Saturday, May 06, 2006

Guantanamo hellhole: propaganda nightmare

* billmon:

It's a continuing mystery to me why the Cheney administration thinks that the modest (at best) intelligence benefits of the Guantanamo hellhole are worth the propaganda nightmare it has become. I don't know, maybe it's just their warped way of showing the world their shriveled old testicles still work -- to prove that there ain't no stinking white guilt here. But it seems to me the benefits from releasing the little fish (not to mention the innocent ones) and putting the big fish on trial would have more than covered the costs, legal or otherwise.

By bringing "illegal combatants" to court, even though it was probably not legally obligated to do so, the United States could have once again demonstrated that we play by the rules we choose for ourselves -- except, just for a change, instead of choosing to do the wrong thing, and telling the rest of the world to go take a flying fuck at the moon if they don't like it, we could have chosen to do the right thing, to grant the protections of our Constitution and our criminal justice system even to those who would annihilate us if they had the chance, because that's the kind of country we are. Better."

tis a mystery indeed. to set a precedent?

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