... Whoever is at Gitmo should either be released (we all know that some detainees there are not really a threat to anybody) or brought to the U.S. for open trial by legitimate courts (which would, of course, be impossible in however many cases the Bush administration has no real proof of anything).

But Gitmo shouldn't be closed if there's any chance the Bush administration would do something even worse, like send them to one of those horrible secret bases most Americans have never heard of, or send them to friendly torturing countries (why do you think we just let Ethiopia import some more weaponry from North Korea?).

Gitmo is one of America's great shames. There's no doubt about that. But at least a lot of people know at least a little something about what's been done there. We only further stain our national honor if we let the Bush administration move what's done there to a darker place.

Here's an AP headline from a few days ago:

U.S. ambassador calls on Vietnam to release political prisoners

What do you think the Hanoi government is thinking?

The AP has examined the ultimate destinations of these "war on terror" prisoners and most have been released immediately by the government to which we've sent them as a face saver.  Many more could be released right now but for the adverse publicity.

We should also be giving those unfairly held a chunk of cash to restart their lives.

Bush and Cheney and Gonzales are morally bankrupt.

...not only are we now drawing a moral equivalency between Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who wants to eliminate freedom and democracy) and some poor Vietnamese protesters (asking for more freedom and democracy) but also actually suggesting he should be rewarded for planning 9/11? 

Every writer suggested in one form or another that out of hundreds of detainees at the camp, approximately 80-100 have been found not to be a threat to the U.S. and are set to be released -- we can't release them outright because we are having a difficult time finding release points that won't embarrass us.  As Jim Moran has noted, "only four detainees have been charged with a crime."

Stay on point, don't misquote or misattribute.  Be polite.

Add me to the growing list of people who just decided to stop reading you.

I would also suggest -- very sincerely -- that you check in with a health professional.  There's something eating at you that is harming you, and I have no wish to see anyone suffer like that.

...and whether you "read me' or not is likely not to keep me awake at night, with all due respect.  Freedom of speech is not freedom from speech. 

1. Yes, there are some that fall into that category.  Heck, many don't even want to leave.  Included in this are the Chines Uighers who were caught fighting with the taliban in Afghanistan.  They've already concluded that where they are is preferable to a Chinese hangman's noose.
http://shire.symonds...

2.Somebody needs to update Jim Moran...it's actually nine, not 4 but, hey, let's not let a little thing like accuracy muddle a perfectly good argument.
http://projects.wash...

3. Since the opening of the detention facilities at Gitmo in 2002, they have come under scrutiny-at the Pentagon's initiation-from more than 1,000 domestic and foreign journalists, most of them skeptical, some outrightly hostile to the U.S. military. Eleven U.S. senators, 77 House members and 99 congressional staffers have made "fact-finding" treks there. An army of ACLU attorneys, Amnesty International investigators and International Red Cross personnel have been given carte blanche access to the prisoners. The only thing to come out of any of it is one dinky little ICRC report that said the butchers and murderers incarcerated there were..."unhappy."

I'm delighted to see the proposal to base them in the US because I now want to see which Senators and Representatives will volunteer to hold these terrorists in their neighborhoods where their friends will now have easy access to violently freeing them.

of what has really gone on that it rises to the level of fiction. 

No one has been given "carte blanche" contact with the Gitmo prisoners, nor have they been allowed access to sufficient information even to know with what or how many of the detainees were charged.  And as for being represented by counsel, only two weeks ago David Hicks's civilian attorney was kicked out of his hearing and only his military attorney allowed to remain.  The attorneys trying to represent these people have been frustrated and blocked at every turn by an administration determined to load the dice and obtain convictions based on hearsay and coerced testimony from others.  The hearings are ridiculously slanted.  Detainees are being accused of having relationships with terror suspects whom the hearing examiners refuse to name and accused of associating with organizations which may or may not be terrorist.  The vast majority of detainees came there from places other than the battlefield, most specifically through bounty-hunting Northern Alliance tribes and Pakistani officials.

Only days ago the Wall Street Journal ran a story of one of the military prosecutors who refused to pursue a prosecution of Khaled El-Masri because the testimony against him was obtained through coercion (read torture). 

Our administration, which claims reverence for the great American ideals of truth and justice, is instead a craven collection of cynics and moral cowards who seek advantage by refusing to play by the rules; heck, who pretend the rules don't even exist for their "special" class of bad guys, and who are so lacking in faith in our system of justice that they won't even allow it to come into play. 

You point to the Pentagon's "encouragement" of all the people who go to Gitmo, but this is a fantasy.  The Pentagon started allowing visitors to Gitmo in order to curb some of the talk of the excesses.  That people visit Gitmo does nothing to solve the fundamental problem, which is how can we as a free and democratic people claim the right to hold other people forever without charge and without the opportunity to defend themselves.  I'm sure you'll claim that most Gitmo detainees are not abused.  Well, whup-tee-freakin' doo.  So maybe no one's beating them or starving them.  So what?  Could you stand to be locked in a prison indefinitely without access to family, friends, or country?  Would you think it's a fair trade that the people who hold you feed you but would never let you know why you're there, would not give you the names of the people who claim you belong there, would not let you see the evidence which permits them to hold you there?  I think not. 

I wouldn't have any trouble with transferring these people to federal prisons to be assessed and processed.  You're afraid their "friends" will come for them?  Did the guy who shot up the CIA have friends come to free him?  Did the blind sheikh and his co-conspirators have friends who came for them when they were tried for the first hit on the World Trade Center?  What, we're too weak to protect our own federal prisons and federal courthouses?  You think it's that easy to stage an assault on one?  Whose army are these friends bringing with them?  Bawk, bawk, bawk ...

I'm tired of hearing that we cannot even afford to let people know why we're holding them because they're such scary, overpowering people that even mere knowledge of the basis of their detention will destroy us all.  Ain't buying it and never will. 

I referred in a previous comment a few days ago to one of my old colleagues, Brent Mickum, who is now representing some of those at Gitmo.  Here's an observation he had in January of this year for the British press:

In the five years since the US started shipping prisoners from around the world to Guantánamo, approximately 99% have never been charged with any transgression, much less a crime. Approximately 400 prisoners, characterised by the Bush administration as "the worst of the worst", have been released without charge, many directly to their families. That any prisoners have been released is due almost entirely to the outrage of the civilised world.

http://www.guardian....

Here's a longer version, written by Brent:
http://commentisfree...

Brent Mickum is an American hero.

If I told him that to his face, he'd laugh out loud and issue a number of salty epithets.  What a wonderful spirit he was to work with (we were civil prosecutors together).

He's an inspiration to lawyers everywhere.  He understands and loves the principles upon which this country was founded, the things that make our system - when we're not screwing it up with weighted rules and loaded dice - the best legal system in the world.

All dictatorships have strong police and strong prosecutorial functions.  The thing that distinguishes a free country's justice system is an independent judiciary and an adversarial defense bar.  The job of the defense attorney is to make sure the police and prosecution have played by the rules, to ensure that the defendant's side of the story has been told (even if only to the attorney) and that evidence and witnesses in his favor have been sought out and presented.  To make it impossible for defense attorneys to do their job, as this administration has done, is an injustice on its face and an abnegation of everything that makes our system great.  That so many participants in this travesty are lawyers themselves - Gonzales and his ilk - is shameful and repellent.

...from two different sets of corp assumptions, we're likely never to agree.  This could be a very different discussion if it were really about truth and justice but we both know that's not true.  Your unquestioning willingness to believe a terrorist over that of our great men & women n uniform is disturbing.  The unit at Camp Delta is doing a terrific job operating under a global microscope.  Maybe if all the political vitriol and hate were set aside, there might be some solutions to this because this is going to be a very long, long fight and there are many more of them coming to deal with.

I have no love for terrorists.  Be happy to see anyone who goes around murdering people locked away in Supermax forever.  But we have different core assumptions for sure.  Yours is characterized by a naive assumption that everyone who has been detained and put in Gitmo or one of our little CIA prisons is already proved to be guilty or maybe is just so gosh-darned scary that, as with Pandora's box, we shouldn't even be allowed to open the file and examine the facts to make sure we have the right guys lest the forces of hell rise up and overwhelm us.  Better that than to honor our principles and take a stand.

My core assumption is that when you lock up a terrorist it would be helpful if he actually is a terrorist rather than some poor schmo who might have run afoul of another tribe, or who was turned in for a bounty by enterprising strangers, or who was accused based on his name sounding like someone else's, or whose association with people or organizations was innocent and not involved with whatever nefarious plots or secrets they may have been involved in without his knowledge.  The only people who should be locked away forever should first and foremost be guilty.  And my other core assumption is that when you use coercive tactics on people whom you've already decided are guilty, and you offer them the chance to escape the pain or discomfort by pointing the finger at others and agreeing with whatever theory of the case you've come up with, their testimony is inherently unreliable.

Your core assumption is that all the people who are involved at all ends in these detentions are inherently honorable and trustworthy - so much so that their actions should not be scrutinized.  You assume that an unaccountable and all-powerful executive can never make a mistake about the facts, that its agents lack venality, lack over-arching ambition, lack bias and impulsivity.  You believe that in the case of our executive, absolute power corrupts not at all. 

I'm put in mind of my favorite passage from Robert Bolt's great play about Sir Thomas More, called A Man for All Seasons.  When More's son-in-law tells him that to fight the devil he would knock down all obstacles, even the law, More replies: 

And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake!

  Damn straight!

...in the men and women in uniform who serve this great nation is that they're honorable people doing a tremendous job.  What you confirmed for me is that you actually believe your core assumptions to be true.  I'm not real sure what it says about our differences when your beliefs are based on an the inherent evil and corruption of man and mine is the inherent goodness of man.  Again, any sensible discussion of these issues is impossible since everything you know, or think you know, is filtered through the prism of abject hate for a single man.  Were that not in the equation, this would likely move forward more positively. 

I believe in their inherent capacity for both good and evil and in the fact that no one is perfect and all of us, no matter how honorable or well-intentioned or intelligent, are flawed.  And that's why you need checks and balances.  You were in the military for 26 years.  Tell me, was every single military person you ever met a person of honor?  Did you not know or encounter in the military any drunks or drug addicts or fools or thieves or liars or simpletons?  You think a sense of honor and moral rectitude is all you need not to make a mistake?  You're so eager to evade the issues I raised you make yourself sound like Pollyanna with your sunny report of the great work our people are doing.  Terrific - and they're still holding hundreds of people for years without charge and with no end in sight. 

You know people as flawed, just as I do, but you choose instead to stoop to an accusation that my attitude is somehow linked to my dislike of Bush.  I do not abhor the abandonment of our most fundamental principles because I hate Bush.  Rather, my dislike of Bush is linked to my love of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and my distress that our great system of justice has been subverted by this petty little man and the soulless Cheney. 

"...was every single military person you ever met a person of honor?"

Yes, until the individual (please underline that word) proved me wrong.  If a military guy robbed a bank, I don't paint the lot as thiefs.  Your assumptions about them are quite different.  I only regret you didn't have the privelage of serving with them for so long as I did because then we'd have a common frame of reference and I know for certain your views about them would be different.

"petty little man"?  "soulless Cheney"?  Yeah, no Bush-hating there, huh?  That pretty much validates what I said, doesn't it?

I'm still missing that principle in the Constitution and Bill of Rights you're so worried about that extends American rights to foreign terrorists. Does that mean I have German rights from here in the U.S.?  Your same principle, only in reverse, says that Swedish law applies here too, right?  OK, silly but what other country on the planet maintains that thier rights for their citizens automatically apply to every other citizen in the world?

 

In an interview with The Daily Progress editorial board, Webb said Bush could begin improving relations with Iran the same way President Nixon opened the door with China by visiting Beijing 36 years ago.

"What we need to do is aggressively engage them in diplomacy," said Webb, D-Falls Church. "There have been a number of indications Iran has been ready to do that. We need to take them up on that."

"Probably the boldest thing George W. Bush could do would be to get on a plane and go to Tehran just like Nixon went to China," Webb said.

"In my view it's a fairly similar situation," he said. "In 1971, China was a rogue nation with nukes spouting the same sort of rhetoric and had an American war on its border in Vietnam and we have arguably brought them into the world community by engaging them."

Engaging the Iranian regime in direct diplomacy would not require abandoning American positions, Webb said.

"We do not have to give up our insistence on [no] weapons of mass destruction. We do not have to take a step back in terms of recognizing Israel."

http://www.dailyprog...=

Some Iranian wag was suggesting that the Brits, as enemy combatants, should be held under conditions identical to those at Guantanamo. That is the sort of blow-back that a Whitehouse full of draft-dodgers would not have anticipated. It should be added to the Counts of Impeachment.

...you're buying into an Iranian version of the hostage situation and accepting their perverse view of the Brits as "enemy combatants?"  Curious that this "Iranian wag" would actually know what the "conditions" at Guantanamo were...unless he's been there and released (http://www.washingto...)

http://news.bbc.co.u...
http://newstandardne...
http://english.aljaz...

And I'm not "buying into" anything, despite the wholesale pricing on propaganda from both sides.  It is put-up, or shut-up time for the Gitmo detainees.

Amazingly I do have several conservative friends.  One of their big themes is that we are fighting a culture war. I can't help but point out that Gitmo is a strange way of doing it.  America was founded on radical principles such as a person is entitled to a fair trail, a person is innocent until proven guilty.  I personally believe that these principles have helped to make us the greatest country on earth.  Unfortunately we have bush-cheney who with Gitmo have renounced the very principles that our country was founded on.  Gitmo should be closed, it is an embarrassment to the very principles that this country was founded on.
 

...that a military court is automatically not "fair?"  There's a long history of how conflicts , combatatants, non-combatants and terrorists and/or insurgents are dealt with and the military has always, for the most part handled them and handled them well.  I totally reject the idiotic premise that American constitutional rights automatically extend to a Taliban insurgent firing an RPG at our kids in Tora Bora who must be Mirandized before we can put him in a time out corner in a US Holiday Inn.  The military runs a judicial system every day of the week in all branches of the Armed Forces trying every conceivable crime with some highly competent lawyers who all have their degrees and certified by the Bar.  Why is there an assumption these people are incompetent Gomer Pyle types and schills and not that they are simply great Americans doing what their country asks of them every day?  Military lawyers are doing some great work and they don't deserve this abuse from their own countrymen.

I am not making the assumption that a military court is automatically not fair.  I have NO problems with a military lawyer. However, what bush-cheney have set up is a different story.  In fact, read about Lt. Commander Charles Swift. He actually represented his client as a fine American lawyer should and actually won in our Supreme Court. After winning, he was fired by the Navy for actually defending his client and winning.  In other words, he was fired because of being too competent. 

http://www.buzzflash...

I am not saying that these detainees should have a full and complete American trial.  However, this is our chance to show the world the superiority of our system.  Allowing bush-cheney to run these as kangaroo courts like in iran and russia will not help us.  We also have NO evidence that many of these people are insurgents, just the word of bush-cheney.  At his point, with lie after lie and blunder after blunder, that is not enough.

Let me say that I believe that khalid sheikh mohammed is a scumbag.  However, if bush-cheney are going to torture folks like iran and russia do, they also need to give the person a fresh shave and clean suit like iran and russia do.  Remember how the British sailors looked that were just released.  The photo below could be a recruiting tool for our enemy.

http://news.bbc.co.u...

I may be over the line myself Lowell, please accept my apology if I am, but it is late.

The picture you're referring to is the one the military took the day the pulled him out of bed when they captured him years ago.  NO ONE has seen a current picture of him since.

What have they done that we can't see what he looks like now?  Oh, that's right, he probably has some secret eyebrow signals he might flash to set off the Apocalypse.  Isn't that what the government thinks?  That these terror suspects are soooo powerful they all have super secret signals they can send each other to set off their terrible plots? 

....some kind of "I don't trust Americans" or "government is evil" response was going to follow ("What have they done...")  Why are you assuming "they" have "done" anything?

Now for motive--why is it so important to know what he looks like?  Personally, I could care less what this dirtbag looks like and I hope he never sees the light of day again. 

I wrote that the reason the government keeps him under wraps is because of the silly fantasy promulgated by this administration that terror suspects have to be kept hidden lest they flash secret codes to their pals.  I don't make this stuff up; this is actually what the government has suggested.

First, I'm genuinely amazed that you know with such certainty what our governments reasons are.  I didn't know you had thosed kinds of inside connections? 

So as not to seem evasive, I suppose you're entitled to believe that the only conceivable reason these creeps aren't paraded before our voyeuristic, tiny-minded, reality show, Jerry Springer, public for their viewing pleasure is that they think these murdering whackos are so smart that they've developed (years ago) a series of codes and gestures to signal future attacks.  Was this on an episode of "24" or something recently?

OK, there's a small giggle factor associated with that but I'm not going to totally dismiss it.  We picked up a boatload of intel from our POW's paraded around in hanoi who used blinking and other signals to communicate so it's definitely possible. "Probable" is another story with these animals.

Your turn. I simply "Why are you assuming "they" have "done" anything?"  Feel free to evade.

Charlie Swift was notified that he had not been promoted two weeks after the decision.  That means the promotion board that looked at all Navy JAGs of his rank met months before that.  He simply didn't have all the blocks checked that a Navy JAG needs to go to Commander.  It's a shame the general public is so naive to how the military works and actually fall for nonsense like this.

He was appointed to that job by the military and everyone around him says he did a great job.  The outcoem had zero influence on his promotion...his time was just up.  I also spent 26 years in and was ineligible to stay in as well under the military's up-or-out system after missinga promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.  If you don't get promoted at certain points along you're career, you're forced out. 

I know I'm expecting too much asking that people try to look at things objectively, truthfully, and think things through on a political blog site but this is the kind of kooky stuff that takes on a life of it's own when this unchecked groupthink gets going.

so why are you defending something that wasn't even attacked? In fact, I could probably accept using military courts on a lot of these cases if they adhered to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, rules of discovery, and the standards already existent in the Code against coerced and hearsay testimony.  The problem with Gitmo is our government is not even offering the protections of the UCMJ.  It's offering unrepresented detainees statements of fact with the names and particulars of their supposed co-conspirators blanked out and the details omitted, and they're being asked to respond.  As one detainee said, "how can I defend myself if you won't tell me the name"?  The administration is stacking the deck very heavily against the detainees and depriving them of the most elemental standards of fairness.  They have almost no communications with the outside world or with outside attorneys because Bush/Cheney have sold a bill of goods to this country that every terror suspect is a package of memorized codes and signals so subtle as to be understandable only to their allies on the outside, and that if they are permitted any communications whatsoever some magical plot to destroy us will be set in motion.  I think Cheney watches too much Sci-Fi Channel.  Or maybe he's overdosed on Walker or 24 reruns.  Who knows? 

What he wrote was "America was founded on radical principles such as a person is entitled to a fair trail,..."

The assertion is right there that these military tribunals aren't "fair." It wasn't just a rhetorical statement.

"As one detainee said..."

Yeah, let's believe the guy who just slit some little girl's throat and not our own great guys in uniform. 

This pro-terrorist stuff is really starting to concern me.  Has everyone's BDS (Bush Derangment Syndrome) gone that far?

Nobody here that I know of is "pro-terrorist." Honestly, I don't even know what the heck you're talking about, but you're not making any sense at all.  As far as "Bush Derangement Syndrome" is concerned, you're saying that anyone who opposes Bush's policies is mentally ill?  Isn't that what they did to political dissidents in the former Soviet Union?  Excuse me, but this is America, and here we don't lock people up because of political disagreements, or with flimsy evidence, or with no access to due process of law.  At least, those are not the values this great nation was founded on.  I don't know what nation YOU want to live in, but it's not America, that's for damn sure.

...exactly what I'm talking about (I hope) when it comes to BDS.  I opposse Bush's policies in some areas as well.  I didn't even vote for the guy and have said here many times I think he's an inarticulate buffoon and a weak Commander-in-Chief...but that's where it stops.  It's wonderful we live in a place where sites like this are even possible and we all can have these opinions but this silly Bush is a criminal, Bush condones torture, Bush is Hitler, Bush is spying on us, yada yada yada is all extremely unhelpful, unproductive, and so pathetically goofy that it detracts from whatever legitimate point the writer's may have had.  I know people are frustrated and need an outlet and some of this stuff is a catharsis so I'm not that naive but please don't insult my intelligence by denying it exists.  Instead of trying to indict Bush/Rove/Cheney/Halliburton (pick your own evil boogeyman to frighten children with), for what they had for breakfast just because you diagree with them, what's wrong with a civil debate or point being made without all the invectives and vitriolic hate?

So a terrorist at GITMO is now a "political" prisoner?  I have enough faith in our men and women in uniform to determine whether or not any evidence is "flimsy" or not.  Your apparent condemnation of their abilities and integrity says a lot.