White House backs down on terrorist trials in New York

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Prison at Guantanamo Bay is proper location

By Move America Forward Thursday, January 28, 2010

Sacramento, Calif. – Move America Forward, the nation’s largest grassroots pro-troop organization, applauds the White House for backing down on holding the trial of 9/11 terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City.

The White House has instructed Eric Holder’s Justice Department to start looking for another place to hold the terror trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

“We have been rallying Americans in opposition to holding civilian trials in New York City, where the people are still traumatized by the horrific acts of war against our country on 9/11. It was outrageous the Obama Administration tried to force this trial down the throats of the people of New York.” said Danny Gonzalez, Director of Communications for the organization.

“Guantanamo Bay was designed for just this purpose – to hold and try terrorists who are bent on destroying our country and our very way of life. Now that Obama has seen the light in not holding the trial in New York City, now he must wake up to the fact that these terrorists should be tried in military tribunals , not in civilian criminal courts with the same rights as American citizens.

The Administration has now even admitted that there are at least 50 prisoners currently held at Guantanamo Bay that they can neither be released nor tried in a civilian court because they are just too dangerous. This is precisely the reason the Guantanamo Bay prison was established in the first place.

“When Nazi saboteurs were caught in the United States during World War II, they were correctly tried, convicted and executed through the military court system. That is the appropriate way to deal with terrorists, and American security will be better served when President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder begin to understand that we are fighting a global war against Islamic terrorism,” Gonzales concluded.

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Obama still plans to close Gitmo

By MIKE ALLEN | 12/29/09 9:15 AM EST

Closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility remains “a national security imperative” despite a news report that two of the planners behind the attempted airborne bombing on Christmas Day had been released from Gitmo in 2007, a senior administration official said.

ABC News’ Brian Ross reported: “Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the Al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents.”

The administration official said, “The detention facility at Guantanamo has been used by Al Qaeda as a rallying cry and recruiting tool — including its affiliate al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. As our military leaders have recognized, closing the detention facility at Guantanamo is a national security imperative.

“The President created the Guantanamo Review Task Force to conduct the thorough work that the previous administration did not: to review the relevant information about each detainee, including the threat they pose, to determine whether they should be prosecuted, detained, or transferred. As he has said before, the President will not release any detainee who would endanger the American people. We have worked cooperatively with the government of Yemen to ensure that all appropriate security measures are taken when detainees are transferred.”

Obama had set a one-year deadline for the closure but now says that will slip as the administration looks for suitable places to transfer the detainees, including the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois.