Currently viewing the tag: "Guantanamo"

Do Republican Leaders Actually Buy Their Own B.S.?

by Metavirus on 23 May 2009

Publius makes a very important and provocative point about the Defcon 1 level of Republican pearl-clutching right now over the possible transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to U.S. Supermax prisons:

[T]here’s actually one thing even more disturbing than Republican dishonesty — the possibility that they are sincerely afraid of transferring the detainees. Some critics are clearly lying — no argument there. But it may well be that other Republicans are sincerely worried that the detainees’ evilness cannot be contained by any prison, or that they will brainwash their hapless prisonmates. [...]

[W]hat’s truly disturbing is that a sizeable chunk of the public still fears that the Gitmo detainees are so dangerous that they could break out and destroy towns in America with laser beams from their eyes. Some of the detainees are, of course, very bad and dangerous people. But the idea that America is so very fragile and helpless in the face of these overpowering evil forces that we can’t transfer the detainees to another prison (or give them real trials) is absurd.

So let’s hope the GOP really is lying on this one.

I’ve often wondered how much of their own lying bullshit they actually bought into. I mostly just assumed they were craven liars who knew they were pushing positions that weren’t in line with the facts. The truth may be scarier — do some of them (e.g. Michele Bachmann) actually believe some of it? The thought of that really creeps me out.

Steve Benen meditates on Publius’ thought:

[Lying] would be more comforting. Blatant dishonesty for partisan gain is much easier to understand than rampant stupidity among leading federal lawmakers.

It’s hard to say with any certainty, and there’s no doubt some variety within the group — some liars and some fools — but for what it’s worth, there’s ample evidence to support the “blatant dishonesty for partisan gain” theory. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Republicans see the debate over Gitmo as “the culmination of a carefully developed GOP strategy,” which they hope to use as “the beginning of a political comeback.”

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NYC Terror Plot Foiled; We Must Now Shoot the Terrorists into Space

by Metavirus on 21 May 2009

Great news about a suspected terror plot in New York City being foiled:

“Four men from upstate New York were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at Stewart Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.

The men were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, provided by an informant with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.

The arrests capped what officials described as a “painstaking investigation” that began in June 2008 involving an F.B.I. agent who had been told of the men’s desire to attack targets in America by a federal informant. As part of the plot, the men intended to fire guided stinger missiles at military aircraft at Stewart International Airport, officials said.”

This of course leaves us with a huge problem. As we’ve been told by the GOP and Harry Reid, our prisons in the United States are incapable of holding these omnipotent arch-criminals (who likely possess powerful super powers). The obvious solution to assuage the nebulous NIMBYism sweeping the country right now is to (without trial of course) lock the suspects away in the Phantom Zone and blast them into the dark reaches of space. Problem solved!Here’s Hilzoy with some other good suggestions:
I assume that if it’s too dangerous to move people at Guantanamo to the United States, it must be much too dangerous to allow these jihadists to run loose in our prisons. After all, they might provide financing for other jihadists from their supermax cells, or radicalize other prisoners, or use special Terrorist Mind Control Techniques to create a whole army of brainwashed convicts under their complete control.

I’d suggest killing them, cutting them into pieces, and shipping their parts to parts unknown immediately (trials? who can afford trials under these circumstances?), if I weren’t afraid that some hitherto unknown al Qaeda trick might allow their reanimated body parts to slither around in search of one another and, eventually, reconstitute themselves as the Islamofascist Undead. Earlier, I thought we should send prisoners into space, but that was before I realized that that would allow them to join forces with the Klingons.

In fact, I can’t think of a single thing to do that would not make matters worse.

We’re doomed.

Jor-El!!!!!!!

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Quote of the Day: Greenwald on Gitmo

by Metavirus on 20 May 2009

Ha!

[W]hile it’s true that ”not a single prisoner has escaped from Gitmo since it was created,” it’s also true that no Muslim Terrorists have escaped from American prisons and our SuperMax prison “has had no escapes or serious attempts to escape.” Actually, the only person to even make an escape attempt from a SuperMax is Green Arrow, who hasn’t succeeded despite the help of Joker and Lex Luthor.
h/t Spencer Ackerman

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Harry Reid is a Cowardly, Weak-Kneed Tool – UPDATED

by Metavirus on 20 May 2009

As I mentioned here before, I find Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to be a cowardly, spineless tool.

Yesterday, Reid basically signed on to the latest GOP Manufactured Outrage Event (TM) and torpedoed Obama’s request for funding to shut down Guantanamo. Here’s what he said:

QUESTION: If the United States — if the United States thinks that these people should be held, why shouldn’t they be held in the United States? Why shouldn’t the U.S. take those risks, the attendant risk of holding them, since it’s the one that says they should be held?

REID: I think there’s a general feeling, as I’ve already said, that the American people, and certainly the Senate, overwhelmingly doesn’t want terrorists to be released in the United States. And I think we’re going to stick with that.

QUESTION: What about in imprisoned in the United States?

REID: If you’re…

(CROSSTALK)

REID: If people are — if terrorists are released in the United States, part of what we don’t want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.

Fuck Reid and the horse he rode in on. It’s brain-dead shit like this that may someday drive me out of the arms of the Democratic Party. Is there anyone in the halls of power besides Obama with any intestinal fortitude?

With all the posts I’ve had to write on Reid, I am rapidly running out of adjectives synonymous with “cowardly”, “stupid” and “ineffective”.

Earlier: Why I Think Harry Reid is a Tool; Blue Dogs, Harry Reid and Congressional Wranglings; Why Harry Reid is a Tool, Part 3

Update: John Cole highlights this story about Reid’s re-election chances:

Nearly half of Nevadans have had enough of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as the powerful Democrat heads into his re-election campaign, a new Las Vegas Review-Journal poll finds.

About a third of the state’s voters would re-elect Reid if the 2010 election were held today, according to the poll, but 45 percent say they would definitely vote to replace him. Seventeen percent would consider another candidate.

He and I see eye to eye:
Yeah. It would just break my heart if Harry Reid loses.
Update 2: Harry Reid should take some lessons in moxie from Dick Durbin:

Some of my Republican colleagues argue that Guantanamo is the only appropriate place to hold the detainees and they said, and I quote, ‘We don’t have a facility that could handle this in the United States,’ end of quote. And American prison guards, they went on to say, quote, ‘have no idea what they’re getting into,’ close quote.

Well, I would just say to my colleagues who made those statements, you ought to take a look at some of our security facilities in the United States, and you ought to have a little more respect for the men and women who are corrections officers and put their lives on the line every single day to keep us safe and to make sure that those who are dangerous are detained and incarcerated. The reality is that we’re holding some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world right now in our federal prisons, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the shoe bomber, the Unibomber, and many others.
h/t Steve Benen

Update 3: Greenwald sums up the process that leads Harry Reid to be a spineless, quivering pansy:

(1) Right-wing super-tough-guy warriors project some frightened, adolescent, neurotic fantasy onto the world — either because they are really petrified by it or because they want others to be (“Putting Muslim Terrorists in our prisons will make us Unsafe! – Keep them away from me, please!!!“);

(2) Rather than scoff at the inane fear-mongering or point out simple facts to reveal its idiocy, Democratic “leaders” such as Harry Reid echo the right-wing fears in order to prove how Serious and Tough they are — in our political debates, the more frightened one is, the more Serious and Tough one is — and/or because they are genuinely frightened of being called mean names by Sean Hannity (“Harry Reid isn’t as scared of this as I am, which shows that he’s weak”);

(3) “Journalists” who are capable of nothing other than mindlessly reciting what they hear then write articles depicting the Right’s frightened neurosis as a Serious argument, and then overnight, a consensus emerges: Democrats are in big trouble politically unless they show that they, too, are as deeply frightened as the Right is.

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Pearl-Clutching Over Prayer Day? Are You Seriously F*ing Kidding Me?

by Metavirus on 7 May 2009

Hot on the heels of my last post about how mind-numbingly infantile the GOP has become, I was greeted with these two articles in my Google Reader:

In the early 1950s, when lawmakers were adding “under God” to the Pledge and changing all American money to include the phrase “In God We Trust,” Congress created an official annual Prayer Day for the nation. Congress, under pressure from the religious right, changed the law in 1988 to set the National Day of Prayer as the first Thursday in May. Obama, like his predecessors, issued a proclamation (pdf) honoring the “holiday.”

Unlike George W. Bush, Obama didn’t open up the White House to the self-appointed National Day of Prayer Task Force, run by religious right activists, which has hosted exclusive events for the last eight years.

This has led a variety of conservatives to make a variety of demonstrably false claims.

Lie #1: Rush Limbaugh said Obama tried to “cancel” the National Day of Prayer.
That’s obviously not true; Obama issued a proclamation acknowledging the day. No effort was made to “cancel” anything.

Lie #2: Fox News’ online project, Fox Nation, said the president “won’t celebrate” the National Day of Prayer.
Again, the proclamation proves otherwise.
Lie #3: Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson said the president’s decision to participate in “private” prayer on “National Prayer Day” is evidence of Obama “giving in to the PC society that we live in.”
No one pressured Obama to keep the National Day of Prayer Task Force out of the White House; it was just the obvious thing to do. As for the knock on “private” prayer, I might recommend Gretchen Carlson read Matthew 6:6.
Lie #4: Fox News’ Steve Doocy said Reagan and George H. W. Bush held events similar to that of George W. Bush.
As hard as this is to believe, Doocy has it backwards. Reagan largely ignored the NDP for his first seven years in office.
Lie #5: Elisabeth Hasselbeck said on Fox News that the National Day of Prayer “has been a huge tradition” in the U.S.
That’s just nonsense, since most presidents, like most Americans, have largely ignored the “holiday.” Besides, Obama is keeping the “tradition” going by doing what his predecessors have done — he issued a proclamation.
Oh, that’s not all:
Literally every attack Republicans have thrown at the Obama administration has been a dud. Some have been more embarrassing than others, but when “socialism” started polling well, it probably should have been a signal to the GOP to reevaluate their smear tactics.

Now, however, Republicans leaders are very excited about the new line of attack. Today, they’re rallying support for the “Keep Terrorists Out Of America Act.” This follows up on arguments from January, and the message hasn’t improved since.

The GOP argument is that the president, by closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, may move as many as 250 detainees to detention facilities in the U.S. Congressional Republicans want to make that next to impossible, arguing that Obama would put American lives at risk by bringing suspected terrorists onto American soil.

This is a very stupid argument.

There are multiple angles to this, but let’s cut to the chase: we already lock up some extraordinarily dangerous people in maximum-security facilities. Al Qaeda suspects may be scary, but they don’t have super powers. Obama isn’t going to just drop off bad guys on Main Street and ask them to play nice.

This is what the GOP has been reduced to!?

Crying about Obama not giving the far-right Dobson family carte blanche access to the White House to push their particular brand of hate and venom via the megaphone of the Presidency?

Screaming about moving alleged terrorists from Guantanamo to a Super-Max facility somewhere on U.S. soil??

I just don’t get it… It’s like watching a play that your kids put on where they all dress up like adults and hobble across the stage in mom and dad’s shoes saying stuff they think sounds Adult and Mature. Come to think of it, kids like this would actually be making a hell of a lot more sense than these unhinged rightwing freakjobs in Congress and the MSM right now.

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Obama to Release Damning New Bush Torture Memos

by Metavirus on 16 April 2009

This is one of the best signs of change I can think of:

After a tense internal debate, the Obama administration this afternoon will make public a number of detailed memos describing the harsh interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency against al Qaeda suspects in secret overseas prisons.

The interrogation methods were among the Bush administration’s most closely guarded secrets, and today’s release will be the most comprehensive public accounting to date of the interrogation program that some senior Obama administration officials have said used illegal torture.

I can’t wait.

Update: Here’s Obama on why he decided to release the memos:

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.
His sentiments have merit but I disagree with his insistence on always looking forward without looking back. Contra Obama, I think that a LOT “will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past” if we train our eyes on the war criminals who authorized the torture techniques we so recklessly unleashed upon the world.

I can guarantee you, right now, if we go through Obama’s entire first term without a single person being prosecuted for crimes committed during the Bush administration, I will not be a happy camper.

Update 2: Ambinder links to the full text of the memos, in all their sordid glory.

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U.S. Military Medical Officers Participated in Torture

by Metavirus on 7 April 2009

The International Committee for the Red Cross (the organization empowered by international law to investigate claims of prisoner abuse) released the second part of its report on the treatment of detainees by the United States.

As before, the results are damning, and this time directly implicate medical officers who participated in the torture:

Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a confidential report that labeled the CIA program “inhuman.”

Health personnel offered supervision and even assistance as suspected al-Qaeda operatives were beaten, deprived of food, exposed to temperature extremes and subjected to waterboarding, the relief agency said in the 2007 report, a copy of which was posted on a magazine Web site yesterday. The report quoted one medical official as telling a detainee: “I look after your body only because we need you for information.”

Read the WaPo article on the report or view the whole report here (note: it’s a PDF).

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