Sunday, November 16, 2008

kids at gitmo

US acknowledges it held 12 juveniles at Guantanamo

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The U.S. has revised its count of juveniles ever held at Guantanamo Bay to 12, up from the eight it reported in May to the United Nations, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday.

The government has provided a corrected report to the U.N. committee on child rights, according to Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon. He said the U.S. did not intentionally misrepresent the number of detainees taken to the isolated Navy base in southeast Cuba before turning 18.

"As we noted to the committee, it remains uncertain the exact age of many of the juveniles held at Guantanamo, as most of them did not know their own date of birth or even the year in which they were born," he said.

A study released last week by the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas concluded the U.S. has held at least a dozen juveniles at Guantanamo, including a Saudi who committed suicide in 2006.

"The information I got was from their own sources, so they didn't have to look beyond their own sources to figure this out," said Almerindo Ojeda, director of the center at the University of California, Davis.

Rights groups say it is important for the U.S. military to know the real age of those it detains because juveniles are entitled to special protection under international laws recognized by the United States.

Eight of the 12 juvenile detainees identified by the human rights center have been released, according to the study.

Two of the remaining detainees are scheduled to face war-crimes trials in January. Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, was captured in July 2002 and is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier. Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is about 24, faces attempted murder charges for a 2002 grenade attack that wounded two U.S. soldiers.

The study identified the only other remaining juvenile as Muhammed Hamid al Qarani of Chad.

The Saudi who hanged himself with two other detainees in 2006, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, was 17 when he arrived at Guantanamo within days of the military prison opening in January 2002, according to the study.

About 250 prisoners remain at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

still strugglin...

Former Guantanamo prisoners still strugglin

By Jane Sutton – Wed Nov 12, 5:57 pm ET

MIAMI (Reuters) – Former Guantanamo prisoners released after years of
detention without charge went home to find themselves stigmatized and
shunned, viewed either as terrorists or U.S. spies, according to a
report released on Wednesday.
The report by human rights advocates urged U.S. President-elect
Barack Obama to form an independent, nonpartisan commission with
subpoena powers to investigate the treatment of U.S. detainees in
Afghanistan, Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Navy base in Cuba.
"We cannot sweep this dark chapter in our nation's history under
the rug by simply closing the Guantanamo prison camp," said study co-
author Eric Stover, director of the University of California at
Berkeley's Human Rights Center. "The new administration must
investigate what went wrong and who should be held accountable."
The authors at the center and at the Center for Constitutional
Rights interviewed 50 U.S. government officials, military experts and
former guards and interrogators, as well as 62 former Guantanamo
prisoners in nine nations.
Two-thirds of the former captives said they had psychological and
emotional problems, which the authors called consistent with being
held in extreme isolation for extended periods.
Only six had regular jobs, with many saying employers would not hire
anyone who had been held at Guantanamo.
"It doesn't matter that they cleared my name by releasing me. We
still have this big hat on our heads that we were terrorists," said a
Chinese Muslim former prisoner, one of eight who were settled in
Albania in 2006.
That group was still struggling to learn Albanian and had
abandoned hope of ever being reunited with their families, said the
report titled "Guantanamo and Its Aftermath."
NO MISTAKES
The United States has released 520 men from Guantanamo since it
opened the detention camp for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives
after the September 11 attacks. Currently about 250 are being held.
It has not publicly acknowledged that any were there by mistake,
although intelligence reports and a former camp commander had said as
early as September 2002 that one-third to one-half of the 600
captives there at the time had no connection to terrorism, the report
noted.
The most notorious prisoners who are accused of plotting the
September 11 attacks, the Bali nightclub bombings and attacks on U.S.
embassies in Africa were not taken to Guantanamo until 2006, when
they were transferred from secret CIA prisons.
Many of the former prisoners said they had lost their homes and
businesses or that their families had piled up debts in their absence
because there was no one to support them.
One returned to find his wife had divorced him and remarried, another
to learn his father had been murdered and his estranged wife had
taken their children and moved away.
"Two Afghan respondents said that rumors of sexual abuse at
Guantanamo had stigmatized them and made it difficult to find a
marriage partner. One of these was also accused of being an American
spy and as a result was fearful of becoming a Taliban target," the
report said.
'I AM NOT A BEAST'
Others said they had received death threats.
Those who fared best seemed to be Afghans from tightly knit
villages, where several said they were greeted when they came home
with celebrations that even some local police attended.
"When I'm walking on the streets and I meet some people, they usually
say to me, 'We're sorry for you...' Everyone knows that I'm innocent,
that I'm not involved in any political activities," the report quoted
an Afghan shepherd as saying.
Among the 55 freed captives who discussed their interrogations, 31
said they were abusive and 24 said they had no problems. The majority
held "distinctly negative views of the United States" but many said
that was directed at the U.S. government, not the American people.
One-third said they ended up in U.S. custody after being sold for
bounties. Many viewed their time at Guantanamo as a test of their
Muslim faith.
Others said they only wanted the American public to recognize that
they were innocent.
"I just want to tell them that I am not this savage beast, what they
were told I am," one said.
(Editing by Michael Christie and David Storey)

Monday, November 10, 2008

PEGC Update

2008.08.09 - PEGC Update
==========================

1) OBAMA WINS

CNN --

November 4, 2008
OBAMA'S VICTORY SPEECH

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/


2) THE DETAINEE CASES

There's quite a bit going on these days; for the details, see the outstanding reports by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog linked below.

But now the election has created a very interesting situation. In two months, the government's view of the law in these cases is going to change, and change a lot. The question is how much and how soon, and it's clear that DOJ is a mess that will require major house cleaning of both personnel and legal policy. It will be very interesting to see how the new administration deals with it.

Then there's DoD, and all I'm going to say about that is that I think it would be a VERY bad idea to keep Gates as Secretary of Defense -- DoD is almost as rotten as DOJ is.


SCOTUSBlog --

November 7, 2008
US DEFENDS INDEFINITE DETENTION POWER
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/us-defends-indefinite-detention-power/

November 6, 2008
RULES SET FOR 113 DETAINEE CASES
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/rules-set-for-113-detainee-cases/

November 5, 2008
SHOWDOWN OVER DTA'S FUTURE
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/showdown-over-dtas-future/

November 4, 2008
CIRCUIT COURT: DTA PROCESS IS PROBABLY DEAD
by Lyle Denniston

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/circuit-court-dta-process-is-probably-dead/


D.C. CIrcuit --

November 4, 2008

BASARDH (ISN 252) v. GATES, No. 07-1192

On Motion to Hold Case in Abeyance or,
in the alternative, Dismiss Without Prejudice

Before: HENDERSON, RANDOLPH, and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200811/07-1192-1147407.pdf




3) THE ELECTION RESULTS

From various sources...

* PRESIDENT / POPULAR VOTE (Associated Press)

Barack Obama (Democratic) - 65,431,955 (52.6%)

John McCain (Republican) - 57,434,084 (46.1%)

Ralph Nader (none) - 679,149 (00.5%)

Bob Barr (Libertarian) - 499,912 (00.4%)

Chuck Baldwin (Constitution) - 180,780 (00.1%)

Cynthia McKinney (Green) - 146,539 (00.1%)

[ 2004 - Bush 62,040,610 (50.7%), Kerry 59,028,444 (48.3%) ]

[ 2000 - Gore 50,999,897 (48.4%), Bush 50,456,002 (47.9%) ]


* PRESIDENT / ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Obama 365 (67.8%), McCain 173 (32.2%)

Those numbers assume that McCain's lead in Missouri holds up and Obama wins the
electoral vote for the 2nd Congressional District of Nebraska.


* US SENATE

Democrats 55, Republicans 40, Independents 2, PENDING 3


* US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Democrats 255, Republicans 174, PENDING 6


* STATE GOVERNORS

Democrats 29, Republicans 21


* STATE LEGISLATURES

Democratic Control - 27

Republican Control - 15 (includes Nebraska, which is formally non-partisan)

Split Control - 8


Congressional Quarterly --

November 7, 2008
SOME HOUSE AND SENATE SEATS MAY TAKE WEEKS TO RESOLVE

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=2&docID=news-000002983927


Politico --

November 8, 2008
THAT HUGE VOTER TURNOUT? DIDN'T HAPPEN
By David Paul Kuhn

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15422.html


FiveThirtyEight.com --

November 9, 2008
2010 SENATE RANKINGS, PART I: RACES #21-#35
by Nate Silver

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/2010-senate-rankings-part-i-races-21-35.html



X) OP ED

Harper's --

November 9, 2008
SCHILLER - FREEDOM'S HYMN
by Scott Horton

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/11/hbc-90003825


San Francisco Chronicle --

November 7, 2008
ELECTION DAY REPORT
by Jon Carroll

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/07/DDLS13UPS0.DTL


JURIST --

October 23, 2008
THE CASE AGAINST A NATIONAL SECURITY COURT
by Jordan Paust

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/10/case-against-national-security-court.php


Mark R. Shulman, THE FOUR FREEDOMS: GOOD NEIGHBORS MAKE GOOD LAW AND GOOD POLICY IN A TIME OF INSECURITY, Pace University School of Law.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1287160

* * *


PROJECT TO ENFORCE THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS (PEGC)
http://www.pegc.us

PEGC Blog
http://pegc.blogspot.com/


Charles B. Gittings Jr.
Fort Bragg, California

cbgittingsyahoo.com

+1-707-964-2151