Some pundits think that we should wait and see what Obama does with the Bush-era torture regime; in my opinion that attitude is dangerously wrong. America’s credibility hangs by a rapidly fraying thread. Saving it will depend on relentless pressure from prominent pundits, preferably voices much more prominent than Glenn Greenwald, to pull up the rocks and expose the entire regime to disinfecting sunlight.
Doing anything else exposes Obama to legal peril and, worse, to have two different administrations governing the Conventions’ most important signatory treat them as optional could render the accords functionally meaningless. Small nations would gladly cite the American example, as some have already done. Russia and China would stop pretending, leaving Europe and a few other modern states to wage a losing defense. Unlike George Bush, Barack Obama may become something resembling a role model and not a seedy example against whose comparison globe-straddling leaders shrink in fear.
Now let’s imagine what will happen when (ugh, if) Obama does the right thing. When that happens, fans of the unacceptable consequences fallacy will practically lose their minds. (via Sullivan).
Obama’s flexibility to handle the remaining detainees as he sees fit will be constrained by the manner in which they have been treated while in U.S. custody. Remember that Hamdan was chosen as the first defendant for the military commissions in large part because the prosecution thought it has a “clean” case against him—and yet on the very first day of his trial, his military judge threw out a number of his statements to interrogators, ruling that they had been coerced from him and were therefore unreliable. And that happened in a trial system effectively designed by the Pentagon to ensure convictions.
Look at it this way: Of the 200 or so detainees left on Guantanamo who have not been cleared for release (pending the necessary arrangements), the Bush administration intended to try only some 70 or 80 before military commissions. That leaves more than 100 whom it considered too dangerous to release but was not planning to put on trial. “What lies in those files that’s an obstacle to prosecution?” Waxman asks.
When Obama finds out, he may learn that his options for keeping them locked up are limited.
We cannot justify holding on to virtually any of our detainees without charging them in a legitimate court. However, as the Hamdi case illustrates, fairly charging tortured and illegally kept detainees is essentially the same as freeing them. Then the liberated detainees can file lawsuits. If the new government shows a few scruples about using the State Secrets card more honorably then, like the pending suit by Maher Arar, an innocent Canadian tortured for a year in Syria, the civil suits alone could be catastrophic.
We already know that discovery will uncover prosecutable crimes in practically every case. Ergo, prepare for the greatest fletchering ever seen by man. If levied honestly, damages could collectively rank in legal history with the tobacco settlement. I do not have the training to guess how much one year of a life is worth, or five years. If those five years included relentless abuse that left you physically scarred and psychologically damaged, how much would you ask for?
As far as I can tell we will either geld Geneva or else we will release the vast majority of our muslim prisoners (possibly all of them, innocent and otherwise), pay them for their time and prosecute the torturers whom the president fails to pardon. If a middle way exists I fail to see it.
Punchy
Do the ‘prisoners’ have standing in US courts if they were abused out of the US (the very reason Gitmo was used)? Serious question. Not a lawyer.
Comrade Stuck
And the alternative? Obama was just on 60 minutes stating in no uncertain terms that under his watch America will not torture and GITMO will be closed. People clutching pearls on these issues breathless in their projection that because he has an adviser that is for rendition and gitmo and enhanced interrogation techniques (torture) that he must be thinking of continuing those practices. Did these people stop to think for a minute that Obama may just be trying to learn exactly what has been going on for the past 8 years. What better way to get the dirty truths than talking to people that have been involved. That being said, I would oppose appointment of Brennan, or others who supported bush’s crimes to any high position. Meanwhile, I take Obama at his clear word, that torture and indefinite incarceration without a proper trial will end in his administration. That is, Until he actually breaks that word.
Svensker
The Iraq War was why I left the Republican Party. The torture is why I will never go back.
Fuck them very much for what they have done. Sure, they had some Dem enablers, but the cheerleading and macho tough crap was all on the Repub side.
This is a very large carbuncle filled with stinking pus and it must be lanced if it is to heal. Should Dr. Obama go the route of putting a bandaid on it and calling it an "owie", the infection will go gangrenous.
Warren Terra
What Stuck said in #2. Obama was asked what he could do by executive order and prompted by the interviewer about Gitmo, and he mentioned as the other thing he’d do immediately that he’d enforce his vision of the America he believes in: a country that Does Not Torture. Me, I’d like to see prosecution of those who authorized and mandated torture, but I’m pretty sure it won’t happen. Heck, Yoo still teaches at Berkeley Law – Constitutional Law, no less.
opit
If Gitmo is a U.S. base, how is it not in the U.S. the same as any Embassy ? You don’t want to move that rock either.
aarrgghh
ot, but today happens to be the last day of the most recent deadline for the release of the hotly anticipated michelle "rant" tape from api.
unfortunately, to no surprise to many i’m sure …
well, you’ll have to look for yourself.
i’m sure this is just another temporary setback. the forces against them are more determined than ever, but they’re by no means insurmountable!
PaulW
There are fears that Bush will issue a blanket pardon to ALL participants… and could even try to pardon himself. Which ought to cause massive street riots if that ever happens. At the very least, this gets to be a major label the Democrats can stick on the GOP for the next 50 years: Get Bush the Elder’s Christmas pardons that effectively ended the Iran-Contra investigation, add that to Bush the Lesser’s potential pardon list and don’t forget Scooter, plus put Nixon’s old pardon into the mix, and you have a consistent history of the Republicans pardoning half their own party to clear out the crimes they’ve caused in office! That GOP pardon list makes the Clintons’ pardon list look like a genteel bruncheon get-together. How can any voter ever trust the Republicans anywhere near the White House with that kind of track record?
aarrgghh
if eight years of bush hasn’t already inspired massive street riots, nothing else will.
Leo
@Punchy: Short answer: Yes.
Slightly longer answer: The main issues with standing are usually whether you there is a law that was written to protect you, and whether you can show you were directly hurt by a violation of that law.
The real question that will come up is what laws are on the books protecting these people, and whether those laws allow private suits. If there are such laws (I really don’t know the answer to that, but I expect at the very least there are general personal injury tort laws that might apply), they will be able to bring suit. Showing they were injured shouldn’t be too fucking hard for them, I wouldn’t think.
Loneoak
@Punchy: If anyone can answer Punchy’s question, I have a similar one. I was under the impression that one cannot sue the government for financial settlements (except perhaps employment related suits). Am I wrong on that?
I kinda think Obama should go down to Gitmo, sit down with each detainee that is going to be released, apologize, write them a pardons and personally sign it, hand them citizenship papers if they want them, and $1M cash in a suitcase.
Wapiti
If Gitmo is a U.S. base, how is it not in the U.S. the same as any Embassy ? You don’t want to move that rock either.
As a soldier who was in Panama for Operation Just (Be)Cause, I’d extend this further:
If the US could try, convict, and imprison Manuel Noriega, it seems the US would have the authority to try US military, US civilians, and any other person on the face of the planet for these torture cases, no matter where on the planet the crimes took place.
Comrade Stuck
He might try and pardon his underlings from the wrath of the godless liberal pitchfork brigade, but I don’t think he will pardon himself. He will rely on the good graces of Obama to extend the recent tradition of pardoning presidential predecessors. Although, Obama releasing details in violation of the traditional transition pow wow must make junior sweat a little. At Least I hope so.
opit
Wapiti
Not that I’m against someone supportive of what I’ve said … but do you think that position would have a snowball’s chance in Hell in any international tribunal ?
Unabogie
From today’s interview:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/16/ 60minutes/main4607893_page3.shtml
Seems like the perfect answer, as far as I’m concerned.
Unabogie
Hmm, blockquotes came out all wrong. My apologies.
robertdsc
This.
Thursday
Well, we know the survivalist/gun manufacturer stocks are going to skyrocket if he does empty Gitmo.
And jewelers replacing broken pearl strings.
Leo
@Loneoak: I think you may be referring to sovereign immunity. That’s an old-fashioned concept that goes back to England; it says that the sovereign can’t be sued in his own courts unless immunity is waived.
Technically, that’s still the law. But in practice, the government has broad statutes that waive immunity for whole categories of cases. For example, the Tort Claims Act.
It’s beyond what I’m willing to do in blog comments to fully explore how this might all play out, but suffice it to say that I think that many prisoners at Guantanamo are very likely to be able to bring some kind of claim against the government in federal court. The litigation(s) could get very messy and complicated very quickly.
My best guess at a solution to this problem is that a system will be created with the specific purpose of handling these claims. That will create some efficiency (the participants won’t have to relearn the issues in every case, as would happen in ordinary court). It will also bring some regularity and order to the amount of the awards, which would otherwise be all over the place. If done right, such a system could do justice as best it can be done for the prisoner victims, while preventing each big case from becoming a media feeding frenzy.
garyb50
Will the pile of shit in Bush’s wake ever stop?
TenguPhule
Turn over Bush and his entire admin + lawyers to the detainees to do with as they please in exchange for waiving all liability from the new government.
Keith
I would imagine that Gitmo is considered sovereign US territory ala a US embassy or military base (similar logic to consider McCain eligible to run for prez in spite of being born in Panama)
jenniebee
There’s always the international option. Bush can do whatever he wants to try to protect his peeps, but his jurisdiction is limited to the US. Same with the evidence tainted by torture, I’d think – it wouldn’t prevent the ICC, if the ICC could be given standing here, from using evidence collected by other countries to convict the detainees who really should be convicted.
Look at this from the point of view of not just the US, but that of a foreign leader: our mess is now their mess, because it isn’t in the interest of any other western nation to have seriously dangerous people walk around free because of our fuck-up. So they might be willing to help. What they get out of it, of course, is the dirt on what our assholes did to those poor shmoes; they get a surer case to use at The Hague if they ever get their hands on anybody in this administration whose hands got dirty. Plus, they can probably also get our signature on the ICC in the bargain.
TenguPhule
If France ends up capturing and convicting the Bushies, will laugh for days.
JGabriel
Loneoak:
The strippers of Miami thank you.
.
JGabriel
(Dupe. Deleted by author.)
Mike G
How can any voter ever trust the Republicans anywhere near the White House with that kind of track record?
Too many of their mouth-breather base seem to want to be ruled by South American-style junta strongmen immune from any accountability. These sick fucks get vicarious thrills through their favorite thug-politicians bombing and torturing scary brown people.
demimondian
@PaulW: Until and unless the Congress chooses to use its unique enforcement power, impeachment, there’s no room for the dems to stand on.
burnspbesq
@Loneoak:
As a general rule, you can’t sue the Gubmint unless it consents to be sued, and courts tend to narrowly construe waivers of sovereign immunity (including strictly enforcing time limitations and the like).
42 U.S.C. 1983 is a fairly obvious waiver of sovereign immunity that allows people to sue the Gubmint for $ when their civil rights are violated. Whether the Gitmo detainees had civil rights within the meaning of 1983 is a question that I have never looked at and honestly don’t know the answer to.
Paying reparations to these guys to go home won’t be terribly expensive unless we develop a bad case of guilty conscience. Consider a hypothetical 25 year old Yemeni peasant with a third-grade education who can’t work on the family’s barely-above-subsistence farm because of injuries inflicted during his interrogation. The traditional American approach to damages would give him the present value of the difference between what he could have earned over his actuarially determined remaining work life absent the injuries and what he can earn in his current state. What’s the present value of $2,000 per year for 35 years?
Theoretically, if we fucked someone up badly enough, his family could sue for "loss of consortium," but what’s the likelihood of a Muslim woman testifying in a U.S. court about her sex life?
passerby
Warren Terra
Me, I’d like to see prosecution of those who authorized and mandated torture, but I’m pretty sure it won’t happen.
Wapiti:
If the US could try, convict, and imprison Manuel Noriega, it seems the US would have the authority to try US military, US civilians, and any other person on the face of the planet for these torture cases, no matter where on the planet the crimes took place.
I’m hopeful (and suspect as true) that the other signitaries of the Geneva Convention are already looking at a means of prosecuting this blatant violation in some world court.
As for Bush and his pardon list, it would be a shame if he was able to wield such power after his criminal participation over the past 8 years.
I’m wanting to believe that he’ll lack the immunity from prosecution for the war crimes he’s committed and will be legally prohibited from enacting pardons. Why doesn’t he just make the pardons now while he still can? (seriously asking)
No, I’m not a lawyer. No, I don’t believe in Santa Claus but, with so little information available regarding the activities of the World Court (IWC) isn’t it possible that legal action can be exercised by them based on some binding treaty or something?
No telling what’s going on behind the scenes. And actually…we don’t know jack. This is what gives me the "audacity of hope". Obama seems to be standing firm on this to hear him tell it on 60 minutes.
pattonbt
Whatever the outcome, the best way to deal with this will be with a bright spotlight on everything that went on – like a ‘truth commission’. The more open the process is the better. We need to know exactly what went on in our name.
While I believe Obama will close Guantanamo and give some sort of legal due process to the current detainees, I see no way that any action can or will be brought against those in the current administration and the low level people who carried out such atrocities.
Do I want to see justice against the current administration? Almost as much as I wanted Hopey to win the election. Wars for pleasure and torture are just plain evil – full stop. But political reality will keep Bush, Cheney and all the rest fron seeing any meaningful repercussions for their actions.
But maybe a truth commission will do enough to tarnish their beloved ‘legacies’ with the stain of vileness forever, which will be some small compensation.
burnspbesq
I don’t think Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, or any of the rest of those scumbags will be held accountable for their actions in this world.
I take some solace from the belief that when the time comes, they will have to answer to a higher authority.
sparky
with all due respect, and with the caveat that nothing in this comment is legal advice, i disagree.
first, from the link, the Second Circuit has decided to rehear the appeal. though it’s potentially important that it’s an en banc rehearing it’s impossible to say what the outcome will be. presumably, whatever the outcome, the losing side will at least consider appealing to the supreme court.
second, my understanding (not having done it myself) is that constitutional torts are difficult to litigate, and there are quite a number of hurdles to jump through. that’s assuming there’s even an available remedy here. since there isn’t actually an answer to that question yet, i think the speculation may be a bit premature.
Zach
Frankly, the idea that any of the folks currently in Gitmo, many years removed from their previously circles, pose any specific threat at all remotely similar to the terrorists and terrorist recruits currently in action is laughable. No on in Gitmo has any special knowledge conducive to carrying out an attack.
The middle way is to reevaluate all prisoners, prosecute the worst (who have probably been tortured) in the existing tribunal system (which Obama doesn’t oppose I think), prosecute when possible and applicable in more legitimate domestic courts, release those you’ve no reason to suspect to wherever they wish, and release those who you’ve reason to suspect but have tainted possible prosecution by torture or don’t have sufficient evidence to the custody of their home countries.
There’s probably no middle way to end official, extrajudicial incarceration without incurring criticism from the right that you’re letting terrorists roam free, though.
The risk is somewhat akin to judges choosing not to impose the maximum possible sentence on rapists or what have you and then getting pilloried by Bill O’Reilly when the perp goes and kills some white girl while on parole. The immediate political downside of releasing past terrorism suspects is probably something Obama can deal with, but the mammoth shitshow that’d ensue if one of those released was involved in a future terrorist attack is immeasurable.
What will likely happen is that the majority of prisoners will be released only to serve sentences for trumped up charges in their home countries as the result of negotiations between their country’s officials and Americans. This is not remotely just, but I think it’s probably what’ll happen, and even then there will be inevitable exceptions that’ll be impossible to deal with without considerable risk.
opit
I don’t believe that risking prosecution at the International Court in the Hague and domestic prosecution wouldn’t have been taken prepared for by legal staff in advance of all the activities that we haven’t nearly seen all the repercussions of yet : including passing of ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards. I’m reasonably sure I saw something about such being passed before 9/11 !
Civil suit against Bush, Cheny, et al for driving men mad and making them wards of the state would be about the best one could hope for : a tiny fraction of a per cent of the damage and theft that has gone on.
Answering to higher authority doesn’t seem to have been any deterrent. You can tell that they take that as spin for the rubes.
Craig
We can justify holding on to a great number of them by simply treating them as prisoners of war. There’s nothing complicated about it–we are still at war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and have no obligation to repatriate prisoners of war until the conflicts are settled. Yes, we will have to treat them as human beings. Yes, we will have to let the Red Cross in to hear their stories about how the United States of America has seen fit to behave in the 21st Century. We are going to have a lot of lumps to take over what was done in our names at Gitmo. We might as well get on with it.
passerby
The American people just voted a man of color into the highest seat in government. A good man in all appearances. Political reality seems to be shifting.
Amen to a truth commission. There’s a lot of evidence of market trading that went on prior to 9/11 and nary a scrap of that info has made it into the main stream. I really would like that all to come out in the open. Who got rich(er) during the Bush/Cheney terms?
Here’s hoping.
gwangung
Um. No.
I think it’s more complicated than you think.
tofubo
can someone riddle me this
regarding geneva IV
if art 147 says: Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
and if art 148 says: No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.
can UU. pardon himself and others ?? what trumps what, the only kingly power a president has or the laws that he is bound by ??
just askin’
Reagankid
Just throwing this out there: for the record, there has been no follow-up 9-11 since Bush was in office. Republicans and Democrats alike were scared to death when a plane almost made it to D.C. – our nation’s capital – to bomb our leaders and lawmakers. You can condemn our leaders for allowing Guantanamo Bay to exist, you can critique their methods, but you are able to do it because they were also ensuring your safety.
Few people have access to the kind of intelligence that the President gets briefed on; anybody notice the green-around-the-gills appearance of Obama at the press conference, right after he’d been briefed? He knows which way the wind is blowing, but don’t assume that just because he supports shutting down Gitmo, he doesn’t also support opening up another, somewhere else.
Take a minute to remember how the nation felt on 9-11. Airports across the nation were shut down – transportation was impossible. The liberal illuminati would love to beat up on the guy in charge on the day that happened. You don’t have to agree with his decisions, but you better be grateful that someone was making the hard calls for you.
Comrade Stuck
And such is life in the US of A. We just don’t prosecute former presidents, though more than a few likely deserved it. Presnit Grant was hole up in the Oval Office drunk as a skunk while his minions were making illicit deals in the hallway outside. This went on for a couple of terms.
And you can forget about World Courts and the like, just not going to happen. The best we can hope for is something like a truth commission, and to get the actual truth, a lot of immunity will have to be given out. It will taste very bad doing this, but the likely price for finding out what really happened. And even then, a lot of it will remain classified. But with this particular presidency, I think the country needs to air it’s dirty laundry to a large degree in order to become whole again. I think it will happen and that Obama gets it. But we shall see.
pattonbt
@Reagankid:
Just for the record, there was no equivalent follow up to Pearl Harbour until 9/11 (thats about as close as one can get I think to 9/11). So by my count, we shouldnt expect another 9/11 until 2061?
So I should be happy that only one catastrophic attack happened while Dear Leader was in office? One he chose to ingore the threat of? Yikes, such amazingly low standards you have.
He made such hard decisions, like killing hundreds of thousands of brown people in a fit of pique over someone who threatened his daddy. How heroic.
Beej
@Reagankid: And torturing people, some of whom had done nothing basically nothing (see the case of the Canadian who was wrongfully "rendered" to Syria) is the only way to insure our safety? God, how did we manage after Pearl Harbor without torturing people? Jeez, I guess we should just be grateful that George and Dickie knew how much really accurate info you get from torture.
I don’t know who you are, but Go. Away. Go far away. Don’t come back.
A Squirrel
ReaganKid,
I do remember how I felt post 9-11. Those feelings didn’t include the desire to round up and torture goat-herders.
Deciding to run a torture camp is not leadership. It is craven, and it is also craven to excuse such wholesale forfeiture of decency.
You know, stiff upper lip, mate.
opit
One last note. Afghanistan and Iraq did not invade the United States. Any ‘war’ going on is the result of choosing to put troops in harm’s way. The purpose of these deployments might as well be simple target practice for all that the occupations will accomplish.
Think I’m cynical ? Google "Khyber Pass" for a historical perspective on what westerners were up to – in 1838 and 1839 ! This folly has been on the radar for a long time : Forever War is a title that’s more truth than poetry.
What about 911 ? Damned if I know. The site was never subjected to forensic analysis on site of the kind one would find after any plane crash. I sure am not about to take the word of the man who sent US troops into Iraq to find bullshit WMD after Cheney had exposed the CIA case officer and blown the network.
Al Qaeda ? What’s the name of that group working undercover for the CIA to kill Iranians ?
kidkawartha
Another amateur legal thought- what’s to stop the detainees from filing a class-action suit against all guilty parties after inauguration? Every single one of them will be private citizens at that point, and if they can’t file it in the US, why not file it with the IWC? More importantly, if successful, it should have financial penalties attached to the indiduals charged, not the taxpayers of the United States. Maybe we could bankrupt the whole lot of fuckers, starting with Shotgun Dick.
Objective Scrutator
Barack Obama must appoint John Brennan if we are to maintain our great nation. If he doesn’t, then Iran will still stand as the cowardly nation it’s always been, ever since the Persians, and the numerous Islamofascists our troops have worked so hard to capture will just be released on the streets to do parades involving Columbian neckties and other immoral activities.
The necessity of torturing detainees is crystal clear to all but the most heartless and ignorant among us. I can think of an Epicurus analogy that actually makes sense, in this context (while the original was nothing but Leftist propaganda). If an Islamofascist is tortured, and he was guilty, then our nation has been saved, thanks to the valuable information we’ve obtained, and the successful neutralizing of another terrorist. If an Islamofascist isn’t tortured, and he was guilty, then our government is shown to be incompentent, and they’ll have to waste their time with another self-righteous mother. If an Islamofascist is tortured, and he wasn’t guilty, then no further harm comes to us (unless you count the opinions of irrelevant Socialist countries swaying against us, which I actually view as good). If an Islamofascist isn’t tortured, and he isn’t guilty, then we don’t need to worry over our pointless foreign relationships, but we didn’t accomplish anything in the War on Terror.
This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. I sincerely hope you’re joking.
This is absolutely true. Can any liberal mention any other day, ever since we kicked the Commies to the ground, where Americans set aside their partisan accords and bitter grudges, and instead just grasped hands and said to the Islamofascists, "We shall be avenged!" ? Perhaps we need another 9/11.
As for Islamofascists, as my Epicurus analogy can show, torturing them can only bring good to us. In fact, we aren’t torturing enough of them. Aren’t they receiving super fattening chicken dinners every night?
TenguPhule
ANTHRAX MAILINGS YOU STUPID FUCK.
TenguPhule
You mean "Where is he? What do you mean that dumb shit is reading to schoolkids instead of doing his job?!"
Yeah, I’ve never forgotten it.
Ed Marshall
Reagankid can eat a dick.
If you think any of this helped you, you are deluded. Read some books on AQ. GWB and gitmo didn’t stop them. Physics did. They had to keep topping the last, big thing and they got stuck after 9/11. The best they could do was what they do in Afghanistan (paying nobody’s to go fight with a couple rounds of ammo, a bread in the form of nan, and a blanket) which should have sucked ass without the Iraq war.
tammanycall
Why the "if"?
Obama said:
on 60 minutes today. It was on the tee vee so I know it’s true.
CBS News Link
rachel
@kidkawartha: I hope they will, and the bigger the stink they make, the better. More light!
Marshall
This will go on for decades. 50 years from now Bush administration underlings will be being prosecuted for what they did in 2002 and 2003.
MNPundit
The problem with Glenn Greenwald has been that he has been screaming every single day for the last 4 years. What’s the saying? When it’s all especially important nothing is especially important.
wilfred
This is two times that I’ve Tim refer to these men as ‘Muslim’ prisoners, an important distinction since the only thing they share is their Muslimness. Correcting this disgrace will go a long way in convincing Muslims the world over that the war on terror is not a war on Islam – even though that is exactly what a lot of deeply stupid people apparently want.
One disagreement. We have gelded the Geneva standards, and will continue to do so as long as enough decent people are not appalled by Bushypocrisy – the kind that made it ok to deprive some people of their human rights, subject them to torture and otherwise strip them of diginity as long as other people were respected and accorded the rights of the Geneva Convention.
AnneLaurie
On approximately December 26, a Navy/Airforce training flight goes "mysteriously astray" and dumps a metric shiteload of ordnance on Guantanamo. Administration officials blame the "terrible accident" on Raoul Castro, or the Venezualan military, or possibly on rogue Al-Queda elements in some random Central or South American nation. (But not, of course, Paraguay.) Unfortunately, forensic details are hard to come by, since radioactivity in the vicinity of the smoking crater is off the charts, and ongoing air strikes are running 24/7 "to contain emissions and prevent further environmental damage"…
But Lynne Cheney & Laura Bush will use their alloted time at Obama’s inauguration to announce a joint charity effort to build "the biggest, best memorial ever" to "our fallen heroes in the war against terror", after which it will become politically impossible to bring up any questions about what the Media Village Idiots will identify as "a complicated, tragic minor incident within our great nation’s ongoing struggle."
drunken hausfrau
annelaurie — do you write horror stories? You scared the crap out of me… because I actually think Bushco is stupid and craven enough to do something like that! Eeek!
Tim F.
Yes, that is what I mean to say. We have no idea which of our prisoners ever did anything against the US. Most of them did nothing at all. When I hear a rightwing asshat describe our prisoners collectively as terrorists I want to hang him from a coathook by his underpants.
dbrown
The real issue that most people have missed here is that the Guantanamo Bay prisoner’s home countries will not take them back. With no country to return too, where will these people go after release? Unless a third party takes them we have to keep them. That is a legal problem that has never been solved.
tofubo
sorry, have to do this, regarding Objective Scrutator from above
If an Islamofascist is tortured, and he wasn’t guilty, then no further harm comes to us … As for Islamofascists, as my Epicurus analogy can show, torturing them can only bring good to us. In fact, we aren’t torturing enough of them
i can’t even begin to condemn those remarks enough
from your blog:
http://calvinists4conservatism.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/a-truly-terrifying-view-of-the-future/
(subhead: Christian Reconstructionists Making Palin President and Assisting Her Agenda)
If Iraq Hussein Osama wins, he will undeniably court pack the Supreme Court, just as that Commie FDR did in the 30s…
Homosexuals should be quarantined and stoned by the government…
If anything, allowing our children to be taught that homosexuality is natural will increase the ferocity of bully attacks, as bullies will now be able to sodomize our children on the swings and face little to no reprimand for doing so. Our children will be encouraged to get a sex change if they want to; sex change operations will be performed by the school nurses, and they will be forced to experiment with a condom in forced sex with an older, pedophilic teacher…
Homosexuals are notoriously bad parents, as the results have shown, and about the only parents that are nearly as bad as homosexuals are single parents, polygamous parents, or bestial parents…
Homosexuals are far more expensive to care for than heterosexuals, and far more likely to be engaged in gang activity, alcoholism, and crack cocaine…
We ought to respect the rights of doctors to avoid checking a homosexual’s private organs, since in a sensible society, administering towards a patient of the opposite sex would be punished by death, due to its deviancy. No person should have to examine the genitalia of a homosexual that is likely masturbating towards them…
Any student that carries around a Bible at school or prays will immediately be detained and sent to the principal’s office, where he will be tortured until he renounces the Bible and promises to help the school apprehend those that do pray…
Any infant who is not proclaimed by the witch doctors that preach the gospel of science as sufficiently sexually abnormal, Islamist, atheist, or white will be required to be ripped out of the mother’s womb and immediately killed, while any infant that does meet those qualifications will be forcibly ripped from the mother’s body, anyways, and will carry out the remainder of their development (until they can walk and talk) in a giant test tube. Bibles will be dropped in to each of these test tubes, and if the baby is drawn to it, the child will immediately be destroyed for the purpose of stem cell research…
Any nurse that doesn’t deliver an abortion will forcibly be stripped of her job, and then continually raped by Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and their ‘human’ clones until a baby is conceived, after which it will be partially aborted until the woman professes respect for abortion…
The Iraqi people will be subject to a joint United Nations – Al Qaeda government, where they will be required to profess violence towards anyone that is a capitalist and a Christian, while professing Pacifism towards those that defend Allah. Terrorists will no longer be tortured, but will instead be provided with copies of rubbish Leo Tolstoy books and the Quran, and democracy will routinely be mocked by TV shows that are directed by Matt Damon. Women will be required to wear a new burqa that covers all of the body except for the breasts and the vagina, which will be required to be completely uncovered, lest they receive a trillion lashes…
i’d say it’s comedy, but it just continues on and on
god you need help
Doug H. (Comrade Fausto no more)
And if you think that’s bad, wait’ll you get a load of Jon Swift and Jesus’s General.
RememberNovember
Given Obama’s background, I’m sure he will fine-tooth comb over it rather than shoot from the hip.
RememberNovember
@59 I say we put them all on a boat to the Phillipines where they could be caned for such behavior….or maybe they could be milk tasters in China.
Cyrus
Since you don’t mention anthrax – obviously not literally another 9/11, but obviously still significant and frightening terrorism – I have to wonder, are you lying in the above paragraph, or simply dumb?
And @tofubo: don’t worry, I’m pretty sure he’s a spoof.
Dennis - SGMM
@dbrown:
True. I’d guess that part of the reason their home countries may not want them is because if they weren’t radicals when they were incarcerated they sure as hell are radicals now.
jenniebee
@Cyrus:
Depends on what you mean by "follow-up," which implies that the same actors or actors sympathetic to their cause were involved. The latest publicly released theory of who sent the anthrax letters was that it was a US Army civilian research scientist who did it to try to convince The Village that immediate military action was necessary.
ezdidit
The U.S. judiciary has disqualified itself in these matters. Prejudice attaches when the entire system that has been built was utterly destroyed by such abuses.
…a middle way: Rendition to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, perhaps, for adjudication.
It would be a good way to start the ball rolling on a Bush Cheney prosecution.
Cyrus
@jenniebee: True, which is probably why conservatives want to forget about it. The basic point still stands, though: the idea that the Bush administration protected the country from terrorism except for 9/11 and therefore we should forgive Republicans for extremism in defense of America is false. There was indeed another terrorist attack and the attacker was never caught.
Objective Scrutator
@ tofubu: You’re taking the quotes out of context. When you read them alongside the James Dobson letter, it makes a lot of sense.
@ Cyrus: You liberals forgave FDR when Pearl Harbor happened, even though the evidence of Japanese plans was clear. Why are you so quick to bash Bush, when it is, in fact, Clinton’s fault?
@ jenniebee: Wow, that’s pretty bizarre. Like Michelle Malkin would say, though, at least the people that died were old.
PaulB
Because he wants the inevitable firestorm that will arise to wait until his last day in office.
Tony J
It’s worth pointing out, for the umpteenth time, that the reason AQ didn’t have to carry out another Sept-11 style attack on the US was because the first attack succeeded in achieving its primary tactical aim, which was to draw the US into a larger version of the Soviet adventure in Afghanistan.
Remember, prior to Sept-11, AQ was a fringe grouping confined to the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, because they’d been widely rejected by the rest of the muslim world for their methods and driven out of every other country they’d tried to take over.
Sept-11 was their last throw of the dice, and it paid off for them big style. And for that, you have to thank the Bush Regime and the neo-cons who took AQ’s wish-list and turned it into official US policy.
tofubo
You’re taking the quotes out of context. When you read them alongside the James Dobson letter, it makes a lot of sense.
in just what context does "Homosexuals should be quarantined and stoned by the government" make sense ?? i’m at a loss there
Terry Karney
Gitmo is an odd duck. It is not US territory as an embassy is.
It’s rather a US Base. The quirk comes in why/how we have it. Bases in other countries (Iraq being the other present exception) are subject to Satus Of Forces Agreements (SOFA), which detail what rights the host nation has over the actions of service personnel stationed there.
So committing torture in Germany, by way of example, is a crime; because the SOFA prohibits it. With Cuba we have no SOFA, because we don’t recognise them (so we can’t enter into treaties).
The Bush Administration avers this means no law applies. They are wrong. The War Crimes Act of 1998, says that War Crimes by american citizens are crimes no matter where they happen (this means the folks in Iraq who have depended on CPA Order 17 to claim they are immune from all prosecution are wrong). The punishment is capital, if the victim of the crime died.
If the victim survives the punishment can’t more more than life in prison.
So, an Obama DoJ, has options to prosecute all sorts of people; if he has the will.
Terry Karney
Cyrus: Contectually, the anthrax isn’t the same; unless you have some sort of proof it was an al Qaeda (or affiliate) operation.
Because, by that logic, (all attacks are the follow on to some other attack), we have a lot, it’s just that most of them were by white americans, of a conservative mindset; and many of them predate 9/11.