Gitmo detainee 'I do pose a threat'

Right from the horse's *ss as it were. When Muslim terrorists at Guantanamo openly and proudly state that they will continue terrorist attacks against the West, why do our elected officials ignore them? How do those on the left misunderstand that if given the chance, the terrorists they make excuses for would slit their throat in a instant if given the chance?

Where will you be when the Jihad hits the street?

FROM CAPECODONLINE.COM:

Gitmo detainee 'I do pose a threat'

By By Peter Finn and Julie Tate
(c) 2009, The Washington Post February 16, 2009

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — In a small room at Guantanamo Bay, plain white except for an American flag hung on the wall, Abdul al Rahman al Zahri sat shackled in front of three military officers at a hearing to determine whether he continued to pose a threat to the United States and its allies.
Zahri, a Yemeni captured in Afghanistan in 2001, was clear on that point.

“I do pose a threat to the United States and its allies,” he said, according to a transcript of the 2006 hearing. “I admit to you it’s my honor to be an enemy of the United States. I am a Muslim jihadist, and I’m defending my family and my honor.”
Zahri may have been unambiguous about his state of mind, but the question of whether he can be charged with any crime is murkier. Complicating matters for the administration is the fact that he has made sometimes flatly contradictory statements about his loyalties, at one point condemning bin Laden as a “heretic.”
Zahri said he heard the call to jihad outside a mosque in Yemen in early 2001, and he decided to go to Afghanistan as a trainee to eventually fight Russian forces in Chechnya, according to military documents. Within a week, he met bin Laden at an al-Qaida guesthouse, one of 10 meetings that military officials allege he had with terrorist leaders.

“The detainee stated he attended a meeting prior to 11 September 2001 in which an upcoming operation was discussed,” according to military documents.
Zahri went to the front lines in Afghanistan to fight the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance, where he was wounded, captured and eventually sent to Guantanamo. But despite his statements and some potential evidence — he was captured with a bag of various currencies and passports from several countries — some legal experts say it may be difficult for the United States to bring charges against him under the law as it stood in 2001.

“His statement that he is a jihadist and wants to stand against America — exactly what law does that violate?” asked Benjamin Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of “Law and the Long War.” “I cannot be confident that these facts — even if proven — would amount to a prosecutable case.”

Wittes and others have suggested that some system of detention may be needed for prisoners who cannot be prosecuted but are too dangerous to release. Human rights advocates, however, disagree.
READ IT ALL:

A new way of gaining jihadi-Americans

Here's a disturbing and revealing look at how one federal judge can open the gates of American judicial system even further to terrorists held in Guantanamo. Wanting to release international terrorists into American society will put us in the same insane position as Britain and Denmark who now support and protect avowed anti-West terrorists because of concerns over their human rights.

FROM REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT WATCH:

A new way of gaining jihadi-Americans

Update: New post on judge’s decision is here.

Update: CNN reports

the Uighurs will be in a Washington DC courtroom this Friday (Hat tip: Blulitespecial)
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s June Boumedienne decision, which gave habeas corpus rights to the Guantanamo prisoners, we’re now getting a new group of jihadists here. The Washington Post reports in Uighur Detainees May Be Released to U.S.:

A federal judge is considering whether to order a group of detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay released into the United States, in what would instantly become a landmark legal decision in the years-long battle over the rights of terrorism suspects there.
The men, a small band of Chinese Muslims who have been held for nearly seven years, are no longer considered enemy combatants by the U.S. government, but they are caught in a well-documented diplomatic bind. Unlike other captives, they cannot be sent to their home country because Beijing considers them terrorists, and they might be tortured. The government released five of the detainees, known as Uighurs (pronounced “WEE-gurz”), to Albania in 2006, but no other country wants to risk offending China by accepting the others.

The Justice Department opposes the move.

But its lawyers have argued in court papers and at hearings that only the president has the authority to allow the men into the country. They also said the judge is barred from ordering their entry if they have ties to terrorist groups.
In court documents, they have contended that one of the men received training from a group that was later determined by the Bush administration to be a terrorist organization. The Justice Department is expected to make the same argument for the other 16 Uighurs, an official said.
“It’s an executive branch matter, and not for some technical reason,” Judry Subar, a Justice Department lawyer, said at the August hearing. “It’s because that goes — particularly in a case like this — to very serious, important and sensitive diplomatic . . . considerations.”

Serious considerations like the war we’re in.

The government has asserted that the Uighurs were members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and trained at camps affiliated with the Taliban or al-Qaeda. The Bush administration designated ETIM a terrorist organization in August 2002, after the Uighurs were taken into custody.
The Uighurs’ attorneys have said the men never took up arms against the United States. And the Uighurs have told military court officials that they are sympathetic to the United States.

Trained with the Taliban or al-Qaeda? I’m sure they’re very sympathetic to the U.S. Andy McCarthy is an attorney who successfully prosecuted the jihadists who bombed the World Trade Center in the 1990s. He comments at National Review’s Corner:

This is the very nightmare scenario I warned about. The courts’ steps are outrageous, but predictable and inevitable. A lot of the blame here, however, goes to the administration and the military. They have long taken the position that radical Islamic ideology is not the problem, and that we need only worry about actively those taking up arms against the United States. They don’t want us to talk about jihad — the better to keep us in the dark about jihadist ideology. Thus, the government rationalizes, the Uighurs are not a threat to us, only to the Chinese. That was all the daylight the judges need to say: OK, then release them in the U.S., since no other country — except China, where they’d be persecuted — will take them. The government’s self-defeating argument is preposterous. Jihadists — and there is not question that the Uighurs are jihadists — do not recognize distinctions based on the Westphalia world of nation-states. In their view, it is Dar al Islam or Dar al Harb: i.e., you are either part of the realm of the Muslims or the realm of war, and the goal is to turn Dar al Harb into Dar al Islam by any means necessary. Releasing trained jihadists into the United States on the theory that their beef is with the Chinese and they have no problem with us would be a delusional act of suicide.

We pointed out a year ago that nobody, even the Canadians, wants the Uighurs.

Gitmo Judge Lets Detainee Contact Suspected Al-Qaida Chiefs

Gitmo Judge Lets Detainee Contact Suspected Al-Qaida Chiefs. This judge is an idiot, and he has set a terrible president. As for allowing Salim Ahmed Hamdan to "boycott" his trial, that's another unfortunate decision on the part of the judge. That Hamdan's military lawyers are also "boycoting" the trial is a travesty.

The judge and defense attorneys are going way beyond the legal requirements to provide a fair trial, to the point of aiding and abetting the terrorists in Guantanamo Bay.

FROM NEWSMAX.COM:

Gitmo Judge Lets Detainee Contact Suspected Al-Qaida Chiefs
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 12:00 PM

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- Osama bin Laden's former driver can ask senior al-Qaida suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo for help in his war-crimes tribunal, a military judge said Wednesday, overruling concerns that any communication between the detainees could threaten national security.
Yemeni detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan is boycotting his trial, saying the military process is fundamentally unfair. The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, said he hopes Hamdan will reconsider if given some opportunity to gather material for his own defense.
"I want to try to persuade Mr. Hamdan to come back to trial," Allred said. "I sense this might make him feel he's doing something in his defense, that he's involved in the process."
Meanwhile, the judge tried to keep Hamdan's case on track to be the first of the Pentagon's terrorism prosecutions at Guantanamo, scheduling trial to begin on June 2 with or without the detainee's participation.
But the high-profile trial could be stalled despite the judge's best efforts. Hamdan remained in his prison cell Wednesday and his military defense attorneys, at Hamdan's request, also refused to participate in the hearing.
The spectacle puzzled the prosecutors: "I'm a little confused, are they still representing Mr. Hamdan?," Army prosecutor Lt. Col. William Britt said, raising a question nobody seemed to have an immediate answer for.
The defense has asked for "two-way communication" between Hamdan and the so-called "high-value" detainees who allegedly helped run al-Qaida before the U.S. military captured and brought them to Guantanamo. With greater access, they hope al-Qaida leaders will help prove Hamdan was merely a low-level bin Laden employee, not a hard-core terrorist.
Prosecutors have objected to any contacts with the notorious terror suspects, warning of security lapses and the possibility they might try to corrupt the tribunals.
"We are talking about the worst of the worst," said John Murphy, a civilian prosecutor from the Department of Justice. "We are worried about the highly classified information and the manipulation that these detainees could undertake to thwart this commission's process."
What the judge authorized Wednesday seemed sure to disappoint both sides.
Hamdan's attorneys already submitted questions to several detainees but only Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, provided a response. U.S. intelligence agencies were reviewing the note before releasing it to the defense, according to Hamdan's lead counsel, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer.
The defense said more open, "two-way" communication might persuade top suspects to more openly support Hamdan's position. Instead, the judge said Hamdan's personal appeals to the other detainees will be limited to his signature on requests drafted by the government. Any response would then be vetted by the government before it can been seen by the defense.
Hamdan, 37, was captured at a roadblock in southern Afghanistan in November 2001, allegedly with two surface-to-air missiles in the car. He faces up to life in prison if the tribunal convicts him of conspiracy and supporting terrorism.
He has declared he will no longer participate in the proceedings despite entreaties from the judge to reconsider. Three other alleged al-Qaida operatives also indicated they will boycott their Guantanamo trials.
The military says it plans to prosecute about 80 of the roughly 275 men held at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. So far only detainee has been convicted _ David Hicks, who served a nine-month prison sentence in his native Australia under a plea deal.