dlish

if after 7 years, the US drops charges against those it deems the 'worst of the worst', i really do wonder why Gitmo exists at all.

if enough evidence cant be produced in a kangaroo court to convict these suspects, then i dare say they be freed. Keeping detainees against Geneva Conventions coupled with human rights violations, renditions and waterboarding does little to further the cause of the US in the eyes of the global community.

if theres enough evidence, by all means try them and convict them justly. there are now 22 innocent people languishing in Gitmo that we know of. There 5, plus 17 Uighurs who cannot be repatriated back to China for saftey issues. heres a link if anyone is interested about the Uighurs story.

US court blocks release of Uighurs from Guantanamo - Yahoo! News

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roachboy

here's a longer article on the same problem(s):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/wa...hp&oref=slogin

this is one of those situations that the bush people made ex nihilo that has done real damage. and there's a kind of poetic justice to the way this has started--finally--to collapse--charges about the suppression of evidence leading to a whisteblowing resignation.

it's pretty clear that there's nothing about the united states that saves it from organized hysteria, given the correct circumstances. in a context of organized hysteria, the "system of checks and balances" can be and was overridden, and genuinely appalling outcomes can result--and have resulted. there's an arrogance amongst the flag-waving set about the system here, that it is always and in every situation above reproach, and this despite an extensive history of actions elsewhere that obviate that, despite such debacles as the war in vietnam which should have overridden it---but such was the function of the meme "the vietnam syndrome" and the massive reactionary circle-jerk that was the reagan administration's "feel good about america" thing, an ideological lobotomy that opened the possibility up for this kind of outrageous action.

gitmo. there's an entire political class that knuckled under on this one. there's hell to pay for it, sooner or later.

at the moment, though, there remains this bizarre circle--they "want to close" gitmo but they "can't figure out how to do it" because, well, some of the folk who were illegally emprisoned there--in some cases after a lovely vacation in that special amusment area brought to you by the republican party called "extraordinary rendition"---some of them pose logistical problems. they say. so these folk will continue to rot in this place until the next president comes in to erase the whole situation.

the "war on terror"--the phase between 2001 and 2005---was a low point. what's happening in the economic order now is a political consequence of it. there will be more consequences.

personally, i'd like to see rumsfeld at the least brought up on crimes against humanity charges for this.

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