In the beginning I thought that GITMO was some sort of "sorting facility" where prisoners would be held until it was cleared up if they could be put on trial in front of an US court or if they would be returned to their country of origin. Then came all those reports about torture.
Morals aside, is it really effective to torture people for such a long time? I mean wouldn't you expect the subject to become so disoriented, fearful, hateful and eventually delusional and with every passing week,month and year the torturer would be less likely to get any useful or relevant information out of them?
Isn't it obvious that the continued existence of the camp is a perfect tool to spread anti-US sentiment and to recruit more terrorists?
It's too expensive to close the camp down. Hmmm, that's a bit of a headscratcher of an argument, do they really say that? I mean being broke is a terrible thing but if it's used as an excuse to not close down a concentration camp it sounds a bit weird.
You don't know what to do with the inmates?
Those against who, even after years of torture, you haven't enough material against to put them in front of a US court of law, I guess those people should be considered innocent, no? Isn't that a big thing in the US legal system that people are considered innocent until it can be proven otherwise? OK, GITMO is on Cuba and not in the US, that's the whole point of it, I forgot about that for a second. That was so smart... maybe too smart for your own good, maybe you outwitted yourself.
The countries where the inmates came from don't want them back? Then you pay them to take them back. Happens all the time and has happened already before with other GITMO inmates. Pay them to put them into one of their prisons. Build them a prison.
So if I understand correctly, your nobel peace price decorated president failed to hold his clear promise to close GITMO because Congress is not playing ball? There are not enough house representatives of either party to spare the president from looking like a liar in front of the rest of the world? Why? Out of spite, because they just hate Obama? Or are they really so afraid, afraid of the dangerous evildoers that are being held out on that island?
There are 166 detainees in GITMO right now if I looked up the right number. Maybe some of those really are very dangerous men but are they really so dangerous, so smart and so fierce that a country as big as the US with such a huge, highly equipped and well trained army has to fear such a small number of individuals that on a global scale is miniscule, almost non-existent?
I thought you guys had black ops squads who would fly in with some futuristic looking hi-tec helicopter in whisper mode, take out evil masterminds and disappear under the cover of darkness but no, you have some low rent prison guard stick a tube down their nose instead?
Leaving morals completely out of the equation, GITMO is a terrible, embarrassing look.
From a moral or ethical standpoint... well, let's just say it gives you a bit of the air of some paranoid 3rd world dictatorship.
So now we have Ramadan approaching and this force feeding stuff is making headlines. Even though it's been practiced since 2005? What are they going to do? Only force feed after sunset? What did they do during last year's Ramadan? What are they going to do next year?
Yeah, I have to say i've never agreed so completely with Frank. Except about that pork we had at R******'s that time, which I think we both agreed was excellent.
It's too expensive to close the camp down. Hmmm, that's a bit of a headscratcher of an argument, do they really say that? I mean being broke is a terrible thing but if it's used as an excuse to not close down a concentration camp it sounds a bit weird.
Great post, Frank.
I don't think this is an argument anyone is making, though. In fact, it's too expensive to keep open, IMO. It costs almost $1m a year per detainee. That's around $150m per year for all the detainees.
As to paying the other countries to take the detainees, Congress would have to authorize that, and Congress isn't doing much of anything right now except passing bills to repeal Obamacare.
Guantanamo Detainee Begs to Be Charged as Legal Limbo Worsens
After 11 years of detention at Guantanamo Bay, suspected terrorist Sufiyan Barhoumi has decided to plead guilty to war crimes, throw himself on the mercy of the court and serve whatever sentence a U.S. military commission deems just.
There's just one problem: The Pentagon refuses to charge him.
The standoff illustrates the legal quagmire surrounding the offshore prison???even as President Barack Obama renews his long-stymied quest to close it.
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Guantanamo Frowned on John Grisham Books
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A pair of recent appellate court decisions has upended nearly half the cases prosecutors planned to try before military commissions at Guantanamo, including Mr. Barhoumi's. Federal judges in Washington reversed the military commissions' convictions of detainees Salim Hamdan and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul because the charges prosecutors filed???conspiracy and material support for terrorism???weren't war crimes. Those two charges were the only ones prosecutors believed they could prove against more than a dozen detainees, including Mr. Barhoumi. While the Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to reconsider that decision, last month the chief military prosecutor, Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, said he now expected to try perhaps 20 detainees of the 166 held at the prison, down from 36.
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Soldiers walk past detainees' cells during early morning prayers in April
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Guantanamo prosecutors routinely filed conspiracy and material support charges because they are easier to prove than tying suspects to a particular attack. Mr. Barhoumi was captured in a raid that also netted Abu Zubaydah, a militant commander allegedly allied with Osama bin Laden.
"For years, your ticket out of Guantanamo was being found guilty," says Capt. Justin Swick, a lawyer appointed to represent Mr. Barhoumi. He noted that Mr. Hamdan, the former driver for bin Laden, was repatriated to Yemen within six months of his 2008 material support conviction. "Now there's nothing to be found guilty of," Capt. Swick says.
Elsewhere in the American justice system, suspects go free unless prosecutors file charges. In Guantanamo, the opposite is true: Detainees who aren't charged and are presumed innocent under the Military Commissions Act of specific war crimes nevertheless face indefinite detention because the Pentagon has classified them as enemy combatants.
Prosecutors won't file charges unless Mr. Barhoumi first testifies against other detainees, his lawyers say. "They are going to exploit their ability to hold him under indefinite detention and try and force him into cooperation," said another defense lawyer, Lt. Col. Richard Reiter. "I would classify it as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion." Defense lawyers say they believe prosecutors are desperate for live courtroom testimony against Mr. Zubaydah???something considered far more credible than hearsay statements taken by interrogators and other evidence that could be undermined by controversial CIA practices.
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Sufiyan Barhoumi in 2009 at Guantanamo Bay.
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Sufiyan Barhoumi as a child.
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The prosecution office says it doesn't comment on specific cases, but officials bristled at the notion it is abusing its power. Gen. Martins "takes his prosecutorial responsibilities very seriously, said spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale. "He and his team are absolutely not abusing any discretion."
In a sense, Mr. Barhoumi is caught between two legal frameworks. To convict Mr. Barhoumi of a war crime, the Pentagon must prove to a military commission his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt???the same high standard that applies in federal court. As an enemy combatant, however, the government need only show by a preponderance of evidence???in other words, with 51% certainty???that Mr. Barhoumi belonged to a force associated with the Taliban or al Qaeda.
Federal courts have found the government's evidence meets that test. In 2009, a federal judge, later upheld by an appeals court, concluded that Mr. Barhoumi "became a fighter against U.S. forces" and "was properly detained."
In May, Mr. Obama reiterated his desire to close Guantanamo, saying the facility "should never have been opened." He announced new steps to speed the transfer of those who have been cleared for release???about half of the 166 prisoners at Guantanamo.
Others say there is good reason to continue operations at the offshore prison because of prisoners like Mr. Barhoumi. "There are [at least] 48 of those detainees the White House itself has said are too dangerous to be released and cannot be prosecuted," said Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.), and "we will need to detain and interrogate future captives" as well.
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Mr. Barhoumi, an Algerian, was captured in a 2002 raid on a Faisalabad, Pakistan, safe house. The Pentagon has filed charges against him three times since 2005, only to see each effort collapse due to legal flaws in the prosecution's case.
"I want to tell my story, but they put up obstacles," said Mr. Barhoumi, 39 years old, responding through his attorneys to questions posed by The Wall Street Journal. "I don't have a black heart against America."
Capt. Swick, the defense lawyer, said that like many North Africans, Mr. Barhoumi crossed the Mediterranean in the 1990s to seek his fortune in Europe. Opportunities were elusive, and in 1999 he left Britain for Chechnya, intending to join the Muslim insurgency against Russian rule.
Mr. Barhoumi followed the jihadist trail to Afghanistan to attend training camps, where he lost four fingers and mangled his left thumb while practicing with explosives.
"It was a small bomb buried, a mine," Mr. Barhoumi told a Guantanamo military board several years ago. "While digging, I pressed it accidentally."
When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mr. Barhoumi says he fled to Pakistan. He says he had been in Faisalabad around 10 days when the safe house was raided by Pakistani authorities, who captured about 20 Arabs and turned them over to the U.S.
"I was in the wrong place" at the wrong time, Mr. Barhoumi told the Journal. He said he had never seen Mr. Zubaydah before arriving at the safe house, and barely after that.
U.S. agents subjected Mr. Zubaydah to harsh interrogation methods at a secret overseas prison, including at least 83 waterboardings. He was eventually taken to Guantanamo. Less significant prisoners such as Mr. Barhoumi went straight to Guantanamo.
Guantanamo's Trials
See a timeline of key events since the first detainees arrived in 2002 and track the number of inmates over time.
View Graphics
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Mr. Barhoumi was initially accused of conspiracy for allegedly training two other occupants of the Faisalabad house in remote-control explosive triggers, but the case fizzled in 2006 when the Supreme Court ruled the commissions convened under George W. Bush were illegal.
The most recent set of charges, filed in 2009, nearly led to a plea deal with a 20-year-sentence, but it fell apart on a dispute over whether Mr. Barhoumi should get credit for the years he has already spent in prison, defense lawyers said.
Then came the Hamdan and Bahlul rulings invalidating the charges by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Although the Obama administration has appealed, it could be years before the issue is ultimately resolved. On Jan. 31, Capt. Swick said, the defense was informed that the charges had been dropped.
The news dismayed his client, Capt. Swick said. After meeting with his lawyers, Mr. Barhoumi decided to invite the prosecutors to file any charge they wished, and he would plead guilty. At sentencing, prosecutors could argue for any sentence up to life imprisonment, and Mr. Barhoumi could seek a lesser penalty.
"He would address them directly in English, which he's learned since he has been here, explain the mistakes that he made and his plans for the future," Capt. Swick said.
In February, the defense attorneys met with trial prosecutors to present the plan. Eleven days later, the defense says, came the response: no charges unless Mr. Barhoumi testified in court against other detainees.
Capt. Swick said no. Mr. Barhoumi is "willing to work with this system and plead guilty because it is his only alternative to indefinite detention without trial," the lawyer said, "but he won't help convict someone else in a system he believes is illegitimate."
Instead, Mr. Barhoumi, who was earlier described by Guantanamo officials as "highly compliant" with his jailers, joined the hunger strike that has swept the Guantanamo population. Visiting Mr. Barhoumi in May, Capt. Swick said his client had lost about 50 pounds, and is subsisting on honey, tea and liquid supplements. Like other hunger strikers, he has been placed in solitary confinement and is permitted two hours a day outside his cell.
Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared July 16, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Detainee Begs to Be Charged As Legal Limbo Worsens.
Comments
PM material.
Morals aside, is it really effective to torture people for such a long time? I mean wouldn't you expect the subject to become so disoriented, fearful, hateful and eventually delusional and with every passing week,month and year the torturer would be less likely to get any useful or relevant information out of them?
Isn't it obvious that the continued existence of the camp is a perfect tool to spread anti-US sentiment and to recruit more terrorists?
It's too expensive to close the camp down. Hmmm, that's a bit of a headscratcher of an argument, do they really say that? I mean being broke is a terrible thing but if it's used as an excuse to not close down a concentration camp it sounds a bit weird.
You don't know what to do with the inmates?
Those against who, even after years of torture, you haven't enough material against to put them in front of a US court of law, I guess those people should be considered innocent, no? Isn't that a big thing in the US legal system that people are considered innocent until it can be proven otherwise? OK, GITMO is on Cuba and not in the US, that's the whole point of it, I forgot about that for a second. That was so smart... maybe too smart for your own good, maybe you outwitted yourself.
The countries where the inmates came from don't want them back? Then you pay them to take them back. Happens all the time and has happened already before with other GITMO inmates. Pay them to put them into one of their prisons. Build them a prison.
So if I understand correctly, your nobel peace price decorated president failed to hold his clear promise to close GITMO because Congress is not playing ball? There are not enough house representatives of either party to spare the president from looking like a liar in front of the rest of the world? Why? Out of spite, because they just hate Obama? Or are they really so afraid, afraid of the dangerous evildoers that are being held out on that island?
There are 166 detainees in GITMO right now if I looked up the right number. Maybe some of those really are very dangerous men but are they really so dangerous, so smart and so fierce that a country as big as the US with such a huge, highly equipped and well trained army has to fear such a small number of individuals that on a global scale is miniscule, almost non-existent?
I thought you guys had black ops squads who would fly in with some futuristic looking hi-tec helicopter in whisper mode, take out evil masterminds and disappear under the cover of darkness but no, you have some low rent prison guard stick a tube down their nose instead?
Leaving morals completely out of the equation, GITMO is a terrible, embarrassing look.
From a moral or ethical standpoint... well, let's just say it gives you a bit of the air of some paranoid 3rd world dictatorship.
So now we have Ramadan approaching and this force feeding stuff is making headlines. Even though it's been practiced since 2005? What are they going to do? Only force feed after sunset? What did they do during last year's Ramadan? What are they going to do next year?
That's not what it is.
But yeah it's a bad look and should never have been constructed to begin with.
And yeah, from a purely strategic standpoint, there's very little actionable intelligence to be gained from those inmates at this point.
You're right, it was a rhetorical, provocative use of the word which wasn't necessary. "shouldnt-have-said-that" should be my new middle name.
No doubt cowering in abject shame.
Nope. Just basking in your ignorance.
Keep it up.
Great post, Frank.
I don't think this is an argument anyone is making, though. In fact, it's too expensive to keep open, IMO. It costs almost $1m a year per detainee. That's around $150m per year for all the detainees.
As to paying the other countries to take the detainees, Congress would have to authorize that, and Congress isn't doing much of anything right now except passing bills to repeal Obamacare.
It's a total mess.
Guantanamo Detainee Begs to Be Charged as Legal Limbo Worsens