In January 2002, the Pentagon began imprisoning men it described as “very hard cases”—“the worst of the worst” terrorists in American custody—at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. During the next seven years it released more than 500 of them. “What’s left,” Vice President Dick Cheney declared in the final week of the Bush administration, “is the hard core.” That was a few days before the Pentagon released half a dozen more.
Unless the Bush administration recklessly loosed hundreds of hardened terrorists on the world, its initial descriptions of the detainees were mistaken. That pattern of error reinforces the argument against allowing the executive branch to wield the unchallengeable authority it asserted at Guantanamo.
As President Obama proceeds with his plan to close the prison, he should recognize that Guantanamo is not so much a place as a state of mind. It’s an attitude that says: We know who the bad guys are, and we’re not about to let anyone endanger national security by second-guessing us.
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Showing posts with label guantanamo bay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guantanamo bay. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
"Guantanamo State Of Mind"
Jacob Sullum writes for Reason:
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Cheney Attacks Obama For Following The Law
CNN reports:
Obama should ignore this, but Holder should get the ball rolling on a criminal investigation into Bush officials' illegal actions. Cheney is obviously trying to goad Obama into a war of words to make any future prosecution look like personal retribution. But this shouldn't be about Cheney or Obama. It should be about the law. Torture is torture. Period.
Update:
Andrew Sullivan shows how America's torture practices under Bush are having serious consequences for our country's relationship with the UK.
Update II:
More from Sullivan, this time on Cheney's inexcusable behavior.
Update III:
Sullivan links to Spencer Ackerman's thorough take down of the nonsense Cheney continues to spew.
The Obama administration's new policies on Guantanamo Bay prison and the treatment of detainees makes it more likely a terrorist attack against the United States will succeed, former Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday.
In an interview with Politico, the former vice president issued a stringent defense of the Bush administration's record on the war on terror, and said he worries the President Obama has already made the country more vulnerable.
“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said in the interview published Wednesday.
Obama should ignore this, but Holder should get the ball rolling on a criminal investigation into Bush officials' illegal actions. Cheney is obviously trying to goad Obama into a war of words to make any future prosecution look like personal retribution. But this shouldn't be about Cheney or Obama. It should be about the law. Torture is torture. Period.
Update:
Andrew Sullivan shows how America's torture practices under Bush are having serious consequences for our country's relationship with the UK.
Update II:
More from Sullivan, this time on Cheney's inexcusable behavior.
Update III:
Sullivan links to Spencer Ackerman's thorough take down of the nonsense Cheney continues to spew.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Guantanamo Baywatch: The Final Season
Jon Stewart continues to deliver spot-on commentary made more popular through mixing it in with comedy. Special bonus: Steve King rears his xenophobic Golem look-alike head midway through the clip. And I really do get tired of saying this again and again and again, but I can't help feeling a pang of shame when "R-Iowa" shows up after the congressman's name.
(http://www.thedailyshow.com via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
(http://www.thedailyshow.com via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)
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