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   Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?
 The federal government is supposed to issue new rules about debt levels for students in for-profit colleges. In the meantime, the states are working on their own regulations.
 Washingtons budget hawks want to decimate the federal workforce to shrink the deficit. It will have the opposite effect.
 There arent nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of Americas police. So we got these guys instead.
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February 2, 2010
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A REVIEW PROCESS MAKES.... The issue of detainee recidivism has been a fairly contentious one for a while now. The more the administration's critics can make the case that released terrorist suspects commit acts of violence once they're no longer in custody, the more they'll argue against releasing anyone, closing Gitmo, etc. A couple of weeks after the failed Christmas plot, when the recidivism issue was at the fore again, Obama administration official started quietly making a bold claim: the recidivists exist, but most, if not all, were released by the shockingly incompetent Bush/Cheney administration. Jake Tapper reports today that officials are now making the claim in more forceful and direct ways.
In his correspondence, Brennan specifically made the claim that "all" of the detainees who returned to terrorist activities were "released during the previous administration." The ineffective review process Bush/Cheney relied on has been replaced, Brennan added, by a task force established by President Obama. It consists of "60 career prosecutors, agents, analysts and attorneys from across the government, including civilian, military, and intelligence officials." Before anyone is transferred or released, the decision must receive the unanimous endorsed of "all agencies involved with the review process after a full assessment of intelligence and threat information." I can appreciate why this may seem hard to believe, but it's really not -- the way Bush/Cheney handled this issue was almost comical in its ineptitude. In some cases, the Bush administration released some detainees who turned out to be pretty dangerous. In other cases, the Bush administration refused to release other detainees who weren't dangerous at all, and were actually U.S. allies. The gang that couldn't shoot straight just didn't know what it was doing, and the results of their incompetence put lives in danger. Fortunately, a year ago, President Grown-Up and his team put a reliable process in place. They effectively had to start from scratch -- yes, Bush really was that bad -- but it appears to be working extremely well, Republican whining notwithstanding. If GOP lawmakers and their allies were inclined to send thank-you notes to the Obama White House, I'm sure the president would be gracious about the whole thing. —Steve Benen 1:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)
Comments
Cue SecularAnimist or Steve LaBonne to come in and claim that this proves Obama is no better, nay, WORSE than Bush.
You have to wonder about those that were released and returned to terrorism if they were terrorist in the first place. I'm pretty sure that if you took any american and stuck him in Guantanamo for a few years that if he wasn't a terrorist when he went in he sure as fuck would make it his business to get even when he got out. Posted by: Gandalf on February 2, 2010 at 1:49 PM | PERMALINKI wouldn't be surprised if Cheney had them released to weak rehabilitation programs hoping they would return to or start up terrorist activities in order to then use that as an excuse to keep detainees locked up indefinitely...you know, let a few go for the great 'good' of the country. If anything, Cheney has proven belief in two things: 1) The ends justifies the means; 2). A Machiavellian approach to leadership. Posted by: JWK on February 2, 2010 at 1:56 PM | PERMALINKI'm so damned pessimistic about Bush et al. that I wonder whether their 'review process' was indeed 'ineffective'--at least based on their interpretation of that word. Release of dangerous people who would go on to commit acts of terror may have been a positive thing in their minds, if but to maintain the 'justification' for endless war, profiteering, growth of the military-industrial complex, etc. But we'll never know about this or many other things; it's too divisive, look forward not backward, etc. Laws are for the little people only. Posted by: terraformer on February 2, 2010 at 1:56 PM | PERMALINKIs this some kind of a joke? The reason these released detainee's decide to terrorize has little to do with Bush/Cheney or even Obama. Obama will get his share, no doubt. The elephant in the room folks is the continuing terrorism carried out by the US Government, where countless numbers of innocents abroad are killed by faceless drones, by accidental bombings, and by US troops. Collateral damage. America is the world's biggest terrorist state. Posted by: joekool on February 2, 2010 at 1:57 PM | PERMALINKBrennan writes that the "Intelligence Community assesses that 20 percent of detainees transferred from Guantanamo are confirmed or suspected of recidivist activity." So we're still going with that suspect 20% number? There was doubt cast on its accuracy at the time. Anyone care to consider the methodology and sources? I mistakenly thought the post was alluding to new information, but it's only a slightly more overt claim, by a political hack, that the *other guys* did it first, or worse. Passing along intelligence propaganda can have consequences. It shouldn't be *worth it* to make a piddling political point. If intelligence services said that Iran had developed a nuclear weapon and immediate preemptive attack was necessary, but it had happened during the Bush administration, would we be singing that song too, just to feel superior? Posted by: flubber on February 2, 2010 at 2:23 PM | PERMALINKHoo Yaa We were bombing little brown people in 1970 from the South china Sea. I was there. Posted by: EC Sedgwick on February 2, 2010 at 2:25 PM | PERMALINKI simply cannot believe this story until I hear Lynn Cheney confirm it to Sean Hannity with Rush Limbaugh as a witness. Posted by: KenInTenn on February 2, 2010 at 2:42 PM | PERMALINKI'm sure they did the very best they could given the hiring restrictions that all case reviewers must be conservative Christian Republicans. There's only so much that can be done with a labor pool that limited. You start making compromises pretty early. In fairness, those detainees released under Obama may have a better record simply because they haven't been out long enough to commit a terrorist act. That Bush's released detainees have had more time introduces a bias. Posted by: fostert on February 2, 2010 at 4:28 PM | PERMALINKDavid Rosenfeld wrote a great piece summary research about the actual rate of recidivism (not much, about 4%). See the article at Miller-McCune: http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/pentagons-gitmo-recidivism-claims-dont-add-up-7345/ Posted by: J. Brand on February 2, 2010 at 6:53 PM | PERMALINKPost a comment
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