The inmate population at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, once stood at nearly 700 but has since dwindled to 40.
Sylvie Lanteaume/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is nearly empty these days, but President Trump is explicitly ruling out the possibility of sending thousands of captured Islamic State fighters there.
"The United States is not going to have thousands and thousands of people that we've captured stationed at Guantánamo Bay, held captive at Guantánamo Bay for the next 50 years and us spending billions and billions of dollars," Trump told reporters Friday during an appearance at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
"I want the countries to take back the captured ISIS fighters," Trump added, noting that many of these captives come from European nations, including Germany and France. "And if they don't take them back, we're going to probably put them at the border, and then they'll have to capture them again."
Few of the foreign ISIS fighters captured on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq have been repatriated. Without embassies in those war-torn nations or extradition treaties, European allies of the U.S. have been reluctant to accept nationals being held as prisoners of war.
"It is certainly not as easy as they think in America," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters earlier this year. "German citizens have the right to return, but we have little ability in Syria at present to check whether German citizens are actually affected."
Approximately 2,000 fighters are being held by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Defense Forces in northeastern Syria with assistance from U.S. military forces. Trump demanded at a separate White House event Friday that their home countries "take those people back, put them on trial, and do what they have to do to them."
There is growing concern among U.S. and SDF officials that the makeshift prisons where the fighters are being held are vulnerable to attacks by the captured insurgents' comrades-in-arms.
While campaigning in 2016, Trump promised he would send more prisoners to Guantánamo Bay. "We're gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me," he told a rally in Sparks, Nev. "We're gonna load it up."
But no new prisoners have been sent to the Guantánamo lockup since the final year of the George W. Bush administration. An inmate population there of nearly 700 at its peak dwindled to 41 by the time Trump took office. With the transfer last year of one of those captives, the number now stands at 40.
Renovation and expansion of prison facilities in Guantánamo along with the construction of permanent housing for guards had fueled speculation that preparations were underway for an influx of ISIS fighters. Trump signed an executive order last year reaffirming the need to keep the Guantánamo stockade in operation.
Trump said last month that European leaders, who have long criticized the Guantánamo prison, had asked him to use that facility to house the ISIS fighters captured in Syria and Iraq. "They say to us, 'Why don't you hold them in Guantánamo Bay for 50 years and you just hold them and spend billions and billions of dollars holding them?' " Trump said at a Kentucky veterans convention. "And I'm saying, 'No, you got to take them.' "
Trump's emphasis on the cost of holding inmates in Guantánamo coincides with recent reports detailing how $6 billion has been spent keeping terrorism suspects locked up and how the annual cost per prisoner has risen to $13 million.
Trump did not explain how the U.S. might go about carrying out his threat that unless European allies accept nationals who are Islamic State prisoners of war, "we're releasing them at the border."
He did make clear, though, that he is not contemplating Guantánamo as an alternative destination for those captives.
Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda. By DARREN LINVILL & PATRICK WARREN Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy. Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously. MORE: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/ P...
The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term (Photo: Photos: Getty Images) Americans will almost certainly go to bed on Nov. 3 without knowing who won the presidential election. Since millions of people will vote by mail, constraints on time and resources will slow ballot counting into potentially a weeks-long process. Voting patterns suggest it’s likely that President Donald Trump could end Election Day in the lead in certain key states, only to be overtaken by Democratic opponent Joe Biden when more votes are tallied. This could create a nightmare scenario during the three months stretching from Election Day to the Jan. 20 inauguration: a battle on the state and congressional level over who is the legitimate winner. This could include Congress reconvening on Jan. 6, presided over by Vice President Mike Pence , with no consensus over its potential role in choosing the next president. This...
It's like this folks: sometimes your mind goes blank. Happens more than usual with me of course. Take this forum for instance. I wanted to post something today and couldn't think of a topic. At least not a non-sexual one and we know sexual ones lately have been frowned upon. Then along comes one of our regulars and complains about something. Well, they might not say it was a complaint, just an observation, but it was a complaint. A minor one. It has something to do about being able to make something out of nothing. Sort of like me this morning, how to make a thread out of an empty head? But they (notice I am using the correct pronoun, not saying he or she), by what they said got me thinking. What I thought was: Not sure if that is the actual saying, if I remember correctly, I remember the saying going something like this: Umm, no, I don't think the saying I am thinking of goes that way either, maybe ONE of you good folks can remind me how the saying goes. Either way, when...
Comments
Post a Comment