If we actually had a functioning media in this country, this story would be the top story on every evening news broadcast and be on the front page of every major newspaper. But we don’t, so the fact that the vast majority (72%) of Guantanamo detainees who’ve gone in front of a judge for habeas hearings have been found to be wrongfully detained remains largely unknown to most Americans. And the politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) who’ve attempted to block the ability of detainees to go in front of a judge in the first place will continue to escape the scrutiny they deserve.
UPDATE: In related news, Conor Friedersdorf and Adam Serwer throw down on Andy McCarthy’s latest attempt to legitimize tyranny.
The problem is, nobody cares.
When US and British intelligence agencies are offering $5000 rewards to anyone that can finger “terrorists” to people that never see that much money in a lifetime, the crooks and local power brokers and seekers will do anything to get their hands on the money.
There have been many cases of people using this to get rid of political or business rivals, neighbors they just don’t like, and crooks who point out people at random because they know they will become wealthy by denouncing people. The Pakistanis are notoriously corrupt in their military and police forces.
There are well-documented cases where they rounded up entire villages, separated out the “military age” males (generally anyone between the ages of 8 and 60 or so) and then reaped huge profits by incarcerating them in prison camps.
All paid for by the US and British governments, with no questions asked.
This article only addresses the people at Guantanamo, not the hundreds of similar camps and prisons around the globe. The US and British are filling concentration camps with young men, all on the word of illiterate religious fanatics and corrupt local warlords.
I wonder how much of this money went to Taliban murderers just using the system to finance their terrorization of the local population? Do what they say, or they’ll denounce you to the US military, or just kill you.
Capitalism at its finest.
The whole concept of terroristrs being held without trial in Gitmo was a Bush/Cheney nightmare.
Of course, there are the guys Bush let free that turned out to be real terrorists too.
The whole thing was screwed up from the beginning. Legalized torture, no habeus corpus…a bunch of radical fools were running our country.
@2
The whole thing was screwed up from the beginning. Legalized torture, no habeus corpus…a bunch of radical fools were running our country.
Still are unfortunately. The Obama Administration has adopted many of these arguments as their own now that they’re in power.
@3 – 100% correct. Obama could close Gitmo tomorrow if he wanted to. It is no longer a Bush issue. Apparently, Obama agrees with Bush that it is perfectly fine to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely without trial.
@2 – so I guess Obama is a fool also? At least Bush wasn’t a hypocrite too – he defended Gitmo and kept it open. Obama trashed Bush’s detainee policy, but still follows it. Your ire is now misplaced.
@3: It is harder to change a legal team, change a policy and fix things – than to screw them up to begin with.
Obama is trying to get rid of Gitmo – it takes time.
@4: No, a hypocrite is someone who claims to be for the Constitution (and to uphold it) and does the opposite.
A hypocrite is someone who says the US does not torture and then authorizes torture.
That hypocrite is Bush and you supported him.
@4
Obama could close Gitmo tomorrow if he wanted to.
Not quite, but the real problem is that he’s using Bagram in Afghanistan as a substitute for Gitmo. Closing Gitmo has become all about symbolism, rather than changing a policy that puts all of us at greater risk.
While Lee is very concerned about how the detainees at Guantanamo are doing, I’m concerned how these the teenage girl on Vashon is doing after being raped by a pothead.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/23708722/detail.html
@7
That’s a terrible story. Hope to see that guy get locked up for a long time.
You take this thread off-topic again and that comment, as well as all future ones, will be deleted. You know the rules here.
@ #7
And what does his being a pothead have to do with his being a rapist?
And what the hell does that have to do with the topic of US government arresting and imprisoning people without trial or evidence?
Or are you one of the folks that really don’t care if someone is really guilty of a crime before they’re imprisoned?
@9
And what does his being a pothead have to do with his being a rapist?
Absolutely nothing. If the comment was from someone smarter than Troll, the attempt would be newsworthy. Otherwise, it’s just gibberish from a mentally challenged individual.
All in all, it was only half as ridiculous as when Mr. Cynical (I think, maybe it was a different moron) tried to claim that Lawrence Taylor’s recent arrest for rape was because Taylor smoked pot as a teenager.
@9
Or are you one of the folks that really don’t care if someone is really guilty of a crime before they’re imprisoned?
Only if they’re a minority.
@7 continued. Being the responsible journalist I am, I should say allegedly raped by an alleged pothead.
@8
OK Lee, I’ll make a more post-related comment in the form of a question to you:
Why do you think the liberal media (four times more journalists identify themselves as liberal than conservative) refuse to cover this topic like you think they should?
@13
Why do you think the liberal media (four times more journalists identify themselves as liberal than conservative) refuse to cover this topic like you think they should?
Because their bosses are generally not liberals. Journalists may be liberals (as you would expect from people whose job it is to be well informed), but the people who make the decisions about what gets put on the front page, or what leads off the evening news broadcast are not. They are often older, more inclined to support authoritarian top-down thinking, and sadly, more likely to hold on to outdated prejudices. The bias comes from what is emphasized as being an important news story.
Do you have any other extremely obvious questions that I can answer?
LOL! Foreign battlefield combatants in a war zone have no rights to “habeas corpus” you fucking idiots.
@15
Um, these people weren’t combatants. That’s the point of the post.
Can you read?
are any members of the wash state delegation doing shit about the continued horrendous fed policies (drones, assassination, torture, expanded occupations, etc.) under obama? how about any of the numerous wash state appointees to the obama admin? sims, locke, kerlikowske? you can blame the media but the admin and pols are largely pr machines.
and if we had a functioning media, they would report the atrocities israel commits in palestine everday.
@15/@16 The whole rationale behind the prison camp at Gitmo and all the funky renditions was based on the BushCo postulate that anyone who could somehow have the label of “terr’ist” stuck to their ass was automatically declared to be an enemy combatant, stripped of all rights, and subject to whatever the hell the administration and the military wanted to do with them.
Aside from the whole idea being contrary to international law, the worst part of this at the outset was that this was being used to deprive citizens of the US, its allies, and other nations not even remotely involved in the fight of all human rights. Now, as is pointed out above, its use with apparent “combatants” in-theater is subject to abuse by multiple parties, including the ironic possibility of the enemy using us as a means of intimidation.
@18 In this case, this is one time (ONLY!) that you’ve expressed something here that makes any sense.
@ 15
And how do you know what they are until you have allowed them due process of law and a fair trial?
Oh, thats right, you’re a Jingo. The rule of laws only apply to the people doing the rulings.
It facinates me to no end, that only 60 years after we defeated the Nazis, that we are now embracing most of the tenets of their system of “laws”.
@18
If there isn’t a functioning media, how would you know about any alleged atrocities Israel allegedly commits?
Yep, that’s all the hopey-changey mouth diarrhea you all wanted so much, yes? LOL.
Lord Obama fails the Libtards once again. Shocking.
Good weekend all.
@22
Because he does the same thing with Jews that you do with blacks. You start from a baseline that the malfeasance exists because the people involved are inferior. If the media doesn’t report on it, it must be because the media is trying to cover up for it.
Just because individual Jews and blacks sometimes do conform to your racist stereotypes does little to convince the rest of us that you two aren’t just obsessively focused on proving the inferiority of particular class of people.
Memo to Congressman David Obey
by Ray McGovern
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/28-1
@ 14
This is the nature of Corporatism. It is exactly how Corporatism (by definition, fascism) functions. Authoritarian, dictatorial and unfettered by rules ensconced outside the authoritarian structure (as in the US Constitution).
We are seeing simialarities now in the US to what the Chinese are experiencing. Economic methods such as capitalism are embraced, but governmental authority is derived from the threats of the use of arbitrary force by the authoritarian power structure that fundamentally opposes the principles of the greater rule of law as applied to it’s own policies and political methods. Laws are no longer enforced without prejudice, they are reduced to being mere tools to be wielded against potential rivals by the currently emplaced power structure, and the people that control that structure.
It is the very definition of institutional corruption.
I miss the United States. I’m not happy living in the country we have now. The US didn’t even last 200 years.
@22 For all I know, ManOfBullshit may be pulling it out of his ass. However, there is information available from non-“mainstream” media, and from a number of interest groups, including a couple I know of comprised of Israelis who are opposed to what their government is doing in the West Bank and Gaza.
This is, however, a subject that rates one or more threads all its own, not as an ad hoc subject-changer polluting this one.
@27
I was kind of hoping to see those two idiots throw their crazy at each other for a bit. That’s an off-topic tangent that could provide some comic relief for the rest of us.
Get real, nobody gives a damn. Now put Angelina Jolie into Gitmo and suddenly we’ll all care!
The real problem is that, all politics aside (ha!), the Executive isn’t going to give up power on their own. The Legislative or Judicial branches have to make it so.
Lee,
You and I are shipmates on this one.
America’s modern media is inking to a level worthy of the disdain Lenin had for bourgeois free speech.
The lack of coverage is not limited to Gitmo.
A potentially Iran-level revolution is brewing in Nigeria … no coverage.
Free speech is squashed in our allies … Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China … no coverage.
South Lake Union is being built for the personal profit of a less than estimable billionaire playboy, at the public expense and … no coverage.
At the UW, the President, a man who had never published an academic paper, has just described his faculty as capricious because it overturned his finding of scientific fraud by a professor … no coverage.
And then we have the otherworldly run ons about magic ways of preserving the Sate with out raising taxes or the need to spend more state funds building athletic facilities …no coverage.
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs!
Sure maybe only 1 of 100 of these folks are a real threat much less “super terrorists” that are infinitely worse that generic enemy soldiers we’ve faced in the past. But it we only catch ONE it’s worth it right? That’s why Republicans support police being able to arrest anyone they want at will, just for the ‘chance’ to get a criminal, right? I mean someone commits a robbery, just arrest their entire family, neighbors, people they’ve talked to, just keep them in jail forever, or until you’re bored. Sure this might make them…er…hate you for wrongfully imprisoning them, but you MIGHT catch the actual bad guy too! So it’s worth it! Right? Er….right?
Correctnotright,
I’m as passionate about my politics as you are about yours, at a guess. Still, Bush was a bad president for the same reason Obama is. Both men were well out of their depth for the scope of problems they faced. Both surrendered core principles for short term problem solution. This is a strategy which never works (think Neville Chamberlain.) Bush did this by deciding basic civil rights needed sacrificed to security. Obama does it by deciding basic economic rights need sacrificed to the larger economy and his European/socialist ideals.
There is a difference though. Bush was a principled idealist who actually had core beliefs. Obama is a used car salesman with a pretty voice. He is a hollow man.
In general,
Gitmo, torturing prisoners, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, the erroneously named War on Terror and much else Bush did are national disgraces inconsistent with the Constitution or basic human decency. Why loud and violent outcry from the media all along weren’t the rule has as much to do with the consumers of it as the proprietors, though. If people wanted indepth coverage, exposure of government overreaching etc we would have it. Murdoch and Ted Turner are businessmen. We want a cartoonized version of politics, economics and environmental issues because actual substance would be too real, it would force us to think, and God knows no-one wants that! We’d have to acknowledge the likely end of American economic hegemony, the smallness of our national ‘leaders,’ and the actual scientific evidence or lack thereof of pet theories like CATASTROPHIC GLOBAL WARMING!!!!
@28: Start doing some posts about what Israelis are doing to the Palestinians, then sit back and watch the fireworks.
As to the original post…the hegemon will brook no meaningful opposition. So if you agree with Greenwald, now you know your place in our society….marginalized.
Dammit, why doesn’t anyone argue with me? I’m sick of not being argued with.
Maybe I should go find a wife.
“Bush was a principled idealist who actually had core beliefs.”
Bullshit. He is a cynical heir in a cynical family that wormed its way to wealth and power in the nether world where high finance and government favors meet. As for his “core beliefs” they are base and corrupt…”Bush Doctrine” which see.
Alki Delusions,
This is exactly why Obama reversed all these policies, pulled us out of Iraq, and limited the war in Afganistan! Damn right! Those bloody Republicans are to blame for everything!
Do try to get in touch with reality.
Well, I’m off for the weekend before traffic gets abysmal. Have a pleasant Memorial Day Weekend folks.
Re 36
Yes, yes, yes. I’m familiar with the left wing rhetoric. Bush’s great grandfather was a Nazi Sympathizer, or wait! a government spy, or wait! a corrupt businessman…
Yeah. That’ll do it. Businessman is the ultimate insult for leftists! All those nasty scumbags who want to make money (pause for spit onto the sidewalk here) are evil just on that base desire.
Bush had principles, and that is precisely why you folks hate him so much. You haven’t produced a politician with an actual spine for generations.
And with all due respect I don’t understand this sentence- “As for his “core beliefs” they are base and corrupt…”Bush Doctrine” which see.”
It’s no secret that 90% of the Iraqis mistreated at Abu Ghraib were innocent civilians who were simply scooped up by the incompetent Bush administration’s dragnet, and that Bush released hundreds of Gitmo detainees to their home countries because there was absolutely nothing to tie them to terrorism.
The enxt time you see a Republican mouthing words like “freedom” or “liberty” or “democracy” or “Constitution,” laugh in his face.
re 13: Could you be more specific about who the liberal media are?
Is the conservative media covering it better?
Should BP executives be jailed at Gitmo as eco-terrorists?
@38 Bush’s grandfather was an unpatriotic shit who sold oil to Hitler. That’s not “left wing rhetoric,” it’s historical fact. Stick a finger up your ass and massage your prostate, maybe you’ll feel better.
@38 “Bush had principles, and that is precisely why you folks hate him so much.”
Is this a joke? Are you trying to be funny? I agree with you about the spinelessness of Democratic politicians, though. I’d hate to depend on a Democratic pol to stop a Hitler if we ever got one in this country. We nearly did a few years ago.
More examples of medis dysfunction:
extensive research has failed to show that marijuana is harmful ……………. not covered
Saudi influence in American mosques … not covered
Lack of savings by “prentitive health” … no covered,
Incidence of HIV in newborn children of sex workers ……….. not covered.
Scientific fraud committed by global warming deniers … not covered
Re-segregation of the Seattle Public Schools … not covered.
Loss of tax revenue for Seattle due to expansion universities and non profit foundations … not covered.
Controversy over meddling of NIKE in affairs of University of Oregon … not covered.
HUGE racial imbalance at UW amongst black students NOT on athletic scholarships. … not covered.
Subsidies (in effect taxes) on all insured health care to pay for the uninsured. … not covered.
High pay of certain State Workers (e.g. ferry hands) vs others (e.g. Community College faculty) … not covered.
Notice this .. the theme here is not right vs left, the theme is … not covered.
re 38:
“Bush had principles, and that is precisely why you folks hate him so much.”
That is demonstrably false. One incident that comes to mind is when he accused his political rival John McCain in the 2000 presidential primary in S. Carolina of fathering a black child — thereby winning with southern Republicans who apparently shared his principles (or lack of).
Every day of Bush’s presidency was filled with immoral and pigheaded decisions. I think we hated him because he was a pigheaded retrograde opportunist.
You can blame it on the people who surrounded him(Rove, Cheney, et al…, but he’s the one who chose them.
“You haven’t produced a politician with an actual spine for generations.” I agree. But we have produced smart spineless politicians whereas you’ve only produced swinish brainless pigs.
Re 39
Or…
The next time a politician defends encroachments on the 4th Amendment, of whatever partisan stripe, vote him or her out.
The next time a politician encourages national hysteria whether based on the economy or on terrorism, vote him or her out.
The next time a talk show host tries to create conflict in the body politic and class or political warfare turn him or her off, and let the sponsers know you’re doing so. And if they compare ANY American leader to Hitler tell all your friends to do the same.
How about we assess our politicians based on their votes and behavior, not their party affiliation? I know, heretical, but think about it.
Well, my lady wife is staring meaningfully at me, shaking the keys and pointing to the door. See ya.
Lost in Narcissism sez: And with all due respect I don’t understand this sentence- “As for his “core beliefs” they are base and corrupt…”Bush Doctrine” which see.”
Your assignment tomorrow, grasshopper, is to provide a moral basis for the concept of ‘preventative war’.
Bush’s core principles are: power through money, and money through power. Like his father and grandfathers before him, his only focus in life was acquisition of both, and doing absolutely everything humanly possible to accomplish that.
Bush and his entire family’s philosophy is founded in that of an authoritarian sociopathic idealology, and there are no rules or laws that can be applied to them. His brothers have all committed serious felonies, and his grandfather helped German saboteurs enter and hide in this country.
They are people who see the US Constitution as something to blind people with whilst they sneak around behind the scenes doing whatever the hell they want in pursuit of their goals of dictatorship and personal wealth. They see themselves as being the holders and keepers of Damocles’ sword, and believe they have the god-given sole authority to do so.
Guantanamo Bay, and the other concentration camps Bush and Cheney and the rest of the fascists set up are now too politically important to close. It has nothing to do whatsoever with fighting terrorism. It is about power, increasing and maintaining that power at any and all costs to the people who are shedding the blood and tithing big chunks of their hard earned pay to support it, but at no cost whatsoever to themselves.
The fact that they have often implied such methods can be used against US citizens proves that beyond any shadow of doubt.
They are above all the rest of us schmucks, sword in hand, threatening to drop it at any time.
We are Damocles. We are subject to their wishes, according to them. The United States serve them, in their desire for power.
And you better keep up on your taxes, citizen. You better not interfere with your young sons interest in the military. All you need to do is submit and obey and nobody needs to get hurt.
@45: I thought you said you were leaving [taps foot impatiently]!
37. lostinaseaofblue
You either drank the KoolAid or haven’t been paying attention. Barack Obama ran on a platform of (limiting it to the subject at hand):
– Closing Guantanamo
– Withdrawing from Iraq by the treaty date in 2011 and removing all combat troops in 16 months.
– Sending more troops to Afghanistan; in essence, escalating, though it was to escalate the “right war” instead of the wrong one.
So far:
– The order to close Guantanamo was signed his first day in office and although it was delayed by Republican obstructionism (what hasn’t?) it is still on schedule to occur as soon as the prisoners are transferred to Illinois.
– We are on schedule both to withdraw our combat troops from Iraq (the timetable was extended based on a detailed review Obama conducted with our military’s planners once he got into office) and to withdraw all troops by mid-2011. A slip in the “combat troop” schedule has been intimated due to post-election violence in that country, but nothing has been announced.
– Obama immediately sent an additional 20K troops to Afghanistan after he took office, just as he said he would. He also stepped up Predator attacks into Pakistan while simultaneously working with the Pakistani authorities to kill or capture many high-level al Qaeda leaders (more than Bush managed, certainly).
I have my problems with his civil liberties policies but the very items I oppose any good Republican should applaud. How about you? Do you?
@47: The constitution: “It’s just a god damned piece of paper!”
So it’s still happening on schedule:
I think that Barack Obama is anything BUT out of his depth.
– via Art
– via Wiki
– via Rabbit
– via History News Network
Re Gitmo, which our brave new president in January 2009 solemnly promised to close by January 2010, Ex Parte Quirin is apropos.
Blame the lingering malady of Gitmo on Republican obstructionists if you must, but we seem to have Lee telling us that Gitmo is now Obama’s baby.
@52 Good point about Obama’s apparent paralysis about ending the wars and closing the torture mills–it’s as if “Yes, we can!” has devolved into “Well, we tried” or “As if we give a shit”.
@41
@38 Bush’s grandfather was an unpatriotic shit who sold oil to Hitler. That’s not “left wing rhetoric,” it’s historical fact. Stick a finger up your ass and massage your prostate, maybe you’ll feel better.
rog, just post a few lines about what jfk’s farher was (antisemite, bottlegger, etc), then you’ll have some credibility.
@54 MOT
err ahhhh … if you want some credibility, I suggest you try reading before blathering about.
1. JFK’s dad was not a boot legger, his grandfather, Honey Fitz was.
2. JFK’s dad was not, AFIK and antisemite, but .. along with Lindbergh and a lot of others the man was pro Hitler. In that sense, hos antisemitism was a lot like the race hatred of the egg beaters.
@54, girlymanofnocredibility:
According to Marine General Smedley Butler, who was approached by Prescott Bush and other fascist capitalists (American Liberty League)to command it, Bush et al conspired in a coup to oust FDR (BBC video 1 of 3):
http://www.bing.com/videos/wat.....3566053888
You’re a good man, Art @53. And not becuase (or only because) you sometimes agree with me.
=======
Not sure why certain rabbits are fixated on Prescott Bush. Working for Brown Brothers/Harriman in the 1930s, Bush maybe did deals with Germany. (Harriman … sounds familiar. Redolent of Honest Ave Harriman and Pamela Harriman, pillars of the Democrat establishment. Wonder if it’s the same family …)
The point is that trying to entangle the blame for trading with 1930’s Germany quickly becomes as complicated as trying to cover up the complicity of Al Gore’s family in dealing with Armand Hammer and Occidental Petroleum, sockpuppets of Stalin.
@55
you dont know what you’re talking about seattle jew. joe p kennedy was most cetainly antisemetic (not that there’s anything wrong with that, a man’s right to choose, (his freinds)). he famously said “they ruin everything they touch” refering to the chosen ones…lol imagine if he could see how prophetic he really was.
According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy’s embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as “kikes or sheenies.” Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that “[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch.”[14] When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assaults on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded, “Well, they brought it on themselves.”[19]
from wikipedia. if you trust wikipedia
From the linked wikipedia article re: ex parte quirin
Yes, Dad. Military Commissions aren’t what they used to be. Too bad. Things were so much simpler and better when a Democrat president could exact prompt justice for terrorists: in Quirin, FDR actively pushed the process to ensure that terrorists, including one or two U.S. citizens, went from arrested to dead in mere months.
Here’s FDR trivia for sj and manoftruth:
To repeat, that was then.
Zangara, who tried to kill FDR, went from arrested to dead in mere weeks. No ACLU endless appeals. Those were the days.
and horror of horrors, fdr was also pro life. egads man.
@55 MOT
So the last word of your name means so little?
You still insisit that Jo kennedy was a boot legger?
As for his antisemtism as I said he shared pro-nazi beliefs with most of the Republican party. Is that the same as wanting us burned to death, excluded from public office?
BTW. Jo echoed comments by Jefferson.
We all have prejudices, some of us can not see beyond them.
ok, sj, you are lying/wrong.
Anti semitism in 30s, 40’s…..the republicans were neither pro nazi nor antisemites. Nor were dems.
And let me remind you, the most famous Anti Nazi, was the general who insisted he be photographed at all the holocaust sites he could, so that history could never deny the holocaust happened. And yes, he was the leader of the Republican party. Dwight Eisenhower.
You need to see beyond your prejudices.
@33: Simply Lost
Umm, a couple of incorrect assumptions and wrong facts leads to the wrong conclusions:
First you said about Bush and Obama:
Bush is simply not very eloquent AND not very smart. Obama is a hell of a lot smarter and speraks much better – almost every political persuasion can at least agree on that.
He took the largest budget suplus in history and turned it into the largest budget deficit in history. On top of that he mismanaged the economy into the worst recession since the 1930’s.
Second:
Umm, do you mean health care reform? Or the bailout started by Bush?
Either way, that was not a core priciple of Obama or anybody that can think straight – and by calling it socialist you reveal how little you know about the real world.
Umm, Bush’s core beliefs?
What were they?
Lying to get us into Iraq?
Lying about getting rid of anyone who outed a CIA agent?
Stacking the government with business friendly (corrupt like Steven Griles – say in Minerals and Mining – so we have lax regulation, mining disasters and preventable oil leaks)?
And….to top it all off, you love Bush because he (like you) is also a science denier:
Thanks for making the case that you are biased and can’t think straight. No wonder you loved the idiot Bush.