BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
VICE PRESIDENT AND FULL-ON FUMBLER JOE BIDEN IS DEMANDING RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN "SHOW US!"
BUT NOT EVERYONE IS SO EAGER TO SEE VLAD'S IMPALER.
REACHED FOR COMMENT, BIDEN ASSURED THESE REPORTERS, "I MEANT NO HARM. I JUST WANTED TO KNOW IF WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT RUSSIAN MEN IS TRUE."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Thursday in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Guantanamo, as Senator Lindsey Graham was speaking, a man yelled, "Let's restore the rule of law! You have betrayed the American people! What's wrong with you, America! What's wrong with you!"
He was quickly escorted out.
What led to that?
Had it been the collective nonsense building up?
Because there was a more outrageous part that Graham's recounting of his efforts with US President Barack Obama to fine tune laws to keep people imprisoned forever even if they were released from the US gulag that is the prison on Guantanamo Bay.
Guantanamo has been a gulag since 2002. A costly one in terms of image, in terms of the law, in terms of dollars. In the hearing, Senator Martin Heinrich noted that approximately $5 billion had been spent on the facility since 2002. "And in 2014, the American taxpayer spent more than 3 million per Guantanamo detainee -- and compare that with about $78,000 it costs to house a prisoner at Colorado Super Max Prison."
The Center for Constitutional Rights explains Guantanamo this way, "The story of Guantánamo remains that of nearly 800 men and boys thrown into an island prison designed to exist beyond the rule of law. Most were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, refugees fleeing the chaos of war in Afghanistan. The U.S. military captured only one in twenty; many were sold for significant sums of money to the U.S. by local authorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of the 149 men who remain at Guantánamo as of January 2014, approximately half were cleared for release years ago."
Thursday's hearing found the Committee hearing testimony from DoD's Deputy Under Secretary of Defense For Policy Brian P. McKeon, Nicholas J. Rasmussen with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Rear Admiral Ross Myers.
Senator Dan Sullivan: So from a broad perspective, of the remaining Gitmo detainees, how many are assessed to be high or medium risk?
Under Secretary Brian McKeon: Senator, I don't have those numbers at my finger tips and if you're referring to the assessments that were done by JTS GITMO back in the last decade, uh, my impression is knowing the population of that which we've already transferred using those categories, I think we have transferred most of those who were low risk. But I don't know the precise data. We'll have to -- We'll have to get that to you, sir.
Senator Dan Sullivan: But I mean of the current remaining detainees, we don't have a handle on who's high or medium risk right now?
Under Secretary Brian McKeon: I don't have that at my finger tips as we both -- I and Rasmussen -- explained, sir, when we bring forward a case for possible transfer, we look at the totality of the evidence, what the detainee had done on the battlefield, how they behaved at Guantanamo, what their current -- what our assessment is of their current intentions? So it's not just to look at the assessments
Chair John McCain: Mr. Secretary, you're not answering the question. If you don't have the information, then submit it. It's important for this Committee to know who's low risk, medium risk and high risk. I would have expected you to come to this hearing with that information.
Under Secretary Brian McKeon: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I should add that these risk levels -- in terms of who's in what category -- is-is classified. So we'd be happy to have that conversation with you in a classified session as well. I just don't have those numbers at my finger tips. I think it's safe to say many of them are in the medium or high risk category.
Senator Dan Sullivan: It would be very important for us to know that --
Under Secretary Brian McKeon: Yes, sir.
The American people are too stupid to handle knowing X% is high-risk and Y% is low-risk?
If you're not getting how ridiculous the government's behaviors are, let's go further into this exchange.
Senator Dan Sullivan: And one more thing, I understand there was an MOU regarding the Taliban Five -- that they have a, my understanding was a one year restriction with regard to their activity and movements. Uhm, after a year are they free to go and do whatever they want? Return back to Afghanistan? I think again that's a concern not only for this Committee but, uh, for the American people.
Under Secretary Brian McKeon: You're correct about the one year matter, Senator. We -- The agreement between our two governments is classified and we've briefed to your staff and, I think, some of the members in closed session. And I'd want to get into that in a closed session -- about what happens after one year.
Senator Dan Sullivan: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Okay? Thank you?
Deals are made with conditions.
That's not surprising. We'd call it parole in the criminal justice system.
But no one treats the conditions of parole as a national security secret.
Nor should the Memorandums of Understandings between the US and other governments on this issue be kept secret.
I believe in closing down Guantanamo and releasing anyone you can't convict. Others feel differently. That includes some who feel that the release of any prisoner at Guantanamo is dangerous and could lead to terrorists acts against the United States.
Wherever you fall on the spectrum, how dare the US government, how dare the White House, think they can make deals without informing the American people.
The terms of 'parole' should not be a state secret.
This is one more example of how Barack Obama heads not only the most deceptive administration but the most secretive.
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