Anarchoblogs

Posts tagged guantanamo bay

Prisoners in Washington state to join July 8 strike called by California prisoners 9:12 pm / 27 June 2013 by John Jacobsen, at Seattle Free Press

by Diana George, Free Us All Coalition Seattle, Washington (June 26, 2013) – Prisoners in the state of Washington will go on strike on July 8, 2013, refusing to work on that day. Some prisoners in Washington, including some in juvenile facilities, have vowed to join the nonviolent strike. The strike’s aim is two-fold: to show […]

Tagged with: government, guantanamo bay, Pelican Bay State Prison, prison strike, prison work stoppage, Washington State Reformatory at Monroe

Obama condemns indefinite detention (and himself) 3:51 pm / 30 April 2013 by Charles Davis, at false dichotomy by charles davis

US President Barack Obama today condemned the Guantanamo Bay prison camp run by US President Barack Obama, channeling the moral outrage last heard on the 2008 campaign trail.

"The idea that we would still detain forever a group of individuals that have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, that is contrary to our interests and it has to stop,” the president said during a press conference at the White House.

The rhetoric was bold and progressive. The reality? At least half of 166 never-tried, never-convicted prisoners that reside at Guantanamo Bay are engaged in a hunger strike that is making the president look bad. And so the man with a kill list who is ultimately responsible for them being there – and who's initial plan for closing the prison was simply moving it to Illinois – had to act as if he was deeply troubled by his poor human rights record, like an oil executive shedding tears for Mother Earth after a big spill.

What Obama is banking on is the fact that most people (including his base) aren't terribly detail oriented. The tale liberal Democrats tell themselves, and which the liberal media tells the rest of us, is that the fight over Guantanamo Bay is Obama and a bunch of ACLU lawyers on one side, the forces of fear-mongering, reactionary insanity on the other. The president, it is to be understood, is facing irrational hostility from the Chicken Littles of the right and would like to the do the right thing -- of course he would -- but, you know: Republicans.

That narrative, unfortunately, is false. The true story, obfuscated by the president's occasional condemnations of his own human rights record, is that Obama himself signed an executive order creating "a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay." Rather than repudiate the notion of “detain[ing] forever a group of individuals that have not been tried,” Obama (through a task force he commissioned) determined that 48 of the prison camp's detainees were “too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution.” The evidence against those men would not be admissible even by the weakened standards of a military court – that is, it was probably gained through torture – but rather than release them, as if they were persons endowed with certain inalienable rights, the Obama administration would prefer to lock them away until they die.

The president has even refused to release dozens of Yemeni citizens who have been cleared of all wrongdoing. Obama also signed (and his lawyers later defended in court) a bill that allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens. And let's not forget that kill list, which is based on the idea that it's alright for the president to act as judge, jury and executioner, so long as the unilateral justice is being delivered abroad. So when the president of the United States righteously condemns the idea of imprisoning someone forever without charge or trial, it's important to remember the truth about his record. It's important to remember he is lying.

Tagged with: Barack Obama, guantanamo bay

Twit story 8:10 am / 17 May 2012 by Charles Davis, at false dichotomy by charles davis

First I was like:

But then a federal judge appointed by Barack Obama ruled that under the NDAA, "it is certainly the case that if plaintiffs were detained as a result of their conduct, they could be detained until the cessation of hostilities - i.e., an indeterminate period of time," and I was like:

And because I wanted to regain my smug sense of superiority by courageously debating a straw person:

Because, probably, only two people have ever been indefinitely imprisoned by the United States. And they were, probably, some WHITE DOODS, right?

Tagged with: guantanamo bay, Lack of self-awareness watch, NDAA

‘A Decade in the Purgatory Called Guantanamo’ 9:53 am / 12 January 2012 by Charles Davis, at false dichotomy by charles davis

My report for Inter Press Service on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay.

Tagged with: guantanamo bay

Close Guantanamo, Abolish Authority 10:35 am / 11 January 2012 by Charles Davis, at false dichotomy by charles davis

Check out more pictures here from the rally marking the 10th Anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Tagged with: guantanamo bay

USA, – MILITARY DICTATORSHIP!! 8:21 am / 14 December 2011 by ann arky, at annarky's blog.

Some time today the America Congress will vote on a bill that will increase military control in that country. The legislation would allow the military to arrest and detain indefinitely, without charge, any American citizen it deemed to be a danger to the country. This dictatorship type legislation would circumvent the FBI and other civil law enforcement agencies. If this passes, it will be the final proof that there is no such thing in America, as even a sham of democracy. The state usually justifies such legislation in time of national emergency and war, of course, America is permanently at war, as are all Western capitalist "democracies" so perhaps that is their thinking. What we should be aware of is that if America introduces such legislation you can rest assured the rest of the Western countries will be looking at it with interest. We live under what at best can only be called the illusion of democracy. The brutal slashing of the living standards of most of the people in the developed world, against their wishes, is proof enough of that.

FROM HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST.

As early as today Congress will vote on the final version of this dangerous defense bill. It then goes to President Obama. This bill threatens both U.S. national security and fundamental American ideals. It would:

greatly expand the military's role in domestic counterterrorism, sidelining the FBI and local law enforcement;
authorize the indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects, including American citizens; and
effectively make Guantanamo a permanent prison.

President Obama promised to veto the bill if the final version contained these provisions. Tell President Obama on Twitter to protect our national security and our rights with a veto of the NDAA.

The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, and Obama's Counterterrorism Advisor have publicly expressed opposition to the bill, as have 16 former interrogators and counterterrorism professionals and 26 of the nation's most respected retired military leaders.

Retired four-star Marine Generals Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "this budget bill—which can be vetoed without cutting financing for our troops—is both misguided and unnecessary: the president already has the power and flexibility to effectively fight terrorism."

Please act quickly. Tell President @BarackObama @WhiteHouse: Protect #US National Security and #VetoNDAA!

ann arky's home.

Categories: Anarchism

Tagged with: anarchy, guantanamo bay, human rights, illusion of democracy, military state, US Congress, USA military dictatorship

Change You Can Believe In (Vol. III, No. 3, March 2011) 4:03 pm / 30 March 2011 by Rad Geek, at Rad Geek People's Daily

Apparently this is becoming an ongoing monthly feature.^[1] Here’s this month’s. You may recall back around fall 2010, a lot of voting Progressives were passing around links to a site called WhatTheFuckHasObamaDone.com. When I went to the website, some cosmic force decided that this is the first thing the random number generator would throw at me:

A screen from a website, reading: "What the fuck has Obama done so far? Issued executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay." A button below the text reads, "Big fucking deal. What else?"

And I closed the browser window, because, well, what else can I ask for after that? To be sure, Obama did sign an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo in January 2009. And with that piece of paper under his belt, Obama went on to keep the prison at Guantanamo open and running for the next year and a half while voting Progressives were marking that one up as a win. Now, in March 2011, after two years of running the prison at Guantanamo, the Hopester’s got this to serve up:

NEW YORK – President Obama today issued an executive order that permits ongoing indefinite detention of Guantánamo detainees while establishing a periodic administrative review process for them. The administration also announced it will lift the ban on bringing new military commissions charges against detainees that don’t already have ongoing cases in the substandard system.

The American Civil Liberties Union has long called for Guantánamo to be shut down and opposes the indefinite detention of prisoners there, some of whom have been imprisoned by the U.S. without charge or trial for nine years. The ACLU has also long called for an end to the illegitimate military commissions and for the government to prosecute terrorism suspects in the federal criminal courts.

—ACLU (7 March 2011), President Obama Issues Executive Order Institutionalizing Indefinite Detention

The more things Change….

(Link thanks to Cheryl Cline 2011-03-08.)

^[1] Here’s January 2011; here’s February 2011. ↩

Categories: Politics, Smash the State

Tagged with: American Civil Liberties Union, Barack Obama, Change We Can Believe In, Civil Liberties, Election 2010, Guantánamo, guantanamo bay, Prisons, Progressives, Terror

‘Inalienable Constitutional Rights in Court is Terrorism’ 8:00 am / 27 September 2010 by Little Alex, at Little Alex in Wonderland

A Gitmo detainee expressed support for U.S. civilian courts over military tribunals, so they must be evil.

How long before that’s the line derived from this New York Times article?:

Last year, Mr. Ghailani became the first detainee moved from Guantánamo into the civilian system, as President Obama declared his intention to try terrorism suspects in federal court whenever feasible, fueling a debate on whether the civilian or the military system was better for such cases.

The president’s effort has stalled with the controversy over moving detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed into civilian court. But Mr. Ghailani has now entered the discussion, expressing strong opinions on the merits of each system and his preference for the rules of civilian justice, as part of 16 hours of discussion with a psychiatrist who evaluated him last spring and quoted him extensively in a report.

“When I was at Gitmo, they were able to use hearsay evidence,” Mr. Ghailani told the doctor. “Here, they have constitutional rights.”

In addition to his own experiences, Mr. Ghailani freely credits another, surprising source for his more than working knowledge of how the legal system operates—numerous John Grisham novels he has read and one that he has seen as a movie: A Time to Kill.

John Grisham’s like the Anwar al-Awlaki of Gitmo, I guess.

Wait, does that mean the oft-quoted-by-teabaggers Thomas Jefferson is like Osama bin Laden?

Of course, the same people who imply that supporting the supremacy of the Constitution over authoritative decrees of government agents is somehow anti-American, terrorism, evil, socialist, etc., are the same who firmly believe doctors should have gubment-guns in their face to force them from not providing a woman with the service of safely aborting her pregnancy. How Taliban of the conservadroolers…

I guess it’s literally “Don’t Tread on Me”, as in “Don’t Tread on Me, Only Them, Whoever I Declare ‘Them’ To Be, You Know, Just Because.”