Guántanamo detainees—the full list

[Dietrich]

Guántanamo detainees—the full list

---------------------------------------------

And wasn't WikiLeaks going to release video of the Granai airstrike?

[abneo3sierra]

I will think it is fair when they also put up the list of those killed by the Taliban and al Qaeda..but probably too difficult to make a list that long.

[Stalins Organ]

Been done already - this one is new

[JonS]

US military analysts assessing the threat levels related to some 800 men held at Guantánamo used testimony from just 8 detainees, whose accounts now "appear to be questionable." Why is their testimony unreliable? It was obtained under "harsh interrogation" methods which most of us would describe as torture. Link.

[Affentitten]

What really, genuinely surprises me is just how clumsy and inept the whole thing was. This was the 'ticking bomb' of intelligence gold mines, the internment of the "worst of the worst" etc etc etc. But whenever I read just how laggardly, bumbling and unfocused the whole program was, I just don't get it. Nobody really seems to have been that interested in sifting the nuggets or obtaining anything like the urgent truth. The vast majority of the people there were nobodies. I even, in a quick flick through the records saw one case of someone where the authorities were looking for somebody else but arrested the guy who happened to be nearby instead. Bounties were paid to the good citizens of the Northern Alliance to bring in captured Taliban and al-Q fighters. So instantly anyone they felt a dislike for got turned in with no questions asked....sometimes for years. And there were all these fanciful confessions that were obtained by contracted interrogators. Certainly the FBI thought they were a crock. So what was the point? Especially given what a festering sore Guantanamo was on the PR image of the WoT.

From the Australian perspective there are some serious questions to answer. One of our 2 detainees swore for years that he was rendered to Egypt and tortured there. And for years the Australian government denied it. Yet it says it right there on his record "The detainee was held at a Pakistani military base in Quetta, PK, and was subsequently transferred to Egyptian control. He spent six months with Egyptian interrogators before being transferred to US custody. "

[costard]

Aff, as I understand it, the idea behind the incarceration of people at Gitmo was based around a mathematical model of intelligence gathering: get enough people from the area you're interested in, ask them a number of questions, plug the data into a large and fast computer and you can build a picture of the environment you expect to be operating in. The more people and the more questions, the better the resultant picture.

I surmise that this was attractive enough an idea for it to be funded and tested. Most likely anyone who understood the failings of the model (mostly, that you still need intelligence gatherers on the ground, in country, so your economic justification for the existence of the program is at best just plain crap) was needed in the real-world business of intelligence gathering. Thus, the skills required for useful and effective interrogation were being employed elsewhere. Given that the benefits of the exercise were recognised by anyone with a modicum of intellect as about as likely as the natural occurrence of rocking-horse ****, methods of interrogation weren't subjected to cost/benefit analysis (this work having been done quite a long time ago, torture being found to be a quantitatively and qualitatively poorer option than practically all others), nor were they managed.

What was the point? Government funding for a privately owned and operated intelligence unit (sub-contracting of the intelligence work of the CIA in line with the dominant philosophy of taxpayer funding of state apparatus). The morality of the circumstances wasn't costed in because the morality of the circumstances was considered unimportant. It is a very sad indictment of the quality of the leadership of the USA that this program could be justified, supported, funded, defended and continued. The US leadership chose to surrender their moral right in the pursuit of the "War on Terror", and in doing so, surrendered their right to lead. The fact that their chosen path has done nothing good for anyone outside of the US defense industry is indicative of either the leadership's complicity in a plot to plunder the US taxpayer or the totality of it's intellectual impairment. If it were the former, there would be some hope for us all: I suspect it is the latter.

[abneo3sierra]

I would still suggest that spending a few days at Guantanamo would very quickly change the minds of at least most of its opponents. The prison is much better than any prisons in the USA, for certain,and better than prisons I have seen in Europe, as well..not sure about Australia, have ever seen prisons there, but in a "motel-like" atmosphere, Guantanamo definitely would at least compete. In the US and it's allies, there are probably half of the general (law abiding) populations who live in worse conditions, than those present at Guantanamo.

The reasons for placing prisoners there, had nothing to do with gathering of intelligence in the beginning, but rather a secure US base, without having to convince civilians to put them in prisons near the civilians' homes. The reason (primary) that Guantanamo has still not closed? Because no civilans want these people in their neighborhood..protests in the cities around several of the prisons where the Obama administration planned to transfer them, took place at the first whiff of possibility that terrorists were going to be living nearby. For all of the talk, no US ally wants them transferred to THEIR care, either, so, they are left in Guantanamo.

[costard]

The fact that the prisoners are well treated (apart from the torturing, granted) is justification for the denial of legal due process and the monstrous injustices perpetrated upon them?

It's a pool of bloody diarrhoea - why would anyone else want to clean up the mess when the US refuses to take steps to address the primary pathology? As I'm sure you understand, doing so raises the expectation of being requested to perform the same ****ty task in the future.

[abneo3sierra]

I still regret the use of the word "torture" to explain processes that we also endure as soldiers in training. Loud music preventing sleep..hell, in high school I loved that.."waterboarding"? we do in training, and even then,has only been used a handful of times in 10 yrs. "Rights"? they were(most of them) combatants out of uniform, by Geneva Convention, allowed to be shot summarily. Heaven forbid the other side has to obey the GC rules.

All that said though, I really wish we would just have shot them in the beginning, in combat...saved a lot of taxpayer money for the meals,free healthcare,satellite TV,libraries,workout facilities,etc.

The one part I do agree with you guys on though, is that ,IMO, nobody who was NOT a combatant,ever should have been sent there.

[JonS]

I still regret the use of the word "torture" to explain processes that we also endure as soldiers in training.

I take it you're having difficulty grasping the difference between voluntarily submitting to something as a way of achieving something, and having that same thing inflicted on you against your will.

"Rights"? they were(most of them) combatants out of uniform, by Geneva Convention, allowed to be shot summarily.

Honestly? Is this really how bad LOAC education is in the US armed forces. You are a ****ing disgrace.

Heaven forbid the other side has to obey the GC rules.

This isn't about what they signed up to. It's about what YOU signed up to. And your own UCMJ. Jesus ****ing christ. You can't just throw your OWN rulebook out the window because it's too hard or too inconvienient. ****ing christ. What a whining bitch you are.

All that said though, I really wish we would just have shot them in the beginning, in combat

Yeah, well, that's the problem when you outsource, eh?

Someone should strangle moronic rednecks like you at birth.

[abneo3sierra]

F- You Jon..oh,I meant "friend you" on facebook..

Learn to F'n read..or maybe,just simply comprehend... Nowhere was our UCMJ violated ;lawyers, whose job is to decide these things,cleared EVERYTHING that happened there. Do not waste your useless breath trying to understand how actual fighting armies work.

And, for the record, again,my post was civil, until your a$$ brought out personal attacks again.

[abneo3sierra]

Sorry to everyone else in this post..that dude just never can talk without trying to make it personal,can never talk about issues,can never comprehend conversation, or anything. It is the last time I ever will reply to the sorry &^%$ but I am sorry to do it here.

[Bigduke6]

I still regret the use of the word "torture" to explain processes that we also endure as soldiers in training. Loud music preventing sleep..hell, in high school I loved that.."waterboarding"? we do in training, and even then,has only been used a handful of times in 10 yrs. "Rights"? they were(most of them) combatants out of uniform, by Geneva Convention, allowed to be shot summarily. Heaven forbid the other side has to obey the GC rules.

Just because a soldier must endure something in his training in a particular military, doesn't make it legitimate to inflict on others.

Geneva Convention rules were devised to regulate wars between nation states, which can afford to put their armies in uniform and indeed gain the benefits of reduced cost, perhaps better concealment, and regimentation of individuals in said army.

Geneva Convention standards may of course be applied to a non-military group tied together on say ethnic or religious lines, or indeed to a somewhat random group of individuals more or less at the same location, of whom at least some just happened to be there by accident - I base that last conclusion on the Wikileaks information, which seems to show that for every person that got grabbed who was even vaguely committed to some version of a jihad, there was another and maybe several who were just uneducated dopes in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Crtainly, members of an organized military paid by the government of nation-state may do whatever they want with this group if they see the need - and unquestionably that includes shooting the group's members "on the battlefield" and then declaring them "illegal combatants" because they "weren't in uniform."

Definately, if the objects of this policy are by and large uneducated dopes, it would be easier to make this policy happen. Even if the uneducated dopes happened to living in a country where carrying an automatic rifle is roughly as common, as carrying a smart phone is for inhabitants of the country that sent its soldiers to detain and shoot the uneducated dopes.

Many members of many organized militaries might even see such detentions and executions as legitimate and justified.

However, the vast bulk of the world is civilians, and not too many of them would subscribe to that point of view.

This could create a particular problem were an organized military to attempt to enforce its understanding of who should and should not participate in an armed conflict, with all the shooting and detentions that understanding implied, in a place where the civilians are (a) frequently armed and ( historically inclined to fight foreign armies.

Of course, if the big country with the organized military has an excellent anti-insurgency doctrine, plenty of money, AND (this is really the important bit) a population willing to make the sacrifices and accept the casualties and pay the price of prosecuting a war against insurgents, then the big country can do whatever it pleases.

But there is risk associated with attempting to enforce one's version of reality in a place where one lacks the national willpower to back it up. A lot of people on both sides could get killed or maimed in that case.

[JonS]

**** you, cock much. This isn't "a difference of opinion." It goes right to the heart of why you bunch of dip**** ****ing yahoos keeping cocking things up, and I'm ****ing sick of watching internet tough guys like you attempt to casually brush this stuff aside like it's irrelevant.

You may not, but your country has standards. Live up to the ****ing things. Don't drop them at the first sign of difficulty whine like bitches that "oh, it's too hard!"

Idiot. I have less contempt for you now than ever, you dishonourable piece of ****.

[abneo3sierra]

I agree with you bigduke. For the record, I don't think we belong in Afghanistan anyway. I think we could have bombed bin Laden,even come back and done again many times if we kept missing him,and still,would have spent less money and lives,than we have spent in a 10 yr long war where nobody wants to do what is required to win it..ie..fight it 100%.

The Afghan people are very good(mostly)..it is a shame that most of them have never really known what "peace" even was,between the Soviet invasion, and the American one.

[Boeman]

With the recent Taliban jailbreak in Afghanistan through which a sizable number of the most dangerous insurgents garnered their freedom, the case for retaining Guantanamo as an operational prison can only be strengthened from this point forward.

For practical reasons, it's simply easier to control and observe the flow of human traffic in a tightly controlled environment that is far removed from civilian population centers within the continental US where active Al Queda sleeper cells continue to reside.

[JonS]

I apologise to the good ship BFC and all who sail on her for my impassioned outbust. All except AB3.

Warriors protect civilians. Warriors do not torture and murder. AB3 is no warrior. He is a lazy coward. He is too lazy to do the hard work of separating the guilty from the innocent and ensuring both get justice, and too cowardly to stand up for what is right.

I hope you die young after a lonely and bitter life.

[costard]

With the recent Taliban jailbreak in Afghanistan through which a sizable number of the most dangerous insurgents garnered their freedom, the case for retaining Guantanamo as an operational prison can only be strengthened from this point forward.

For practical reasons, it's simply easier to control and observe the flow of human traffic in a tightly controlled environment that is far removed from civilian population centers within the continental US where active Al Queda sleeper cells continue to reside.

Gumph. "active sleeper cells" is an oxymoron. There is no "flow of human traffic" in "a tightly controlled environment" to observe.

If AQ has cells in the continental US, they either active (given that they are in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight for their survival), or the AQ leadership has determined that the US is doing a fine job of furthering AQ's goals with its current strategy. If the need for Guantanamo has strengthened, will we see an expansion of it's capabilities? Do you think there might be obstacles to this?

Ron, boeman, at some time you will have to examine your belief systems for internal consistency. I myself cannot reconcile a living christian ethic with the desirability for torture (and humane torture is another oxymoron, Ron), nor can I reconcile the need for rule of law with denial of legal due process. The US military finds itself in a position similar to that of the late Vietnam war - it has abandoned those behavioural codes it determined as necessary for good maintenance of the organisation and, as a result, finds itself with a diminishing support base in the civilian population. The clearer thinkers in the leadership have left the organisation or been sidelined and those left have been those parroting the propaganda line. The eventual failure of the operation(s) will be blamed on the economic circumstances we're enduring (and they're going to get worse, much worse), but a more disciplined examination will show that the stated goals were unachievable without internally consistent philosophies backing up the reasoning behind the planning of the operations.

Sadly, US (and allied) military personnel, having repaired their reputation through the eighties and nineties with the adoption of those behavioural codes so easily abandoned through this last decade, will find themselves painted with the broad brush of condemnation that characterised the popular view of the military through the late sixties through to the late eighties.

[Boeman]

Gumph. "active sleeper cells" is an oxymoron. There is no "flow of human traffic" in "a tightly controlled environment" to observe.

If AQ has cells in the continental US, they either active (given that they are in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight for their survival), or the AQ leadership has determined that the US is doing a fine job of furthering AQ's goals with its current strategy. If the need for Guantanamo has strengthened, will we see an expansion of it's capabilities? Do you think there might be obstacles to this?

Ron, boeman, at some time you will have to examine your belief systems for internal consistency. I myself cannot reconcile a living christian ethic with the desirability for torture (and humane torture is another oxymoron, Ron), nor can I reconcile the need for rule of law with denial of legal due process. The US military finds itself in a position similar to that of the late Vietnam war - it has abandoned those behavioural codes it determined as necessary for good maintenance of the organisation and, as a result, finds itself with a diminishing support base in the civilian population. The clearer thinkers in the leadership have left the organisation or been sidelined and those left have been those parroting the propaganda line. The eventual failure of the operation(s) will be blamed on the economic circumstances we're enduring (and they're going to get worse, much worse), but a more disciplined examination will show that the stated goals were unachievable without internally consistent philosophies backing up the reasoning behind the planning of the operations.

Sadly, US (and allied) military personnel, having repaired their reputation through the eighties and nineties with the adoption of those behavioural codes so easily abandoned through this last decade, will find themselves painted with the broad brush of condemnation that characterised the popular view of the military through the late sixties through to the late eighties.

By "traffic", I'm referring to the movements of external personnel be they auxiliary staff from other branches of the US military, foreign/human rights dignitaries, members of the press or otherwise.

Greater degrees of transparency was one of the chief aspects upon which the current administration promoted from the last election cycle - this includes the activities within Guantanamo. As such, the compound has been made slightly more accessible to the media than was possible in years prior. This was particularly true during the Omar Kotar case, where Canadian officials provided legal counsel and met regularly with Kotar who, himself, was a Canadian citizen detained within Guantanamo Bay.

The point is that people are coming and going at regular intervals and the need to process and screen these "visitors" is quite crucial for maintaining security - especially in the wake of the James Yee incident.

With respect to sleeper cells, if there is one attribute for which Al Queda is famous for, it's their infinite patience. They have no qualms about waiting it out, for years if need be, until complacency becomes the norm. I suspect that from their vantage point, facilitating the escape of any detainees from US custody would immediately prove a useful PR construct - one that surely places the United States in a very precarious position; to say nothing of the deep embarrassment such an episode would entail.

The effects of the Afghanistan jailbreak are already being felt and my sense of it is that a similar scenario on US soil, no matter how implausible, is something the US government desperately wants to avoid.

Will these recent events prompt the expansion of Guantanamo? Not necessarily. What it will do, as I tried to infer with my base post, is that it will give advocates in favor of disbanding dismantling Guantanamo pause. At the very least, Guantanamo Bay will once again be relegated to political limbo (i.e. nothing will change).

[abneo3sierra]

Gumph. "active sleeper cells" is an oxymoron. There is no "flow of human traffic" in "a tightly controlled environment" to observe.

If AQ has cells in the continental US, they either active (given that they are in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight for their survival), or the AQ leadership has determined that the US is doing a fine job of furthering AQ's goals with its current strategy. If the need for Guantanamo has strengthened, will we see an expansion of it's capabilities? Do you think there might be obstacles to this?

Ron, boeman, at some time you will have to examine your belief systems for internal consistency. I myself cannot reconcile a living christian ethic with the desirability for torture (and humane torture is another oxymoron, Ron), nor can I reconcile the need for rule of law with denial of legal due process. The US military finds itself in a position similar to that of the late Vietnam war - it has abandoned those behavioural codes it determined as necessary for good maintenance of the organisation and, as a result, finds itself with a diminishing support base in the civilian population. The clearer thinkers in the leadership have left the organisation or been sidelined and those left have been those parroting the propaganda line. The eventual failure of the operation(s) will be blamed on the economic circumstances we're enduring (and they're going to get worse, much worse), but a more disciplined examination will show that the stated goals were unachievable without internally consistent philosophies backing up the reasoning behind the planning of the operations.

Sadly, US (and allied) military personnel, having repaired their reputation through the eighties and nineties with the adoption of those behavioural codes so easily abandoned through this last decade, will find themselves painted with the broad brush of condemnation that characterised the popular view of the military through the late sixties through to the late eighties.

"humane torture" IS an oxymoron Ken, but those are your words, not mine, I never called it torture. By the same token..is it torture to put someone in prison who has killed someone else? You are depriving them of their ability to move around freely,that could be considered torturous. This is the point I am making. The other poster above who mentioned that our duty is taking care of civilians, again has reading comprehension difficulty, as that had nothing to do with it, and I even agreed above that civilians should NOT be in Guantanamo. But people who are active combatants, are NOT, by definition, civilians. Neither are people who actively are plotting to conduct attacks. Anyone outside of these groups,as I said above, I agree with you on,they should not be in Guantanamo.

[Bigduke6]

abneo3sierra,

First and foremost, good for you for keeping your end of the discussion civil. That's not always easy to do. On a topic like this it's especially difficult sometimes to focus on the facts rather than conclusions driven by emotions and personal values.

But I would still argue that a big part of the "problem" here - and by problem I mean why it is we have a Guantanamo and why it seems to be helping win the war for the wrong side - is that there are all sorts of types of conflicts, and like it or not what the US is involved in in Afghanistan is not only not a conventional war (OK, that's a double negative, but bear with me) but it also quite possibly is not an UNconventional war as well.

It is something different. It is a great big wealthy advanced country deploying its military at a time when it is economically pressured, but militarily facing no major threats, in an attempt to repress a portion of a very poor country, and there are people in that very poor country that hate lots of people, including people in the big rich country. Certainly there are operations and dead soldiers and civilians and so forth, but it's not like there are organized armies out there.

There is only one army out there, the US/NATO military. The opposition is not combatants, it is not like there are two brands of local, the kind who actively oppose the US/NATO military, and the ones that support it, and essentially what you've got is is a civil war for the control of the country where hopefully we are on the side of the good guys.

That seems to me an outside view of what's going on, and so misleading. As I see it, what is going on is a classic jihad, there are unbeliever foreigners who are heavily armed in a Moslem country, and practically all Moslems everywhere consider that presence amoral, inappropriate, and at least theoretically necessary to oppose.

That's a huge potential opposition, and it doesn't fit any definition of combatant. It's not of just some Al Quaeda wingnuts and whatever Pathan rabble they've managed to brainwash. It's a potential opposition of something like one-quarter of the world's population.

Sure, not every believer can be expected to take up arms against the infidels. Certainly, most Moslems as a general thing would condemn killing civilians by suicide bomber. But still, the moral imperative is there: The foreign infidels are in one of Islam's oldest lands, and so a believer is obliged to help if he can. Jihad is holy.

A believer must support a jihad as he is able. This means the young men on the ground, who are watching the US/NATO forces move through their villages and periodically invade houses and drag away neighbors and relatives, should fight, and if necessary die as martyrs.

But it also means that morally conscious members of Islam OUTSIDE the region, if they are men and true believers, have an obligation to join the jihad if they can. Not that many do, but still, the moral imperative is there: fighting the infidel is a Good Thing. Define it as such to enough people, and a small percentage of them outside the region will try and help - some with money, some with vids on YouTube, some by making it their business to run weapons, some by using jihad to justify trading in heroin; it's a long list. Jihad is holy war, it can be used to justify a great deal of things.

This is why I thing the concept of "battlefields" and "combatants" falls apart. It is an understanding of warfare from a time where combat took place between organized armies with defined fronts, and there was a clear distinction between fighter and non-fighter.

The US/NATO side attempts to keep to this this fiction, but how valid is it? Is a uneducated guy who never had access to radio or literacy, has never left his valley, but if he got a chance would for sure try and shoot a foreign infidel - is he a combatant? How about the farmer that looks the other way or stores supplies for the insurgents? How about the wife of an insurgent who never touches a weapon, cooks food for the insurgents, but if you gave her a chance she would cut the eyes out of an infidel, as one of their bombs maimed a relative?

These people live their lives and by any reasonable logic they spend at least part of their time thinking about how to avoid or if necessary harm the US/NATO military effort, and if necessary how to harm or even kill US/NATO soldiers without being killed themselves. Are they plotting? Does this make them legitimate targets? What about the boys who want to become men, so they play games about fighting the foreigners, and the brave ones, maybe they set a bomb or act as scouts? Boys are boys - but does that mean these particular boys are fair game for a laser-guided munition?

Even worse, what about the other Afghans? The Karzai government by any standard is venal and corrupt. Never mind the Taliban, what if a resident of Afghanistan takes up arms against the Karzai government, which used vote fraud to keep itself in power? Is that Afghan a combatant? If he gets in a shouting match with a policeman or carries an illegal Kalashikov while traveling to Kandahar - because if he doesn't the bandits will shake him down for bribes, and the police aren't strong enough to fight the bandits and maybe even are cooperating with the bandits - is this Afghan also a combatant? Just because he's defending himself from the corrupt government the foreigners set up in his country?

And if any one pulls a trigger during any of these confrontations, anywhere, does that mean the battlefield just moved?

Can it really be, that there is sort of a magic bubble called a "battlefield" that hovers over US/NATO troops, and where they go it exists, and that makes their behavior "legitimate" as long as they follow "rules of engagement"?

Or is it that the US/NATO troops have no clue about how to deal with a jihad? Supposedly they have his great counter-insurgency doctrine going and they've had years to practice it, yet when you get right down to it they best they can do is suggest is either "send more troops" or "let us fight 100 per cent" when every one including them knows that's a pipe dream it ain't happening, or maybe "support civil society" "to win hearts and minds" when the government of that civil society, which they have installed, is literally one of the two or three most corrupt governments on the planet - AND the hearts and minds you want on your side see you as infidel invaders justifying a legitimate jihad?

It is, you should pardon the term as it seems snobbish, but really it just is what it is, proof positive of a yawning intellectual deficit. Guantanamo exists because a large group of people called the US military and top civilian command are willing to pretend it is involved in a war that doesn't exist, rather than come to terms with the fact it/they is/are on the wrong side of a jihad that will almost certainly defeat it/them.

So they leave Guantanamo as it is, they don't do anything, the prison continues to exist out of bureaucratic inertia. It's easier to just leave people locked up in there whoever they are, and blame the media or the liberals or the foreigners for the inevitable criticism, rather admit it all was a bad idea, mostly the wrong people got locked up, and yes the US/NATO militaries tried but frankly they were defeated.

[Affentitten]

abneo3sierra,

First and foremost, good for you for keeping your end of the discussion civil. That's not always easy to do. On a topic like this it's especially difficult sometimes to focus on the facts rather than conclusions driven by emotions and personal values.

Well personally I'm still a bit unsure where JonS stands on the topic. He should be more specific and tell us what he really thinks.

[abneo3sierra]

BigDuke,

I can definitely see your point..not 100% sure I agree with it, but not 100% sure I do not, either..some things there I had not considered before,thanks.

[Stalins Organ]

I still don't understand why guantanamo exists.

If people commit crimes, either in military action or civil society, they should be charged, the evidence weighed, a verdict reached, and hten punished or released as appropriate.

WTF is with this indefinite detention crap??

[abneo3sierra]

SO... Prisoners of War have, throughtout recent history,dating back into WW2, been held until after the war, at minimum..relatives of mine, were held by the Soviets for 10 years after the war ended even,all without actually being "charged".

Granted to your argument,and to BigDuke's, above, the line between "Prisoner of War" and "civilian detainee" is probably where the issue lies..but this is the reason, as seen by the US, at least..you cannot release "enemy" prisoners during a war,they will (as has already happened with many detainees released from Guantanamo) return to the fight against your forces. Those who claim these are not Prisoners of War, then, should stop demanding they be given Geneva rights reserved for POWs.