Think Progress

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers

JUSTICE

Top Myths About Closing Guantanamo

On his second day in office, President Obama took a bold step away from the Bush administration and signed an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year while suspending all military tribunals for six months. Obama said that the United States was sending the world a message that the "struggle against violence and terrorism" would be fought "in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals." Each day that Guantanamo remains open is another day that U.S. troops are put in further unnecessary danger. One U.S. military officer wrote in the Washington Post that he "learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo." Obama has taken the first crucial step in shutting down this stain on America's reputation. As the Center for American Progress has outlined, the next steps -- including arranging for trials in federal or military courts, finding homes for detainees who can't return to their native countries, transferring detainees who will stand trial into the United States, and establishing a lawful military detention regime for the small number of remaining detainees -- won't be easy, but they're not impossible. Nevertheless, conservatives are coming up with a number of inaccurate -- and often outright ludicrous -- excuses for why Guantanamo needs to remain open. The Progress Report debunks some of the most ill-informed myths.

MYTH #1 -- GUANTANAMO IS A GREAT PLACE TO BE: Conservatives often try to argue that life at Guantanamo is just fine. Reacting to Obama's executive order, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said that detainees there receive "more comforts than a lot of Americans get." In December, Vice President Cheney argued that Guantanamo "has been very well run." Neither of these claims are true. The Washington Post recently revealed that the top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to prosecute detainees concluded that Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured by the U.S. military at Guantanamo. The detention center was so poorly run that Obama administration officials are now finding out that Bush officials never kept comprehensive case files on many detainees.

MYTH #2 -- DETAINEES ARE TOO DANGEROUS TO BRING INTO THE UNITED STATES: This myth is the one that conservatives cite most often. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has said that transferring Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil "will endanger American lives." Yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press, Boehner said that it would be "irresponsible" to transfer these "terrorists who have attempted to kill Americans." This morning, Fox and Friends took pictures of various terrorists and went around to Pennsylvania residents and asked them if they wanted these people living in their "backyards." However, U.S. federal prisons are already home to dozens of the most dangerous terrorists the world has ever known. As Salon's Glenn Greenwald has written, "Both before and after 9/11, the U.S. has repeatedly and successfully tried alleged high-level Al Qaeda operatives and other accused Islamic Terrorists in our normal federal courts -- in fact, the record is far more successful than the series of debacles that has taken place in the military commissions system at Guantanamo." In fact, there have been 145 terrorist convictions in federal courts since 9/11. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) has said that he wouldn't necessarily oppose transferring detainees who are convicted terrorists headed to trial to the state's "Supermax", a role that the prison is already playing and that CAP recommended in its report. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) has also expressed a willingness to bring some detainees into his district, stating, "I mean, they're no more dangerous in a prison in my district than they are in Guantanamo."

MYTH #3 -- DETAINEES WILL RECEIVE ALL THE BENEFITS OF U.S. CITIZENS: One of the most absurd myths has come from Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who asked last week, "What happens then if another judge grants him asylum in the United States and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is on a path to citizenship?" King added that they could then "tap into welfare." Yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation, Vice President Biden addressed these ridiculous claims. "If they are not a U.S. citizen or if they are not here legally, then, even if they were released by a federal judge, they would not be able to stay here in the United States," said Biden. "They would be sent back to their country of origin. They would not stay here." CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen has also noted, "When terrorists have been tried in the United States, they go away forever. The embassy attackers in '98 who blew up two American embassies, they are in prison for life without parole."

MYTH #4 -- 61 RELEASED DETAINEES HAVE RETURNED TO THE BATTLEFIELD: One conservative talking point that has been especially effective at making its way into traditional media reporting is that 61 "of the people that were incarcerated at Guantanamo and then released have returned to the battlefield, have engaged in further terrorist activities," as CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr said yesterday. The Associated Press has made a similar claim. But in fact, as Media Matters has reported, "according to the Pentagon, the 61-detainee figure includes 43 former prisoners who are suspected of, but have not been confirmed as, having 'return[ed] to the fight.'" Bergen has also noted that "returning to the fight" could simply mean writing a negative op-ed. Mark Denbeaux, Director of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Research, has been tracking the Bush administration's claims. He told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, "Their numbers have changed from 20 to 12 to seven to more than five to two to a couple to a few -- 25, 29, 12 to 24.  Every time, the number has been different. In fact, every time they give a number, they don't identify a date, a place, a time, a name or an incident to support their claim."

MYTH #5 -- WE SHOULD JUST HOUSE THE DETAINEES AT ALCATRAZ: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been a vocal supporter of closing down Guantanamo. Therefore, conservatives have retaliated by proposing that she take the detainees. "Let our good friends in San Francisco deal with these deadly combatants," said Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO). Boehner and Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) have suggested Alcatraz prison, which sits in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. This proposal is a joke. Alcatraz shut down as a federal prison in 1963. It became a national historic landmark in 1986. Apparentlty, conservatives are unwilling to house detainees in maximum security federal prisons but are happy to put them up in a tourist attraction. As Pelosi said yesterday on ABC's This Week, "Alcatraz is a tourist attraction. It's a prison that is now sort of like a -- it's a national park."

RADICAL RIGHT --  GLOBAL-WARMING-DENYING 'LOYAL BUSHIE' BURROWS INTO NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION: Talking Points Memo reports that Kathie Olsen, a senior Bush administration appointee, has burrowed her way into the civil service side of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Burrowing occurs during presidential transitions when "political appointees, eager to stay on the government payroll, often wriggle their way into secure civil service positions -- despite the differing political beliefs of the White House's new occupant." Olsen was the number two official at the NSF until shortly before Obama took office. After submitting her resignation to the Bush administration, she was "reassigned to work in the Office of Information and Resource Management as a senior adviser." Olsen's assignment to a permanent position in the NSF is surprising given her proximity to the Bush administration's censorship of climate science. Before joining NSF, Olsen worked at the White House for the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Her immediate boss was "John Marburger, who was implicated in the 2007 censorship of congressional testimony that would have publicly illustrated the human health risks of the warming climate." Further, Olsen first provided Phil Cooney, the administration's chief climate science censor, with a "debunked, Big-Oil-underwritten study that purported to disprove the existence of climate change." Unfortunately, because Olsen's new position is part of the Senior Executive Service, civil service rules may preclude the Obama administration from taking any action against her. MEDIA -- KRISTOL ENDS ERROR-RIDDEN TENURE AT NEW YORK TIMES: Last November, Weekly Standard editor and prominent neoconservative William Kristol was asked if he wanted to renew his one-year contract as a weekly columnist with The New York Times. "I'm ambivalent," Kristol said. "I dunno. You gotta talk to them about that. It's been a lot of work and I'm kinda stretched a little thin. I'll see." It appears Kristol has resolved his ambivalence. At the conclusion of his Times column today, an editor's note reads, "This is William Kristol's last column." Kristol's last Times screed is unlikely to be a memorable one, as he meandered back and forth (as he usually does) about the superiority of conservatism, without really explaining his arguments. For example, he wrote today, "Conservatives have been right more often than not and more often than liberals about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family." But it appears that Kristol's tirades against all things progressive have found a new home. Politico's "Playbook" reports this morning that "he's now beginning a monthly column in The Washington Post." Aside from the monotony of Kristol's opinion pieces, it might be worth reminding the Post's editors and readers what they're in for: factual errors. During his short tenure at the Times, the paper had to issue corrections on four separate occasions. Given Kristol's history with the Times, perhaps the Post will do its readers a service and assign an extra fact-checker to his work. CIVIL LIBERTIES -- DEPARTMENTS STILL HAVE NOT INSTITUTED CIVIL LIBERTIES PROTECTIONS: According to federal reports, the "departments of Defense, State, and Health and Human Services have not met legal requirements meant to protect Americans' civil liberties, and a board that's supposed to enforce the mandates has been dormant since 2007," USA Today reports. All three departments failed to comply with a 2007 law requiring them to "appoint civil liberties protection officers and report regularly to Congress on the safeguards they use." The oversight board was originally set up by the Bush White House in 2004, but in 2007, Congress ordered that it be recreated as an independent agency by January 2008. The agency sat vacant. In fact, President Bush didn't nominate a single member until August, eight months after the agency was set up. None were confirmed before Bush's term ended. In the meantime, the Bush White House worked diligently to undermine the board. In May 2007, Lanny Davis, the sole Democrat on the board, resigned in protest after the administration "made more than 200 revisions" to the panel's first report to Congress. President Obama has vowed to give the agency subpoena power, and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said that departments not following the law will be held accountable.

Lobbyists are bemoaning President Obama's strict ethics rules, which "are viewed by many on K Street as effectively a ban," "making it nearly impossible for lobbyists who would take senior positions in government to enter public service." "I haven't seen anybody in the administration with any interest in hiring a lobbyist," one Democratic lobbyist said. "No one I know who is a lobbyist is figuring out a way to get in." On Friday, the Senate Finance Committee unveiled a package of pro-business tax cuts as part of its stimulus plan, with provisions such as de-leveraging and bonus depreciation that the business lobby has pushed for. "We're very encouraged," said Bruce Josten, the vice president of government affairs for the Chamber of Commerce. The $275 billion in tax cuts would also waive tax collection on unemployment benefits. According to a new USA Today survey of economists, "the U.S. economy will climb out of recession in the second half of the year, but firms will continue to cut jobs through 2009 and growth will likely be more of a crawl than a sprint." The jobless rate is expected to peak at 8.8 percent next year "as employers remain cautious and implement earlier, announced cuts." President Obama's pledge to slash earmarks to 1994 levels, which would be a nearly 75 percent cut from 2006, "is already causing heartburn on Capitol Hill." Several appropriators told Roll Call that they were "unaware of the pledge" while they have been "quietly negotiating an omnibus appropriations bill for the remainder of fiscal 2009 that will include thousands of earmarks." Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) is introducing a constitutional amendment this week ending gubernatorial Senate appointments, replacing them with special elections. "The controversies surrounding some of the recent gubernatorial appointments...make it painfully clear that such appointments are an anachronism that must end," he said. New figures from the Pentagon reveal that "[r]oadside bomb attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan hit an all-time high last year," killing 161 soldiers -- more than double the previous year's total. And finally: Senator Oprah Winfrey? This morning on ABC's Good Morning America, scandal-plagued Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) revealed he almost decided to pick TV talk show Oprah to replace Obama. His consideration of Oprah was tempered, he suggested, by that fact that "she probably wouldn't take it," and he didn't want it t "look like a gimmick."

President Obama will direct the Environmental Protection Agency today to "reconsider a Bush-era decision that stopped California and more than a dozen other states from setting their own stricter limits on auto emissions."

THINK PROGRESS: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) slams broadband expansion idea after campaigning for it.

WONK ROOM: Neoconservative extremist Max Boot opposes Arab peace initiative.

YGLESIAS: The idea of "small-government egalitarianism" is a confused concept.

DEMOCRACY ARSENAL: How former senator George Mitchell's experience in Northern Ireland prepares him to be President Obama's special envoy to the Middle East.

ILLINOIS: Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) impeachment trial --which he claims is "rigged" -- is set to begin today.

TEXAS: "Lobbyists have spent at least $12.8 million in the last four years wining and dining Texas lawmakers and other state workers."

IOWA: "Hospitals across Iowa are seeing higher numbers of uninsured patients seeking free care."

"I think Guantanamo has been very well run."
-- Former vice president Cheney, 12/15/08

VERSUS

"Incoming legal and national security officials...discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many [detainees]. Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is 'scattered throughout the executive branch.'"
-- Washington Post, 1/25/09