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December 13, 2008
US Calls On Europe To Take Guantánamo Inmates
US calls on Europe to take Guantánamo inmates
America is putting increasing pressure on Britain and other European countries to take in dozens of Guantánamo detainees so that Barack Obama can close down the infamous prison camp.
The issue threatens to be an early test of relations with the President-elect, who has stated that shutting Guantánamo will be one of the top priorities for his incoming administration.
John Bellinger, the chief legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, told The Times that the US had been seeking help from European allies in resettling detainees who were regarded as posing no threat to the West but could not be sent back to their own countries.
A senior State Department official confirmed that the response from Britain and most European Union members had been to refuse. Mr Bellinger said: “It is not helpful for countries to keep calling for the closure of Guantánamo while doing nothing to enable us to do it.”
More than a fifth of the 250 remaining Guantánamo inmates are Chinese, Libyan, Russian, Tunisian or Uzbek nationals who might face persecution or death if they are sent back home. Albania has taken in a handful of Uighurs, who are part of an Islamic separatist movement in a remote western region of China, and Portugal said this week that it was ready to provide a home for others. Luis Amado, the Foreign Minister, said: “The time has come for the European Union to step forward.”
A State Department official acknowledged that public hostility in Europe towards President Bush had been a significant barrier to making progress but suggested that Mr Obama may find it easier.
There have already been discussions between the State Department and Mr Obama’s transition team on closing Guantánamo and one figure who had been present at such talks said that the President-elect had been “getting ready to do some quite robust arm-twisting in European capitals”.
It is understood that Mr Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo would involve taking the most dangerous detainees – a group numbering between 30 and 80 men – from the prison camp in Cuba to the US mainland for trial, where they will finally receive legal rights.
This would involve creating a special terrorism court designed to handle highly sensitive intelligence material and protect the identity of CIA personnel. Some suspects may face lesser charges than those laid against them at Guantánamo’s military tribunals, because much of the evidence against them was gathered through techniques denounced by human rights groups as torture.
Wild Thing's comment......
I feel so much better now, we will be having guests. SHEESH!
Well so it looks like we get the worst of the lot here in America and the others will be sent if allowed to other countries. Maybe, only if those other countries say ok sure we would love to entertain some terrorists that you send us.
This whole thing is so stupid. We have a perfectly good place, GITMO, and it is all set up. But that is something that these twits don't want. Once again they want to mess with something that works and turn it in to a nightmare.
Posted by Wild Thing at December 13, 2008 05:47 AM
Comments
They'll take the non violent ones. We'll get stuck with the crap, just like always. Obama doesn't seem to understand the use of Gitmo. It needs to be there. But the media played it up so much that it was a torture chamber, that the population here cried for it's closure. How many actually went down there and viewed it themselves? None of these prisoners is maltreated--none. And for torture? Our methods of interrogation are not torturistic. The whiny butts just cry because no one ever made them accountable for their actions. Torture to a muslim would be buxom beauties in teeny bikinis acting sensual and sexy.
Posted by: Lynn at December 13, 2008 07:08 AM
They'd be welcomed HOME in once 'Great' Britain, eh? The Sun Page 3 Girls in burkas too? Allah forbid? Miss my Zoe and 2001 Father Christmas gals! WOW, big time...
Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at December 13, 2008 08:53 AM
Yes, let's empty Gitmo. Then move the US Congress there. I bet then Congress would finally approve term limits.
Posted by: TomR at December 13, 2008 11:54 AM
What? Not in my back yard!!! The nimby's want someone else to bear the burden of their pacifist knee jerk decisions, let's close Gitmo. No alternative plan, instead of pushing the darling terrorists they love on anyone else let's spread them out where they now belong, amongst the residents of the Dirksen Senate Building, the Hart Senate Office Building, the Cannon House Office Building and the Longworth House Office Building. If they are safe enough for society they are safe enough to live amongst the lawmakers too.
Posted by: Jack at December 13, 2008 01:05 PM
Maybe the prisoners of Gitmo should be released... to Congress. They can be used as Cooks, Personal Valets, for Barney frank a personal hand Matron, and busboys. That way, we would know for sure that congress would be awake 24/7. And not so quick to limit gun rights.
Posted by: Mark at December 13, 2008 01:56 PM
I don't know why Condi Rice is banging her head against the wall trying to help Barack Obama implement his bonehead plan to close GITMO. Obama is the one with the big mouth promising improved relations with European and other world leaders if he was elected president so let him call them after he is inaugurated and see how quickly they will share the responsibility for dealing with global terrorists.
Barack Obama with his big mouth promised to close GITMO and try the detainees in US courts on the mainland and conservatives should hold him to it with a report card on his progress. Let's see how safe American's feel and how well they sleep with Obama's humane treatment of these poor innocent detainees.
Freed to kill again (Bhutto killer's brother was released from Gitmo)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945640/posts
Released Gitmo Terrorist Helped Kill 7 Iraqis
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/released-gitmo-terrorist-helped-kill-7-iraqis
Terrorist released from Gitmo returns to crime
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/000567.html
Recycling Terrorists
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=295139633366100
Posted by: Les at December 13, 2008 02:44 PM
Lynn, LOL your so right about the real torture for the Muslims. I remember how they complained of it being torture when they had to listen to some of the famous female American singers over the loud speakers. They called it torture.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 13, 2008 07:22 PM
Darth, hahaha yes now there is an idea.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 13, 2008 07:23 PM
Tom, I am all for moving Congress there if they do empty Gitmo. They do get 3 meals a day and they can walk around the yard each day. hahaha
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 13, 2008 07:25 PM
Jack that would work too. In fact they can stick one in each persons home that is for closing GITMO. Let them take care of them.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 13, 2008 07:27 PM
Mark, LOL oh I can see it now. Busboys for Barney Frank. LMAO that is rich. hahahaha
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 13, 2008 07:29 PM
Les, I guess Condi voted for Obama, she has not said it out right but her phrasing of her words and what she has said lead me to think she did.
Thanks for the links Les.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 13, 2008 07:32 PM
