Cypriot jihadist facing extradition to Guantanamo | Kathimerini

SSG Warren Swan - Right, so this is quite confusing, especially if you haven't been following the bouncing ball from the beginning. Ihave. In fact, the unit I deployed with to Gitmo back in 2002, and joined in late 1999, was one of the only US Army EPW (Enemy Prisoner of War) units in the inventory. We trained hard to meet Geneva and Law of War standards. When we got to Gitmo in FEB '02, we fully thought we would be conducting operations according to Geneva and the Law of War, instead, Don Rumsfeld had told my boss, the camp commandant, that although he knew the unlawful combatant detainees held at Gitmo were not entitled to the protections of Geneva, we would "treat them within the spirit of Geneva." That was the first confusion. Then came the holding procedures, dreamt up by a Marine General (Lehnert) that forced the guard force (Army) to shackle and escort (two MP's per one detainee) everywhere they went: interrogation, latrine, shower, exercise, etc. Extremely poor use of resources. Our doctrine called for different levels of incarceration depending on behavior. Worst behaved earning fewest privileges. The Law of War told us that the detainees were entitled to ZERO privileges, and could have all been shot dead on the battlefield. We were prepared to do Law of War tribunals, but instead, adjudication was postponed. The only reason the detainees were taken from the battlefield alive was for information. The INTEL mission took precedence over the incarceration mission. Eventually, those accused of war crimes would be charged and then tried under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, but the Supreme Court struck the law down when challenged in part because they said that Gitmo was "defacto US property," and therefore detainees could petition for habeas corpus. Then, in 2009, then President Obama approved the 2009 MCA, which gave unlawful combatant detainees accused of war crimes virtually the SAME rights you or I would enjoy in a federal court of law! The Law of War states that unlawful combatants are not entitled to habeas corpus, and that they should be tried by commission under the UCMJ, the same standards that would apply to a US soldier accused of a crime. That about catches you up. Now, with long time Judge Pohl stepping down and new detainees about to be brought to Gitmo, confusion reigns. My opinion is that the MCA should be got rid of, and then we should simply try suspected war criminals under the UCMJ, just like eight German saboteurs caught dry-foot on US soil during WWII. Within eight weeks of their capture they were denied habeas corpus (which is Constitutional even on US soil in times of invasion or insurrection), tried by military commission under the UCMJ, and then all were convicted, with six being sent to the electric chair. They had been found to be unlawful combatants, spies. Oh, and they hadn't hurt a fly nor destroyed any property. They just had the means and intent to do so. Instead, today we have released 731 unlawful combatants and at least 30 percent have returned to the fight or are suspected of having returned to the fight. Kind of like letting captives go in a game of Capture the Flag. How can you hope to win if you keep letting the bad guys go?

LTC (Join to see) - Read my reply to SSG Swan. I'm no JAG, but I spent 9 years with them in one of the only US Army EPW units. I studied Geneva and the Law of War. I did everything but stay overnight in a Holiday Inn Express! Hooah! Questions?

MAJ Montgomery Granger - I have no issues holding them and subjecting them to the UCMJ. I personally have no issues taking them to federal court, but I do have issues when the legal teams cannot perform their jobs due to burecratic BS. Like in a US courtroom, this would be perfect to use against the government and be forced to release them due to government and prosecutorial misconduct (it actually is when you have two senior officers locking horns and one placed under arrest). This is not how er need to be seen in this. Regarding the prisoners, the longer some are held, the less relevant the information they had becomes. This undermines our credibility, and those should be the first ones tried in some kind of court. If the MCA should be repealed, then Mattis, Trump, and the AG need to jump on this. After holding someone in there for 10yrs, I don't see what relevant intel they're going to get at that point that's actionable. You could get snippets of the puzzle that'll assist in connecting the dots in the bigger picture, but how many organizations do we have there interviewing them? I know for a fact DOD isn't the only one.
There HAS to be a better way to do this and get what we want where it's legally transparent, and there is no way for them to take an appeal and skull drag us through it. We have military lawyers representing them. We need to support them (the prisoner gets the defacto support in this), and not make it so they cannot be professionals in their tasks, trust the system enough to know they're not being monitored violating attorney-client privilege, and get some actual civilian federal lawyers who are both cleared and have direct knowledge on how to both prosecute and defend in court.

We know that the Obama administration was famous for skulduggery. The 2009 MCA mucked up the already severely mucked up process. How many agencies were involved with interrogations? It would be easier to tell you which one's were NOT involved. For a time at Gitmo in early 2002 I was the S-1 (medical) for all good guys and bad guys. I got rosters of in-coming and out-going personnel. All personnel were supposed to have arrived with medical records, those there for a day or a year, or whatever. Obviously, this was not the case. And in my day there were TWO JTF's on scene, JTF 160 (my JTF) for incarceration, and JTF 170 for interrogation. Guess which one took precedence? So, basically, no one in JTF 170 gave a rat's rear end about my need to have their medical records on file. The roster was a who's who of Secret Squirrels, Alphabet Soup, Shadow Warriors, etc. Virtually everyone from JTF 170 was either a "Smith" or "Jones." Many of them foreign agents. In the spring of 2002 we had about 300 detainees and over 210 different languages spoken, many of them multiple language speakers. It was like a mercenary/soldier of fortune convention. We did weed out some very low level blokes, such as Abdul Razaq, a schizophrenic heroin addict who picked up an AK-47 on the streets of Kandahar from the Taliban in exchange for heroin. He was the first detainee repatriated. 731 have been released so far, including some of Don Rumsfeld's "worst of the worst." The criteria for being released when I was there was simply, does this person still pose a threat and is this person of any further INTEL value? If the answer to BOTH questions was "no," then they were released. However, remember, even lawful combatant POW's may be held without charge or trial "until the end of hostilities." There were hundreds of detainees who should never have been released. The recidivism of even just ONE detainee is too many. They view us as weak and vulnerable, especially in the area of Lawfare. It is reasonable to hold those accused of war crimes until they can be tried via military commission. But we can't seem to get out of our own way on this one. Nuremberg was easier than this.