Lawmakers seeking method to choke off funds for Guantanamo

[Judi Lynn]

Lawmakers seeking method to choke off funds for Guantanamo
By Carol Rosenberg and Lesley Clark
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)

WASHINGTON - Two key Democrats in Congress disclosed Wednesday that they are digging through Defense Department funding mechanisms to find a method to choke off funding for the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities.

"We're looking at a schedule - a reasonable schedule - to close it down in stages," Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said in a broadcast on National Public Radio. "We can limit the funds for it and that would shut it down."

The Pentagon declined to respond to a query on Murtha's plan - how feasible the proposal was and whether there is in fact Guantanamo-specific funding that Congress could cut from future appropriations.
(snip)

Murtha, who retired after 37 years' service as a Marine Corps colonel, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terror.
(snip/...)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16699745.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. 8 Reasons to Close Guantanamo Now

8 Reasons to Close Guantanamo Now
by Karen J. Greenburg
February 13, 2007

The first detainees arrived in Guantanamo four months to the day after the 9/11 attacks. From the opening of Camp X-Ray--the first site of imprisonment, notorious for its tin-roofed open-air cages--to the recently completed permanent prison known as Camp 6, critics have called for its closure. Even President Bush has said, "I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with." Yet he refuses to close it because, he says, it holds detainees who "will murder somebody if they are let out on the street."

It's time to look at the powerful reasons to close Guantanamo, both the standard ones enumerated below--and also what may be the most compelling, if unspoken, one of all: Guantanamo must be closed because the United States needs to indicate that it has decided to change course. Closing Guantanamo will help to restore America's standing in the world and in the eyes of its own citizens. #1 It is a legal no-man's-land

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was established as a coaling and naval station under U.S. control in 1903. It has no civilian legal authority (you can't get a marriage license there, and you can't be arraigned) and U.S. military authority is limited. According to the Department of Justice, the prison is not indisputably U.S. territory, nor does it necessarily fall under the jurisdiction of any foreign entity.

According to the Church Report--an official investigation of Guantanamo prepared by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church III, a former navy inspector general for the Armed Services Committee--Guantanamo's uncertain legal footing may have been a fundamental reason the administration decided to use the facility to interrogate al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "Perhaps most importantly," the report states, "GTMO was considered a place where benefits could be realized without the detainees having the opportunity to contest their detention in the U.S. courts."
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=12125

[Vidar]

2. Applauding Murtha. Gutanamo is a disgrace.

[bemildred]

3. Does the USA needs it's own Gulag Archipelago?

Stalin would be laughing his ass off about this.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Democrats' Bill Would Give Detainees Some Legal Rights

Democrats' Bill Would Give Detainees Some Legal Rights
February 14, 2007
Lesley Clark -- The Miami Herald

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats Tuesday unveiled proposed legislation to restore some legal rights to suspected terrorists, but distanced themselves from calls to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., filed a bill that would restore the right of detainees to challenge their detention, bar evidence gained through torture and allow detainees to invoke the Geneva Convention.

The filing comes four months after the GOP-led Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, described by supporters as a critical weapon against terrorism.

The law denies detainees traditional habeas corpus review in civilian courts and permits the use of evidence obtained through torture.

Civil rights groups have assailed the legislation, and Dodd called its passage "one of the saddest days" of his political life, saying it compromises the country's "moral compass.
(snip/...)

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=55842&cat=Politics+News&more=%2Fpolitics%2F

[struggle4progress]

5. Plan prepared for Cuban exodus

The Bush administration will build a new facility to detain migrants in Guantánamo amid stepped-up preparations for dealing with a post-Castro Cuba

By PABLO BACHELET
[email protected]

WASHINGTON - Concerned about a possible mass exodus of Cubans, the Department of Defense plans to spend $18 million to prepare part of the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay to shelter interdicted migrants, U.S. officials told The Miami Herald ...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16710227.htm