Kansas City News Blog

My sense of the military command's response (and here, you know, fuck whatever Brownback says, thinks or does for the rest of his lifetime) is that it may not be the wisest course of action to house rogue US military personnel with people -who though perhaps innocent of anything but existing while President Bush was insane- have been labeled 'terrorists' or 'enemy combatants'.

Yes, of course these individuals would be kept “separated” from the existent population. But that's a lot like saying “I'm only going to slip the head in.”

Sooner rather than later there would be trouble and, undoubtedly, it would involve an innocent detainee…or three…or the whole population.

You won’t hear this from the DOD, which is why Brownback is over-flapping his gums. Should President Obama decide Leavenworth is it, Command will hop to and make it happen to the utmost of their abilities. Which will be very god damned good, I promise you that.

However, (Brownback’s caterwauling aside) what I believe needs be done is an honest, transparent and public assessment of the culpability of each and every GTMO detainee. Then an assignment of their future based on that outcome can occur - outright release, release for time served, minimum security facility, supermax out in Colorado – as well as the litigation process that will also have to happen in order to address government overreach where it occurred and perhaps put an end to the whole sordid mess.

‘course, that’s just my opinion; your waterboard may drip at a faster rate.

During WW II, the USDB housed (an executed some) German prisoners of war.

Here's an even scarier thought. The Corrections Corporation of America, which spends $3 million yearly lobbying in D.C., has a for-profit prison in an industrial park in Leavenworth. They tried to dump that piece of cardboard crap on JoCo last year, unsuccessfully, thank goodness. They also tried to get KS state law changed to let them take in gang bangers from other states. They're trying now to sell their flaky and dangerous "services" (including transport) to Kansas City. If they can get more $ for detainees than for U.S. Marshals prisoners, you can bet they'll belly up to the bar. These guys can't find their butts if they are standing in fron of a full length mirror, with the lights on and using both hands. They have 30x or so the escape ratio of public prisons and their transport is even more dangerous. Now THAT'S scary!!!

I am very surprised that another reader here, an author, with a book on Guantanamo to push, is still willing to advance the patent falsehood that detention at Guantanamo was humane, when there is overwhelming evidence that it was not.

This author must be aware that Guantanamo guards unprovoked attacks on the Guantanamo captives were so severe that they broke their bones. Sami Al Laithy -- one of the 38 men whose CSR Tribunal officially determined in 2004 had never been an enemy combatant in the first place was paralyzed when a brutal guard jumped on his back, breaking his spine.

Mishal Al Harbi was beaten so badly he was left with brain damage so severe he will have to live in a shelter for the rest of his life.

Mustafa Ait Idr, one of the Bosnians kidnapped from Bosnia, recently freed when his habeas corpus determined the USA never had a shred of evidence against him -- when guards learned he had been the 1995 Croatian Karate Champ, they hauled him out of his cell and broke his fingers.

I suggest this author's claim that detention in Guantanamo was humane brings further shame on the USA.

I see two kinds of reaction when parents are told their children have committed crimes or misdemeanors. Some react with denial, no matter what. Others want to give their children a fair hearing too -- but they recognize they have a responsibility to listen to any responsible reports their children may have committed a crime. Growing children do commit crimes. They try swiping a chocolate bar from the corner store. Most kids only try it once, because they feel guilty, or they get caught, and their parents explains it was wrong and makes them apologize.

Americans should not respond to reports of war crimes and abuses by Bush administration officials and by GIs with total denial. By all means give Americans suspects a fair hearing.

But, when there is overwhelming evidence that Guantanamo was not humane, that Americans committed war crimes there, drop the irresponsible denials.

Responsible American should own up that under President Bush's leadership some US officials and some GIs committed serious war crimes.

Avery, thanks for the reply.

WRT to captives "returning to the fight". Some have. DoD spin-doctors have vastly exaggerated the number who have done so. They have claimed "over thirty". But, they include the three British lads who agreed to have the documentary "The Road to Guantanamo" filmed about them. It is highly intellectually dishonest of the DoD spin-doctors to assert that working on a reasonably mainstream documentary is an act of terrorism. And, even if, for the sake of argument, this was an act of terrorism, it is highly intellectually dishonest of them to claim those three British men were returning to terrorism, when their total innocence had already been established. Investigations in Britain proved the men had been in Britain when the allegations put forward to justify their detention put them in Afghanistan.

The five Uyghurs, who had been determined not to have been enemy combatants, released to Albania in 2006 are also on the list -- because they granted interviews where they criticized conditions in Guantanamo.

Up until May 2007 DoD spokesmen only named three former captives -- Abdullah Mehsud, Maulvi Abdul Ghafour, and Mullah Shahzada. All three were characterized as former captives who tricked their way out of Guantanamo, who turned out to be leaders of company or battalion sized Taliban units. DoD spokesmen claimed all three were KIA about a year after their release. Granted, these men should not have been released. But I don't believe the public is well served by repeating that these men tricked their way out of Guantanamo. A thorough reading of the public record shows at least one of these three was released through the incompetence that I am afraid is routine at Guantanamo.

Intelligence analysts at Guantanamo totally failed to come up with a single, simple and unambigous naming scheme. When the DoD was forced to publish its first official list of captives names all three of these men who spin-doctors claimed had returned to the battlefield were missing.

What the record shows is that in 2003 there were to different captives who were accused of being Mullah Shahzada, the Taliban leader. Different teams were interrogating the two men -- and, they were unaware of one another.

US military Intelligence analysts failed the public by not making even the first step towards trying to confirm or refute the captives' accounts of themselves. One of the men accused of being Mullah Shahzada was heartbreakingly, obviously innocent. By mid-2003 replies had come back, in response to letters the Red Cross helped him get out. And those replies established his innocence.

In a cruel twist of incompetence, typical of how Guantanamo was run, when these letters establishing the one man's innocence were received, camp authorities -- confused by their frankly unforgivable inability to come up with a single, simple naming scheme, released the wrong guy -- released the guy who actually was a Taliban leader.

Camp authorities continued to keep the obviously innocent man for a further four years.

Was he really obviously innocent? He had left Afghanistan's civil wars, with his family, as a teenage high school student, and lived in exile in Pakistan when the Taliban were in power. He finished his education in Pakistan, and had worked as a high school science teacher -- where he had to sign a time card every day. The allegations he faced stated he had been the Taliban's regional intelligence chief in Mazari Sharif. He asked for the time cards that documented he had been in Pakistan be examined to show he was not serving the Taliban in Mazari Sharif.

Guess what he was told? He was told that his time cards were irrelevant, because he could have served as a Taliban intelligence chief DURING HIS SUMMER VACATION.

I believe you are mistaken to think that continuing to detain a population which continues to include totally innocent bystanders on the grounds of "lets not take any chances", improves public safety. Continuing to detain innocent men, continuing to interrogate them, continuing to pressure them to issue false confessions, and false denunciations, makes the public less safe. Because expending precious counter-terrorism resources on wild-goose-chases means those resources will not be available to counter real threats.