Saturday, 31 January 2015, WASHINGTON, D.C. - In an exclusive interview with CNN outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel broke ranks with the Obama Administration which continues years-long efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention and torture facility by saying that he as Defense Secretary would not sign any certification releasing detainees without assurance that they will not pose any future risk to United States servicemen and women. Hagel at the same time claimed that about 30% of those released will reappear on the battlefield with the Taliban fighting American troops. Last December outgoing Defense Secretary Hagel nevertheless expressed confidence that Afghan security forces are capable of themselves defending Kabul against the Taliban. The prior announcement of Hagel's (rumored forced) resignation as Defense Secretary was made late last November due to "job stress" and "decisions on ISIS/ISIL". Wikepedia - Chuck Hagel.
Meanwhile Ed Royce (R-CA) Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs likewise took the opportunity of an interview with CNN to raise alarm as to what Royce claimed was a plan to release in contrast to Hagel's 30% figure the five highest risk detainees kept at Guantanamo who Royce claimed were all Taliban "leaders" two of whom Royce moreover claims have ties to Al-Qaeda. Royce claimed that after one year's detention in Qatar the five would be allowed to return to the battlefied. Further Royce stated that he believes such detainees should be kept in Guantanamo until such time as the Taliban is no longer an active fighting or organized force either in Afghanistan nor now also Pakistan. Royce volunteered no timeframe as to when he believed that might occur.
Despite the Obama Adiminstration's long efforts to empty Guantanamo Bay pursuant to President Obama's original campaign promise and mandate those efforts have been delayed but not stopped altogether by among other things Congress' refusal to provide adequate funding to remove and place the detainees combined with the Obama Administrtion's difficulties apparently in finding suitable host destination countries. Meanwhile as the numbers of detainees at Guantanamo allegedly were decreased reportedly at least for some time the CIA simultaneously had been accused of "night dumping" of new detainees at Guantanamo presumably largely from CIA global "black sites" who for whatever reasons it no longer had been feasible for the CIA to keep at those sites. This practice would of course be facilitated by the CIA's apparent historical long-term inability for whatever reason to count the exact number of detainees held by the CIA at Guantanamo as to which detainees the CIA therefore has claimed a resultant inability to report exact numbers to superiors and overseers.
The national and worldwide cries to empty and close Guantanamo of course have been greatly increased due to the horrific revelations made public by the release of the Bush Administration CIA Torture Report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concerning the never-before-known unreported scope or brutality and inhumanity rising beyond the level of torture to war crimes. This torture and these war crimes against humanity were committed by the CIA in conspiracy with the Bush Administration at Guantanamo Bay where the CIA undertook completely unprepared a torture program developed for the CIA by two "contract" hack psychologists for over $80 million of taxpayers' money.
What American taxpayers got for the $80 million the CIA paid the two hack contract psychologists apparently was a "plan" including to chain detainees hanging from ceilings, chaining them to freezing cement floors overnight such that one was even murdered by this exposure, waterboarding including one detainee at least 83 times being made to believe he had drowned and to the point of total non-responsiveness, cramming detainees in small suitcases smeared with feces, mock executions, and one apparently unplanned particularly noteworthy horrorshow in which an apparently more unstable than the average CIA operative later sent home early for "anger management issues" without further punishment put an electric drill to the head of a detainee and forced the detainee to play Russian Roulette along with the angry CIA operative.
Considering that these years of torture and war crimes against humanity committed by the CIA including its officials at the time and continuing to illegally cover-up with lies all the way to this day as well as top Bush Administration officials and their "hack" lawyers yielded absolutely no actionable intelligence whatsoever which anyone involved is capable of specifically identifying it is not known if Americans received their $80 million back from the two contract psychologists who must have spent at least fifteen minutes thinking up this brilliant torture plan (and then probably a couple more years trying to make it sound reasonable and come up with the equally imaginative euphemistic term "enhanced interrogation"). Perhaps these two psychologists also might be reined in on conspiracy charges where they too might experience "enhanced confinement" in a "federal secured enhanced rehabilitation facility").
Finally as President Obama also has emphasized the amount of money Americans now are paying to hold each of these detainees numbers in the millions of dollars totaling at most recent reports more than $150 million annually to the Defense Department to maintain the Guantanamo detention facility. Apparently of the now than 127 detainees fully 80-90 have been "cleared" but with nowhere to go. Congress has prevented any from being sent to United States soil to be tried, imprisoned or for any other reason. Meanwhile what was an entire United States Naval Base on Cuba now must be maintained as a "military prison" as of January 2015 with a staff of over 6,000 service members, contractors and civilians to watch over the remaining 127 detainees of whom a small handful are thought to be a future risk. That totals at least 50 keepers for each detainee as well as the need to keep the entire facility open.
Every day the remaining detainees are held uncharged untried unsentenced in a legal limbo anathema to every principle of American jurisprudence ultimately in the words of eighty-three (83) retired United States Generals and flag officers these remaining detainees serve first and foremost as one thing: "A recruiting poster" for terrorists who would declare the United States their enemy all over the world. In other words in every way Guantanamo represents the very absolute of everything it was meant to accomplish and a living monument to American failure.
Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved
Meanwhile Ed Royce (R-CA) Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs likewise took the opportunity of an interview with CNN to raise alarm as to what Royce claimed was a plan to release in contrast to Hagel's 30% figure the five highest risk detainees kept at Guantanamo who Royce claimed were all Taliban "leaders" two of whom Royce moreover claims have ties to Al-Qaeda. Royce claimed that after one year's detention in Qatar the five would be allowed to return to the battlefied. Further Royce stated that he believes such detainees should be kept in Guantanamo until such time as the Taliban is no longer an active fighting or organized force either in Afghanistan nor now also Pakistan. Royce volunteered no timeframe as to when he believed that might occur.
Despite the Obama Adiminstration's long efforts to empty Guantanamo Bay pursuant to President Obama's original campaign promise and mandate those efforts have been delayed but not stopped altogether by among other things Congress' refusal to provide adequate funding to remove and place the detainees combined with the Obama Administrtion's difficulties apparently in finding suitable host destination countries. Meanwhile as the numbers of detainees at Guantanamo allegedly were decreased reportedly at least for some time the CIA simultaneously had been accused of "night dumping" of new detainees at Guantanamo presumably largely from CIA global "black sites" who for whatever reasons it no longer had been feasible for the CIA to keep at those sites. This practice would of course be facilitated by the CIA's apparent historical long-term inability for whatever reason to count the exact number of detainees held by the CIA at Guantanamo as to which detainees the CIA therefore has claimed a resultant inability to report exact numbers to superiors and overseers.
The national and worldwide cries to empty and close Guantanamo of course have been greatly increased due to the horrific revelations made public by the release of the Bush Administration CIA Torture Report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concerning the never-before-known unreported scope or brutality and inhumanity rising beyond the level of torture to war crimes. This torture and these war crimes against humanity were committed by the CIA in conspiracy with the Bush Administration at Guantanamo Bay where the CIA undertook completely unprepared a torture program developed for the CIA by two "contract" hack psychologists for over $80 million of taxpayers' money.
What American taxpayers got for the $80 million the CIA paid the two hack contract psychologists apparently was a "plan" including to chain detainees hanging from ceilings, chaining them to freezing cement floors overnight such that one was even murdered by this exposure, waterboarding including one detainee at least 83 times being made to believe he had drowned and to the point of total non-responsiveness, cramming detainees in small suitcases smeared with feces, mock executions, and one apparently unplanned particularly noteworthy horrorshow in which an apparently more unstable than the average CIA operative later sent home early for "anger management issues" without further punishment put an electric drill to the head of a detainee and forced the detainee to play Russian Roulette along with the angry CIA operative.
Considering that these years of torture and war crimes against humanity committed by the CIA including its officials at the time and continuing to illegally cover-up with lies all the way to this day as well as top Bush Administration officials and their "hack" lawyers yielded absolutely no actionable intelligence whatsoever which anyone involved is capable of specifically identifying it is not known if Americans received their $80 million back from the two contract psychologists who must have spent at least fifteen minutes thinking up this brilliant torture plan (and then probably a couple more years trying to make it sound reasonable and come up with the equally imaginative euphemistic term "enhanced interrogation"). Perhaps these two psychologists also might be reined in on conspiracy charges where they too might experience "enhanced confinement" in a "federal secured enhanced rehabilitation facility").
Finally as President Obama also has emphasized the amount of money Americans now are paying to hold each of these detainees numbers in the millions of dollars totaling at most recent reports more than $150 million annually to the Defense Department to maintain the Guantanamo detention facility. Apparently of the now than 127 detainees fully 80-90 have been "cleared" but with nowhere to go. Congress has prevented any from being sent to United States soil to be tried, imprisoned or for any other reason. Meanwhile what was an entire United States Naval Base on Cuba now must be maintained as a "military prison" as of January 2015 with a staff of over 6,000 service members, contractors and civilians to watch over the remaining 127 detainees of whom a small handful are thought to be a future risk. That totals at least 50 keepers for each detainee as well as the need to keep the entire facility open.
Every day the remaining detainees are held uncharged untried unsentenced in a legal limbo anathema to every principle of American jurisprudence ultimately in the words of eighty-three (83) retired United States Generals and flag officers these remaining detainees serve first and foremost as one thing: "A recruiting poster" for terrorists who would declare the United States their enemy all over the world. In other words in every way Guantanamo represents the very absolute of everything it was meant to accomplish and a living monument to American failure.
Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved
