Last week, I again had the privilege of traveling to Guantanamo Bay to observe a military commission proceeding as an invited representative of a non-governmental organization (NGO), my employer, The Heritage Foundation. And once again, I was disappointed by the lack of informed commentary from my fellow NGO representatives. Perhaps the most disappointingly slanted account of the proceedings was published by Human Rights Watch’s Laura Pitter in Salon and entitled “Guantanamo’s System of Injustice.” Pitter’s central theme is that there are “vast differences” between federal court and military commissions and …
His plan was to rip apart nightclubs with explosives, unleash a wave of destruction on bridges, and open fire on police officers–all in sunny Florida. This was the murderous intent of Sami Osmakac, 25, an American citizen from the former Yugoslavia who was determined to spill blood, foment destruction, and bring terror to the United States all in the name of Allah. Fortunately, undercover FBI agents thwarted his efforts, making this the 44th foiled terrorist plot against America. Osmakac’s plot is a not-so-subtle reminder that terrorists lurk not only in …
While opinions about America’s post–9/11 policies come and go, facts remain: The U.S. has thwarted 40 terrorist plots through an aggressive and prioritized plan of offense to protect America. That is not a plan to abandon now, in an age of increasingly high-tech terrorism. As John Yoo, a former official in the U.S. Department of Justice between 2001–2003, said yesterday at The Heritage Foundation, “The most important thing to happen in the U.S. in the last 10 years was nothing… the most important question to ask is why and whether …
Last week, the American Society of Magazine Editors’ awarded writer Scott Horton with their National Magazine Award for Reporting. The problem is, his story was a complete fiction and its flaws had been exposed from every conceivable quarter. It was June 2006 and the phone rang in the middle of the night. I knew it had to be something bad. My employee on the other end of the line said, “three detainees killed themselves at Gitmo.” As the head of detainee policy at the Pentagon, I ordered him to get …
Even though it has been several years since any new detainees have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, the intelligence extracted from them is still proving its worth—in major and surprising ways. Buried in the flood of information on the extraordinary operation to locate and kill Osama bin Laden is the critical role of strategic interrogations of detainees, including those at Guantanamo. According to a number of published reports, Gitmo detainees provided key pieces of information that ultimately lead to the location and death of Osama bin Laden. Those reports are …
In addition to the always outstanding analysis provided by Bobby Chesney and John Bellinger on the Obama administration’s new executive order on GTMO detention review, and the accompanying “Fact Sheet“, there is another fascinating feature that merits discussion. Here’s the question: by recognizing Article 75 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Convention (API) as customary international law, which includes in §4(g) the “right to examine, or have examined, the witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf,” has the administration inadvertently (or …
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA – I was privileged to be one of six representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) invited by the Office of Military Commissions to observe the guilty plea of Ibrahim al Qosi here in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, yesterday. The other invitees were the ACLU, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the National Institute of Military Justice (NIMJ). Each of those organizations have been highly critical of military commissions, denouncing them as unfair, unjust, unnecessary, not in keeping with the rule of law, and not fair compared …
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA – Ibrahim al Qosi, a Sudanese-born al-Qaeda terrorist, held at Guantanamo Bay since early 2002, pleaded guilty Wednesday at his military commission to both charges—conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism and material support for terrorism. His much-anticipated plea caps an eight-year saga spanning two separate Administrations and represents the fourth conviction for the on-again-off-again military commissions and the first such conviction in the Obama Administration. Flanked by his three lawyers (two military, one lead civilian counsel), al Qosi arrived in the Guantanamo Bay main courthouse dressed …
During this past Wednesday’s mark-up of the Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act my fellow conservatives on the House Armed Services Committee stood strongly on the side of the American people, vociferously fighting for security, liberty, and freedom through our Defend America First platform. One of the issues debated on Wednesday, which many of us have deemed most detrimental to our Republic, is the disgraceful actions apparently undertaken by the disloyal defense lawyers involved in the John Adams Project. We have called for an immediate and thorough investigation of …
In today’s editorial titled “The K.S.M. Files,” the New York Times laments the good ‘ole days of 2009, when, in their words, “the United States was making progress toward cleaning up the mess President George W. Bush made with his detention policies. The Pentagon was working on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The flawed military tribunals were improved, at least a bit. And the Justice Department announced that the accused mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Shaikh (sic) Mohammed, would be tried in federal court.” Setting nostalgia aside, and the fact …
