Don’t Look Under That Rock

Knowledge is power, which is perhaps why our glorious liberal media has ignored this story:

George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t some hearsay or gossip Wilkerson is spreading to boost book sales. This declaration is significant:

Still, Skinner said Wilkerson's declaration is signficant because it marks the first time a Bush administration official is willing to state, under oath, that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others knew many of the prisoners were innocent when they were sent to Guantanamo.

And had them tortured.

I’ve said this before (notably here) that the point of our torture program was not to gain accurate, actionable intelligence. It was to justify war. No one cared that intelligence obtained under torture might be wrong. Who cared? In fact, the more wrong the better (see Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi).

Some folks are calling for a "truth commission.” Screw that shit. I want a special prosecutor. I want subpoenas and frog marches and jail time.

We won’t go there, of course. We’re too candy-assed to look under the high crimes and misdemeanors rock of the Kennedy assassination let alone something that happened five or six years ago.

C’mon, America. What are you scared of? A little justice? A little soul-searching? It would do you some good.

The New York Times Regrets The Error

That pesky liberal media strikes again:

A front-page article and headline on May 21 reported findings from an unreleased Pentagon report about prisoners who have been transferred abroad from the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The article said that the Pentagon had found about one in seven of former Guantánamo prisoners had "returned to terrorism or other militant activity," or as the headline put it, had "rejoined jihad."

Those phrases accepted a premise of the report that all the former prisoners had been engaged in terrorism before their detention. Because that premise remains unproved, the day the article appeared in the newspaper, editors changed the headline and the first paragraph on the Times Web site to refer to prisoners the report said had engaged in terrorism or militant activity since their release.

The article and headline also conflated two categories of former prisoners. In the Pentagon report, 27 former Guantánamo prisoners were described as having been confirmed as engaging in terrorism, with another 47 suspected of doing so without substantiation. The article should have distinguished between the two categories, to say that about one in 20 of former Guantánamo prisoners described in the Pentagon report were now said to be engaging in terrorism. (The larger share — about one in seven —applies to the total number described in the report as confirmed or suspected of engaging in terrorism.)

Glad we got that straightened out.

So, one out of every 20 terrorists detained at Gitmo "rejoins jihad” after their release. Or, for another way of putting it, 19 0f 20 do not.

Big difference how you put it but either way, it’s a helluva lot better than 1 out of 7.

Harry Reid, NIMBY Du Jour

You know, it’s really hard to feel all hopey-changey when Senate Democrats do stupid shit like this. Take this asshattery from Sen. Reid:

“Democrats and Republicans do not want terrorists to be released in the United States,” he told reporters. “Part of what we don’t want is them being put in prisons” in the U.S., Reid said. “We don’t want them around.”

Well, boo fucking hoo. You voted to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the "war on terror," so you better sign on to dealing with the war's prisoners.

The entire argument is completely dishonest. First of all, no one is talking about “releasing” these people into the United States. Second of all, they are not terrorists, they are suspects. Since they haven’t been tried, they haven’t been found guilty of anything, therefore they are not “serving time.” They are in limbo.

Maybe that’s exactly what Reid and the other Senate Dems are afraid of: if Gitmo detainees are brought to the U.S., they will actually need to be charged with something, and there will be trials. Some icky stuff might come out that a few folks would rather not have revealed.

Why not just say that, Harry? Instead of picking up stupid Republican talking points?

Aw, crap. I’ll just post this Jon Stewart clip from way back in January. He makes the argument for how stupid this all is way better than I ever could.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Guantanamo Baywatch - The Final Season
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Torture, It’s Strictly Confidential

A confidential Red Cross report on the use of torture by the CIA on high level detainees has been leaked.

You can read it here.

I’m reading it now. Next time someone asks if we’re a Christian nation maybe we should just point them to this report.

BTW, none of the prisoners tortured were either Iraqi or arrested in Iraq. So much for “flypaper” and "the central front on the war on terror."

Gitmo Going Out Of Business Sale

From SNL last night. Hilarious:

Sign Of The Apocalypse #51

Coney Island amusement park has opened a waterboarding “attraction”:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man with a black hood pours water on the face of a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit strapped to a table: no, it's not Guantanamo Bay naval base, but New York's Coney Island amusement park.

The scene using robotic dolls is an installation built by artist Steve Powers to criticize waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique the United States has admitted using on terrorism suspects, but that rights group say is torture.

"Waterboard Thrill Ride" beckons a sign along with cartoon character "SpongeBob SquarePants" who appears tied down and exclaiming: "It don't Gitmo better!"

The public can peek through window bars and feed a dollar into the slot to bring the robotic dolls into action, one more attraction in the beachfront amusement park in the New York neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Dude, this is all so, so wrong. It trivializes a serious issue and frankly I'm not sure turning torture into an amusement park attraction is a sign of progress.

Just sayin' ....

Corrupted By Politics

This stuff is old hat by now:

Sitting just feet from the courtroom table where he had once planned to make cases against military detainees, Air Force Col. Morris Davis instead took the witness stand to declare under oath that he felt undue pressure to hurry cases along so that the Bush administration could claim before political elections that the system was working.

[...]

Davis told Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, who presided over the hearing, that top Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, made it clear to him that charging some of the highest-profile detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value."

We’ve seen this time and time again from the Bush Administration. Everything is political, nothing has a purpose or function beyond manipulating public opinion, winning elections and keeping the Republican Party in power.

“Oh, but Democrats do it to,” you may say. Not like this, I answer.

Not like this.

This is the inevitable result of handing the reins of government to a group of people whose entire philosophy is that government doesn’t work. They don’t know how to make it work. All they know how to do is manipulate public opinion so they can hold onto power.

You know, it’s a neat trick turning “government” into a dirty word and telling people to vote for you, year after year and decade after decade, so you can get rid of “government.” Like it’s a flea infestation or something. If you hate government so much, what the hell are you doing making a career out of it?

Lewis Black once said something to the effect of, “government isn’t a building somewhere. It’s people.”

At least, that’s how a former president--a Republican president--saw it, back in the day: “Of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Not anymore. Now it’s just of the privileged, by the cronies, for the sheeple.

I'm Wearing Orange Today

And so should you! Here's why:

JANUARY 11, 2008, is the six-year anniversary of the first arrival of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

On January 11, we are calling on everyone opposed to torture and indefinite detention to WEAR ORANGE to symbolize their sadness and disgust with the national shame that is Guantánamo Bay.

There will also be rallies, protests, and candlelight vigils all across the country today, which I'm sure our "liberal" media will refuse to cover, just as they always do. I guess they think, like the SoCal bureau of the Associated Press, that Brittney Spears is more important.

Sigh.