No Wonder Congress Wants to Hide The Gitmo Detainees

[deminks]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/04/no-wonder-congress-wants-to-hide-the-gitmo-detainees/237841/

Whatever else the latest Wikileaks dump says about our nation's inapt (and inept) handling of the terror-law detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the newly-revealed documents remind us again of the wide gulf between what Bush administration officials consistently told us about the prisoners and what was actually happening on the ground in Cuba.

President Bush called the men "the worst of the worst" when he knew they weren't. An attorney general of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, called the detainees "killers" when the clear and compelling evidence indicated otherwise. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went even further. He called the men "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth." That we've known about these and many other risible contradictions for at least the past five years makes them no more acceptable today.

We were told these lies so that we would support the political and ideological priorities of the men who told them. We were told these lies so that we would not sooner start asking good questions about the legal justification for the way the Gitmo prisoners were being treated. In the words of Andy Worthington of The Guardian, "it was important to dehumanise the men held at Guantanamo, to give life to the myth that the prison held 'the worst of the worst.'"

(snip)

It's no wonder Congress has decided to try to bury the detainees at Gitmo, figuratively if not literally, by precluding federal civilian trials for some of the men. Such trials would have revealed -- to American juries and the world's media -- much of the information that is contained in the new documents. Better to prey upon the fears and prejudices of the American people -- there's that government myth-making again -- than to face the consequences of the official conduct that was undertaken in our name. Indeed, the documents reveal just how cowardly Congress was in its handling of the case of Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

(end snip)

[Mnemosyne]

1. Innocents are still being held and the true War Criminals walk free. K&R n/t

[midnight]

2. K&R...