11/16/09

This weekend, with developments on civilian and military trials for Guantanamo detainees, a secure prison facility to house some of them in the US and reforms to the military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, the Administration showed significant progress toward a comprehensive plan that uses military and law enforcement tools to keep Americans safe.  National security experts, military and prosecutors, and the people of Thomson, Illinois responded positively.

But fringe conservatives offered an assault on America’s legal system while providing no legitimate solutions on how to deal with terror detainees aside from keeping Guantanamo open.  Given that the facility has produced only three successful prosecutions while blackening the US reputation and becoming a prominent extremist recruiting tool, it is clear that the status quo is inadequate.  But extreme conservatives responded with crass politicization that undermines the very institutions they say they want to protect.

Chief among the hysterical critics is former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was for trying terrorists in civilian courts before he was against it. This weekend he stated he thinks the Obama administration is making the “same mistake” made when the 1993 World Trade Center masterminds went on trial.  But at the time he stated that when “you put terrorism on one side, you put our legal system on the other, and our legal system comes out ahead.” That very legal system is now under assault by Giuliani and others. For years we’ve had dangerous terrorists housed in America’s prisons with no negative impact on communities that surround them. In fact, these prisons are the communities’ lifeblood.  By attacking the idea of detaining terrorists in America, conservatives are asserting that the men and women who run these prisons can’t do their job. They also seem to think our judicial system is not up to the task of successfully prosecuting terrorists, something we have done repeatedly in the past. These attacks stand in the way of bringing terrorists to justice and shutting the door on a major recruitment tool for al Qaeda. It’s time to put aside politics that undermine America’s national security.

The Administration is moving toward a comprehensive plan that uses every military and law enforcement resource to bring terrorists to justice, discourage terrorist recruitment, and restore US prestige.  

Civilian trials for those who targeted civilians showcase the strength of our institutions.  On Friday, the New York Times reported that, “The Obama administration said Friday that it would prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in a Manhattan federal courtroom, a decision that ignited a sharp political debate but took a step toward resolving one of the most pressing terrorism detention issues.”  

A secure US facility is identified to house detainees; surrounding town says, “might as well come here.” ABC News reports that, “A prison complex 150 miles from Chicago has emerged as the leading contender to house detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, senior administration officials tell ABC News.  Officials from the Pentagon and the Federal Bureau of Prisons will soon visit lllinois' Thomson Correctional Center to inspect the maximum security prison, which was opened in 2001 but has never been fully utilized because of state budget issues.” Chicago Breaking News reported that “News that the federal government seems interested in transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the Thomson Correctional Center was greeted warmly in this small, rural farm town along the Iowa border.”  The Chicago Tribune quoted one calm local resident:  “’I don't want (enemy combatants) walking the street, so they have to go some place,’ said Harris, 64. ‘Might as well come here.’”

Military trials for suspects who planned attacks against US military overseas.  The Washington Post reports that “[t]he administration directed toward military commissions suspects who are believed to have carried out or plotted terrorist acts overseas against military targets. Among the five are Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of coordinating the deadly attack on the USS Cole in 2000.”

Overhaul Afghan detention facilities to prevent Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib scandals from recurring.  The Washington Post reports that “By the end of the month, the U.S. military plans to begin moving the first of its approximately 700 detainees at Bagram air field to a new $60 million holding complex in an attempt to provide better living conditions and separate committed fighters from those who are ready to re-enter Afghan society... On Sunday, the U.S. military led journalists and officials from non-governmental organizations on tours of the new unoccupied facility at Bagram, although they were not shown where detainees are currently held. The new detention center, which has a capacity to hold 1,140 detainees in group cells plus 104 others in individual holding pens, is intended not only to provide more space for vocational classes, family visits, medical check-ups, and hearing rooms for military tribunals, but also to keep apart hard-core insurgents from others who might be reconcilable, military officials said.”

[NY Times, 11/13/09. Washington Post, 11/14/09. ABC News, 11/14/09. Chicago Breaking News, 11/14/09. Chicago Tribune, 11/14/09.  Washington Post, 11/16/09]

Fringe conservatives reverse selves, attack America’s legal system.  Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani criticized the plan to try 9/11 conspirators, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, saying on CNN’s State of the Union that “It gives an unnecessary advantage to the terrorists and why would you want to give an advantage to the terrorists, and it poses risks for New York.”  Giuliani’s comments amount to a complete reversal of his past positions on using the full power of the American justice system against terrorism.  In 1994, following the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, Giuliani said on the CBS evening news that “you put terrorism on one side, you put our legal system on the other, and our legal system comes out ahead.” 

Rep. David Manzullo (R – IL) and Senate candidate Mark Steven Kirk wrote, with fear-mongering rhetoric, that “[a]s home to America’s tallest building, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its No. 1 target.”  

Yet bipartisan experts believe such fears are ill-founded.  “We are confident that the government can preserve national security without resorting to sweeping and radical departures from an American constitutional tradition that has served us effectively for over two centuries,” said a Constitution Project letter, signed by more than 100 prominent criminal justice figures and Illinoisans Dan K. Webb, Thomas Sullivan and Abner Mikva.  

In fact, the American justice system has a stellar record of successfully trying and incarcerating terrorists. Earlier this year, Republican Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained how terrorists have been tried and convicted by American courts for years: “This started 20 years ago when I was at CIA, and we captured a Hezbollah terrorist who had been involved in killing an American sailor on an aircraft that had been taken hostage in Beirut. We brought him to the United States, put him on trial and put him in prison.  The Supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado holds dozens of terrorists who were convicted in civilian court, including: Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker" in the September 11, 2001 attacks; Ramzi Yusef and Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted for masterminding the first World Trade Center attack; and Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber. According to the former warden there, “Most prisoners spend up to 23 hours a day in their cells, every minute, every meal. The window in their cell is blocked so they can't see the mountains. Inmates can watch a 12" black and white television or read books to pass the time. And if they behave, they may get limited exercise in a one-man recreation pen.” And regarding Ramzi Yousef, the warden said, "Never been out, to my knowledge.” [Rudy Giuliani, via the NY Times, 11/16/09. Rudy Giuliani, via Think Progress, 3/5/94. NY Times, 11/16/09. The Constitution Project, 11/04/09. Chicago Tribune, 11/14/09, 60 Minutes, 8/14/07. Secretary Gates, 5/22/09]

These are important steps towards closing Guantanamo Bay detention center, an important national security priority.  The developments over the weekend are not only important for bringing terrorists to justice, but are also important steps towards closing Guantanamo Bay detention center, which  has been a stain on America’s image, a block on our international anti-terrorism cooperation, and a recruiting tool for al Qaeda.  

• Former Secretaries of State Kissinger, Albright, Powell, Baker, and Christopher all agreed that closing Guantanamo Bay is vital for repairing the damage it has caused to America’s image. As James Baker, Secretary of State for George H.W. Bush, said forcefully: “Close Guantanamo. We were on a panel together several months ago, and we all agreed, one of the best things that could happen would be to close Guantanamo, which is a very serious blot upon our reputation.” 

• General David Petraeus has also said, “With respect to Guantanamo, I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice -- I talked to the attorney general the other day [and] they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary -- again, how to take that forward. But doing that in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.”

• Matthew Alexander – the pseudonym of the retired Air Force major and interrogator who located the notorious terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by using conventional interrogation methods –has said that Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were the main reasons fighters came to Iraq to attack Americans:  “I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay...  Consequently it is clear that at least hundreds but more likely thousands of American lives (not to count Iraqi civilian deaths) are linked directly to the policy decision to introduce the torture and abuse of prisoners as accepted tactics.”  

• Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora testified before Congress that the stain on America’s image caused by Guantanamo Bay led directly to American deaths: “Serving U.S. flag-rank officers... maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq – as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat – are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.”  [CNN, 9/20/08.  General David Petraeus, via Radio Free Europe,  5/24/09. Harper’s Magazine, 12/18/08. Alberto Mora, 6/17/08]

What We’re Reading

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari faces increasing pressures as domestic critics seek his resignation while the United States asks him to continue to go more forcefully after al Qaeda and Taliban targets. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban has begun to recruit foot soldiers in Punjab province, Pakistan's most populous region.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is creating a department-wide task force to focus on ways to counter the roadside bombs that have caused 80 percent of US casualties in Afghanistan. President Obama’s decision on Afghanistan is also going to include an analysis of the additional troop funding. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said any additional aid to Afghanistan will require a demonstration of greater accountability by the Afghan central government. The US military is also set to open up a new detention facility at Bagram.

President Obama and Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev asked for commitments from Iran’s leadership to accept their proposal on Iran’s nuclear program. In Iran, varying goals for the Iranian opposition will test their ability to remain united under increasing police pressure.

US Army Colonel John P. Galligan is set to defend Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan in his upcoming trial.

The African nation of Guinea- Bissau has become a new transit point for South American cocaine to reach European markets.

World health officials fear that West African countries such as Sierra Leone are unequipped to identify and cope with new diseases that could spread globally.

Unemployment has hit migrant communities in the United States so hard that Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support their unemployed loved ones in the United States.

Despite early US engagement, Syria has voiced concerns that the US effort is flagging -- no US ambassador to Damascus has been reinstated, and US sanctions against the nation have yet to be eased.

Commentary of the Day

Frank R. Gunter urges the Iraqi government to drastically reform its business regulatory system in order to free small businesses and cut into the 51% unemployment rate that is plaguing the country.

The New York Times is encouraged by President Obama’s agenda for China, which includes economic reform, climate change, and human rights.

The Washington Post laments the Goldstone commission’s lack of recommendations on how to better fight insurgents and terrorists, and hopes that more government-sponsored investigations will create policies that better explain and clarify tactics meant to fight terrorists.