Detainees Will Still Be Held, but Not Tried, Official Says By CHARLIE SAVAGEWASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided to continue to imprison without trials nearly 50 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba because a high-level task force has concluded that they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release, an administration official said on Thursday.However, the administration has decided that nearly 40 other detainees should be prosecuted for terrorism or related war crimes. And the remaining prisoners, about 110 men, should be repatriated or transferred to other countries for possible release, the official said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the numbers.There are just under 200 detainees left at the detention center. President Obama established the task force shortly after his inauguration last year as part of his administration’s effort to deal with the detainee issues left behind by the Bush administration. It was facing a deadline of Friday to complete its work.For the past year, national-security and law-enforcement officials under the direction of Matthew G. Olsen, a Justice Department lawyer, have been pulling together scattered files for each detainee at Guantánamo. They evaluated any evidence against each man, the perceived threat he might pose if released, and the possibility of successfully prosecuting him. The group made recommendations that were then evaluated by senior administration officials, led by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.But the determination about which category to put each detainee in leaves other questions unanswered. For example, of the roughly 110 detainees who are set to be transferred to other countries, about 30 are Yemenis, the official said. The administration recently halted transfers to Yemen in the wake of the attempted bombing of an airplane bound for Detroit on Christmas — a plot believed to have been developed by an affiliate of Al Qaeda based in Yemen.In addition, Mr. Holder is charged with deciding whether the prisoners who are to be prosecuted should face a civilian trial or a military commission. In November, he announced that five detainees would face a military commission and five others — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — would be prosecuted in federal court.   

 Why the Democrats would welcome a Palin bid for the White HouseGiles Whittell Sarah Palin hogged the headlines but it was still a good weekend for President Obama — because Sarah Palin hogged the headlines.A poll taken late last week gave the hockey mom from Wasilla a five-point lead over the next most popular contender for the 2012 Republican nomination, Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts Governor.Her speech to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville was covered by every network and newspaper from the liberal “mainstream media” that the Tea Party movement affects to despise.Her attack on Mr Obama’s record on national security was taken seriously by pundits who agree that terrorists do not deserve due process in American courts, and her support for radical conservative challengers in Republican primary elections will have sent shivers down many a spine in the party’s national leadership.These factors alone would make Mrs Palin a substantial political figure but in addition she has a national following and name recognition that was earned during the 2008 presidential campaign.Despite the best efforts of Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live she has also immunised herself against ridicule, at least for now.A serious Palin run for the White House is now a very real possibility, not the fantasy of a disaffected minority.That should please Mr Obama’s staff immensely because Mrs Palin represents nothing but trouble for the Republicans for two main reasons.First, she has already shown how she can split the conservative vote and thereby lose seats to the Democrats by backing hard-right candidates over moderates favoured by the Republican high command.It happened in upstate New York in November last year and could happen again if Marco Rubio, her favourite candidate, unseats Charlie Crist in a key Florida Senate race due later this year.Second, no potential Republican presidential nominee, with the possible exception of Mike Huckabee — the guitar-playing Baptist pastor and former Governor of Arkansas — is guaranteed to send independent voters back to the Democrats more than Mrs Palin.She is a staunch social as well as fiscal conservative but, more alarmingly for independents, she still lacks much of the basic knowledge of the world that they consider a prerequisite for competence.She said yesterday: “I’m never going to pretend that I know more than the next person.”There will always be a constituency for this sort of politician, but it will not be big enough to win the White House in 2012.   

The Iraq war has been a monstrous crime Politicians crave a whitewash – but Britain must hold a fully open public inquiry into the bloodbath it helped to create
Seumas Milne guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 May 2009 15.00 BST Article history It's hardly surprising that those responsible for the human and social catastrophe unleashed by the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, on both sides of the Atlantic, should be desperate to rewrite its history – or try to salvage the shattered reputation of those armies that carried it out. In Britain, as the bulk of its troops withdraw after a campaign that has already lasted longer than the second world war, that propaganda offensive has now reached fever pitch.Gordon Brown claimed yesterday that the wreckage of blood-drenched Iraq was a "success story". The defence secretary John Hutton insisted Britain should be proud of its "legacy" in the devastated cities of the south. Hilary Benn, the environment secretary boasted of his support for the original aggression on BBC's Question Time yesterday, declaring that " we leave Iraq a better place" – a line repeated word for word by the Sun today and echoed across much of the media.But the politicians' craving for a whitewash is no reason for anyone else to give house room to such an absurd travesty of the truth. The Iraq war has been a monstrous crime. Based on a false pretext, it has left hundreds of thousands dead, created more than four million refugees, unleashed an orgy of ethnic cleansing and laid waste to the broken infrastructure of a country already on its knees from 12 years of sanctions and a generation of war.On the eve of the 2003 invasion, Tony Blair told parliament that while there would be civilian casualties, Saddam Hussein would be "responsible for many more deaths even in one year than we will be in any conflict". Amnesty International reckoned annual deaths in Iraq linked to repression at the time to be in the low hundreds. Civilian deaths alone in the six years since the US-British attack are now estimated anywhere between 150,000 (the Iraqi government's figure) and a million-plus.But when paying tribute to the 179 British soldiers killed in Iraq, ministers could not bring themselves to honour the victims of the bloodbath they helped inflict – let alone to acknowledge the tens of thousands of prisoners held without trial, the massacres and rampant torture Britain shares responsibility for: the very crimes of the former regime used to justify the war.Yet to this day only one Briton has been found guilty of a war crime in Iraq: Donald Payne, convicted of inhuman treatement of detainees in Basra. No wonder a majority in Iraq and Britain have long wanted all foreign troops withdrawn – or that Iraqis find claims of a "burgeoning democracy", Britain's "successful mission" and tales of "reconstruction" hard to take remotely seriously. From…

 F.B.I. Faces New Setback in Computer OverhaulBy ERIC LICHTBLAUWASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has suspended work on parts of its huge computer overhaul, dealing the agency the latest costly setback in a decade-long effort to develop a modernized information system to combat crime and terrorism. The overhaul was supposed to be completed this fall, but now will not be done until next year at the earliest. The delay could mean at least $30 million in cost overruns on a project considered vital to national security, Congressional officials said. F.B.I. officials said that design changes and “minor” technical problems prompted the suspension of parts of the third and fourth phases of the work, which is intended to allow agents to better navigate investigative files, search databases and communicate with one another. The decision to suspend work on the $305 million program is particularly striking because the current contractor, Lockheed Martin, was announced to great fanfare in 2006 after the collapse of an earlier incarnation of the project with the Science Applications International Corporation. “This is terribly frustrating,” Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who has been a frequent critic of the F.B.I.’s computer systems, said in an interview Thursday. “We’ve been through this song and dance before. Wouldn’t you think after hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted that they’d finally get it right?” Beyond the financial costs are concerns about the F.B.I.’s ability to handle its law enforcement and national security responsibilities with an information system still regarded as sub-par in some crucial areas. In a paper-driven culture, the agency’s computers were so inadequate that many agents until several years ago could not send or receive e-mail messages, and had difficulty getting case histories and linking to other databases. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, agents in Florida had to send photographs of the hijackers by overnight mail to Washington because they could not send e-mail attachments. The current project, known as Sentinel, has fixed some longstanding problems, including difficulties with e-mail and database searching, auditors have found. But in examining recent work, officials realized that mundane problems — like slow response times, awkward display pages and screen print that was too small — were cropping up. Posing added complications were guidelines on F.B.I. operations put in place in 2008 that gave agents more latitude to look at factors like ethnicity and religion in terrorism investigations. That type of data was not typically used by the F.B.I. when the project began, and officials said they were trying to find ways to incorporate the expanded criteria into their investigative files and computer reports. F.B.I. officials said they viewed the issues more as minor kinks than serious problems. They said the problems had not compromised agents’ ability to respond to threats. The officials said…

  Subject: 9-11: The strong remember, the weak vote liberal Date: Sep 11, 2009 6:30 AM

I know I've said it before on previous 9-11s, but it still
truly amazes me how quickly most people have become
indifferent about today in only the short time it has been.

I guess those of us whom still live and work right outside
NYC think it about it more, but I still find it unsettling
how no one seems to give a crap anymore that we were
attacked on US soil.

We have these bleeding heart, liberal fruit cakes in DC
bothering the CIA on tactics employed, forcing returning
soldiers to defend methods used, and "hamstringing" local
and federal law enforcement to adhere to nonsensical policy
that puts their lives in danger on a daily basis.

Then we have the jack-ass citizens who voted those clowns
into office...

Or as I like to call them, the "sheep".

The fools who wanted "change" from their cushy,
guilt-ridden lives so badly that they voted in an entire
leadership that is destined to squash their freedom, take
away their rights, and let the next batch of terrorists walk
right into our backyards. (According to them its "racist"
and not "socially correct" to keep those people out)

Well...

Screw them all.

Screw those faggots in Washington who don't even remember
what its like to provide for a family, be part of a
community, or earn an honest buck.

Screw those weak minded, cowardly, liberal sheep citizens
who feel "entitled" to and are supporting asinine and
Communist concepts like universal health care, green jobs,
bail outs, and stimulus money.

Trust me, while in 2001 the World's wolfs hit us because
they were scared we were too strong...They're circling now
because the liberal majority this country now represents
clearly shows that we are weak.

Weak in character, weak in mind, weak in body.

Fat, lazy, and spineless.

Good thing you and I are around to do counteract this
current phenomenon.

Because unless you haven't turned on a TV, opened a
newspaper, or checked the internet recently...fists are
about to fly.

The strong (us) are fed up with this liberal crap and are
storming town halls, the web, and DC itself to protect our
lives, our liberties, and our GOD GIVEN RIGHT to pursue
happiness. (The key word being "pursue"...not have some
socialist regime dictate it for us)

The best thing I (and the Close Combat Company) can do is
to continue to boost morale, provide up to date intel,
donate to causes that fight the good fight (I.e. The Wounded
…