Guantanamo Bay

In your paper Aug. 26 you quoted the President as follows: "We must not let any nation, even a nation as close to us as Cuba . . . control the immigration policy of the United States and violate the borders of the United States. We have to be firm in this and we will work this through to a successful conclusion." I suggest that turning our standing immigration policy 180 degrees qualifies as Cuba controlling our immigration policy. I think that two things contributed to this turnabout: the crisis tone used by the Democrat governor (of Florida)

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court, after a four-year break from terrorism issues, is set to decide as soon as Monday whether to again take up constitutional challenges to George W. Bush-era anti-terrorism laws involving wiretapping and the Guantanamo prisoners. In one case, the Obama administration is asking the court to block a suit against the government's monitoring of international phone calls and emails. And in the other set of appeals, lawyers for six detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are asking the justices to make good on their promise of four years ago and give the inmates a "meaningful opportunity" to be released.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is again in the news. The two Americans released this month by Iran have reported that when they complained about conditions in their Tehran prison, the jailers would "immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay. " Such is the power of symbols. Symbols are important, and we ignore them at our peril. But even in these hyperpartisan times, when symbols are baseball bats used by thugs in the public square to beat reason senseless, I like to pretend that the truth is worth pursuing.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the boastful self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, sat in a small blue chair for hours at the opening of his capital murder trial — holding his tongue. As Saturday wore on, it became clear that Mohammed and the four other defendants were staging a silent protest, aimed at both confounding the U.S. military court system here and demonstrating to the outside world that they do not acknowledge America's control over them.

A terrorist suspect held at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is to be released after a panel found that he was not an enemy combatant, while 73 others were ordered to remain in custody, officials said. No details were given on the detainee, who would be freed following preparations between the United States and his government, said Navy Capt. Beci Brenton, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Re "No more excuses," editorial, May 22 The U.S. detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay now stands as a symbol of American resolve in the war on terror. Closing it would send a message of surrender to the terrorists, demonstrating to them that their propaganda is effective. Who can doubt that the recent spate of suicide attempts and the following uprising were orchestrated by the detainees to make news? This is an old terrorist trick. The detainees at Gitmo are suspected enemy combatants.

Re "Detention of Al Qaeda Suspects Challenged," Jan. 21: Ramsey Clark, Stephen Yagman and Erwin Chemerinsky (a failed attorney general, a publicity hound and a befuddled college professor), who presumably weren't bothered by the slaughter of terrorists in Tora Bora, are now worried because the Pentagon doesn't house the Al Qaeda captives at the Hilton. Where does it say we have to provide deluxe accommodations to people who are out to kill us? Ultimately, the military may have to execute some of these same prisoners.

Avoiding a showdown with a federal judge, the Obama administration agreed Wednesday to release from Guantanamo Bay an Afghan prisoner who was captured as a teenager and held nearly seven years for allegedly throwing a grenade at U.S. soldiers. The government said it would "promptly release" Mohammed Jawad, now 23, and send him to Afghanistan -- but only after it sent a required notification to Congress explaining whether his release would pose a risk to national security.

THE Defense Department's expulsion of four journalists reporting from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this week is another reminder of how the Bush administration's construction of an American gulag has undermined this country's ability to prosecute the global struggle against Islamo-fascist terrorism. The four, including The Times' Carol J. Williams, had been covering the suicides last weekend of three prisoners, who hanged themselves in their cells.

The Supreme Court agreed today over the objections of the Obama administration to hear a new appeal from Guantanamo Bay prisoners and decide whether a judge has the power to order the release of a detainee who is not a dangerous "enemy combatant." A ruling on this issue could complicate the administration's already troubled plans for closing the Guantanamo prison. Until now, the government and some lower courts have maintained a judge cannot force the release of a Guantanamo prisoner, even one who has won his legal appeal in a court hearing.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, wearing white prison clothes, seemed by turns amused and bewildered as he sat in a bright room last week during a pretrial hearing at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nashiri is charged with being a key organizer of Al Qaeda's attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole on Oct. 12, 2000, off the coast of Yemen, which killed 17 U.S. servicemen, as well as of two other attacks. He faces the death penalty if convicted in a trial before a military commission that is scheduled to begin in November.

Among the many reasons Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who planned the Sept. 11 attacks, should be tried in an American court of law, there is this: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head. " The murder of Pearl, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was but one of 31 attacks or planned attacks that Mohammed confessed to in front of an American military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on March 10, 2007.

Members of Congress are reacting sharply to a plan being considered by the White House to transfer abroad five of the most dangerous prisoners from Guantanamo Bay as a gesture to the Taliban in advance of Afghanistan peace talks. It would be the first time detainees from the "too dangerous to transfer" list have been relocated outside of U.S. control. The swift opposition from leading Republicans underscored President Obama's continuing difficulty to deliver on his promise to shut down the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Of all the hangovers from the George W. Bush years, the thorniest may be what to do about the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There are still 171 detainees at Guantanamo and little consensus on what to do with them. Last spring, President Obama announced the resumption of military trials for some of those charged with participating in the 9/11 attacks. These trials, known as military commissions, have been stalled for years by legal challenges. Recently, the official in charge of the Guantanamo prison, Rear Adm. David Woods, issued a draft order that compounds these challenges.

"I have here in my hand a list of ... names. " When Sen. Joseph McCarthy told the Ohio County Women's Republican Club of Wheeling, W.Va., on Feb. 9, 1950, that he held a list of 205 communists employed by the State Department, he ignited a firestorm and launched a career. We now know there was no list. Even then, it was obvious McCarthy was not particularly punctilious about the numbers. In Wheeling it was 205; in Salt Lake City it was 57; on the Senate floor it was 81. Nor was he especially careful about the allegation.

The White House said this week that President Obama will sign a controversial $662-billion defense authorization that permits indefinite detention without trial for some terrorism suspects and broadens the authorization for the use of force against people and groups "associated" with Al Qaeda anywhere in the world. It's the wrong choice. The bill, which passed the House Wednesday and the Senate Thursday, is being advertised as a compromise with the administration, and indeed it includes provisions designed to avoid a veto.

Mamdouh Habib, an Australian held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, returned to his hometown of Sydney aboard a chartered jet, more than three years after his arrest in Pakistan. The U.S. suspected Habib, who was arrested three weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, of aiding Al Qaeda but did not charge him. Australian officials said they would monitor his actions.

The first military tribunal of a terrorism suspect at Guantanamo Bay since President Obama was elected is a lose-lose proposition for the accused, a Saudi suspect who has been in U.S. custody for nearly a decade. If convicted of directing the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in October 2000, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri could be sentenced to death. But even if he is acquitted of all charges, he can be held indefinitely as an "enemy combatant. " The unusual proceeding, which opens Wednesday at the prison in Cuba, highlights a continuing legal and ethical dilemma for the Obama administration.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is again in the news. The two Americans released this month by Iran have reported that when they complained about conditions in their Tehran prison, the jailers would "immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay. " Such is the power of symbols. Symbols are important, and we ignore them at our peril. But even in these hyperpartisan times, when symbols are baseball bats used by thugs in the public square to beat reason senseless, I like to pretend that the truth is worth pursuing.