Barack Obama, Gitmo, Guantanamo, Uighurs

Obama withholding intel about Gitmo Uighurs from Germany

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Update, May 15, 2009, and bumped to the top: Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com is now reporting that ‘Germany [is] balking at Gitmo list.’

Berlin is being asked to take in nine Guantanamo inmates. So far the development is perceived as a first test of trans-Atlantic relations under President Barack Obama. In Germany, there are legitimate questions about the Uighur Chinese it is being asked to take in –but the Interior Ministry also appears to be buying time in an election year. …

Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann — of the Christian Social Union, Bavaria’s sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats — called the request an “imposition” by the US. “We don’t need people like this in Germany,” he told the mass circulation tabloid Bild. “It would be extremely naive (of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier) to let these people into the country.” Steinmeier himself, though, has kept relatively quiet on the subject — though he has been consistent in his support of the Obama administration.

And we do not need 17 terrorists, who just happen to be Uighurs, running around loose on the streets of northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tallahassee (all possible locations), or any other place in America.

Original post: 9:35 pm EDT, May 11, 2009:

The European edition of the Stars and Stripes reports Germany has some legal requirements to meet before allowing Uighurs to immigrate in from Gitmo to there:

Germany’s interior minister says the United States must answer some key legal questions before his country considers accepting detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

“The U.S. forwarded reports on detainees with the request to check if Germany would accept them,” Wolfgang Schäuble said in an interview Sunday with the Bild Zeitung, a major newspaper in Germany. “As the federal minister of interior, it is my job to look into every single case individually. But the information we have received from Washington is in any case insufficient for the legal-based decision we have to make.”

Schäuble cited questions that need to be answered. “First of all, can it definitely be ruled out that these people are not a security threat?” he asked. “Secondly, why can the U.S. not take on these people? And, thirdly, do these people have any relation to Germany at all?”

We sympathize with you, Herr Schäuble; Aufenthalt stark mein Freund. (Stay strong my friend.) President Obama has not shared all he knows about the Uighurs with the nation he has sworn to protect: America. Our law also says terrorists are inadmissible.

abuse photos, ACLU, al Qaeda, Barack Obama, detainees

Obama reverses ‘abuse’ photos release; ACLU: ‘administration … complicit in the Bush administration’s torture policies’

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President Barack Obama today reversed the decision to unilaterally release photographs that allegedly show detainee abuse. We applaud him for that decision.

Andy McCarthy wrote yesterday that Obama has the authority to end the litigation:

Thus, if President Obama wanted to keep these photos from being exploited by America’s enemies, all he would need to do is issue an executive order sealing them, based on a finding (which could be drawn from public statements he has already made) that their release would imperil the national defense — as well as frustrate ongoing American foreign-policy efforts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and elsewhere in the Muslim Middle East.

Some will say that the president won’t do that because he does not want to anger the anti-war Left, a significant part of his base. In truth, the president is the anti-war Left. He won’t issue an executive order of this kind because he wants the photos revealed. It is important to understand that disclosure here is not an inevitable outcome. It is a choice. It doesn’t have to happen unless Obama wants it to happen.

President Obama will see a vicious backlash from the anti-war left:

Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU, said the president’s decision “makes a mockery” of his promise of transparency and accountability.

“Essentially, by withholding these photographs from public view, the Obama administration is making itself complicit in the Bush administration’s torture policies,” Singh said. “The release of these photos is absolutely essential for ensuring that justice was done … for ensuring that the public could hold its government accountable, and for ensuring that torture is not conducted in the future in the name of the American people.”

Singh said his organization is prepared to “do whatever it takes” in order to have the photos released.

We agree with Andy McCarthy:

“Unless something is done, the photos … will cause American soldiers, American civilians, and other innocent people to die … Time is running out — the danger is not.”

President Obama’s first duty is to America’s defense; photos alleging detainee abuse would be used by al Qaeda as recruiting tools, make us less safe at home, and further endanger our brave troops.

We could live with an Executive Order ending this litigation. The ACLU would not like that decision yet their obligation is to their clients, not national security.