The non-Gitmo Gitmo
The Washington Times reports that COB6’s favorite Senator Lindsey Graham has his fur ruffled because he found out that the Obama Administration is skirting the purpose of Guantanmo Detention Facility for Wayward Jihadists by holding a Somali man on a US Navy ship for two months while he was interrogated off shore.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said the episode demonstrates the problems with Mr. Obama’s aversion to holding suspects at the center in Cuba.
“They are so afraid to use Gitmo that they are basically making decisions around not having to use Gitmo, rather than what’s best for the country,” Mr. Graham said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times. “What’s best for the nation is to treat these foreign fighters as enemy combatants.”
Apparently the prisoner, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, gave up valuable intelligence concerning al Qaeda’s operations in Yemen, but the fact remains that his interrogation highlights the need for a place like Guantanamo – and the fact that this administration needs it if they want to continue fighting an unconventional enemy. Their only option at this pint is to try him on US soil since they’re so averse to imprisoning and trying him at Guantanamo. That’s something Representative Peter King wants to avoid;
“The decision for discreetly bringing such an individual to U.S. soil is unclear,” Mr. King said. “Unless the Administration has extremely compelling reasons, I strongly believe Warsame belongs before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay rather than in a civilian court in Manhattan.”
It must be hard for this administration to admit that George Bush’s Administration must’ve been on to something with Guantanamo. And Bush only got the idea from Clinton who imprisoned Haitian refugees at Guantanamo to avoid immigration complications.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
Despite disagreeing with him on a lot of social issues I think Lindsey Graham is one of the least partisan and most upstanding men in the Senate but I diverge with him here. The Bush administration held people on ships and CIA sites all over the world, not just Gitmo. They did it for both secrecy and logistical reasons. If it makes sense to hold a guy on a carrier in theater for awhile while you interrogate him then so be it. It wasn’t intended to be a permanent holding facility and now he’s on his way to federal court, at the advice of DoJ, DoD and State. From where I’m sitting this looks pretty well played.
At the end of the day: who is providing the interrogators and Navy personnel (DOD personnel) with legal topcover/get-out-jail-free card for these little off the books procedures?
Or is PO1 Sacrificial Lamb going to be doing the Perp Walk in port?
So, like I saw in the comments on another blog: “Obama caught hiding the Somali”…
re #2
That’s operating under the presumption that the detention and method of interrogation was illegal under US law. My understanding is he was Mirandized and waived his “rights”. My guess is it was a joint CIA/FBI interrogation. I very much doubt NCIS or ONI was involved so much as some PO 1st Class.
#1 Lindsey Graham has been angling to emmulate John McCain as a “Maverick” and thats the problem.
He has been decent on the jurist issues(Jeff Sessions is better though), supporting Vets for Freedom, confronting Rumsfeld, and other miscellanious topics having to do with the Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. Like McCain, he also has never seen a foreign scuffle we shouldn’t be involved in, like Libya. He was a member of the notorius “Gang of Fourteen” and worst of all was a big pusher of amnesty for illegals with McCain, Bush, elite Republicans and almost the entire Democratic caucus. In short it’s nice to have his vote on most issues but he’s not to be trusted.
On this issue Graham is absolutely correct, there is absolutely no rational reason for this individual to be brought on US Soil. Try him at Guantanamo, or on ship, or a third location, makes no difference but not in federal court, that venue should be avoided.