James Galyean is a candidate running for South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District. Prior to that time, Galyean was an Assistant United States Attorney and also has some pretty direct connections to the War on Terror.

It was Galyean who helped helped write both the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. As a result, he has a bed of knowledge and massive amounts of contacts that others do not. And his contacts are telling him that, protestations to the contrary from the Pentagon, Barack Obama has every intention of sending GTMO terrorists to the Charleston, SC Naval Weapons Station.

After all, South Carolina did not vote for Obama, so he sees no fall out in sticking terrorists there. But Galyean makes some pretty convincing points that this is a bad idea.

In August 2007, a sharp Berkeley County Sheriff’s Deputy, James Blakely, pulled over two Egyptian men not far from the station. With the guns and explosive materials found in their car, they could have killed any number of people. And the brig isn’t the only possible target at the station. There are others, both programs and personnel.

SPAWAR is a naval project headquartered at the station that provides classified engineering and other support for overseas projects. Because of that mission and others at the station, over 10,000 people pass through the station’s gates each day. Think those cars would be attractive targets during a terrorist’s military trial at the station? With the media hordes camped outside the gates? What about a nearby daycare center used by the station’s families? Think that couldn’t happen? Google “Beslan.”

There’s also a nuclear fuel transshipment facility and a jet fuel storage tank farm inside the fence. You could throw a rock from any of them and hit the brig. Did I mention there’s over 600 million pounds of explosives stored there too? And reportedly a few nuclear weapons. Anyone want to risk an inbound Gulfstream?

Unlike a lot of the kids in the Obama administration, Galyean knows what he is talking about.

So it begins. The Obama administration has made its first transfer of a detainee at the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to United States soil.

Ahmed Ghailani, arrived in New York early Tuesday to be tried in federal court in lower Manhattan for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 224 people.

Ghailani’s transfer to New York trial is an important first step in the implementation President Obama’s decision to close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay even though we still haven’t been told where Obama will put the terrorists when he closes GITMO.

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As Track-A-’Crat notes, the administration is at best spinning its difficulties to get anybody else to take the Uighurs. The President is claiming that there have been no hard commitments, which implies that negotiations for giving some over to Germany are still going on:

Strictly speaking, that may be true. But according to information obtained by SPIEGEL, Germany has long since blocked the idea of accepting Guantanamo detainees — and has done so without having to issue an outright rejection.

In talks at the end of May, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble presented US Attorney General Eric Holder with a list of criteria to be fulfilled before Germany would take nine Uighur detainees. Schäuble said Washington needed to present a clear case as to why the Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority in north-western China, couldn’t be taken in by the US or other countries. He also said America had to offer proof that they weren’t dangerous, and that they had a personal connection to Germany. He told Holder that Germany was unable to accept people who couldn’t travel to the US on a simple tourist visa.

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Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders — namely, highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety.

President Barack Obama, May 21, 2009

Authorities in New York have discovered that the four alleged terrorists arrested last week while planning to blow up a synagogue and shoot down a U.S. military plane were all converted to Islam while in prison.  The four were attendees at a Newburgh, NY, mosque, where Imam Salahuddin Muhammad is the spiritual leader.  Muhammad also serves as a Muslim prison chaplain.

The revelation comes just two days after President Obama uttered the words above, announcing his plan to bring some of the terrorist detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay into the United States to be held in the U.S. prison system.  The president assures that no one has ever escaped from one of the federal Supermax prisons.  But as the case of the New York terror cell demonstrates, escape is not the only issue.

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It is fitting that President Barack Obama’s much-hyped and anticipated speech on his plan for the detainees currently held at Gunatanamo Bay was delivered in the rotunda of the National Archives building.  Throughout his speech, the argumemts of a petulant child stubbornly refusing to accept any responsibility for his actions could be heard echoing around the marble hall. The president’s speech was not courageous, uplifting, or forward looking. It was a small speech, especially in comparison to former vice president Dick Cheney’s address immediately after, and revealed the true stature of the man giving it.

President Obama is the master of the political trick of decrying a given act while engaging in it. Throughout this speech, Obama made overtures to looking ahead all the while dwelling on the past. He said he did not want to engage in refighting the battles of the last eight years over enhanced interrogations and Guantanamo Bay, then proceeded to do just that, explicitly and implicitly criticizing decisions of the Bush Administration as misguided, illegitimate, and “hasty.”

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Michele Flournoy, President Barack Obama’s newly minted Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, may have unwittingly given a preview of Obama’s big speech on the fate of terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, when she spoke after the Senate overwhelmingly voted to strip funding for implementing the closure from the Administration’s supplemental budget request for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Flournoy essentially said that members of Congress who object to the terrorists being brought into their districts and states will just have to get over it.

[Flournoy] says members of Congress need to remember that closing the stigmatized prison in Cuba will mean hard choices for everyone. [...]

[She] says it’s unrealistic to think that no detainees will come to the U.S., and that the U.S. can’t ask allies to take detainees while refusing to take on the same burden.

Without singling anyone out, Flournoy said lawmakers need to think more “strategically.”

The Pentagon says Guantanamo terrorists are coming to the United States, so that Europe will feel better.  Is this the Obama Administration’s plan?  And will the president say so clearly in his speech today?

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GTMO detainees could be released into the United States as early as next week.

Human Events has the details.

Politico has a report today on Democrats’ effort to transfer the violent terrorists currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay to facilities within the U.S.

“It sets us back in the war on terrorism to be maintaining Guantanamo,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who’s heading an investigation of the facility for the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

“It will enhance our reputation to close it down and to apply our system of justice to all of these detainees,” he added. …

UPDATE: The ‘money quote’ from SCOTUSBLOG:

The brief was another indication that, at least so far, the new Administration is not moving to make a wide-ranging break with detention policies of the former Bush Administration.

The utopian Left, which saw in the Rorshach that was candidate Barack Obama just what they wanted to see (rather than anything tangible or lasting) suffered yet another reality-based blow yesterday with the new administration’s claim in federal court that Guantanamo Bay detainees — also known as terrorists who would brutally murder every one of their Leftist defenders without breaking a sweat or losing their smiles — “do not have due process rights” afforded to Americans or civilized human beings as a whole.

According to SCOTUSBLOG:

The Obama Administration, taking its first position in a federal court on claims of torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees, urged the D.C. Circuit Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit by four Britons formerly held there. In addition, the new filing argued that a recent appeals court ruling makes clear that “aliens held at Guantanamo do not have due process rights.”

Moreover, the document called for a sweeping ban on lawsuits against U.S. military officials, claiming constitutional violations by such officials. Allowing such lawsuits “for actions taken with respect to aliens during wartime,” it said, “would enmesh the courts in military, national security, and foreign affairs matters that are the exclusive province of the political branches.”

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Brian covered a lot of what Mitch McConnell said here at CPC in an earlier post, but there was one very commendable thing he said.

He took on the administration’s policy related to GTMO. Hopefully this signals a fight.

“Conservatives also believe that the government has no more solemn duty than to protect the people who established it. And on this last point, let’s be very clear about something else: When it comes to Guantanamo, the new Administration needs to show it’s more concerned with safety than symbolism. Many of those still detained are serious threats to the safety of our citizens. In fact, several of these terrorists still proudly proclaim their desire to kill more Americans. The new Attorney General visited Guantanamo earlier this week and he returned with a glowing report. He said it was well-run, that he was impressed with the people in charge, and that every single person there has to be moved out and Guantanamo shut down in less than a year. The Obama Administration needs to answer a question: Where exactly do they expect to send these guys next January? They have no answer. Well I do: these terrorists are right where they belong.“

Today, President Obama held a late afternoon meeting with some of the families of victims of the terror attack on the USS Cole as well as families of victims of 9/11. Among those present was CDR Kirk S. Lippold, USN (Ret.) who was the commander of the USS Cole when it was attacked. Shortly after his meeting with the President, I had an opportunity to speak with Commander Lippold. I will post the full interview tomorrow. Today I will post a few revelations from the interview that couldn’t wait.

First, let me say that the families who attended were reportedly far more at ease regarding the fate of the detainees after the meeting than they were going into it. The families did not hold back, and questioned the President for a full fifty minutes. Commander Lippold described it this way: “What the president did was he came in, he articulated the reason for the pause and for closing Gitmo on a one year time line … not that I agree with his decision or thought processes. He sat down with the families and took questions, and answered those questions in a meeting that lasted 50 minutes.”

One of the questions the families were very focused on, and one which many of us at Redstate have been focused on, is what is going to happen to the Gitmo detainees going forward?  I asked Commander Lippold if during this meeting the President was able to convey that he has a plan for dealing with all the detainees, and he said the President doesn’t seem to have an answer for that. He adds that the 1-year timeline for closure of Gitmo was “putting the cart before the horse” given that the administration hasn’t sorted out what to do with them. The President told those in attendance that his legal team is going to be working on crafting a “robust legal procedure” and “opened the door”, for the first time perhaps, that the procedure may in fact remain wholly military in nature. The Commander indicates the President suggested they may  “develop a robust military procedure” for dealing with the detainees, as opposed to coming through the criminal court system. The President was adamant that they would seek justice swiftly either way, but that he is determined to see due process served. More on that tomorrow.

The other big revelation was of particular interest to Commander Lippold in his capacity as a Senior Military Fellow at Military Families United. During the meeting the President assured the families and the commander that, going forward, they would have “a seat at the table,” an “open dialogue” with the President and his staff as they formulate policy in the war on terror and larger national security issues. It is logical to assume that Military Families United would be involved in the mechanics of such an arrangement. Commander Lippold was very excited by this prospect, saying it’s very important, and a goal of Military Families United, that those families who “bear the burden, the sacrifice, and the scars of the war on terror” are afforded the opportunity to be heard, and to lend their insights into the policy-making process.

Before I wrap this up, here’s a great takeaway quote from the Commander:

“The previous administration was very focused on the prosecution of the war on terror and keeping America safe from future attacks. The current administration is very focused on the prosecution of the detainees of the war on terror. The important thing for America is to find the right balance of both those approaches.”

- Caleb Howe

Check back at Redstate.com for more exclusive excerpts from my interview with Commander Kirk Lippold of Military Families United.

President Obama will visit with families of September 11 terrorist attacks and the 17 sailors killed in the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole.

Obama has some ’splaining to do. Groups representing victims’ families were angered by Obama’s half-baked executive order to close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay and Obama’s order to drop the charges against the terrorist mastermind of the Cole bombing.

According to the Washington Post, “fireworks” are likely at the gathering:

Jim Riches, a retired New York firefighter whose son, Jimmy Riches, died in the Sept. 11 attacks, said in an interview yesterday that he wants to hear from Obama what the government intends to do with the prisoners.

“I want to know, are they going to drop the charges? Are they going to try them in another court?” he said. “I want to let them know that these men are dangerous.”

[. . . ]

“The issue . . . is what are they going to do with those detainees. We want justice for the ones that said they did it,” he said.

That’s what I want to know. What is Obama going to do with the terrorists detained at Guantanamo?

Now here’s the best idea I’ve heard all day:

With the President ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay, the question arises: what to do with the prisoners there?

Of course, there are some on the left that think they need to be released. This, despite ongoing reports of former detainees returning to terrorism.

However, let’s assume that the administration recognizes that the bad guys are bad guys and need to be kept locked up somewhere.

Some states are saying they don’t want them.

 Basil’s solution?

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