Coulter falsehood: No evidence Guantánamo "has served as a recruiting tool for terrorists"
SUMMARY: Ann Coulter falsely asserted that there is "no evidence" that Guantánamo "has served as a recruiting tool for terrorists." In fact, military and FBI interrogators have stated that terrorists have successfully used the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay as a recruiting device.
During the May 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity, conservative columnist Ann Coulter asserted that "all liberals are saying ... that Guantánamo has served as a recruiting tool for terrorists," but "they certainly have no evidence for it." In fact, military and FBI interrogators have stated that terrorists have successfully used the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a recruiting device, and at least two reports have reached the same conclusion.
For instance, using the pseudonym Matthew Alexander, an Air Force senior interrogator who was in Iraq in 2006 wrote: "I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq."
Moreover, as the blog Think Progress noted, in June 17, 2008, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Alberto Mora, former Navy general counsel, said: "[T]here are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq -- as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat -- are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo."
Indeed, the Center for Strategic & International Studies concluded in a September 2008 study that "the United States has been damaged by Guantánamo beyond any immediate security benefits. Our enemies have achieved a propaganda windfall that enables recruitment to violence, while our friends have found it more difficult to cooperate with us."
Further, a June 17, 2008, McClatchy Newspapers article reported, "A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam -- thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them -- and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists." McClatchy further reported:
In interviews, former U.S. Defense Department officials acknowledged the problem, but none of them would speak about it openly because of its implications: U.S. officials mistakenly sent a lot of men who weren't hardened terrorists to Guantanamo, but by the time they were released, some of them had become just that.
Requests for comment from senior Defense Department officials went unanswered. The Pentagon official in charge of detainee affairs, Sandra Hodgkinson, declined interview requests even after she was given a list of questions.
However, dozens of former detainees, many of whom were reluctant to talk for fear of being branded as spies by the militants, described a network -- at times fragmented, and at times startling in its sophistication -- that allowed Islamist radicals to gain power inside Guantanamo:
Militants recruited new detainees by offering to help them memorize the Quran and study Arabic. They conducted the lessons, infused with firebrand theology, between the mesh walls of cells, from the other side of a fence during exercise time or, in lower-security blocks, during group meetings.
Taliban and al Qaida leaders appointed cellblock leaders. When there was a problem with the guards, such as allegations of Quran abuse or rough searches of detainees, these "local" leaders reported up their chains of command whether the men in their block had fought back with hunger strikes or by throwing cups of urine and feces at guards. The senior leaders then decided whether to call for large-scale hunger strikes or other protests.
Al Qaida and Taliban leaders at Guantanamo issued rulings that governed detainees' behavior. Shaking hands with female guards was haram -- forbidden -- men should pray five times a day and talking with American soldiers should be kept to a minimum.
The recruiting and organizing don't end at Guantanamo. After detainees are released, they're visited by militants who try to cement the relationships formed in prison.
From the May 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
COULTER: And the other thing -- I mean, one thing I'd like to address about what -- that Obama said that all liberals are saying -- I mean, it's getting to be like liberals saying oral sex isn't sex under Clinton -- is this claim that Guantánamo has served as a recruiting tool for terrorists.
It's just said over and over and over again. You know, Republicans have to prove that waterboarding led to specific information. Well, why can't they produce the terrorists who would just be home, you know, having coffee and going to their jobs, but they heard about Guantánamo and decided to join the jihad?
I mean, it's counterintuitive. I think it's preposterous. And they certainly have no evidence for it. It just gets said over and over and over again: "It's a recruiting tool for terrorists. It's a recruiting tool for terrorists."
I don't think so. I don't think most terrorists are going to want to end up in Guantánamo, lovely though the accommodations are.
SEAN HANNITY (host): You know, but, here -- if we really look at this, what have Democrats done for national security?
Gosh! I wonder why they are at Gitmo in the first place?
Oh, and Coulter so far looks to me to be correct. MMFA itself did not provide any proof countering her accusations. If one will look, one will find all MMFAs examples are just hearsay and most of it unidentified hearsay.
Many were placed in Gitmo during a large sweep through Afghanistan that rounded up hundreds of based on heresay, or because they didn't answer questions properly. Since then, over 500 have been released as they were determined to not be dangerous members of Al Queda or the Taliban. Some of those released (~75) joined a terror network after their release. If they were not participating in jihad before they were swept up, they learned it while there.
This does not even count moderate Muslims in their home countries that turned into extremists when Gitmo and Abu Ghrab abuses were made public. That is the real issue here. They see our abuses as a direct attack on their countrymen and religion.
Finally, MMFA is not providing proof. They are reporting. Their reports from other sources, like FBI and military officials, state Gitmo and Aby Ghrab were successfuly used as a recruting tool.
If you could provide links for your assertions that hundreds were rounded up based on hearsay, that would be great.
I understand completely that 500 have been released after being judged low level threats.
You say 75 or so are believed to have joined a terror network after their release. Your "if" statement is only that. You do not know if they were participating in jihad before they were swept up or if after they landed at Gitmo. So the reality is that you have no proof either.
It is a twisted world created in the minds of the left that says that supposedly innocent and ambivalent Afghans being detained during a war at Gitmo for a time, while under strict guard and survelience, turns them into bloodthirsty Taliban terrorists who kill all who oppose them, cut off heads, and treat women like chattel.
So it is not my logic or reading ability that is flawed, it is yours. This gitmo is a recruiting factory for extremists is simply another of the canards the left has made up and, just to keep it local, so far in this thread, has not supplied any proof of the assertion other than hearsay. And you, my friend, have bought into it.
It may not turn them into terrorists, but how do we know it doesn't make them more receptive to Al Qaeda or the Taliban's message? How do we know it doesn't make them more prone to cooperate and sympathize with these terrorist organizations instead of the American forces who are hunting them?
It doesn't exactly make them love or respect America, does it?
One more thing, there is no "supposedly" when it comes to the reality of innocent people being sent to Guantanamo. The plight of the Uighurs and the circumstance in which many of them were captured is well documented. They were simply sold to American forces for the bounties offered.
by friedbergboy1422 (15 minutes ago)
1
Here's an AP report where some of the people at Guantanamo say they were sold by warlords:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8049868/
Here's an AP story quoting Wilkerson saying there are innocents at Guantanamo (from a website I am sure you are familiar with):
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/19/ex-bush-official-guantanamo-bay-innocent/
Here's a story of an innocent man being held for 5 years at Guantanamo:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/apr/23/extract
Here's another story charging that much of the evidence keep prisoners there is fabricated:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_02/008230.php
To quote the last link:
"To summarize then: According to the National Journal's research, upwards of half of all prisoners at Guantanamo weren't captured on the battlefield. Rather, they came into our custody by way of third parties "who had their own motivations for turning people in, including paybacks and payoffs." Many — perhaps most — of the men rounded up in these sweeps have no connection to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and the evidence against them is often weak, sometimes nonexistent, and all too frequently known to be fabricated. And yet they remain in prison."
Of course not. Bucktooth is nothing more than a sociopathic trolling piece of subhuman compost who whines like a little girl when he gets back what he tries to dish out. Of course he has no thoughts on the links provided (all of which he could have easily found for himself with minimal effort. Maybe I am right in my assumption that if his 'thoughts' don't come from the Limborg Mothership, FreeRepublic, or some James Dobson rant based on the book of Leviticus he has no thoughts of his own. If you follow the news at all there is no excuse for not knowing that Jtrahan63's argument does have a factual basis. No excuse, that is, unless you are Bucktooth. As COOP would say--factose intolerant.
If those links debunk what you have said, then you need to acknowledge your error and be a man!
YOu said "This 'gitmo is a recruiting factory for extremists' is simply another of the canards the left has made up".
Then, that's proven wrong by links that document that, and you fail to admit your deception.
Your house of cards falls because of reality, and all you can say is "Thanks for the links"?
What a tool.
And if you don't already know that there are facts that disprove Ann Coulter's comments, then you are not qualified to discuss this subject at all! These facts are well-known to anyone who has any interest in reality.
So, we now know (although we've all known for as long as we've seen you posting) that you are either an ignorant jackass of a man, or you are a deceitful, deceptive man who knows what the truth is but are simply trying to distract us from what you know is true.
You cannot pretend to not know that the Bush Administration itself determined that our 'war on terrorism' has created more terrorists in more places. They also determined that the risk from terrorism has increased worldwide as a result because of the way our actions, including creating Gitmo as a holding place for suspected terrorists, has inflamed people who weren't terrorists before we created Gitmo.
But occasionally he will point out one of his (Obama's) attackers flawed points, and he did just that the other day in his speech.
He said that all these suspected terrorists we held who have purportedly gone on, after release from Gitmo, to become strong enemies of the USA, were released by BUSH!!!
He claims to have been part of TF-145 "Gators".
The TF-145 is headquartered at Balad Air Base and is "divided into four subordinate task forces in Iraq"
Task Force West, organized around a SEAL Team 6 squadron with Rangers in support.
Task Force Central, organized around a Delta squadron with Rangers in support.
Task Force North, organized around a Ranger battalion combined with a small Delta element.
Task Force Black, organized around a British Special Air Service “saber squadron,” with British paratroopers from the Special Forces Support Group in support."
Don't see the AF in there? He may have been attached, but there is no evidence this is true. Also Matt doesn't go into HIS interrogation techniques and strategies and isn't asked these questions on MSNBC or the Daily show and certainly not on MMfA.
Notice a pattern?
"Matt doesn't go into HIS interrogation techniques and strategies"
Obviously, you haven't read his book, as I have. It is a very detailed account of the interrogations that led to the location and subsequent killing of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi. The techniques and strategies are very well documented.
"Don't see the AF in there?"
The Air Force has interrogators working overseas who graduated from the U.S. Army's interrogator school. The Army asked for the AF's help because they are stretched thin.
I stand by the cherry picking of data.
You mean YOURS?
You said there was no evidence that it was true. Actually, there's lots of evidence - first, that he said it, secondly, the info in his book backs it up, lastly, the evidence that the Air Force provided assistance and personnel to do this job was readily available.
So, you don't get a pass because you used the word "may". You get a demerit because you said that there's no evidence.
Then you compound that error by saying that "you" haven't seen any AF personnel doing interrogations - like your anecdotal information means anything about what has happened outside your own personal worldview! What a tool!
But since it only came out AFTER the previous misadministration left office, it's obvious that they are pushing this now to cover their own tails.