Happened to see this while checking the Scotusblog for updates on the Ohio voter suppression case (there is some new info there about that, by the way).
The Justice Department, in a new plea Thursday for the courts to keep 17 Guantanamo Bay prisoners out of the country, said that those detainees pose a risk “distinct to this Nation” — the fact that the U.S. is the country that has been holding them captive for six years. The assertion came in a reply brief in D.C. Circuit Court on the question of transferring the group of Chinese Muslim Uighurs to the U.S. during the time the government pursues an appeal to bar them permanently. The lead appeal among seven pending cases is Kiyemba v. Bush (08-5424).
So let me get this straight. The reason we must continue to hold these prisoners is that they are dangerous. And exactly why are they dangerous? Because we have been holding them captive for six years!
Meanwhile, lawyers for one of the 17 detainees, Huzaifa Parhat, asked the Circuit Court to hold Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in “conditional contempt” because the Pentagon has not carried out a June 20 Circuit Court ruling that Parhat is not an “enemy combatant” and is entitled to be released or transferred out of Guantanamo.