By Marc Falkoff
This week, we learned that the U.S. military decided years ago that some of your countrymen were eligible to be released from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. But they remain in prison today on the rocky shores of Cuba, with no immediate prospect of returning home. A total of 107 Yemenis have been detained at Guantánamo since the prison camp opened in January 2002.
More than five years later, only six Yemenis have been returned to their home country. During the same period, fully one-third of the Saudis are back in Saudi Arabia, more than half of the Afghanis are home with their families, and every single European national has been released from Guantánamo. Yet more than 100 Yemenis remain in the prison sitting in solitary confinement on steel beds, deprived of books and newspapers, slowly going insane. Let me be frank.
The Americans do not hear the voices of the Yemeni people. You are not speaking loudly enough to your representatives, pressuring them to reach an agreement with the Americans for the repatriation of your citizens. With respect, some of us are concerned that your politicians do not feel obliged to negotiate for the return of your sons and brothers. Unless your representatives demand the return of your countrymen, the Americans will be content to keep men like Abdulsalam al Hela in their steel-mesh cages.
We all agree that primary blame for the unconscionable detention of the Yemenis at Guantánamo lies with the American government. I have represented seventeen of your countrymen, including Abdulsalam al Hela, for nearly three years, and I can assure you that week in and week out we have argued in the press and in the courts that America is acting illegally at Guantánamo. But the reality of the situation is this: Other countries nationals have been released in large numbers because of a combination of massive popular protests and government actors who have insisted that America return their citizens home. You know about the religious persecution that the Yemenis have suffered at Guantánamo.
You know that they have been physically abused. You know that after more than five years in detention, they have never received their day in court. But until now, you could not have known that some of your countrymen were cleared for release by the U.S. military years ago. Just days ago, after we threatened legal action, the Pentagon revealed to us information that was previously classified the names of Yemen prisoners at Guantánamo who are eligible for transfer back to Yemen immediately, including three of my clients. Some of the men on the militarys list were eligible to return to their home countries at least as early as June 2004.
Why, then, are they still in Guantánamo? The answer is simple. The Yemen government has so far failed to reach an agreement with the Americans for the return of your sons and brothers. We lawyers have been frozen out of the process, so we cannot tell you exactly what the hold-up has been. But the Yemen government appears to be anxious that a handful of these more than 100 detainees do not have adequate proof that they are Yemen citizens.
The Yemen government also seems concerned that, by providing the Americans with a pledge that it will not torture the returnees from Guantánamo, Yemen would be admitting that it does torture other prisoners.
The Yemen government also seems concerned that, by providing the Americans with a pledge that it will not torture the returnees from Guantánamo, Yemen would be admitting that it does torture other prisoners.
If these are really the Yemen governments concerns and I am only speculating that they are then surely they are not significant enough to hold up the repatriation of your countrymen. All of the other countries that have agreed to the repatriation of their countrymen have provided similar assurances about torture, and quibbles about a handful of men without citizenship papers are surely of trifling importance. Is the Yemen government instead concerned that accepting the Guantánamo prisoners back into Yemen might be dangerous and that these are men really are terrorists? The Americans have done a good job of convincing the world that Guantánamo contains the worst of the worst, but the Yemeni people should not be fooled.
The Europeans were skeptical, and you should be too. In fact, nearly all of the Europeans who were repatriated are now at liberty in their home countries. They are living at home with their wives and children, working in bookshops and bakeries, composing music, tending to their lives. It turns out that there was no real evidence of guilt in their secret Guantánamo files, just as there is surely no evidence of guilt in the secret files of most of your countrymen.
Of course, I can speak directly only to the evidence in the files of my own clients, but I can assure you that my clients are perfectly innocent of the allegations made against them.
(Of course, I can speak directly only to the evidence in the files of my own clients, but I can assure you that my clients are perfectly innocent of the allegations made against them.) My point is simple. Your countrymen will not be returned from Guantánamo until you make it crystal clear to your leaders that they must reach an agreement with the Americans. Do not believe that your countrys politicians have done everything possible to bring your brothers and sons back home.
The Americans are ready to send many of your countrymen back home, but for some reason the Yemen government has been unwilling to okay the transfer. It is up to you, the Yemeni people, to make your leaders understand that you want the men to come back home, now. We now know of at least five men who the U.S. military says could be released tomorrow, if the Yemen government would agree to accept them.
Perhaps putting a name and face to the men who remain in limbo in Guantánamo will convince your countrys leaders that they must do more to reach an agreement on repatriation. Here are the names of the men that we know could be home with their families in a matter of days:
Every day that your government fails to reach an agreement with the Americans is another day that these men will remain behind bars, separated from their families by an ocean and a continent. Here in America, we have heard the voices of the Europeans, the Saudis and the Afghanis, but we cannot hear yours. And until we do, I fear that your countrymen will not be returned home.
The author is a professor of criminal law at Northern Illinois University College of Law. Along with the law firm Covington & Burling, for the past three years he has represented seventeen Yemenis being detained by the United States military at Guantánamo Bay.
This article starring:
ABDULSALAM AL HELA
al-Qaeda
ADEL SAID AL HAJ OBAID BUSAIS
al-Qaeda
ALI YAHYA MAHDI
al-Qaeda
Covington
MOHAMAD MOHAMAD HASAN
al-Qaeda
MUHAMAD SAID BIN SALEM
al-Qaeda
SADIQ MOHAMAD SAID ISMAIL
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Has it occured to this simpleton that the government of Yemen might not want 107 troublemakers back on its soil? God, I don't even have a college degree and I can figure that one out.
#2
Well Marc, please hold your breath because Yemen rarely steps up.
You masters don't want them back, so can we put them on a raft and kick them offshore yet?
I love how these guys plead ,we didn't spill any secrets just as there is surely no evidence of guilt in the secret files of just a bunch most of your countrymen
These guys were just innocent Yemenis, wealthy tourists visiting the holy sites in Afghanistan and Iraq, right?
(A Yemeni wealthy enough to get to where he got caught by us was either funded by the terror masters, wealthy through criminal endeavor, or a non-observant Muslim wasting resources more properly employed making the Haj.)
What happened with the six who did return to Yemen? Have they joined up with the rebels in the hills? Gone back to Iraq to try again for the 72 virgins? Working on the re-write of the Jihadi Training Manual chapter on handling American incarceration?
#2
Part of the drive towards newer ships is the ever shrinking pool of sailors to man the vessels. No point in having ships in mothballs when you don't have enough sailors to man the ones on active duty. The new ships will require significantly smaller crews. The rate things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see remote control ships ala Predator and Global Hawk that can be operated from port.
#4
Another good reason is that the survivability of the old ships is terrible, when faced with new technologies specifically designed to destroy them.
It may be cruel necessity to force the destruction of the old ships to force congress to pay for newer ones. Congress will invariably decide to force the Navy to use death trap rust buckets, if they are cheap.
This is not to say that the grossly expensive newer ships are an acceptable alternative. The Navy itself has lost patience with shipbuilders and their antics. So hopefully, there will be new ships with a better price tag in the future.
The argument that the USN has lost patience with its shipbuilders and their antics is, on one hand perfectly valid, but on the other hand, inadequate to explain why a US Naval Reserve is not being maintained.
The only thing I can think of, and it's the only slight I can think of against Rumsfeld, is that he directed it in order to pare down the USN and cut it to the bone to regain its fighting strength.
Unfortunately, the USN needs its reserve ships as much as the US Army needs its reserve personnel and the National Guard in times of crisis.
This is quickly going to produce a US Navy that cannot protect its convoys or aircraft carriers in a time of global war IMO.
Im no network genius but my sense is that the CBS evening news viewers (I use the plural speculatively) want the conceit maintained. They want macho music with a butch voice announcing The CBS Evening News from the CBS News Desk at CBS All-News World Headquarters with grizzled hard-hitting veteran news anchor Ted Baxter er, Dan Rather at the CBS News macho anchor desk, where hard news is good to find, and then Dan comes on sitting in front of a map of the world with flashing lights showing CBS bureaus around the globe that were all closed in 1988 when they gave his hairdresser a raise and barks gruffly, Heres one of the toughest reporters in the business. Youve been pounding pavement and working your sources all day, John Roberts. What have you found?, and then John does a feature about how the new nose hair pill may increase your risk of incontinence.
But, starting with Hugo Winterhalter and a 1,001 Cascading Strings playing Thank You For Being A Friend and then a soothing voice saying The Katie Couric Show Its newsy but woozy! And in such soft focus you wont even notice the health feature has merged into an item about Irans nuclear program and, if you do, dont worry, it wont last very long before we get to our new feature American Uplift: Heartwarming tales of everyday people just like that nice family that used to live next door to you until they sold the lot to a Saudi-funded madrassah, doing it that way just gives the game away.
The CBS viewer (I use the singular advisedly) wants his lifestyle features with a veneer of gravitas. If I were the news division president, my motto would be: CBS. Soft News Hard.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/07/2007 10:38 ||
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