Quotes About Guantanamo

The Bush administration opened several lines of attack against the rule of law and the integrity of an independent Justice Department. The scandals are so famous that they've been reduced to shorthand: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, NSA, Attorneygate.

In my heart of hearts, I don't think it's a good position to say that Guantanamo is not an acceptable answer for anyone we might capture now or in the future.

In addition to being a terrorist recruiting tool, Guantanamo is a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.

President Obama likes to say Guantanamo Bay is a terrorist recruiting tool, and while that may be an easy excuse, it's simply not true. The reality is the motivations of radical Islamic jihadism existed before Guantanamo Bay. The ideology is premised on a narrative of conquest, in the spiritual as well as the earthly world.

As I detail in my new book: 'Hard Measures, How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,' there are many myths surrounding the detention of a relatively small number of top terrorists at CIA-run 'black sites' from 2002 until they were sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.

The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

It's common knowledge that most of the guys at Guantanamo are nobodies. Many were turned in by bounty hunters.

The Justices are currently considering a case, argued last month, which seeks to extend the writ of habeas corpus to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo.

At Guantanamo Bay, we could create a West Berlin, a free small city within the Communist nation that could trade freely with the U.S. and elect its own officials.

Torture is and must remain illegal. Warrantless wiretapping is also illegal, as was the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Qatar without proper notice.

With the NDAA, his failure to close Guantanamo Bay and the ramping use of drones, President Obama looks suspiciously like President Bush, a man on a quest for American Empire.

When I visited Guantanamo Bay several years ago, I met a team of psychiatrists treating the detainees. When I asked how they distinguished between, say, schizophrenia or bipolarity and a bedrock religious commitment to holy war, they couldn't answer.

What made Guantanamo such a travesty - and what still makes it such - is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime.

Obama was expected to restore an ethical sheen to post-9/11 foreign policy, but he has intensified drone warfare in Yemen and Pakistan, pursued whistle-blowers, and failed to close down Guantanamo.

Terrorists need no excuse to attack us here. They've shown that for decades and decades. We should be proud for the way we treated these savages at Guantanamo Bay and the way our soldiers conduct themselves all around the world to include the people doing the very hard work at Guantanamo Bay.

If people around the world knew how well people at Guantanamo Bay are treating prisoners, they would not fall prey to the accusations that some in our Chamber are making. They are all receiving judicial review.

In January of 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay within a year's time, vowing to continue to fight terror but 'in a manner that is consistent with our values and ideals.' A plan was considered to move a number of detainees to stateside prisons in order to have them stand trial in civilian court.

Between November 23, 2002, and January 11, 2003, al-Qahtani was interrogated for 48 days at Guantanamo more or less continuously, kept awake for much of that time by loud music being blasted when he was falling asleep, doused with water and subjected to cold temperatures, kept naked and forced to perform tricks as if he were a dog.

I was most impressed with the professionalism of our soldiers stationed there, and I am now more confident than ever that that the operations at Guantanamo are being conducted in a humane and necessary manner.

Our nation has invested millions of dollars in building safe, humane and, I may say, air-conditioned facilities to detain and prosecute the detainees at Guantanamo.

Yesterday I, along with a bipartisan Congressional Delegation of lawmakers, inspected the detention facilities at Guantanamo used to house individuals detained in the War on Terrorism.

With the NDAA, his failure to close Guantanamo Bay and the ramping use of drones, President Obama looks suspiciously like President Bush, a man on a quest for American Empire.

I'm not hugging the Guantanamo location, but our right to hold people under the laws of war as enemy combatants, I think, is unarguable, and we need to stand up for that.