Originally Posted by roachboy

the notion of prisoners of war doesn't quite apply to the folk rounded up by the bush people under the aegis of the "war on terror"---and the category "detainee"was invented out of thin air as an extension of the understanding that was current in the more explicitly--um--irregular phase of the bush period that prisoner of war did not, in fact cover these people.

as for the question of who controls the discourse: i think there's several factors that are playing into what control means---there's the problem of continuity that obama already buckled before when he decided not to prosecute the people who designed this fucked up policy. afghanistan is the logical extension of the "war on terror"and obama said from the outset that he understood it in those terms. there's a legitimacy problem that obama also ran up to the edge of addressing an then buckled in the face of. (here's my cake. i am also eating it.) there are separate problems for the republicans. the democrats who were in office were also almost across the board implicated in approving this stuff. and there's a passive television dominated media environment in which cost-effective news gathering practices apparently make it just dandy to accept and run whatever footage handed out and the press conference of your choice. these all converge of delightful matters like how to manage a fundamental political crisis that would be unfolding in the middle of something that's more than just an economic crisis, but more a transitional phase from one worldview that enframed capitalism into---well, what? nothing it seems like at this point.

and there's what filtherton said.