Larry Wilkerson: 90% of Gitmo detainees left are innocent

[Winehole23]

90% of Gitmo prisoners innocent:-Lawrence B. Wilkerson deputy to Colin Powell



Lifelong Republican, and chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, stepped forward in ablog post on Tuesday to say not only that there are still innocent people being held at the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, not only that we’ve been holding innocent people there for more than six years, but that the U.S. government has known all along that they pose no risk to national security.



Wilkerson told the Associated Press that he was informed by briefings, and military commanders, that big brass knew those captured had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, or the so-called war on terror, but held them anyway as information-gathering tools for a so-called “mosaic ” of intelligence.
Moreover, Powell’s former chief of staff insists that the process by which these “enemy combatants” were so designated itself was shabby and incompetent, and that those sent to Gitmo weren’t properly “vetted” before they were hauled off to Cuba. Pakistanis, Wilkerson added, often acted as bounty hunters, securing as much as $5,000 a head.



While human rights groups, and others, have speculated for years about the dearth of bona fide terrorists at Gitmo, the information Wilkerson provided this week was classified until now.



The former chief of staff to Colin Powell acknowledges, too, that both Rumsfeld and Cheney knew innocent men were being detained as enemy combatants, without charges, were held indefinitely, and they did nothing about it as “to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership” which only goes to show that while there might be innocent people left at Gitmo, there aren’t many left in our nation’s capital.
According to Wilkerson, fewer than 10% of the 240, or 24 men, who remain at the detention camp, in Cuba, can be considered a security risk, yet a former vice president, Cheney, would aim to convince us that releasing even a single detainee would increase our terror threat. Didn’t the fact that half of the executive branch went missing for eight years following 9/11 pose a terror risk to this republic? We are only starting to learn the kind of mischief Cheney was hiding.



Apparently, Mr. Cheney thinks he can still govern by remote control.



Wilkerson has decided to come forward now, though he hasn’t been working for the government since 2005, because a new administration is in the process of deciding what to do with those who remain at Gitmo and, more importantly, because he is deeply concerned about Cheney’s new role as pundit-in-chief, his public censure of a new president, and the suggestion that Obama’s policies pose a risk to the safety of this nation.



“To have a former vice president fear-mongering like this is really, really dangerous,” contends this former helicopter pilot who flew combat missions in Vietnam, and spent many years in public service. Lawrence B. Wilkerson deserves a congressional medal of honor for stepping forward with this disclosure, and those who have profaned the word patriot, and soiled the flag they’ve been hiding behind for nearly a decade deserve to share Bernie Madoff’s cell.

[George Gervin's Afro]

If this is true it's disgusting. If true, this validates all liberal arguments when dealing with military tribunals and holding people indefinitely. Of course these now angry folks probably have a beef with the US. Now they may want to strike at those who stole 5, 6 yrs of their lives from them.

If they do come back and strick us..

People like jack , who is as intellectually dishonest as they come, will then claim that conservatives were right when they said they shouldn't have been released because they were terrorists. All the while knowing full well why they came back to strike us....

you conservatives are pieces of .

I apologize to everywhere for comparing you to conservtaives.

[boutons_deux]

the Repug/neo-c*nt/dubya/ head/rummy stain on America has been deep and wide and will be hard to remove. Magik Negro is making a lot a bad moves. BoniVore is pleased.

[DarrinS]

Then why won't Obama shut it down?

[angrydude]

Why doesn't Obama shut it down? He's got complete control of 2 branches of government.

[clambake]

Why doesn't Obama shut it down? He's got complete control of 2 branches of government.

please expand on this.

[angrydude]

Well, since its so obvious that Getmo is evil and torturing prisoners, and Republicans are the only ones who are evil enough to think it might be necessary, I'd say that with a nearly fillibuster proof democratic majority in Congress and control of the presidency, its a pretty slam dunk case, don't you?

Or could the situation not be as black and white as so many people pretend it is?

[Winehole23]

Continuity is the motif. The Jack Goldsmith article has the *centrist* take on this.

[baseline bum]

So you're saying 10% are guilty...

[Winehole23]

So you're saying 10% are guilty...

Put it this way: Obama plans to charge twenty of them. Out of 240 or so detainees, they think they have 20 or so winnable cases.

[baseline bum]

I like those odds. Waterboarding for all!

[Winehole23]

Only for suspects, dude.

[Wild Cobra]

Sorry WH, I don't believe his second hand information.

Can you say "hearsay?"

[Winehole23]

Sorry WH, I don't believe his second hand information.

So you don't believe it. So noted.

[Winehole23]

What do you believe, BTW? Bush's bona fides?

[jack sommerset]

Let the innocents go and keep the rest there. We can rent out space to other countries that have terrorsit on there lands and put the guilty ones there that pop up all the time. To simply close down Gitmo is gay.

[Winehole23]

To simply close down Gitmo is gay.

Congress seems to think so too.

[Wild Cobra]

What do you believe, BTW? Bush's bona fides?

I know better than to believe public statement involved around sensitive programs. I also have a hard time believing there are that many innocent people there. If they were innocent, and there was fear of retaliation in their home country, that's the type of foreigner the US takes in, and gives government jobs to.

[jack sommerset]

congress seems to think so too.

90-6

[Winehole23]

OP was 2009, so the headline may no longer be accurate. hard to tell, since so few cases have actually been tried.

General John F. Kelly's testimony before the Senate didn't just focus on drug trafficking. The head of the U.S. Southern Command talked about Guantanamo Bay too. Per usual, he praised the military personnel there, downplayed the hunger strike undertaken by inmates, and avowed that they are treated humanely.


But he also pointed out that he would be unable to provide them with adequate medical care in certain emergencies. "Although Naval Station Guantanamo and detainee hospitals are capable of providing adequate care for most detainee conditions, we lack certain specialty medical capabilities necessary to treat potentially complex emergencies and various chronic diseases," he stated. "In the event a detainee is in need of emergency medical treatment that exceeds on-island capacity, I cannot evacuate him to the United States, as I would a service member."


General Kelly also declared that certain buildings at Gitmo pose a safety risk to U.S. troops and detainees:

The expeditionary infrastructure put in place was intended to betemporary, and numerous facilities are showing signs of deterioration .... Most urgently, some facilities are critical to ensuring the safety and welfare of our troops stationed at Joint Task Force Guantanamo and for the continued humane treatment and health of the detainees. For example, the mess hall—a temporary structure built in the 1990s to support mass migration operations—is at significant risk of structural failure and is corroding after eleven years of continuous use, with holes in the roof and structural support beams.


This facility must provide food services to all detainees and over 2,000 assigned personnel on a daily basis. As another example, the High Value Detention Facility is increasingly unsustainable due to drainage and foundation issues.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...encies/284470/

[Winehole23]

Kelly's warning about medical emergencies is additionally problematic. The current plan is still to hold these men into their dotage. Their medical issues will get more complex with every year that they age. Yet if a medical emergency threatens their lives, they won't be flown to the U.S. for treatment, even if it would save them from death. Why? We haven't just convinced ourselves, sans evidence, that the people at Gitmo are all moral monsters guilty of terrorism; we also think of them as if they're Magneto, ready to bust free of any constraint if permitted off the island.


In his own, understated way, a military commander is telling Congress that he needs more resources to safely incarcerate these prisoners and to see to their medical needs.


But no one is listening.

same

[Winehole23]

more on force feeding of detainees: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...-obama/284369/

[boutons_deux]

The American Empire is rotten to core, to the corps. Military running GITMO are no better than Nazis running their camps.

[boutons_deux]

Uruguay to Accept Five Prisoners From Guantanamo


Yesterday, President José Mujica of Uruguay announced to Uruguayan press that he would accept a request from President Obama to receive five inmates from Guantánamo Bay.

“It’s a human rights issue,” said President Mujica. “There are 120 guys who have been prisoners 13 years that haven’t seen a judge, prosecutor, anybody. The president of the U.S. wants to get rid of this problem.” The weekly Uruguayan magazine Busqueda reported that under the conditions of the agreement, the former prisoners would have to remain within the South American country for two years.

US ambassador to Uruguay Julissa Reynoso denied to Montevideo's "El Espectador" radio show that the deal was done, stating, "That's not correct. We're consulting and in conversation, but there is no deal to make a process like this in Uruguay." She described the five detainees as “non dangerous for the Uruguayan society."

Since Obama took office, the United States has resettled 43 detainees in 17 countries and released 38 to their homelands. Still, 154 remain imprisoned at the facility.

http://www.alternet.org/uruguay-acce...ter973213&t=14

[Winehole23]

try em in criminal court. it's way cheaper and faster. the system we already have works; Gitmo doesn't.

The swift trial and conviction on Wednesday of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, in New York bolsters the argument that militants like him should be tried on terrorism charges in civilian courts instead of as combatants in military commissions.

The three-week trial was held in a federal courthouse only a few blocks from where the World Trade Center stood, site of the 9/11 terrorist attack where more than 2,600 people died. Jurors needed just six hours over a two-day period to return a guilty verdict against Abu Ghaith on a charge of conspiring to kill Americans for his role as the terror group’s spokesman.


The man whom U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of New York called bin Laden’s “propaganda minister” could face life in prison when he is sentenced in September. He is the highest ranking al-Qaida figure to face trial on U.S. soil since the attacks.
Contrast this swift delivery of justice — an open trial held in a public courtroom, only one year after he was detained by U.S. authorities — with the inconclusive process involving terror detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/2...#storylink=cpy

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/2...t-justice.html