[War] US: Dealing with Gitmo

[pentaj2 at Scranton.edu]

"TBD"
10 October 2006
Pres. John Williams
USA
===================

Amidst everything else happening, the work of the government went on.

At the moment, the President was about to meet with SecState, the 
outgoing SecDef, DHS, the Attorney General, SecTreas, DNI, and the 
Joint Chiefs. This meeting of this "Council of Twelve" was to 
determine the fate of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

After returning the salutes and bidding everyone to sit down, Williams 
began.

"So, I'm informed that there are good things to report on this issue?"

"Yes, sir," General Pace began. "Sir, we believe we can release most 
of those held at Gitmo. However, we propose to release under a form of 
parole, to be enforced by their home countries. Obviously, this will 
not apply to the high-value detainees such as KSM that we've 
transferred from the black sites, who we'll still hold at Camp Delta 
under Maximum Security protocols. However, that should require only a 
minimum of personnel and funding."

"Parole?" Williams asked, raising an eyebrow.

"In return for letting them go, they sign an oath pledging not to 
fight, nor to advocate violence, fund violence, or otherwise support 
violence against the US or our allies. In addition, they sign a waiver 
releasing the US Government of all claims and dismissing all court 
cases."

"Okay...Thoughts, everybody."

"How sure are we it would be enforced?" John Negroponte asked.

"We're not, Ambassador," Pace replied. "However, we will inform the 
detainees that should they be captured again, they will be held simply 
for violating the parole, as EPWs. We expect to do *some* catch and 
release. But for the Afghan farmers among them, for example, it should 
work."

That got a nod.

"Any objections to this plan?"

None.

"OK then. Mr. Attorney General, how legal do the releases sound?"

"Fairly legal, boilerplate sort of things."

"Alright then. Be careful, but go ahead. I hope to have this sorry 
chapter of American judicial history wrapped up by 30 November."

"Yes, sir."

"What about the Uighurs?" Secretary Rice noted. "They can't go back to 
China."

"If they're no threat, we issue them visas for entry to the United 
States on humanitarian grounds. Unofficially, encourage them to 
relocate to, say, Canada after a suitable time in the US."
----
Actions:
1. Gitmo detainees, barring the High-value detainees such as KSM 
transferred from the black sites, to be released on parole. Break the 
parole, you will be held until the end of the war (sometime in the 
30th century) as an EPW by the US military.
2. Talk to Islamic notables in the US about writing a parole oath that 
is meaningful, legal, eloquent, and gets the point across.
3. High-value detainees will still be held for trial by military 
commissions at Gitmo.
4. All paroled detainees will be released no later than 30 November 
2006. Hopefully sooner.
5. Talk to home countries about enforcing that parole; Otherwise, if 
they want to charge em, OK.
6. Exception: Chinese Uighurs. They're no threat, but they can't go 
home to China. Ergo, they get humanitarian parole to enter the US, but 
will be unofficially be encouraged to head to third countries ASAP.