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Safe to Release????

leanin' H

Well-known member
Safe To Release?
A new Pentagon report may complicate Obama's plans for Gitmo.

By Michael Isikoff | NEWSWEEK
The Pentagon is preparing to declassify portions of a secret report on Guantanamo detainees that could further complicate President Obama's plans to shut down the detention facility.

The report, which could be released within the next few days, will provide fresh details about 62 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo and are believed by U.S. intelligence officials to have returned to terrorist activities, according to two Pentagon officials who asked not to be identified talking about a document that is not yet public. One such example, involving a Saudi detainee named Said Ali Al-Shihri, who was released in 2007, received widespread attention Friday when Pentagon officials publicly confirmed that he has recently reemerged as a deputy commander of Al Qaeda in Yemen. Al-Shihri, once known publicly only as Guantanamo detainee No. 372, is suspected of involvement in a thwarted attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen last September.

The decision to release additional case studies from the report is in effect a warning shot to the new president from officials at the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies who are skeptical about some of his plans. Some Pentagon officials, including ones sympathetic to Obama's goals, note the political outcry would be deafening should another example like Al-Shihri become public six months from now—and it turns out be a Guantanamo detainee released under Obama's watch rather than by the Bush administration. "The last thing Obama wants is for one of these guys [at Guantanamo] to get released and return to killing Americans," said one senior Defense Department official who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivities.
Some counter-terrorism experts have raised questions about the significance of the Pentagon's figures, noting that the number of so-called "recidivist" detainees represents only a small portion, about 12 percent, of the approximately 520 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo since the detention facility was opened in January 2002. This compares with recidivism rates of as high as 67 percent in state prisons in the United States, according to Justice Department figures. There have also been concerns that Bush administration holdovers were deliberately playing up the cases in recent weeks in an effort to undercut Obama. One former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official noted to NEWSWEEK that the Pentagon waited until the day after Obama signed his executive order mandating the closure of Guantanamo to confirm Al-Shihri's renewed Al Qaeda ties.

Still, a few top Obama administration officials have privately acknowledged that the problem of still dangerous detainees at Guantanamo is more worrisome than some of president's campaign statements might suggest. In May 2008, when the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) last prepared a report on released Gitmo detainees who had returned to terrorist activities, it counted the number of recidivists at 37. Among the examples: Mohammed Ismail, one of the "juveniles" at Guantanamo who, upon his release in 2004, had praised his treatment by Americans, saying at a press conference, "They gave me a good time at Cuba." He was recaptured four months later, participating in an attack on U.S. forces near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

As Pentagon press secretary Geoffrey Morrell disclosed two weeks ago, by mid-January of this year, 24 new detainees had been added to the DIA recidivist tally. The recent confirmation of Al Shihri bumped the overall number to 62, 18 of whom are alleged to have directly participated in terror attacks.
 

leanin' H

Well-known member
Hmmmm? Sounds like this amazing plan to give constitutional rights to FREAKING TERRORISTS or turn them loose is a grand plan!!! With some folks it's pretty hard to sing kumbya and hold hands with em'! And yet That is exactly what President Obama campaigned on and has signed an executive order to do? Are we safer with him or McCain? :???: But it's too late for common sense now! :wink: :roll:
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
But it's too late for common sense now!

Im not so sure leanin, Alice says she knows all the answers! She will just not vote for him again, if he makes any blunders that kill 1000's of Americans.

I can see her now, with her head in the sand, not listening to others worries, and wrapped in a warm snuggly blanket of HOPE
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
As the Rand Study (that is the militaries #1 advisor) says- the terrorists need to be treated as criminals- TRIED as such- sentenced- and then locked away....As long as they are treated as "combatants" in a "war" we are helping in their recruitment of new terrorists...
That is one of the reasons the military and new Administration has dropped the "War on Terrorism" phraseology...

Rand Study: 'War on Terror' Not Working

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 11:59 AM

WASHINGTON — The United States should shift strategy against Al-Qaeda from the current heavy reliance on military force to more effective use of police and intelligence work, a study released Tuesday concluded.

The study by the RAND Corporation, a think tank that often does work for the US military, also urged the United States to drop the "war on terror" label.

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," said Seth Jones, lead author of the study.

The US military has pressed in recent weeks for more troops to combat an intensifying Islamic insurgency in Afghanistan, but the RAND study recommends only "a light military footprint or none at all."

The study examined how terrorist groups since 1968 have ended, and found that only seven percent were defeated militarily.

Most were neutralized either through political settlements (43 percent), or through the use of police and intelligence forces (40 percent) to disrupt and capture or kill leaders.

"Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory," the report said.

"This has significant implications for dealing with Al-Qaeda and suggests fundamentally rethinking post-September 11 counterterrorism strategy," it said.

It argued that a US strategy centered primarily on the use of military force has not worked, pointing to al-Qaeda's resurgence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border nearly seven years after the September 11 attacks.

Policing and intelligence "should be the backbone of US efforts," it said. Police and intelligence agencies were better suited for penetrating terrorist groups and tracking down terrorist leaders, it said.

"Second, military force, though not necessarily US soldiers, may be a necessary instrument when al-Qaeda is involved in an insurgency," it said.

"Local military forces frequently have more legitimacy to operate than the United States has, and they have a better understanding of the operating environment, even if they need to develop the capacity to deal with insurgent groups over the long run," it said.

While the US military can play a critical role in building up the capacity of local forces, it should "generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, since its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment," the study said.

— AFP
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/war_on_terror/2008/07/30/117517.html
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
That is one of the reasons the military and new Administration has dropped the "War on Terrorism" phraseology...

They've dropped the phrase, cause RAND, is one of Obama closes allies, he has also told him to start another war, to help out with the financial crisis.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
hypocritexposer said:
That is one of the reasons the military and new Administration has dropped the "War on Terrorism" phraseology...

They've dropped the phrase, cause RAND, is one of Obama closes allies, he has also told him to start another war, to help out with the financial crisis.

The military dropped it before Obama took office .... :roll:

Remember- this study was done for the military- at the militaries request- and contracted and released during Bush's term in office....I doubt Obama had much to say about it...

The Rand group has been doing government research and analysis since it was founded in the 1940's right after WWII....

The organization's governance structure includes a board of trustees. Current members of the board include: Francis Fukuyama, Timothy Geithner, John W. Handy, Rita Hauser, Carlos Slim Helu, Karen House, Jen-Hsun Huang, Paul Kaminski, John M. Keane, Lydia H. Kennard, Ann Korologos, Philip Lader, Peter Lowy, Charles N. Martin, Jr., Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, Ronald Olson, Paul O'Neill, Michael Powell, Donald Rice, James Rohr, James Rothenberg, Donald Tang, James Thomson, and Robert C. Wright.

Trustees Emeriti include: Harold Brown, Frank C. Carlucci

Former members of the board include: Walter Mondale, Condoleezza Rice, Newton Minow, Brent Scowcroft, Amy Pascal, John Reed, Charles Townes, Caryl Haskins, Walter Wriston, Frank Stanton, Carl Bildt, Donald Rumsfeld, Harold Brown, Robert Curvin, Pedro Greer, Arthur Levitt, Lloyd Morrisett, Lovida Coleman, Ratan Tata, Marta Tienda and Jerry Speyer.

Over the last 60 years, more than 30 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with the RAND Corporation at some point in their careers.[1]

Henry H. Arnold — General, United States Air Force — RAND founder
Kenneth Arrow — economist, Nobel Laureate, developed the impossibility theorem in social choice theory
Bruno Augenstein — V.P., physicist, mathematician and space scientist
J. Paul Austin — Chairman of the Board, 1972-1981
Paul Baran — one of the developers of packet switching which was used in Arpanet and later networks like the Internet
Barry Boehm — software economics expert, inventor of COCOMO
Harold L. Brode — physicist, leading nuclear weapons effects expert
Bernard Brodie — Military strategist and nuclear architect
Amir Farshad Ebrahimi — PhD, Researcher and Policy analyst
Arthur C. Brooks — PhD Graduated from Pardee RAND Graduate School
David S. C. Chu — Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, 2001–present
Samuel Cohen — inventor of the neutron bomb in 1958
Franklin R. Collbohm — Aviation Engineer, Douglas Aircraft Company — RAND founder and former director and trustee
George Dantzig — mathematician, creator of the simplex algorithm for linear programming
Linda Darling-Hammond — co-director, School Redesign Network
James F. Digby — American Military Strategist, author of first treatise on precision guided munitions 1949 - 2007
Stephen H Dole — Author of the pivotal work "Habitable Planets for man." [6]
Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. — President, Douglas Aircraft Company — RAND founder
Daniel Ellsberg — leaker of the Pentagon Papers
Francis Fukuyama — academic and author of The End of History and the Last Man
H. Rowen Gaither, Jr. — Chairman of the Board, 1949-1959; 1960-1961
David Galula, French officer and scholar
James J. Gillogly — cryptographer and computer scientist
Cecil Hastings — programmer, wrote software engineering classic, Approximations for Digital Computers (Princeton 1955)
William E. Hoehn — Senior Policy Advisor to Senator Sam Nunn, Visiting Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the Coca-Cola Foundation Eminent Practitioner in Residence at Georgia Institute of Technology
Brian Michael Jenkins — terrorism expert, Senior Advisor to the President of the RAND Corporation, and author of Unconquerable Nation
Herman Kahn — theorist on nuclear war and one of the founders of scenario planning
Zalmay Khalilzad — U.S. Ambassador to United Nations
Henry Kissinger— US Secretary of State (1973-1977); National Security Advisor (1969-1975); Nobel Peace Prize Winner (1973)
Ann McLaughlin Korologos — Chairman of the Board, April 2004- present
Lewis "Scooter" Libby — Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff
Ray Mabus — Former ambassador, governor
Harry Markowitz — economist, developed the Capital asset pricing model that is still widely used in modern finance
Andrew W. Marshall — military strategist, director of the US DoD Office of Net Assessment
Margaret Mead — U.S. anthropologist
Douglas Merrill — Former Google CIO & President of EMI's digital music division
Newton N. Minow — Chairman of the Board, 1970-1972
Lloyd N. Morrisett — Chairman of the Board, 1986-1995
John Forbes Nash, Jr. — Nobel prize-winning mathematician
John von Neumann — mathematician, pioneer of the modern digital computer
Allen Newell — artificial intelligence
Paul O'Neill — Chairman of the Board, 1997-2000
Ron Olson — Chairman of the Board, 2001-2004
Edmund Phelps — winner of 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics
W.V. Quine — philosopher
Arthur E. Raymond — Chief Engineer, Douglas Aircraft Company — RAND founder
Condoleezza Rice — former trustee 1991–1997 and current Secretary of State for the United States (as of May 2006), former intern
Michael D. Rich — RAND Executive Vice President, 1993–present
Leo Rosten — academic and humorist
Donald Rumsfeld — Chairman of Board from 1981–1986; 1995-1996 and Secretary of Defense for the United States from 1975 to 1977 and 2001 to 2006.
Robert F. Salter — advocate of the vactrain maglev train concept
Paul Samuelson — economist, Nobel Laureate
Thomas C. Schelling — economist, winner of 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics
James Schlesinger — former Secretary of Defense and former Secretary of Energy
Lloyd Shapley — mathematician and game theorist
David A. Shephard — Chairman of the Board, 1967-1970
Herbert Simon — Nobel prize-winning economist
Frank Stanton — Chairman of the Board, 1961-1967
James Steinberg — Deputy National Security Advisor to Bill Clinton
Peter Szanton — the policy analyst and former President of New York Rand
Katsuaki L. Terasawa — economist
James Thomson — RAND CEO, 1989–present
William H. Webster — Chairman of the Board, 1959-1960
Albert Wohlstetter — Mathematician and Cold-War Strategist
Roberta Wohlstetter — Policy analyst and military historian
Ratan Tata — Chairman of Tata Sons
 

Steve

Well-known member
noting that the number of so-called "recidivist" detainees represents only a small portion, about 12 percent, of the approximately 520 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo since the detention facility was opened in January 2002. This compares with recidivism rates of as high as 67 percent in state prisons in the United States, according to Justice Department figures.

by not releaseing the worst of the bunch keeps the recidivist rate of the terrorists low.. seems like a good and fair policy..

if the US prisons could keep those who they felt would re-offend they could lower thier recidivist rate as well. but they can't because the courts will not allow them to lock up the bad guys and throw away the keys. which is scary enough!

but the real scary part is when the courts start ordering the release of the terrorists once the prisoners get the full benifit of the US constitutional protections. with the end result being a higher recidivist rate.

When it comes to terrorists what is an acceptable recividist rate?
 

VanC

Well-known member
As I see it, there are two simple solutions:

Release all terrorists now in captivity. They will no doubt feel so grateful that they will no longer have the desire to kill Americans. Not only that, they will go back to where they came from and tell their former cohorts that they are wrong to want to kill Americans. The recruitment of terrorists will trickle down to nothing and, voila!, no more War on Terror. This, of course, will only work with Democrats in charge. Put a Republican in office and the killing will continue, since everyone knows that Republicans live to kill Muslims, especially women and children.

Another option is to try all present detainees in the U.S. legal system. Those convicted will then be executed or given life sentences. No wait, we can't execute them! Killing is wrong. Well, except for unborn babies who might be unwanted and might turn out to be a drain on society. But I digress.
Ok, so we give them life sentences, maybe even with the possiibility of parole. No doubt our enemies everywhere will be so overwhelmed by how fairly these people were treated that, again, they will no longer have the urge to kill Americans. The ones that aren't convicted will be given first class passage back to wherever they came from, with reparations payments, of course. They will in turn tell all their fellow former America-haters how fairly they were treated and how wrong it is to want to kill Americans. Millions, who at one time considered us the Great Satan, will flock to our country and seek citizenship. They will be unable to resist their new found urge to eat Big Macs, watch American Idol, and vote for Democrats, without whom none of this would have been possible. We all, of course, live happily ever after.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
VanC said:
As I see it, there are two simple solutions:

Release all terrorists now in captivity. They will no doubt feel so grateful that they will no longer have the desire to kill Americans. Not only that, they will go back to where they came from and tell their former cohorts that they are wrong to want to kill Americans. The recruitment of terrorists will trickle down to nothing and, voila!, no more War on Terror. This, of course, will only work with Democrats in charge. Put a Republican in office and the killing will continue, since everyone knows that Republicans live to kill Muslims, especially women and children.

Another option is to try all present detainees in the U.S. legal system. Those convicted will then be executed or given life sentences. No wait, we can't execute them! Killing is wrong. Well, except for unborn babies who might be unwanted and might turn out to be a drain on society. But I digress.
Ok, so we give them life sentences, maybe even with the possiibility of parole. No doubt our enemies everywhere will be so overwhelmed by how fairly these people were treated that, again, they will no longer have the urge to kill Americans. The ones that aren't convicted will be given first class passage back to wherever they came from, with reparations payments, of course. They will in turn tell all their fellow former America-haters how fairly they were treated and how wrong it is to want to kill Americans. Millions, who at one time considered us the Great Satan, will flock to our country and seek citizenship. They will be unable to resist their new found urge to eat Big Macs, watch American Idol, and vote for Democrats, without whom none of this would have been possible. We all, of course, live happily ever after.

:lol: :lol: You should be a columnist, Van. You've got a lot of this pretty well figured out.
 
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