Obama administration approves its largest single release of Guantanamo detainees ever.

The Obama administration on Monday transferred 15 detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United Arab Emirates, the largest release under the current president, the Pentagon said. The transfer comes as the president faces a looming deadline to keep the promise he made on his first day in office to close the military prison. The detainee population there dipped under 100 for the first time in years in January with the release of 10 Yemeni prisoners, and will shrink to 61 with the latest transfer, underscoring a late effort to move toward closure. “The United States is grateful to the Government of the United Arab Emirates for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The United States coordinated with the Government of the United Arab Emirates to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.”

I guess Obama backers can look at this as him trying to fulfill a campaign promise that he made in 2008, although he still has not fulfilled the promise.

I wonder if the Russians have killed so many ISIS fighters that we have to send some more back into the fight? I suppose that no money changed hands for these guys, the administration wouldn't take money from terrorists, they just give it to them.

I hope that they stay out of the fight, but I have a feeling they will go to some town in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan and start using US supplied weapons to kill infidels and other Muslims that pray differently than they do.

a reply to: butcherguy

There's only so long you can detain someone without charges against them.

originally posted by: charolais
a reply to: butcherguy

There's only so long you can detain someone without charges against them.

makes you wonder why they were never charged.... or released back when Obama originally said he would do it, in 2009.

a reply to: butcherguy

I am sure the Emirates will released them so they can be good citizens, apply for refugee US visas with the UN and find a nice littler town in America to live the American dream.

Yes I been sarcastic.

a reply to: butcherguy

Sounds like they just transferred them to another detention facility in another puppet state.

Yah, so 'humane'.

a reply to: butcherguy

Yeah, Obama, like all politicians, is full of empty promises. Maybe the next president will finally close down GITMO and black sites. Oh wait, one is a Warhawk and the other is a thin skinned bully who wants to commit terrorist attacks against Arab civilians.

originally posted by: charolais
a reply to: butcherguy

There's only so long you can detain someone without charges against them.

They haven't been 'released', they've been "transferred" to another jurisdiction.

a reply to: charolais

Yea, lets just let a bunch of suspected terrorists go, it's not like doing just that has never come back and bit us and fueled the conspiracy theory's that convict America just as well. # man, the U.S can't win either way...

They are moving to Michigan and are all voting for HILLARY!

originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: charolais
a reply to: butcherguy

There's only so long you can detain someone without charges against them.

makes you wonder why they were never charged.... or released back when Obama originally said he would do it, in 2009.

It depends. Sometimes they're cleared to be released, but no country is willing to accept those specific people. And there are other roadblocks, such as it being illegal to send Yemeni detainees back to their home country of Yemen. So other countries have to be found that will accept them. Here's an excerpt from a November 2015 article about that:

Because of the conflict in Yemen and congressional prohibitions on sending Yemenis back to their native country, the Obama administration has cemented agreements with other governments to accept the detainees.

Earlier this year, the United States transferred four Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Oman and a fifth to Estonia. Late last year, the administration moved three Yemeni prisoners to Kazakhstan.

The Yemenis make up the single largest national group at the military detention facility. Sixty-four Yemenis remain at the prison, with 39 of them approved for release.

Pentagon transfers 5 Yemenis being held at Guantanamo Bay to UAE

a reply to: butcherguy
I think Obama is only trying to make the world see him as a good guy, he probably knows letting those guys go is a bad idea, but if the world sees him as caring person or something of the sort, but I say f***'em im sure they weren't arrested and sent to Guantanamo just for riding their camel around and f***ing a random sheep occasionally... they are terrorist, and killers. that will probably only join the fight..

This was posted on ATS before, it's about the secret US prisons. Which are basically Muslims with some token other people, to make sure it isn't all Muslims.

Kind of makes you think, why would Obama publically call out GITMO, yet privately keep funneling Muslims into secret prisons?

Some of it, is to keep pouring the Kool Aid, but what is Obama's overall end game?


www.ted.com...

double

a reply to: TechniXcality

There are people there whose sentences expired years ago, there are people there who have never been charged with anything. Whatever yoour views are justice is justice. You cant imprison people for longer than the given sentence, you cant hold people without charging them. I am not talking about GITMO rules I am talking about real world rights that should apply to everyone.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

Even if they are going to kill you, and start a war, that may very well cause World War Three because of their ideological beliefs and leverage in their societies? Comes back to the age old moral quagmire - you have five people on a train track stuck, and one person on the adjacent track. If you pull the lever one person will die, if you do not then five people will die.

a reply to: TechniXcality

So thought crimes? This is'nt a Tom Cruise film. Regardless of the consequences innocent until proven guilty is a must in a free society.

Everyone one is entitled to freedom regardless of other peoples fears.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

Fears?!?

People are #ing dying and starving and you're sitting over here talking about fears. # your ivory tower, you don't know what you are talking about.

a reply to: TechniXcality

People have been dying and starving ever since the human race came into existence. If your so bothered about people starving then you should be propositioning for GITMO to be shut down not for the people to stay there. And if it does get shut down they would have to release those currently held without charge or over their original sentence.

www.aclu.org...

In 2013 454Million spent on detention operations, 6Mil per detainee. How many people could 6 million feed for a year? Hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Instead its being used to detain 1 prisoner. Some of which are not even charged, some of which shouldnt even be there.

Get off your ivory tower only 10-20% of released detaines go back to terrorism or are suspected of going back. Holding young teens and old people with no charge or for years after there release date is criminal. Simple.

So your find you don't know what your talking about. lol starving people....you have no clue.

There is ALWAYS execution. I'll happen anyway.

a reply to: WanderingNomadd

We disagree and since we aren't privy to the detaining information this argument could go on forever.