center bombing, Clinton (and us of course) treated it as a police action. We arrested and convicted a couple, let others escape and never disrupted the actual networks or the planners or the money men or garnered other intelligence about future attacks or the men planning them.
But we did it by the book.
When Somalia offered us Bin Laden, we didn't have enough evidence against him to hold him, so we turned him down.
Boy, did we feel proud of ourselves!
We protected his constitutional rights and forfeited the lives of thousands.
++
ReplyDeleteHT : Talisman Gate
Ex-Guantanamo Prisoner Encourages Jihadists to Obey
al-Baghdadi, Before Embarking on His Suicide Mission
excerpt:
[The last part of the video showcases two Kuwaiti ‘martyrs’ and their operations: ‘Abu Omar al-Kuwaiti’ (identified elsewhere as Badr Mishel Gama’an al-Harbi) and ‘Abu Juheiman al-Kuwaiti’ (a.k.a. ‘Abu Hajir al-Muhajir,’ who is identified elsewhere as Abdullah Salih al-‘Ajmi, 29, a Kuwaiti jihadist who had been released from America’s Guantanamo Prison in 2005). Al-Harbi is clearly the domineering character (…he’s older, and claims to be a veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan) and it is likely that both al-Harbi and al-‘Ajmi left Kuwait together for Iraq.
Al-Harbi (…who kinda looks like Jack Black, and reveals a good singing voice) rebukes other Iraqi jihadist groups, such as the Islamic Army of Iraq that had turned against the Islamic State of Iraq, for allowing their honor to be desecrated through cooperation with the Americans, adding “we are not from Iraq, but we are Muslims, and we couldn’t sleep” over what was being allegedly done by the Americans on Iraqi soil. Al-Harbi says that it is useless for young Muslims to sit behind the keyboard and that they must flock to the Islamic State of Iraq and fight under its banner since “in it is the nucleus of the Islamic Caliphate on this earth.”]
leftist fools & their tools are going to get US all killed, gah!!
==
Hint:
ReplyDeleteA good way to determine who's an enemy combatant is when they're, like, combatting you in a war theatre. With guns and bombs and stuff.
There are zero regimes that treat enemy soldiers or insurgents like domestic criminals. None have been that stupid or suicidal ... so far.