Comments on: Three Prisoners Released From Guantánamo: Two To Ireland, One To Yemen

By: Guantanamo: Jemeniten schon bis zu 7 Jahre eingekerkert « Ticker

Guantanamo: Jemeniten schon bis zu 7 Jahre eingekerkert « Ticker — Fri, 13 May 2011 10:47:03 +0000

[...] in the careful words of the Task Force) have fared no better. Although President Obama released one Yemeni who had won his habeas corpus petition in the fall of 2009 and six others the week before [...]

By: Judge Orders Release From Guantánamo Of Yemeni Seized In Iran, Held In Secret CIA Prisons « Eurasia Review

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:32:48 +0000

[...] — pending an improvement in the security situation in Yemen. Seven of the remaining 36 were freed last year, leaving 29 who may well have been freed had it not been for the [...]

By: FreeWestRadio.com » Blog Archive » Why is a Yemeni Student in Guantánamo, Cleared on Three Occasions, Still Imprisoned?

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:56:00 +0000

[...] Ahmed was finally released last September, and in the meantime another student in the house, Abdul Aziz al-Noofayee, a Saudi, was released [...]

By: Anger in Yemen Over Halt to Release of Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners « freedetainees.org

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:35:40 +0000

[...] the Obama administration had repatriated six cleared Yemenis from Guantánamo, following up on the release of another court-cleared Yemeni in October. These transfers broke the long-standing deadlock [...]

By: Andy Worthington

Andy Worthington — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:32:16 +0000

Thanks, TD. I shall try to take comfort from the correlation you drew between national bankruptcy, precipitated by the most startlingly dull but ambitious robber-barons in history, and the State’s inability to maintain insanely bloated domestic prison populations and wildly expensive foreign gulags. Bring on the second economic crash! (the one hidden by the multi-trillion dollar sticking plaster stolen from the public last year).
Hmm … small comfort, I find, but at least no one will be able to accuse us of having been delusional and unprepared … more tinned foodstuffs, Vicar?

By: the talking dog

the talking dog — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:20:03 +0000

Great reporting as usual, Andy.

Glad to see three more out… and then there were… 217? or whatever the number is, the vast majority of whom pose no threat to anyone, and have probably been already so determined by the military, courts, or both, and/or Obama’s “executive review”.

The disconnect between the campaign rhetoric (and I think the initial executive order to lose GTMO within a year of inauguration can safely be counted as campaign rhetoric) and the actual policy of the Obama Administration, continues to be chasm width. Much of candidate Obama’s support (and I include my own) was drawn by criticism of the many policies of Bush/Cheney/Addington/Yoo that he inherited. But apparently, the perennial fear of all Demoratic politicians that they are soft on defense, or terrorism, or anything else… and lo and behold, he finds the politics of his one-year-closure promise (led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other jerks from Obama’s own party) to be close to untenable.

Worse, of course, the “flexibility” to operate gulags, kidnap people, and indeed, the granddaddy of them all, to send citizens to the dungeon without recourse to law… continues to be discussed, even if, thankfully, “preventive detention legislation” appears to be going nowhere.

American aggression and its companion the total national security state persist. The only “good news” is that it is more than likely in the coming few years that all of this will be remedied after all… not,of course, because of any kind of enlightened changes in policies, but simply because the United States’s economy is on track to collapse, and we just won’t be able to afford to do these things. Not clear what the GTMO census (or the broader gulag archipelago operated by American apparatuses) will be by then…but given cost concerns already causing American governments to start reducing their prison populations… one can extrapolate, I suppose.

In the meantime, the human cost of our unenlightened policies continues to be staggering; glad to see anyone at all– even if sadly still only a handful– released from them.