Guantanamo Bay

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Watchdog: Bergdahl Prisoner Swap Was Illegal

Congress should have been told, GAO says

(Newser) - The Obama administration's release of five Taliban prisoners in exchange for captive soldier Bowe Bergdahl was illegal in more ways than one, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The government watchdog says the decision violated federal law because Congress wasn't given 30 days' notice of the transfer...

Court Backs Groin Searches at Guantanamo Bay

Federal judge had rejected procedure last year

(Newser) - Federal appeals court judges have unanimously approved an invasive frisking policy challenged by detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Searches of detainees' groins and anal areas before and after they visit their lawyers are acceptable as "reasonable security policies," judges said, per Reuters . The decision follows the institution of the...

Navy Nurse at Gitmo Turns Conscientious Objector

He refuses to force-feed detainees

(Newser) - A Navy nurse working at Guantanamo Bay has refused to force-feed hunger-striking detainees, an inmate's lawyer tells CNN . The male nurse, whose name hasn't been revealed, at first conducted the feedings, but "as soon as he saw what was happening, he started talking to the [inmates],"...

Gitmo Detainees Sue, Cite Hobby Lobby

Hunger striking detainees want to participate in Ramadan prayers

(Newser) - Just how slippery a slope did the Supreme Court lay out in its controversial Hobby Lobby decision? Lawyers for two Guantanamo Bay detainees aim to find out. In a legal motion last week, they demanded that courts step in and order the detention facility to allow their clients to pray...

Secret Bergdahl Prediction: Only 1 Will Shun Taliban

2 likely to return as honchos, says assessment made during negotiations

(Newser) - The back story of the Bowe Bergdahl swap gets one detail richer today by way of a Wall Street Journal report on a classified assessment that found two of the five Guantanamo detainees that were to be released would likely end up back in a senior role with the Taliban....

1 in 3 Freed Gitmo Detainees Returns to Violence

In some cases with dire results

(Newser) - Just how dangerous was the Obama administration's move to swap five Guantanamo detainees for Bowe Bergdahl ? It's hard to say, but as of January roughly 29% of the 614 Guantanamo detainees released so far had returned to the fight, the Wall Street Journal reports, based on Director...

5 Detainees Freed for Bergdahl Are...

...all ex-Taliban officials with ties to the organization

(Newser) - A fair exchange? The five Guantanamo Bay prisoners swapped for US soldier Bowe Bergdahl were all senior Taliban commanders who had been off the battlefield for at least a decade, the Washington Post reports. Analysts say they retain influence in the Taliban and may return to the group after spending...

Anguished Judge Lets Gitmo Resume Forced Feedings

Gladys Kessler criticizes Pentagon but says she has no choice

(Newser) - A federal judge today allowed the US military to resume force-feeding a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, but Gladys Kessler made clear she is not happy about it, reports the McClatchy News Service . Kessler criticized the Pentagon for refusing to budge over how it administers the force-feeding and urged authorities to...

Secret Tapes of Gitmo Force-Feedings Do Exist

Well, at least tapes of one detainee being force-fed

(Newser) - In an unprecedented ruling, non-government officials have been given the go-ahead to view secret recordings that depict force-feedings at Guantanamo Bay—a ruling that by its nature establishes the fact that these tapes actually do exist, reports the Guardian . A federal judge yesterday ruled that lawyers for Abu Wa’el...

Stop Laughing at Bush&#39;s Awful Art
 Stop Laughing 
 at Bush's Awful Art 
OPINION
Apr 14, 2014 12:22 PM CDT

Stop Laughing at Bush's Awful Art

Artist Molly Crabapple argues that we shouldn't overlook Bush's tragedies

(Newser) - The media loves George W. Bush's paintings . "They're ideal clickbait-kitsch," and "the benign cherry on his lifetime sundae of fail," observes artist Molly Crabapple at Politico . And she admits that they're fascinating, though not as works of art. "Bush paints like a...

Taliban Ends Talks With US Over POW Release

Army PFC Bowe Bergdahl has been held since 2009

(Newser) - The Taliban has put the kibosh on prisoner-exchange negotiations with the US, citing the "current complex political situation" in Afghanistan for ending what was considered America's best shot at securing the freedom of POW Bowe Bergdahl, a 27-year-old Idaho native who's been held captive since 2009. The...

US Sweetens Taliban Deal in Bid to Get POW Back

Sources say officials are willing to set 5 Gitmo prisoners free at once

(Newser) - Time is ticking away for the US to extract American POW Bowe Bergdahl before the bulk of US forces withrdraw from Afghanistan this year, and the Obama administration is now once again considering a prisoner swap. The administration is looking to re-open talks with the Taliban about trading the Army...

Band Bills Military $666K for Using Its Song at Gitmo

Skinny Puppy says its music was used as a 'weapon'

(Newser) - Some bands are "proud" when their music is used to interrogate Guantanamo Bay detainees; other bands, not so much . You can count Skinny Puppy among the latter group. The Canadian industrial rock band says it has invoiced the US military for $666,000 after finding out its music was...

9/11 Mastermind Renounces Violence

He slams Western society in new manifesto

(Newser) - After more than a decade in American custody, confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appears to have had second thoughts about the use of violence. The former al-Qaeda propaganda chief suggests Islam should not be spread by violence in a rambling manifesto viewed by Channel 4 News . He also blasts...

US Sends Guantanamo's Last 3 Uighurs to Slovakia

It had been a struggle to resettle the Uighurs

(Newser) - Slovakia has accepted three prisoners from Guantanamo Bay who had posed a difficult resettlement challenge, helping the US government move closer to its goal of closing the prison on its base in Cuba, officials said today. The three men who left for the Central European country in recent days were...

Gitmo Troops Want Nativity Scenes Removed

Group of 18 says they unfairly promote Christianity

(Newser) - One of those annual nativity scene controversies has sprung up, but this time in an unusual place: Gitmo. Several troops at Guantanamo Bay lodged a protest with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about nativity scenes put up inside two dining facilities, reports the Navy Times . They say the scenes promote...

General Who Opened Gitmo: It Was a Mistake

The whole detention strategy was wrong, Lehnert says

(Newser) - The Guantanamo Bay detention center was a huge mistake that should never have been opened, according to none other than the general who got it up and running in 2002. "In retrospect, the entire detention and interrogation strategy was wrong," Gen. Michael Lehnert writes in the Detroit Free ...

2 Gitmo Inmates Sent to Algeria Against Will

162 detainees remain

(Newser) - Two men who had been held without charge at Guantanamo Bay for more than a decade have been sent back to their native Algeria against their will as part of a renewed effort to gradually close the prison, officials say. Both prisoners had resisted being returned to their homeland because...

CIA Secretly Turned Gitmo Inmates Into Double Agents

'Penny Lane' program led to al-Qaeda leaders' deaths: officials

(Newser) - Guantanamo Bay contained "the worst of a very bad lot," according to Dick Cheney—and it was from this pool that CIA teams handpicked potential double agents, anonymous officials tell the AP . The program at Gitmo's "Penny Lane" facility, a secret cluster of eight cottages near...

Send al-Qaeda Chief to Gitmo: GOP Senators

Trying al-Libi in US is a wasted opportunity to interrogate him

(Newser) - Recently captured al-Qaeda honcho Abu Anas al-Libi belongs in Guantanamo—not a US courtroom, say Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss, Kelly Ayotte, and Lindsey Graham. Al-Libi is currently still being held on a Navy ship, but President Obama wants to put him on trial Stateside. The lawmakers say that's...

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