Tag Archives: gitmo

DoD: Man Held at Guantanamo for 13 Years was ‘Case of Mistaken Identity’

Department of Defense officials admitted on Monday that a man who has been held in the United States prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the last 13 years as a suspected al-Qaeda trainer, was held due to a case of mistaken identity.

Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri, 37, has been held as an indefinite detainee at Gitmo since 2002, despite the fact that he was never charged and prosecutors lacked adequate evidence for a trial.

During a panel meeting on Tuesday to evaluate whether al-Shamiri can be released, officials admitted he was actually a low-level Islamist foot soldier from Yemen who was taken into custody because he was confused with someone with a similar name.

[RELATED: Guantanamo Bay: An Untold History of Occupation, Torture, Sham Trials & Resistance]

In the DoD’s detainee profile on al-Shamiri, referred to as YM-434, it said he “fought in several jihadist theaters and associated with al-Qaida members in Afghanistan,” but also said he did not carry out the terrorist acts that were the basis of his detainment.

[pull_quote_center]It was previously assessed that YM-434 also was an al-Qaida facilitator or courier, as well as a trainer, but we now judge that these activities were carried out by other known extremists with names or aliases similar to YM-434’s.[/pull_quote_center]

In a statement from al-Shamiri’s personal representative, he was described as “cooperative, enthusiastic and supportive,” and his rep noted that he “does have remorse for choosing the wrong path early in life.”

The statement also said al-Shamiri “wants to make a life for himself,” and he is “aware that Yemen is not an option, and he is willing to go to any country that will accept him.”

[RELATD: Judge Orders Release of Guantanamo Force-Feeding Videos]

President Obama, who has promised to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay on numerous occasions, rejected a plan to relocate the prison to U.S. soil, labeling it as too expensive with a price tag of over $600 million, and sent it back for revision.

LOTFI: News You May Have Missed While Media Obsessed Over Starbucks

NOVEMBER 10, 2015– Over the past several days, the media has been obsessing over Starbucks’ decision to use plain red coffee cups with their green logo rather than their traditional holiday season coffee cups which are typically embellished with winter-type scenes.

Calling for a boycott, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump decided to get in on the Starbucks action as he threatened to cancel the company’s lease in his New York Trump Tower.

One Christian group says the move by the coffee giant is part of the “War on Christmas”. The media has been obsessing ever since.

As a former employee of Starbucks, I can tell you that the company has never recognized Christmas as anything other than a marketing opportunity. They’ve never had strong “Christ-centered” messages on their Christmas season products, so red cups are nothing new. What’s more, I can’t quite comprehend why anyone is upset over this. Would the same people force a boycott against a Jewish owned business for not celebrating Christmas? Not likely.

Last time I checked, the snowmen, reindeer and wrapped presents Starbucks featured on their cups in the past have nothing to do with Christmas. Besides, if what’s on a coffee cup makes or breaks your Christmas, you’re probably not doing it right. By the way, Starbucks still has a slew of products with the word “Christmas” written all over them.

Meanwhile, here is some actual news…

Ben Carson Isn’t A Liar

Just before the media started obsessing over the color of cup Starbucks uses, they were obsessing over ways to destroy GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson. They just couldn’t wait to get their hands on some juicy information to slam Carson into the ground as he continues his ascent to the top of the 2016 GOP field. Since they couldn’t find any such damning information, they simply made it up.

Truth In Media’s Barry Donegan wrote:

[pull_quote_center]Political journalism organization Politico has come under fire this week after it published an article that first accused Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson of lying about being verbally offered a scholarship by a West Point recruiter before it was edited to reflect the fact that Politico’s confirmation that Carson did not follow through with the admissions process at West Point does not itself constitute proof that Carson lied about anything.[/pull_quote_center]

Carson proved them wrong and demanded an apology. Politico made a slight edit to their story, but never apologized.

Of course, the damage was already done. Thousands of headlines across the country accused Carson of being a liar and fabricating his story. Media never ran thousands of headlines damning Politico for what Carson referred to as “tabloid journalism”. Instead, the they decided to focus on coffee cups.

Federal Judge Halts NSA Data Collection

On Monday, Federal District Court Judge Richard Leon issued an injunction against the National Security Agency (NSA), which temporarily put an end to the agency’s bulk metadata collection.

According to US News, Leon is the first and only district court judge to rule against the NSA program.

Feds Train Syrian Rebels With A Price Tag of $2 Million Per Rebel

Congress recently passed a bill that allocated $500 Million to train a new fighting force of more than 3,000 “pro-American” Syrian rebels.

As it turns out, only 190 rebels were trained at a cost of $2 million per rebel. After spending $384 Million of the $500 Million, the program was abandoned last month. Approximately 95 of those trained actually ended up fighting in Syria. The rest are unaccounted for.

The Pentagon has recently vowed to spend even more tax dollars by providing new weapons to Syrian rebels.

United States Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Rand Paul (Ky.) has been a vocal critic of arming the Syrian rebels.

Just recently, large swaths of these U.S. backed rebels switched their allegiance, taking with them all of the weapons and training funded by American tax-payers.

Guantanamo Bay Prison Closing?

A Republican controlled Congress recently passed a $670-billion defense bill that provides aid to Kiev and Syrian rebels. However, there’s one provision of the bill that President Obama isn’t happy with. The bill keeps GITMO open.

The White House is planning to push an Executive Order forward in order to shut down GITMO regardless of what Republicans have called for. Although the White House admits it’s not quite certain whether or not the Executive Order is even constitutional, they plan to push forward anyway.

“The focus of our efforts right now is on Congress and there are members of Congress who share this goal [closing GITMO] and who have indicated at least an openness to working with the administration to achieve this goal. That’s the focus of our efforts right now. I’m not aware of any ongoing effort to devise a strategy using only the President’s executive authority to accomplish this goal, but I certainly wouldn’t take that option off the table,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday. “There are a wide range of thorny, legal questions that are raised by this ongoing effort to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. I wouldn’t sort of speculate on those right now. These are obviously, in some cases because of the unique nature of this facility, in some cases we’re in uncharted legal waters here but, the President made clear from his first week in office that closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay is a national security priority.”

Bonus

Have you heard the media reporting the fact that Bill Clinton is an honorary co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates? No? Didn’t think so…

FOLLOW MICHAEL LOTFI ON Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn.

Ben Swann Live December 8th At 4 P.M. Eastern

Ben Swann will be broadcasting live @ 4 P.M., 5 P.M. & 8 P.M Eastern.

Ben will be discussing how the number of police deaths at the hands of criminals is at the lowest it has been in decades. He will also be exploring why we don’t have clear numbers of civilian deaths caused by police officers, and will be breaking down the Wall Street Journal’s report.

There will also be live reports from the protests that have been happening in NYC and Berkley.

An update will be provided on the newly released Gitmo detainees as well as the dire warnings given by U.S. officials concerned about the awaited release of the Senate’s torture report.

Guantanamo Bay: An Untold History of Occupation, Torture, Sham Trials & Resistance

by Guest Contributor Abby Martin

This article was originally written for Media Roots

Few realize how expensive it is to keep Guantanamo Bay prison operational. The Joint Task Force (JTF) detention center, which opened in 2002, costs US taxpayers $140 million a year, breaking down to about $800,000 per detainee.

The JTF was never meant to be permanent, yet twelve long years after the first round of prisoners arrived, 149 prisoners remain detained there indefinitely.

The oft repeated lie that these men are the “worst of the worst” has clouded the reality that the vast majority are completely innocent, and were simply swept up in a dragnet in Afghanistan. 78 have already been deemed innocent and cleared for release, yet pure political theater keeps them imprisoned.

Moreover, only six of the 149 men have been formally charged with a crime. Five are being tried together as alleged co-conspirators of 9/11, although they all are alleged to have varying operational levels, and one alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing. Yet the commissions process is completely corrupted by absurd levels of government secrecy, classification and intrusion.

A few weeks ago I traveled to Cuba to cover the continuing plight of these men and conduct an in-depth investigation for Breaking the Set. The report details how America came to host one of the most notorious prisons in Cuba, the brutal and systematic torture that took place, the sham of the 9/11 military commissions, the ongoing prisoner hunger strike and how Guantanamo Bay prison can be closed for good.


Gitmo Exclusive Part I: An Untold History of Occupation, Torture & Resistance


Gitmo Exclusive Part II: Media Brainwashing, Sham Trials & Closing Gitmo for Good