National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, it is truly astonishing that in 2015 the United States continues to hold people indefinitely who have not been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime, who have been judged not to pose any threat to the United States. Our continuing to hold prisoners indefinitely without charging them, without trial, is a rebuke to our professed support of liberty.
Now, I know some will say they are dangerous terrorists, and some are. But some of them are not. They are people who were captured in some way, who have been judged by our military not to pose a threat to the United States, who have not been charged or judged as terrorists. Some of them may be simply victims to the fact that we paid bounties to people in Afghanistan to turn in people who they said were terrorists. The Hatfields turned in the McCoys because--why not?--we were giving them a bounty of a few thousand dollars.
We have, for those who need it, supermax prisons in the United States, from which no one has ever escaped. There is no reason to spend all the money in Guantanamo and have this continuing shame on the reputation of the United States.
I oppose this amendment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. NADLER. I thank the chairman for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I listen to this debate, and it sounds as if we have forgotten everything we ever learned about American justice and American liberty.
We are told that 29 percent of the people released from Guantanamo have returned to terror. Well, that simply says that the Bush administration did a lousy job in deciding who should be released because, since then, it has been a tiny percentage. Yes, a large percentage of those the Bush administration released became recidivists.
So the argument is everyone held in Guantanamo should be held there forever. That is the argument. The amendment we just considered a moment ago would make it even harder, make it impossible, to release anyone from Guantanamo. The opposition to this amendment is for the same purpose.
We are told that these are the worst of the worst. Who says? Some of them have never been charged with any crime, have never been charged with any terrorism, have been judged safe to release, and have been told, have been labeled by our military as not being terrorists, not being threats to the United States, and yet we continue to hold them indefinitely. Why? And by what right?
KSM is a great menace; indeed, he is. He should be brought to the United States and placed on trial in a Federal court. He has been waiting for trial for almost 14 years now because we can't get our military tribunals to work, put him on trial in an article III Federal court, and sentence him to life imprisonment without parole, as others have been. Nobody escapes from our supermax prisons, but justice ought to be done. It ought to be meted out.
We are told that people will be released here. We are not demanding that everyone be released or even that anyone in particular be released, certainly not into the United States. We are saying that the normal processes of justice should go forward. We are saying that the fact that someone lived in Afghanistan and that some other tribe had a grudge against his family and turned him in for a bounty, even though he had nothing to do with terrorism or anything else, we ought to know that. And when we know that, that person ought to be releasable because we know that about some people.
Instead, what we are faced with is a statute that says nobody ought to ever be released; we ought to hold people indefinitely for life for no crime and no reason. That is against American justice, and it poses a threat that the President under the authority of the 2012 law can hold Americans in Guantanamo indefinitely, and we should close it to prevent that, too.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source