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Former State Department Official: Team Bush Knew Many at Gitmo Were Innocent

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TheDemSocialist

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With the Bush Administration's legacy being revisited, it's worth taking another look at a story that surfaced a couple of years ago and was, for reasons I don't understand, immediately forgotten.Retired Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served the Bush Administration as a senior official in the State Department with access to classified documents and the most senior White House officials, was willing to testify, and formally declared under penalty of perjury, that many of the prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay were taken into custody "without regard for whether they were truly enemy combatants, or in fact whether many of them were enemies at all."
His declaration, filed in the spring of 2010 in a D.C. federal court, asserted that "of the initial 742 detainees that had arrived at Guantánamo, the majority of them had never seen a U.S. soldier in the process of their initial detention and their captivity had not been subjected to any meaningful review."
He proceeded to list some of the reasons that the Bush Administration had failed to release the innocent prisoners:


  • It was judged to be politically impossible.

  • Vice President Cheney took the position that the ends justify the means, he "had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees were innocent," and he seemed to believe that "if hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it. That seemed to be the philosophy that ruled the vice president's office."

  • Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believed that "innocent people languishing in Guantanamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror."
Wilkerson also asserted that his investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison concluded that 50 to 60 percent of the men imprisoned there were probably innocent, having been swept into custody by an overwhelmed military that wasn't given the resources it required by Team Bush.
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Read more @: Former State Department Official: Team Bush Knew Many at Gitmo Were Innocent - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

:shock:
 
penn1954 said:
If this is true then why does OBAMA still hold them?
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Hey! You can't say that! Obama is PERFECT, he has done nothing wrong, EVER! Take it back!

It is noted this is put out about Bush, but no reference to the fact that the person allegedly holding innocents is, uh, OBAMA. And what did he know about Bengazhi and the gun running program?

Never mind that stuff, Bush and Cheney are evil!


:lamo
 
Arbo said:
Hey! You can't say that! because it blows my inane delusion about what everyone who disagrees with me believes about Obama. To wit:

Obama is PERFECT, he has done nothing wrong, EVER! Take it back!
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Fixed that for you
 
Arbo said:
Hey! You can't say that! Obama is PERFECT, he has done nothing wrong, EVER! Take it back!

It is noted this is put out about Bush, but no reference to the fact that the person allegedly holding innocents is, uh, OBAMA. And what did he know about Bengazhi and the gun running program?

Never mind that stuff, Bush and Cheney are evil!


:lamo
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Post #3
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Post #3
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Irrelevant. You started the whole thread to complain about someone that is not president and didn't bother to bring up the person that IS president that is doing the same thing.
 
Arbo said:
Irrelevant. You started the whole thread to complain about someone that is not president and didn't bother to bring up the person that IS president that is doing the same thing.
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Did you read the whole article: "Holding prisoners even after their innocence is known, as President Obama and the present Congress are doing even today, is a moral abomination, and completely contrary to the philosophy of the American framers, who believed that humans were endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Did you read the whole article: "Holding prisoners even after their innocence is known, as President Obama and the present Congress are doing even today, is a moral abomination, and completely contrary to the philosophy of the American framers, who believed that humans were endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "
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I am not commenting on the article, I am commenting on your comments (or lack thereof) on it...
 
The day you trust ANY Foggy Bottom denison, retired or active, for accurate non-biased info, is the day you're gone horribly wrong.
 
There is a difference between...

taken into custody "without regard for whether they were truly enemy combatants, or in fact whether many of them were enemies at all."
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...and "knew they were innocent".

OP is being intentionally deceptive...again.
 
His declaration, filed in the spring of 2010 in a D.C. federal court, asserted that "of the initial 742 detainees that had arrived at Guantánamo, the majority of them had never seen a U.S. soldier in the process of their initial detention and their captivity had not been subjected to any meaningful review."
Click to expand...

I can be an Enemy combatant and never see the enemy, if I'm Shooting an artillery piece from ten miles away.

Or firing a shoulder fired rocket at a helicopter.

It's a vapid statement from a left wing wrag.
 
Wow distractions galore in here. So you are telling us that cheney and Bush held people they knew were innocent in a military prison with no oversight or any hope of ever being released? But what about obama? Certainly that is all Ok as long as Obama is mentioned. We never have to confron ther truth about right wing fanaticism that has desteroyed the lives of many people and shredded the US constitution as long as we say the magic word Obama. Obama makes any abuse by the right simply disappear in their minds no matter how overwhelmingly guilty they are. Screw Oxyclean, obama gets out decades old blood stains.

Oh, and for all the people whining about obama, at least he attempted to try a couple of these guys in a real court. yeah, he went back on it, but at least he made an effort busgh and cheney never planned on doing. Sort of like they never planned on capturing their boogeyman Osama, and like they never planned on getting us out of the Iraq and afganistan war, and like they never planned on how to pay for any of this, but that is all cool because of OBAMA!
 
penn1954 said:
If this is true then why does OBAMA still hold them?
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Because when it comes to style and philosophy of governance, Obama governs like Bush on steroids.
 
smalltime said:
I can be an Enemy combatant and never see the enemy, if I'm Shooting an artillery piece from ten miles away.

Or firing a shoulder fired rocket at a helicopter.

It's a vapid statement from a left wing wrag.
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Yeah, AQ and the Taliban were well known for their artillery assets! :lamo
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Because Obama has continued the Bush doctrine foreign policy.
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So why isn't the Craplantic pontificating on Obama? they even begin their propaganda piece noting it's old news.
 
Lawrence Wilkerson used to appear frequently on Keith Olberman. I find him extremely credible.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Read more @: Former State Department Official: Team Bush Knew Many at Gitmo Were Innocent - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

:shock:[/FONT][/COLOR]
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A socialist doing what he does best... ignoring the facts... the facts being many terrorists were released and went back to their terrorist ways.

Well, what would you rather be under Obama? A terrorist who was captured and sent to Gitmo, or an American under siege by terrorists in Libya? I would venture your chances of having attention poured on you by this president is being a terrorist. He was doing what during Benghazi? Traveling to Nevada for a campaign stop.

Didn't he just say he wanted to close Gitmo in recent days? Thought so.

And Benghazi? Not a word? Thought so.
 
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