Quote:
Originally Posted by
noonwitch
I am not disputing this.
I am disputing the statements made that liberals are responsible for this guy's release from Gitmo. It doesn't matter if I or any other liberal opposed the policy of detaining people at Gitmo, because we were not the ones responsible for the decision to release him. In 2004, the executive branch of government was responsible for the detentions and the releases. The Bush administration made the decision to release this guy and they are responsible for their decisions.
Ultimately, the bomber is responsible for his actions.
First, you did dispute it when you complained that you were not comfortable with indefinite detention. That's why I pointed out that they don't warrant due process. Second, the reason that the detainees were being released was that the left did everything within their power to force the issue, including taking the cases of the Gitmo detainees to the Supreme Court. He was caught on the battlefield and there was no reason to release him, but leftist attorneys demanded that he and his pals be given access to US courts so that they could drag the entire war into a venue where they had all of the advantages. In Ghezali's case, the Swedish government intervened for him and brought a great deal of diplomatic pressure to bear on his behalf (Ghezali was a Swedish national). Third, many of the lawyers who represented these terrorists, and who did so pro bono, are now working in the Obama Justice Department, where they make policy, rather than simply undermining it. Finally, Sweden promised to charge him with violations of Swedish law (apparently, it's illegal for a Swede to join a foreign terrorist organization), but they never brought charges and eventually just let him go back to the Jihad. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2009 and released again.
Capture and detention
After the Armed Forces of the United States together with the Afghan Northern Alliance initiated a bombing campaign on the Tora Bora mountains a large number of al-Qaeda sympathisers and others in the affected areas fled southward to Pakistan. Mehdi Ghezali was captured by local warlords in Pakistan in the Tora Bora mountains which are close to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then handed over to the U.S. Armed Forces which transported him to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Cuba where Ghezali was held at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.
During his stay at Guantanamo Bay, Ghezali was visited by representatives of the Swedish government (February 2002, January and July 2003 and January 2004) and was informed that he had been assigned an attorney in Sweden (Peter Althin) and that his case had been brought up in inter-governmental contacts and had been featured on several occasions in the Swedish media. Ghezali supposedly refused to discuss what he was doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the agents of the Swedish government.
On 15 May 2006 the United States Department of Defense released a list of all the individuals who had been held in military custody in their Guantanamo Bay detainment camps. That list gave Ghezali's Guantanamo detainee ID as 166.[2] The DoD listed his place of birth as Stockholm.
[edit]Release
After being held as an enemy combatant for 930 days Ghezali was released into the custody of the Swedish government on 8 July 2004 since he was no longer considered a threat to the United States, since he had no information that was of interest to the American Intelligence Service and since he had not committed a crime which could be proven in a military court. Ghezali was transported home by the Swedish Air Force on a Gulfstream IV jet, at the expense of the Swedish government (estimated at 500 000 – 600 000 Swedish kronor).
Initially Swedish prosecutors stated that they would press charges against him for crimes committed prior to Ghezali's departure from Sweden, but they were subsequently dropped. There were also threats made against Ghezali, it was perceived that the Swedish government had given Ghezali too much help.
Ghezali was the subject of the English-language documentary Gitmo “ The New Rules of War. A film about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp by film director Erik Gandini and Tarik Saleh.
An article in the Boston Globe published 4 month after Ghezali's release from Guantanamo said he was being "monitored by Swedish intelligence agents". The article also said that Swedish security agents have said Ghezali is not a threat. Ghezali has also stated in his book that he feels he is being intensely monitored by the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO), both in his home and when he moves around. He claims that the surveillance has caused him to feel depressed.
Statements after release
After his release Ghezali criticized the Swedish government for not helping him sufficiently and denied having been told that he was assigned an attorney or being informed of actions taken on his behalf by the Swedish government, however this was refuted by the Swedish foreign ministry which had documented their meetings with Ghezali. It has been suggested by a psychologist that Ghezali's recollection of events might have been affected by the stress of capture and detention. Ghezali has also made statements describing his stay at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. He claims to have been subject to torture such as sleep deprivation and made to sit in an interrogation room for thirteen hours in a row. He is planning a class-action lawsuit against the USA.[15] He has together with Gösta Hultén published a book, Fånge på Guantánamo : Mehdi Ghezali berättar (Prisoner on Guantanamo: Mehdi Ghezali tells) ISBN 91-7343-086-2, in which he chronicles his experiences.
So, what you have here is a leftist government agitating for his release, freeing him, letting him go back to the jihad, freeing him again, and then liberals such as yourself expressing shock that he murdered a group of Israeli children when everything about this guy screamed that he was a committed jihadi and terrorist. If the left hadn't agitated for his release, filed briefs, protested, manipulated the diplomatic process and did everything else within its power to force the release of terrorists caught in combat, those children would be alive today, and every liberal who wrung their hands over "due process" and the rule of law without actually bothering to know the law is complicit in their crimes.
