I like to look for (and read through) relevant past threads when I have something to post -- believe it or not, very few topics here are brand new.Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiChrist
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I like to look for (and read through) relevant past threads when I have something to post -- believe it or not, very few topics here are brand new.Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiChrist
Quote:
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s adoption of a sweeping 6,300-page study detailing the CIA’s post-9/11 detention, rendition, torture and interrogation program. But the public has yet to see one word of it.
That’s because, even though it deals with some of the most important and contentious issues this country has grappled with in recent years, the entire report remains classified.
Here’s what we do know about the report:
First, it is almost certainly the most exhaustive, detailed investigation of the CIA torture program to date. The committee spent more than three years researching the program, including reviewing six million pages of documents.
Second, according to senators who have seen it, the report includes a damning indictment and repudiation of the longstanding claims that torture and ill treatment led to accurate and actionable intelligence.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the report “confirms for me what I have always believed and insisted to be true – that the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners is not only wrong in principle and a stain on our country’s conscience, but also an ineffective and unreliable means of gathering intelligence.”
A similar sentiment was expressed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who heads the intelligence committee. Feinstein said she believes the report “will settle the debate once and for all over whether our nation should ever employ coercive interrogation techniques such as those detailed in this report.”
Furthermore, the report contradicts the notion that such techniques led to the finding of Osama bin Laden’s courier and instead suggests that “the CIA detainee who provided the most accurate information about the courier provided the information prior to being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques,” according to Sens. Feinstein, McCain, and Carl Levin (D-Mich.).
obama not closing gitmo...
lol
yep. still not closing Gitmo.
Congress still blocking (not approving, not funding) Obama from closing Gitmo.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Reckoning
that the US Congress doesn't have the gumption either is well established by now.
Congress moved a tiny bit towards closing GITMO
Senate Eases Transfer Restrictions for Guantánamo Detainees
The Senate late last night passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2014, which will ease transfer restrictions for detainees currently held at the military detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, most of whom have been held without charge or trial for over a decade. The bill, which passed the House of Representatives last week, cleared the Senate by a vote of 84-15. The improved transfer provisions were sponsored by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and were strongly supported by the White House and the Defense Department.
“This is a big step forward for meeting the goal of closing Guantánamo and ending indefinite detention. For the first time ever, Congress is making it easier, rather than harder, for the Defense Department to close Guantánamo—and this win only happened because the White House and Defense Secretary worked hand in hand with the leadership of the congressional committees,” said Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “After years of a blame-game between Congress and the White House, both worked together to clear away obstacles to transferring out of Guantánamo the vast majority of detainees who have never been charged with a crime.”
The current population at Guantánamo stands at 158 detainees, approximately half of whom were cleared for transfer to their home or third-party countries by U.S. national security officials four years ago. Also, periodic review boards have recently started reviews of detainees who have not been charged with a crime and had not been cleared in the earlier reviews. While the legislation eases the transfer restrictions for sending detainees to countries abroad, it continues to prohibit the transfer of detainees to the United States for any reason, including for trial or medical emergencies.
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/12/20-1
the proof isn't in the pudding, but in the eating. without transfers this is an empty gesture.
Seems to me like whenever Obama really wants to do something, like say, extend the Obamacare deadline, he just does it.
But using his constitutional powers as commander in chief to move a handful of prisoners without congressional approval is BEYOND HIS CONTROL!!!!!!!!! OMG!
lol.
Obama doesn't want to close the place. If he did he'd do it.
No, Congress has to approve the funds, which have been denied.Quote:
Originally Posted by angrydude