 Thank you for coming to the New America Foundation. I'm Peter Bergen. I run the National Security Studies Program here. We're really delighted, well, I'm delighted probably not the right verb, but we're happy to have this very distinguished panel to discuss. We call the panel Guantanamo Forever Question Mark, since that is obviously the main question at hand, is when and if Guantanamo will close and how might that happen? To begin, we're going to have Congressman Moran, who is serving his 11th term as U.S. Representative from Virginia's 8th District. He's a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. He's been a key critic of certain provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act and in a great act of political courage, Congressman from Virginia voted against the authorization of this act because of the provisions that relate to the military detention of terrorism suspects. We also have from the United Kingdom, Mandy Worthington, who is the author of the Guantanamo Files. As Andy has probably done more work to basically explain who exactly is in Guantanamo than almost any other journalist that I'm aware of. We also have Colonel Mo Davis, who is the Chief Prosecutor in the Guantanamo Military Commissions. He's now retired from that position, retired active duty in October of 2008. He teaches now Law at Howard and then finally we have Tom Wilner, who's the head of Sherman and Sterling's International Trade and Global Relations Practice. He's represented Guantanamo detainees in key cases before the Supreme Court such as Rassoul versus Bush. So we're going to start with Congressman Moran, who has to leave to go to the House at 130 and we will wrap up at 145. Thank you. Thank you so much, Peter. And we thank all of you for being here and we have a terrific panel. I don't want to take too long, but there is so much to be said. When we stipulate my position first, Guantanamo should be closed as a detention facility. The Supreme Court has ruled that non-citizens have the right to habeas corpus, which is being denied to them currently. And so you can make a strong case that the existence of Guantanamo is unconstitutional. I feel quite strongly that it is undermining our national security and that it is an ongoing compromise of our foreign policy and the ideals that define the United States of America. And as long as Guantanamo continues to exist, it undermines our credibility throughout the world. I think most people would agree that it is America's idealism that has been its strongest asset in dealing with the rest of the world and in fact has primarily contributed to its economic, military, and political success in doing so. So Guantanamo is a real problem from a foreign policy, from national security, and from a legal standpoint. And in fact, our current president ran on a position that he would close it. And so from that you would have to believe that given the facts a majority of the American people would agree with the president's position. But it is open and as a result of legislation that was just passed by the House and Senate and signed by the president, I'm afraid that it will stay open indefinitely without a very substantial pushback from the American people, which means that it is a subject that should be addressed in this presidential election year. And obviously every member of the House is up and approximately a third of the United States Senate. So it should be addressed. It's an important issue. Now when it began, there were 20 captives back in January 2002. That's why this conference is being held today. It's the 10th year anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo. There have been about 800 people held at, and we'll call it Gitmo. It's a little easier to remember, but there have been 800 people held at Gitmo. About 772 were originally brought there. More recently, some people who were taken out of what were called black prisons in other parts of the world who were the worst of the worst, and there's some reason to believe that to be the case, personified by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they have been put there at Guantanamo as well. But they are not typical of the people being held at Guantanamo. They should, as far as I'm concerned, be dealt with in the legal system. But the data that we have and we would challenge people to refute it, but that initially when 772 people were brought there in the early years, only 5 percent were captured by United States forces. 86 percent were arrested either by Pakistan or by the Northern Alliance and then turned over to U.S. custody. This was at a time when the United States offered large bounties for the capture of suspected enemies, very little screening when these people were turned over. Now we know a lot of the actions that the Pakistan military have taken have not been consistent with America's policy or its national security. And yet these are the people that we accepted these prisoners from and we accepted their word that they were terrorists. But the majority of the detainees have not been determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies, more than half. Only 8 percent of the detainees were characterized as al-Qaida fighters, 30 percent were captured because they were members of a, and I'm using quotes here, potentially hostile organization, almost two-thirds, 60 percent were associated with such an organization. Associated with is a very broad term as you can imagine. We have some of the top people in the government and certainly in the Washington establishment working with MEK, for example, which has been labeled a terrorist organization. I only throw that out because these identifications are just so loose. They were insufficient justification to detain people for an entire decade in some cases. Now the majority of the 175 that are still there have been cleared for release. I could give you the actual numbers, the 171, 36 are subject to active criminal investigation or prosecution, 48 are considered to be such that they should remain in preventive detention without criminal trial and the remaining detainees may be transferred either immediately or eventually to a foreign country. Now this is a result of the conclusions of the Guantanamo task force. This is what its final report said just about a year ago now. Now it should also be said that civilian courts have prosecuted successfully more than 400 terrorists and yet I'm going to read you legislation which was just passed by the Congress of the United States and signed into law with a caveat by the President. But I want to make one more point before I go to that legislation. Not only is this the least justifiable facility controlled by the United States for national security purposes but is by far the most expensive prison on the planet. There are 1,850 U.S. troops and civilians that maintain a compound that contains 171 captives. You can do the math. That's over $800,000 per year per detainee. And of the 171 only six are currently facing Pentagon tribunals that may start a year from now after pretrial hearing and discovery. So here we are with all of this concern about reckless or excessive spending and some of the very people who have raised the greatest concern are maintaining a facility where the majority of people have been cleared for release but are nevertheless being held under what the Supreme Court has suggested is unconstitutional detention without the right of habeas corpus. I know Tom Wilmer will address that in a few moments. And yet the new numbers this year will bring it closer to $1,000,000 per year per detainee. How can you justify it? Now let me tell you the legislation that is most relevant and is cause for the greatest discouragement. The National Defense Authorization Act, which as I say was just signed, for the first time in the United States history explicitly allows the President to indefinitely detain without charge any suspected terrorist who was captured even within the United States. This can include U.S. citizens and U.S. persons. With regard to U.S. citizens, the provision that was signed in the law does not expressly exclude their detention without charge or trial. That's section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. The current authority of the President, which is what people say would not be affected, unfortunately is very unclear. Now those who argued on the floor of the House and the Senate that civil liberties are protecting the United States, I don't think fully consider the implications, and many of you are taking notes, so I'll be specific, of subsection E of 1021, because it says that the law should not be construed to effect existing law or authority relating to United States citizens. But the reality is that current law on the scope of the President's authority to indefinitely detain is unsettled. It's not clear. When you say it doesn't affect it, it doesn't affect law that has not been clarified. And in fact, the U.S. government in the Padilla case as well as the Elmari case, so this is recent, it's 2009, claimed that the President had the authority to detain a suspected terrorist captured within the United States indefinitely without charge or trial. So the claim of executive detention authority for people of capture within the United States has not been tested. The state of the law at present is unclear. That's very important to say, because people need to understand that not only is Guantanamo a foreign policy embarrassment, but it has profoundly undermined the constitutional protections of all United States citizens. Now the subsequent section, section 1022, would force the military to indefinitely detain without charge or trial anyone who is a member of al-Qaeda, associated forces, or anyone suspected of planning or attempting a terrorist attack. The key word is suspected. The language, that language, 1022 doesn't prohibit the detention of United States citizens. FBI Director Mueller says he fears that this is going to severely, severely compromise the ability of the FBI and our civil authorities from being able to conduct their responsibilities. Now this may seem somewhat legalistic, but the legalism we're talking about is a basic constitutional protection. So in the interest of maintaining Guantanamo, justifying political positions that members of Congress and the Senate have taken, that we will not allow any terrorists from Guantanamo into the United States, we have seriously eroded something that is intrinsic to the Constitution of the United States. Now let me just wrap this up with something that I know a little more about than the Constitution, although this should be clear to all of us who have to vote on measures that should be consistent with the Constitution, and that is the politics of this country. The reason why we have this situation is not the fault of the President of the United States. I can tell you from firsthand knowledge and experience, the problem is the Congress of the United States and the fact that they have operated within an echo chamber of conservative media that has hammered away at what is really not a clear and true statement that the people at Guantanamo are the worst of the worst. Many of them should not have been picked up. Most of them should not have been detained. The vast majority of them are not immediate threats to the security of the United States. Just look at the numbers of nearly 800, 600 have already been released. But we held them in detention without giving them the ability to defend themselves or even to know what they were accused of. In the early years, many were abused, but I would suggest that being held under force without being able to contact your family or to defend yourself is abusive. Now the majority of the Congress today is not prepared to close Guantanamo. They are prepared to provide whatever money is necessary to keep it open. The majority are not prepared to allow the detainees at Guantanamo, even the worst of the worst, i.e. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and others that we know have been involved in clear and direct threats and actions against the United States. They are not prepared to allow them to be tried in our civil justice system. The problem is while 400 terrorists have been prosecuted in our civil justice system, only six have been successfully prosecuted by the military system of justice because of the lack of evidence. And so I think this Guantanamo is going to remain open for the indefinite period of time until the majority of the American people say no. We now understand what's going on. We now understand the majority are eligible for release. We understand that despite the language that says that basically prohibits them being transferred to other countries, we understand they should be transferred to their country of origin. And we understand that the rule of law in the United States should apply to Guantanamo as well. So thank you for being here. Thank you for your interest in this very important issue. And Peter, you want to introduce the next speaker. Hello, everybody, and thank you very much, Congressman Moran. You've said so much there that I'm not sure what's left for me to say. That was excellent. I was going to talk briefly about the men who are still held who were approved for transfer by the task force that was established by President Obama, these 89 men. I think those are the people that we all should be able to agree need to be released, and we need to find a way to reach a point where that can happen. So these are men who the task force consisted of career officials and lawyers from all the government departments from the intelligence agencies who have said we have no interest in holding these men forever. So they're still held. Now, two-thirds of those men are from Yemen. And the reason that they're held is primarily because of the hysteria that greeted the arrest of a man called Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutalab, who tried to blow up a plane ban for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. Actually, these military, mandatory military detention provisions that were inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act have come from that same hysteria that arose. And if you can recall that period, this was a man who was read as Miranda Wrights, was interrogated non-coercively by the FBI, and ended up a few months ago being successfully prosecuted and convicted. He spoke openly without torture being used. But there were people in high position in the United States who wanted him to be sent to Guantanamo and to be waterboarded. The same cheerleaders for torture in Guantanamo who are still the monsters and still spreading this vile and un-American and unconstitutional message. And what happened as a result of the capture of this man and this hysteria was that people demanded that prisoners were not to be released to Yemen. And actually, the president bowed to that criticism, and Congress has also later imposed restrictions on the right to release prisoners. So the Yemenis are stuck, and we need to be able to say, this is not acceptable not to release anyone to Yemen that the U.S. government doesn't want to hold because of some other unrelated incident involving a man who is Nigerian but was recruited in Yemen. That doesn't make sense. That is guilt by nationality, I think, and I think people would find that extremely unfair and should find that extremely unfair, and we need to find a way to be able to put pressure on the government and on Congress to say, you need to stop this kind of restriction. The impositions that have been made by Congress on the release of prisoners, I think, you know, ought to be shocking to Americans that lawmakers have got together with great exceptions. Lawmakers have got together to insert these provisions that have said that the defense secretary must certify to Congress that if a prisoner is to be released to a country, then he must be able to certify that that prisoner will not be able to engage in activities against the United States. Now, I think that that's actually impossible to do, but I don't think that's even quite as bad as another twist that was added, which was lawmakers saying that the defense secretary must not release a prisoner, the government must not release a prisoner if there is a single alleged incident of recidivism of somebody having returned to the battlefield or taken up any actions against the United States from a whole country. We're back to the same issue of criminalizing the entire population of Yemen, guilt by nationality. The same thing is happening with entire countries. Now, the analogy that I use for this is, imagine, let's take the state of Colorado. Let's say that within the U.S. domestic prison system, somebody is released from prison to Colorado and commits a crime. And then the lawmakers of this country get together and say, in future, no one must ever be released to the state of Colorado because of this one criminal. That's the analogy. That's a real analogy. And I think if that were to happen in the United States, people would understand that that was deeply unfair. But it's one of these things that has happened with the way that hysteria has built up about Guantanamo. So I think those are the really big issues about how we start to work to secure the release of prisoners. And the Yemenis, I think, is the big case. To be able to say to elected representatives, this is going to stay open forever, this prison, unless some action is taken. And there may be short-term political maneuverings that require people to not do anything about it in the short term. The short term becomes the long term. And when history one day comes to look back on this period, when it's presented in the history books that the United States government in Congress presided over a situation for years, years and years in which people that the government didn't want to hold remained held in the prison, were not released, that's not going to go down well. That is going to be a bad legacy. But I'm trying to work out how we can get to the point and to say to people with a position of power and responsibility, that legacy will be yours unless you act. When is it going to happen? Next year, the year after, five years, 10 years. The last two prisoners to leave Guantanamo left in coffins. They died there last year. The last living prisoner was released a year ago. More prisoners will die and will leave in coffins. And as it stands at the moment, no one is leaving through any other means. I'd like also to mention to people who may not know that the process of habeas corpus, which Congressman Moran mentioned, where the prisoners secured habeas corpus rights from the Supreme Court is something that's been undermined over the last year and a half by judges here in Washington DC and the circuit court, who have fought back against the decisions by the lower courts to release prisoners because of a lack of evidence. And for reasons that I can only describe as nakedly ideological reasons, are saying that the government doesn't really need to present anything in the way of evidence that that evidence shouldn't really be challenged. That whoever the government says is somebody that should be held, should continue to be held. And what's happened in the last year and a half is that after successes for the prisoners and releases for the prisoners, the last 11 habeas corpus petitions have been lost. Five other successful petitions have been either vacated or ruled against by the circuit court. It is not possible to get out of Guantanamo through legal means. After all those years of struggling, the judges of the DC circuit court have eliminated habeas corpus as a remedy for prisoners in Guantanamo. And I think that that's something that should concern people as well. I don't wanna carry on for too long because I want the opportunity for my colleagues to speak as well. I do just want to mention that in the hope of keeping the conversation alive throughout the election year about the need to close Guantanamo, Tom and I and other people have set up a website in a campaign called Close Guantanamo, www.closeguantanamo.org. We're encouraging people to sign up so we can show the president and show lawmakers and show judges how much interest there is in bringing this terrible 10 years to an end. There is a White House petition that we've set up on the We The People website to encourage the president to respond to the request to close the prison. We hope that you will be able to sign up and join us. We will be providing information throughout the year. We just want to make sure that we all live in a time where the new cycles move very quickly. Just this week, people are talking about Guantanamo. By next week, people may well have forgotten. We want to have a campaign that we can keep this message going throughout the year, telling important stories, bringing stories to the public from, mainly we hope from the lawyers themselves who visit the prisoners in Guantanamo, who can humanize these people because pretty much everything has been done to keep these people dehumanized, as was originally intended by the Bush administration. And as was mentioned, these are people who don't have family visits still. However much Guantanamo is a more humane facility than it was. These people, unlike any other prisoner on the US mainland, does not have the right to have family visits. These are people who effectively are still the third exceptional category of human being that was dreamt up by the Bush administration, that were not held as soldiers with the protections of the Geneva Conventions, were not held as criminal suspects. But the Bush administration called them illegal enemy combatants. They're still a unique category of prisoner that doesn't have proper rights. And we really must work hard to bring that to an end, because otherwise, I'll be here next year, I'll be here in five years, I'll be here in 10 years. And the shame of this will only build over time. It's not gonna go away. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. We gotta quit meeting this way. I know looking at the, not just the panel, but at the audience, I recognize some faces that were here last year. Hopefully one day we'll meet here and we'll look back on Guantanamo as a historical footnote rather than an ongoing chapter in our nation's history. In the Mitt Romney on the campaign trail is taken to quoting passages from America the Beautiful. I remember a passage there from the Star Spangled Banner that says land of the free and the home of the brave. But for some reason over the past decade, we've become the constrained and the cowardly. I mean, I joined the military in 1983 because I believed in the land of the free and the home of the brave. And I'd like to have my country back, the one that I signed up to serve. But we've had people fear mongers that have played to fear and portraying people as the worst of the worst and turning our backs on the law and running from it from the past decade. And we're still here today on the 10th anniversary of Guantanamo. You know, last year when I was here, we kind of went through the history of Guantanamo from 1494 when Columbus landed to the present. I won't bore you with that again. It's on the website if you wanna look at it. But I was a chief prosecutor from 2005 to 2007. And I resigned when I was pressured to use evidence obtained by torture. I think people can argue whether enhanced interrogation techniques, what most people call torture produce useful intelligence. But it certainly doesn't produce reliable evidence to be used in an American criminal proceeding. And when I was told that President Bush said, we don't torture, so who are you to say that we do is when I decided to resign. It wasn't popular in Republican circles when I did that, but fortunately I got hired to work for Congress. And I was the most optimistic person when President Obama got elected in 2009. I mean, in the military, you can't participate in political activity. And so I had just retired from the military and for the first time got to participate in the fall of 2008. Put an Obama sign in my yard, I donated money, I went door to door. Somebody came in my yard and set my Obama sign on fire. So I went and got another one and put up another one. And so I was extraordinarily optimistic when he took office and extraordinarily disappointed when he caved in on his promise to close Guantanamo and end the military commissions. I was working for Congress at the time and I wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that said it's double standard justice what we're doing. Apparently Democrats weren't any more pleased with me than the Republicans I got fired the next day for writing the op-ed. Of course, my case is now pending at the DC Circuit before Judge Sintel, the same panel that isn't real fond of detainee rights. And I don't think he's gonna be real fond of my first amendment rights, but we'll see. But I'm very thankful to organizations that continue to fight the fight after a decade. You know all the major organizations with their groups like Physicians for Human Rights, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and others that don't give up. You know it was a British citizen that said never, never, never quit. And hopefully Americans remember that too and never quit. And I'm thankful to Kurt Smoke at Howard University Law School for giving me a job. Howard's motto is leading the fight for social justice and looking back at Thurgood Marshall and what he went through to lead the fight for civil rights, I think human rights and humanitarian law fall in that same category. If you think about Guantanamo, I mean from a year ago, exactly a year ago today to now, what's changed? I mean, there are 171 people at Guantanamo, there were 173 last year. In a year's time, we've had two people die. We've had one person convicted in the Military Commission and we've had Congress pass the National Defense Authorization Act that makes Guantanamo a permanent fixture. But other than that, nothing's really changed in the course of a year. Let me think about it for a minute. Think about these words, falsely imprisoning people, holding them for long periods, trying them in inappropriate circumstances, conducting proceedings in secret, inadequate legal counsel, confessions obtained by coercion. Does that sound familiar? Well, that was from a press statement yesterday from State Department spokesperson Victoria Newland talking about the conviction of Amir Haqmadi in Iran. And we condemn Iran for using those procedures and I'm thinking that it sounds awful familiar to me. There were hypocrites for holding ourselves up as being the standard bearer for the rule of law and humanitarian treatment. Yet, what we condone for ourselves, we condemn for others. How did we get there? John, you did an article in the Wall Street Journal about a week ago where you reviewed a couple of books by a David Shaffer and William Shawcross. As you can probably imagine, he wasn't particularly thrilled with Shaffers and he loved Shawcross. But in the article, John, you said, and I think this explains how we wound up where we are today. This is John, you speaking. America's response to 9-11 caused outrage among intellectuals precisely because it proved so successful, preventing further attacks on the United States, eliminating Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership and beginning the overthrow of vicious authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. The Bush administration rejected the intellectual international network of activist rights groups and courts in favor of robust unilateral response that drew upon the traditional sources of state power, including diplomacy, economic sanctions, and military force. America's response was so effective and so hated because it relied on national sources of power spurred on by a great people's belief in its own exceptional place in history, taking advantage of its superior economy and military, the United States mounted a worldwide campaign to protect its own security and bring democracy and capitalism to lands that barely knew them. That was the mindset that led to Guantanamo Bay. And I think America is an exceptional country, but we can't use our exceptionalism to claim that we're an exception to the laws that apply to everyone else on the planet. William Shawcross, who John, you mentioned in an article the next day in the Wall Street Journal, and he talked about the current administration. As I said, I've been extraordinarily disappointed in the lack of leadership from President Obama. I mean, I agree, it's a difficult process when you've got a Congress against you. And to give credit where credit's due, Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney in the far right did a very effective job early in the Obama administration of going on the offensive. And painting this is either you're with us or you're with the terrorist. And rather than stand up and call their bluff and tell the facts like they are, the President chose to spend his political capital on healthcare reform and the economy in other areas, but we need to get back to who we are in the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we do hold up the ideal that others live to. But Shawcross talks about the use of drones, which again is another interesting phenomena where President Obama hadn't just embraced the Bush policies, he's kissed it on the lips and ran away with it, particularly with the drone program. And William Shawcross wrote, the decision to use a drone to kill American citizens in Yemen was a remarkable turnaround for a politician who had criticized almost every aspect of the war on terror waged by his predecessor in the Oval Office. By the fall of 2010, it did not come as such a surprise. By then Mr. Obama had also authorized military trials which he had once condemned to take place in Guantanamo to which he had promised to close. Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama had to learn the hard way that his theologian Reinhold Neiber warned, quote, we take and must continue to take morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. So again, I think that's the mindset that led to a decade of Guantanamo and turning our back on the rule of law. As I said, it's unfortunate when we criticize others and we can't hold ourselves up as the example. As a military person, I spent 25 years in the military, if you think back to 1991 and the first Gulf War, when we invaded Iraq, the war was over fairly quickly and with minimal casualties because the Iraqis put down their weapons and raised their hands when they saw American soldiers because of our reputation for humane treatment and following the rule of law. It's in our national interest to have that reputation. Think about the image of America today where those same soldiers put their guns down to raise their hands and surrender if they thought they were gonna be sexually humiliated, tortured and indefinitely detained. So I'd contend from a military perspective and a national security perspective is not in our interest to maintain this facade that Guantanamo needs to continue indefinitely into the future. As I mentioned in the case of Amir Haqmadi, it's one thing to complain about his treatment as unfortunate the situation that he's in or don't have a real strong leg to stand on when we're condoning the same process in Guantanamo. I was driving home a couple of weeks ago and I heard a story on NPR and I turned on the radio in the middle of the story and it was talking about a person being detained in Cuba and how unfair it was. And I'm thinking this is gonna be a story about Guantanamo, but it was a story about Alan Gross, who's an American citizen who worked for the State Department, who was apprehended in Cuba and prosecuted and is being detained in a Cuban prison. And the State Department was condemning holding him in that Cuban prison. And I'm thinking on the other end of the island, we've got 171 people that we're doing the same thing to. Again, I think it's unfortunate we find ourselves in this situation. I look forward to the day. I mean, I always enjoy seeing Andy, but I hate to see him once a year here when we lament about the ongoing saga at Guantanamo Bay. So I'm hoping that we get back to our roots and that when the campaign is over, I mean, it's amazing to me that on the campaign trail right now, it seems you can't be dumb enough and you can't be hateful enough. If you've watched the debates, what have been the big applause lines? You know, if a person doesn't have health insurance, we'll let them die. Yeah. We've had more executions in Texas than anywhere else. Yeah. Waterboarding. If I'm elected, we'll go back to it. Yeah. That's what the American public, at least the segment of the American public reacts to. So I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to come out here again this year to mark the 10th anniversary of Guantanamo. And I hope you'll go back and talk to your friends and your neighbors and remind them that we're Americans and we're better than this. Well, as usual, I didn't know what I was gonna say until I heard the other very bright people here say something. I am struck that this is the third year in a row that Andy and I have done this in the second year with Moe and that nothing has changed, which is probably the biggest lesson. I do wanna say before I, and I wanna talk more about what I think people can do to change this. But I really do first wanna acknowledge two things. We get very depressed in our democracy today about the lack of political courage. And I just wanna say it, really, since day one, Jim Moran, I think it would have been politically easy to be the other side, but he stood up on this issue from day one. Christina Husky's here and we worked together. He was a guy sponsoring the closing of Guantanamo when it was terribly unpopular. And voting against the National Defense Authorization Act in Northern Virginia is a hell of an act of political courage. So we still have heroes. Moe Davis resigned, as he said, as the chief prosecutor because of the use of torture. So there are still people in our country who stand up for what's right, and we need to get more. I'll just say a few things about Guantanamo. It's extraordinary to me. Security experts through the country have unanimously said, that's from the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, the head of the military, the head of the FBI. Have you ever said that these policies in Guantanamo don't help our security? They hurt our security. Those facts are ignored. The reason they hurt our security, and Jim Moran mentioned it very well about our greatest asset is who we are. Ronald Reagan, a Republican hero, put it very well in nominating George, the real George Bush, I'd say, the first Bush president. The second term, he said, our greatest strength is not our wealth or our power, but our ideals, our ideals of individual freedom, justice, and the rule of law. Guantanamo clearly violates those principles of America. They're not who we are. It hurts us every day it remains open. What can we do about it? I've got him very depressed because I've been involved in this now for nine and a half years and things don't seem to get better. But I wanna share something. A few weeks ago, I went to the Robert F. Kennedy Awards in New York and one of the awards was given to Al Gore and I thought, oh my gosh, why is Al Gore getting this? But he stood up and made a speech which encouraged me and I think gave some guidance on what we could do. He said, and he was talking mostly about the environment but other things in our democracy today and he said, you know, people come to me and they're very depressed about what's happening to our country. And he said, I'm reminded of what Martin Luther King said in the early 60s when his supporters came to him and said, it's not gonna get better, we're depressed, we're giving up. And he said, that's not so, things will get better because a lie cannot endure in the principles that the United States are too great to allow it to. And that was inspiring to me because I think it said things. The only way that a lie can exist is in the absence of truth. And I'm struck every day that people don't know the facts. That Jim talked about this echo chamber in certain areas of the country where people simply don't know of the 171 people at Guantanamo, 89 of them have been cleared. That's an incredible, people don't know it. If you say that, people are shocked by it. I encourage you to say it to everyone you know, to everyone you know, every party you go to, say, you know, do you know that all the security experts of this country including Republicans have said this hurts our country because it gives us a recruiting tool for terrorism. Do you know that more than half of the people down there have been cleared for release? Don't we have the courage to get the facts out? That's the most important thing I think you can do. In that regard, as Andy said, we're setting up a website which is going out now, which is closedguantanamo.org. Go on it, participate in it, put things on it, read it, get it around to your friends, send it to your friends. On that, there will be opening to a White House petition, a petition to the White House to close Guantanamo. I agree, this is a very difficult thing for the President of the United States to do with the Congress the way it is. But I think if we get, you know, it's an amazing thing. In the last election, both John McCain and Barack Obama were four square for closing Guantanamo. What happened afterwards? You know, other things were more important. Maybe they seem important to people. But I just encourage you now to use the time to really get these facts out and work on it. I think that's what we can all do. Thanks. Thank you very much to the panel. And speaking also of, you know, putting himself out there, Tom Wilner took these cases that a lot of, you know, they were not popular and had a great deal of success. And Andy Worthington, who after all is an American citizen, has really highlighted the people who are in Guantanamo. So I want to thank all of you. We have some time for questions and answers because it's on C-SPAN. Wait for the mic and identify yourself. And I really encourage you to ask a question rather than making a statement. And if you have a particular person you want to direct it to, just say who you'd like to address the particular question to. So in front here. Hi, my name is Todd Pierce. I'm a defense attorney for some Guantanamo detainees. And years ago it seemed pretty evident to people and they'd comment on the opinions issued by John Yu and Robert Delahunty. And notice how close of a resemblance they had to Carl Schmidt. And people mentioned that occasionally. But it seemed like bad manners to point out that they were relying upon the legal theories of the Nazi crown jurist. But now lately we've had books written by Adrian Vermille and Eric Posner. Posner is just on the New York Times talking about why we need to keep Guantanamo open. But why isn't anybody taking notice, I guess my question, of the fact Posner and Vermille and their books, two different books and law review articles come right out and say that we need to go back to Carl Schmidt, this crown jurist of Nazis in legal opinion, legal theory of the Nazis to figure out how to work in this act in this state of emergency. And they go right along and say, well we need to suspend the Constitution. We can't afford civil rights on and on and on. Which is a total subversion of the US Constitution. And I don't think, as long as we let them have the veneer of caring about national security instead of looking at their real motive, because it seems to me that they really are trying to create an authoritarian state that is so anti and un-American that you don't even wanna think of it. But they're actually saying that. Thanks for ignoring my suggestion about statements rather than questions. Okay, so what is the question? Why aren't we, and military officers, former military officers, recognizing our duty to defend the Constitution and recognizing that we cannot allow these ideas to be a gang green in our legal system? As you know, most military officers, while they're on active duty, pretty much have to keep their mouth shut other than writing scholarly articles and that type thing. I think the other side's been very effective in convincing the public. They bought into the narrative the worst of the worst. And they pandered to fear. And people are concerned about their safety. And they're willing, I guess it was Franklin that said, if you give up your liberty for your safety, you don't deserve either. And we've done that. We've become so afraid of the bomb going off in Times Square on New Year's Eve and killing people that were willing to give up on who we were prior to 9-11. And there have been a lot of military officers, I think, who have stood up. I think you saw this week or last week the first commandant of the detention camp at Guantanamo, who's, I believe, an army officer, said Guantanamo needs to be closed. It doesn't serve a useful purpose. So there are military folks that have stood up. We need more, and we need more citizens in general that are willing to pay attention to this issue. Let me ask you a question about the Yemeni prisoners because I think that Andy mentioned that Abdul Mutalab had a part to play in that. But I think really the real problem has been the escapes from the Yemeni prisoners on two occasions. And there was discussion that perhaps the Saudis would take the Yemeni prisoners, and then that didn't happen. What concretely might, how do you solve this problem, particularly now that the problem in Yemen is actually much less? You've got three civil wars going on, and it's not even really clear who the government is and to return these detainees to. So what concrete steps could the government take to remediate with that problem? Well, one of the, I agree with the gentleman's contention and obviously agree with Colonel Davis, and this is all within the context of the politics of fear and bigotry, really. Fear of the unknown bigotry against Muslims. I do think that that's a principal element of this. With regard to some of the legitimate concerns though, and there is a seemingly legitimate concern that the military says that as many as a quarter of those released have gone back into the battlefield, as they say, and that's what Peter is getting at. How do we ensure that they don't go back into activities that might jeopardize the security of the United States? But I think it should be, underscored first of all, 60% of those who are in prison in the United States are recidivists, so clearly there's gonna be some element of recidivism. But when you look at the specific people that have been cited as having returned to the field of battle, as they say, or some activities related to terrorism, it's about 6%. It was about 4% that you could identify. It went up to about six. The increase that 2% are really Russians and Chinese. The Russians consider most Chechens to be terrorists, or potential terrorists, and the Chinese consider the Uyghurs to be terrorists. Now, if you looked at that conflict, the Uyghurs and the Chechens would be more on the side of individual freedom and consistent with America's struggle for independence, but I won't get into that, although I think it's suspect that they, to extent to which they're actually terrorists. Their objectives are not in any way consistent with what would pose a security threat to the United States. In terms of Yemen, when you release people, you follow them. That's what the Saudis do. You can make a strong case that since we know their background, we know everything about them, if they were going to go back into the field, first of all, they would be suspect, working with us possibly. There are people that have been cleared, so they're not terrorists. And it seems to me that if they were going to go back, it would be a propaganda tool, achievement for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula anyway, so we'd hear about them. It'd be much easier to capture them if they actually were engaged in terrorism because we know so much about them. So I don't think that's a compelling argument for not releasing people. It certainly isn't a compelling enough argument to cause us to act inconsistent with our most fundamental principles of democracy and rule of law. I just wanted to say briefly that I thought the questions are related in the sense that the fundamental problem at the heart of the Bush administration's war on terror was equating people involved in military conflict with people involved in terrorist activities. And the shorthand for Guantanamo, the worst of the worst, that enduring propaganda of Donald Rumsfeld remains because people have been encouraged to think that everyone who is in Guantanamo is a terrorist, that they're bent on acts of international terrorism were they to be released, whereas that's never been the case. Only a small handful, a few percent of the people held at Guantanamo have ever been accused of involvement with acts of international terrorism. There were many innocent people. There were people who were involved in a military conflict with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. These are the people that we're talking about releasing. We're not talking about releasing terrorists, but somehow we've not been able to make the case that the complete shifting of language and of concepts that was undertaken by the Bush administration has lodged itself in people's consciousness. So they think that Guantanamo is full of terrorists. These are not people who are going to fly a plane into a building. People that were released to Yemen that these are minor insignificant foot soldiers in a conflict that was over a long, long time ago. And we need to be able to make that case on a rational basis. But unfortunately, we're in an arena where rational explanations are not popular. Let me just push back on that because I think there's a factual sort of thing that we have to consider, which is the two leaders of al Qaeda in the Raven Peninsula are people who were released from Guantanamo who went through the Saudi rehabilitation program, probably in, well, obviously we're, not people you showed, it should probably have released. I mean, it is more complicated than that. You've just presented, I think. What is the answer to that complication, if any? Well, I don't know, Peter. I mean, one of the things is that, one of the things that's complicating things is this 25, 27% recidivism claim. I agree with that. You actually have done research to demonstrate that it's considerably less. So, you know, I mean, I understand what you're saying about there being a potential of somebody bearing ill will against the United States and being able to do something about it. But practically, how can we have a zero recidivism possibility? The only way that it's happened is to say everybody must be locked up there forever and nobody can ever leave. And we then getting into what it's about is preventive detention. Now, that's a very alarming situation to be in because you can see how that plays into the kind of authors that Todd was talking about who want to indefinitely detain people who haven't committed crimes, but who might. Right. That would be very alarming. That is alarming. Can I just say something about him? Not a terrorist. And he is a recidivist. After he was a young guy, Guantanamo turned him in. There's no doubt in my mind. Turned him in to a crazy guy. Tell the story. That's the Kuwaiti? Yeah. Abdullah Alajmi, who was a very young guy, picked up in the confines of sort of Pakistan, had gone down there. You know, he was a very naive, young kid who was not a terrorist and not even a zealot. And we saw in the course of the time that we went to Guantanamo, this guy turned into basically a madman. And he was released by the government. We had nothing to do with it really. We were a little shocked because he was a behavioral problem down there, throwing things at guards and everything else. And when he got out, it was interesting because he went home and no one, he couldn't find a girlfriend because he had been in Guantanamo. The only place that he had any worth was in these sort of radical elements. And he went out and blew up, not US soldiers, but Iraqi soldiers in Iraq. So you always say, and I was like, what is the benefit of holding people? Clearly there are harm, not only all, but what is the benefit? Why also do we need to be the policemen for the world? There are other places that can hold people also if we have some concern about them. And what Andy said is true. I always think, can I give one more Kuwaiti example when we're there? One of the fellows now released was a person who was listed as somebody they weren't gonna prosecute. Nevertheless, he was a dangerous person or maybe they were gonna prosecute him. Well, this guy had actually been cleared by the CIA at the very beginning. They had interviewed him and said, this guy is a total mistake. And yet, they were gonna hold him there forever in this way of sort of too dangerous to release because of the fear factors that go on. So how does that benefit us? Why do we need to do it? Is there recidivism? I don't know how much of the danger we cause ourselves. So just observations. This gentleman over there, thanks. Hi, James Kittfield from National Journal Magazine. Could someone explain to me who have sort of engaged on this only periodically? The Supreme Court saying that these guys had the right of habeas corpus seemed to be a big victory. We've heard today from Congressman Moran that the circuit and appeals courts have kind of pushed back against that. But why isn't the Supreme Court getting these cases against? Certainly they must not feel that they can be usurped by circuit and appeals courts. Take that on. We won the right to habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees actually twice. In 2004, in the Rousseau case, the Supreme Court ruled six to three that the detainees there have the right under the habeas corpus statute to habeas corpus. The habeas corpus statute was passed as the first judiciary act in 1789. Then Congress with a great Republican majority revoked habeas corpus for those people. And then in 2008, we won that it's a constitutionally guaranteed right so Congress can't revoke it. What has happened since then is honestly the DC circuit has interpreted the standards for habeas corpus and it's become clear now and yet even with these difficult standards, most people bringing habeas corpus cases have won. But the DC circuit which disagreed with the Supreme Court's decision and has made it clear has put in standards that basically say if any evidence is presented by the government that this person might be connected with terrorism or Taliban, they can be held forever. Even if the evidence is that you could have been a cook for the Taliban, that's the standard now. We have sought Supreme Court review for those cases. We're in a very difficult position with the Supreme Court because Justice Kagan recuses herself from most of these cases because she was in the Justice Department while they were first coming up. So you have a divided court with no ability right now to get review. We're hoping that there will be review soon in a case and that Justice Kagan can vote on granting certiorary to review it and to review it. One thing I've learned and we brought our case for habeas corpus in May 1, 2002. I thought that this issue would not be resolved by the courts because they take a long time and that the country would come to a census and as a policy matter stop this silly prison. That hasn't happened and the fact is the courts are a very, very, very slow process. Eventually it will probably be cleared up but a lot of these people will be dead or broken by that time, so. In front here, lady here, yep. Just wait for the mic, thanks. I'm a sociologist, my name's Alice Day and a filmmaker. I'd like to ask a question of all of you. We're in an election year. I've just left a meeting of people who are very sympathetic to President Obama where it was said that let's not bring up anything that might challenge him or make it look as though the people on his side were disagreeing with what he's done. What do you say to a group like that when there is a grave injustice like this being done and he's partly responsible for it because of his leadership or lack of it? Well, I'll do it but I know that Congressman Moran and I probably have a different view. I would say as Dante did that the worst places in hell are reserved for those who stand silent in the face of injustice. Go ahead. For me it's, as I said, the only time in my adult life I've been able to participate in the presidential election process, I aggressively campaigned for President Obama and I've been thoroughly disappointed but there's no one on the other side that I see as a viable, I mean it's kind of like having to pick between vomiting and diarrhea. I don't want either choice. I'd like to have something more palatable but it's gonna be, I'm afraid, picking the lesser of two evils. When we argued this issue and the full appropriations committee and then on the floor of the house I was very frustrated because we weren't getting any information that I felt was helpful to our side and the president's publicly stated position out of the Justice Department. Talked to them, had heated conversation. They knew how I felt. I don't know why they didn't fight the language more vigorously. I don't know whether it was political policy or simply that they didn't have the people in place at the time that they needed. There was a lot of restructuring going on. So that was a disappointment, I grant you. But one thing I did not say and should have said when the president signed this legislation he made it clear that these objectionable sections, from my standpoint, objectionable sections, he said that it fundamentally, and I'm quoting, fundamentally maintains unwarranted restrictions on the executive branch's authority to transfer detainees to a foreign country. It hinders the executive's ability to carry out its military national security and foreign relations activities and would, under certain circumstances, violate constitutional separation of powers principles. Now, he did take exception in the signing of the legislation. I don't think he had a choice about signing the legislation. It was clear he was going to do it. He wasn't gonna be able to stop because the fact is he didn't have sufficient support in the Senate even, let alone in the House. So he was forced simply to let it go, but with the caveat that President Bush employed many times to say he takes exception to these sections. He wants to close it. He has said very definitively, as has Attorney General Holder, that these people should be tried in civilian court. That's the only times we've successfully tried people, terrorists, have been in civilian courts. There have been six prosecutions in military courts, but four of them were plea deals for shorter sentences. It was really not a full trial. So our only success has been in civilian courts and that's what he has maintained. He hasn't changed his position, but he has accepted the political reality and the political reality is that unless the American people become better educated about this and far more forceful in terms of caring about it within the context of the democratic process, it's not gonna change. Yeah, just briefly as a foreigner, so I mean you can tell me to shut up about the American election campaign, but I would say that if people are interested in voting for President Obama and care about these issues then they should say to people who want to go blindly along with it, we need to be able to say to the leadership, we need to be able to say to the president, maybe we will vote for you, but you need to demonstrate that you will take these issues on board. You need to demonstrate we know how difficult it is out there, but that if you win, then in January 2013, you are going to act. We are going to see you do what you did not do and did not fulfill from your promises before. I think that's a fair deal, but I don't think that there's any reason why people should blindly accept everything and say don't criticize, you will make it difficult. I don't think that's appropriate at all. Can I just supplement my answer one little bit because what I said would sound to sort of flip, but I think it's right. I don't think you can stand silent in the face of injustice, but more than that, I really need to say, I think President Obama's greatest failing is not that he doesn't believe the right things, but he doesn't show leadership in mobilizing public support to get them done. The fact is he showed tremendous ability during the campaign to convince people that what the Bush administration was doing was not in our public interest, and he used to say it every day, we're gonna close Guantanamo, we're gonna stand up for habeas corpus, that protecting our securities consistent with our principles, we're stronger because of it. He needs to do that again, and we need to push him to do it. We need to push him to show leadership. We can't, we struggle to get out the facts. He has the bully pulpit. He should use it. Congressman, I know you have to go in a minotaur too. There's another question, and I've got it. Yeah. This lady here on the paddle ship. Oh, for me? Oh. Hello. Hello. My name is Cynthia from Vernon, New York, and this is for all you folks up there. Would you agree that one way to let our president know how we stand on this issue is to encourage every person everywhere to call up 456-1111, which is the White House line, where people, citizens can call up and give your opinion. Last time, you remember, not some of you will remember, but Dark Friday, when Nixon, when the Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, and the rest, you know, resigned, the telephone at the White House was ringing off the line. And when enough people in this country, about a million people, or whoever, keep that phone ringing off the line. And the other one is to call up shows like on the NPR, a Diane Reem show, and ask these questions and tell the facts and really participate. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. I mean, is there a comment on that? I think the, okay. This gentleman over here. Thank you. It's Mike Hager, retired, or let's say, resigned lawyer. My question is really for Mr. Wilmer, and it picks up from the last question in terms of what can the people do? Now I think the panel made a very persuasive case for dealing with Guantanamo as Guantanamo as a single issue, but what if, even with a longer term perspective, we were to look at Guantanamo, not in isolation, but in a broader package of what I would call illegitimate activity. We can say drones, torture, preventive attacks, political assassinations, maybe some other things could be put in that nest. But what if we were to try to do that and to get what I would say is accountability? Well, and I'll give my take on it, which is gonna be terribly hard-headed, practical. I think it's more a political question than a legal question. I think you're absolutely right that Guantanamo has become a symbol of overreaching by the government and a symbol of a reaction to fear-mongering and to appealing to the worst side of people than their better side. Another thing Reagan also pointed out, I'd like to use the Republicans to say it. I don't appeal to your worst fears, but your greatest hopes is what we could do. I don't want to, frankly now, so Congressman Moran put this as Guantanamo, the National Defense Authorization Act, as he pointed out, allows anyone suspected of terrorism to be picked up and held by the military forever. It's extraordinary, it's extraordinary. But Guantanamo is a symbol of that. I don't want to tie it to the drones now because I think that, well, that's a very troubling thing. There's also other issues that I think all these issues should be debated. It's extraordinary to me. We've never really had a public debate about torture in this country. People assume it's good. I used to say, President Bush thought it was, I mean, he knew it was good because he used to watch the TV program 24 and he saw that it worked there. I mean, that's the depth of our study of these issues. I think it is a symbol. I think we need to be careful in picking. It doesn't stand for every injustice and some are more complicated. I'm sorry, it's a diffuse answer. I think your point about accountability is the key part there. Like I said, we're great at preaching to others around the world about the rule of law and accountability. I mean, right now we're prosecuting Sergeant Frank Wuderich for the Haditha massacre. But he's at the bottom of the totem pole. Nobody at the top has ever been held accountable for creating the environment that permitted, the gloves were off, the Geneva Conventions are quaint, anything necessary to keep us safe. We do, but like the convention against torture, there's a, President Obama is turning a blind eye. I mean, the convention says there's no justification whatsoever for torture and there's a duty to investigate, prosecute and provide a civil remedy for victims. And we have blocked every one of those and pretended that nothing happened. Yeah, I'm gonna have to leave. But let me say, well, why don't I stand up for this? Okay. I'll leave. I guess, well, thank you, but don't, please don't bother, because you're not gonna like what I have to say. First of all, this fine lodge is not a random sample off the American street. Where we have our own echo chamber here in terms of people who have asked questions and tying it into drones and so on. I don't think it's an effective strategy. And I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't think calling the president is an effective strategy. In fact, Mr. Romney, who was the most likely opponent of the president, has said he would double the size of Guantanamo. And that's the position of what I fear is the majority of the American people. At least enough people that he can get away with saying that. And I think most of the people in a more random audience if told if any, even one detainee at Guantanamo has the capacity to go back and cause harm to the United States, then I want you to keep them all there. And they operate the politicians who feed off this echo chamber. It's primarily, predominantly now, a conservative echo chamber on the radio and on the television and much of the media. They feed off that. That they know that's what, when people turn on the radio dial, that's what they're gonna hear about. And they'd love to have President Obama take the right position, stand on principle, because they know right now the majority of the American people aren't with them. They aren't with you. Now, this is a reflection of lack of information, of knowledge, maybe some reflection. But that's where we stand. This is not a unique issue. Although I think it is a much more important one than we oftentimes give credit for. I think that our best shot is to underscore what Tom just said. To ask people to think about this. We've now passed legislation over the president's objection that allows the military. No person in military uniform ever volunteered or was enlisted into the military for the purpose of taking action against American citizens. It's to protect American citizens. And yet the law, as we read it, says the military now has the right to detain indefinitely without a writ of habeas corpus, people who are suspected of terrorist activities. Suspected. That's a fundamental erosion of everything we stand for as a national law. So people need to know this is in your interest. This is in the interest of your children and grandchildren. We can't allow this to continue. You need to understand it and then you need to speak out and change it. That's why I appreciate all of you being here. Thank you. Okay, we have a. The only disagreement is, I think if Obama said that, a lot of people would respond. We have about 10 minutes left. So Jennifer, just about to your immediate left. John McCullough from the Fund for Reconciliation, NGO. I wanna put it in a Cuba context a little bit. There was a tremendous reaction in the White House, in the Congress, in the media when one Cuban hunger striker died, a justified reaction. How many suicides have there been at Guantanamo? How many people are currently being force-fed to prevent their suicide? Force-feeding itself has highly questionable human rights aspects to it, but is there any figure on suicides and force-feeding at this point? Yeah, I mean, six people allegedly died at Guantanamo by committing suicide. Two others died of natural means. The number of people who've been on hunger strike and who've been force-fed, I don't know. In 2005, when there was the biggest hunger strike, it was reportedly around a third of the people held. At any one time, there are people on hunger strike. There are people on hunger strike now and they're being force-fed and that force-feeding process is pretty brutal. You know, that's kind of the nasty end of what's still going on, but I do think that fundamentally what's wrong with Guantanamo is that it is outside of every other detention system. And I think Congressman Moran just then was illuminating that with reference to your citizens and with reference to the fundamental unfairness of holding people in military detention indefinitely without charge or trial. And the model for that is Guantanamo and the thing that still applies at Guantanamo and the thing that I don't know how we get a message of compassion out, of fairness and justice out when, as Congressman Moran said, so many American people are on Dick Cheney's dark side essentially still. The people held at Guantanamo that are held without charge or trial that have been there for 10 years that are going nowhere. What has been the effect on them of this particularly unique aspect of their detention? It's the open ended nature of their detention. They have no idea when, if ever, they're gonna leave. Every morning they can be waking up thinking, will I go home? Now in the domestic prison system, everybody is sentenced. They may be an unfair sentence, but they are told what their sentence is. This doesn't happen at Guantanamo. And in 2003, in October 2003, a man called Christoph Giraud of the New York Times, sorry, spoke to the New York Times. He was from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is allowed to visit prisons, but isn't supposed to speak out publicly about what they see. The Red Cross frequently spoke out publicly during the Bush administration. He said, what troubles us about Guantanamo is the open ended nature of the detention of the prisoners there and its ruinous effects on their mental health. That was over eight years ago. Those ruinous effects on the mental health of the prisoners still apply. I just wish that I could find a way that we could have compassion or something, that people could identify with this and would understand that that's unfair and that what lawmakers have recently decided they want to expand remains fundamentally unfair. If you have a case against somebody, charge them. Otherwise, don't maintain this idea that by being brutal and unfair, you're actually somehow doing the right thing. If we could talk Kim Kardashian into marrying a detainee, then America would pay attention. Yeah. Hello, my name is Kimberly Crichton and I was one of the founders here in Washington of the Washington Regional Campaign Against Torture. And we worked terribly hard and got no traction at all. So when media didn't cover us and Congressman Moran was great. So I too started to work for Obama. I thought he would actually deliver on what he said he would and went door to door starting in New Hampshire. I've now decided that since he hasn't done that, we really can't depend just on presidents. They were gonna have to work to try to unseat every person who voted for this law. And that what we need to do is to get out into states and districts and make it precarious to infringe on our human rights in this manner. So what do you think? Well, I would say by all means challenge all the lawmakers who voted for it. But I think while doing that, make sure that people know that Guantanamo is the root of the idea that it's okay to sling people in a prison and throw away the key. You know, I'm a British citizen and I'm over here talking about this. And you're the guys who threw the British out because you opposed the tyranny of King George III. Can I say something? You know, I think there's a danger and Congressman Moran said it that when people of like minds get together they disagree and they fight on the other side. This is a liberal cause, close Guantanamo. And the other people say, well, I mean, I think a lot of people validly say, well, don't we need it? You know, what are we doing? This is a terrible time. You've got terrorists around. We haven't dealt with them before. So I think it's an obligation to go further than just opposing this one. As I said, it's to get the facts out. It's get the facts out that security experts have agreed it doesn't help us. That it does cost $800,000 or a million dollars per year per person. That 89, more than half of them have been cleared by an inter-agency task force made up task force, made up of the top security and law enforcement officials in the country. That's amazing. People don't know that. Why are you holding people? Why are you holding people who have been cleared who are essentially, although they don't say innocent or essentially innocent? Why would we do that and pay $800,000 for each of them? So I wouldn't do it in these sort of liberal, things that I just, I try to get the facts out. As I said, it just sort of made it up, but really this lies only exist in the absence of truth. And I know somebody here's from the National Journal. They said, well, you know, the National Journal years ago, at the same time that Cedron Hall did a study, did a study about who are these detainees? And it was terrific. It said, well, you know, as a matter of fact, they weren't picked up on the battlefield. They were picked up by, we need to push the press to get the facts out too. We could really do much more on that. I'm trying to justify my own existence because I get so depressed by it. So I'm trying to think, what can we do? Tell everyone you know, whether it's your brothers who's a right wing or your sister, here are the facts. Do you know them? Make people answer on the facts. Hello, my name is Daniel Wilson. I'm here with the group called Witness Against Torture. We are on day eight of a 10-day fast in solidarity with the men of Guantanamo. Tomorrow we'll be holding a big rally, hopefully, as you're saying, get out the facts and to rally public support against us. Just a quick question. It seems at the NDAA that ideas of indefinite detenture suspending habeas corpus is now coming an essential part of our policy. I'm wanting to know how the detention center in Baygroom fits in with all of this. Alleged allegations of torture and indefinite detentions happening there. Is that a sort of Guantanamo East? I can answer it in a legal sense, and then overall. When we did the last Supreme Court case in 2008, we didn't, I mean, this is a very legalistic answer. There was one way to win the case. It says Guantanamo is like the United States, so they shouldn't be entitled to habeas corpus because of that. We avoided that with great dissension among the lawyers and said, look, when the United States holds someone in a place secure from a battlefield where you've got time to do it, people should be entitled to a fair review. In fact, Justice Kennedy, who wrote the decision in that case, the Bumidian case, adopted that argument. So he didn't tie it to Guantanamo being different. He said, in the circumstances, you look, people can't be held without process unless the exigencies of battle and everything prevent it. The circuit court has determined that since there's still an ongoing war in Afghanistan, Bagram fits in with the exigencies of battle and the court shouldn't intrude. That has not been reviewed by the Supreme Court, and in the time the case was made, the Afghanistan battle was heating up and in fact, the Bagram base was attacked. So it's a complicated issue. Our feeling is that the United States cannot take people to offshore prisons and hold them outside the law. There will be times and more when you need to hold people and they don't have the right to lawyers or judges looking at them then, but certainly when you hold people from years in a safe place, they've gotta have review. So I hope that answers it in some general way. I mean, to me, Bagram is a place that demonstrates if Guantanamo is the place where the specter of terrorism was conjured up for a bunch of people who mostly had nothing to do with terrorism. Bagram is the prison where the Geneva Convention ceased to exist for prisoners seized during wartime. What underpins detentions in Guantanamo is the authorization for use in military force passed by Congress the week after the 9-11 attacks. In 2004, the Supreme Court said you can hold prisoners until the end of hostilities, thereby creating some parallel world to the Geneva Conventions. I think at that point, the Geneva Conventions were unilaterally discarded and the AUMF then dictates how everything happens. Now, Bagram is a prison where under President Bush, the only review that the prisoners had was that they were able to make a statement before they were told the allegations against them. That was very bad. When President Obama was challenged, he said, we're gonna bring in the review process that we used at Guantanamo. I'm following this and seeing where this fits with the Geneva Conventions. It doesn't. So what happens is that people are held for at least a year at Bagram on average before they're given a review process which was brought to Bagram from Guantanamo. The same review process that the Supreme Court found inadequate in Bumedian. And on that basis, people are either continued to be held or they're released or they're transferred to Afghan custody. It's a mess. And I don't think that people care enough that the Geneva Conventions have not been reinstated properly, that what the Bush administration did has not been properly investigated and acknowledged. So I think they're very connected. But I think it's very troubling what's happened. And I think the way to see that, again, I like to make analogies where people can understand it in an American context is what would happen if American citizens were captured by some other country and were held in wartime on the same process. You'd be held for 12 or 14 months and you'll get some kind of review process we invented. How would that play in the United States? Well, we all know it would play very badly. Can I have any final thoughts? No, I agree. For better or worse, Guantanamo is kind of the public symbol, but it's just the tip of the iceberg and there are many, many times more people being held by the US and other places. But what little attention Guantanamo gets is much more than anywhere else. Thank you very much to our panel.