DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YA ON THE WAY OUT...on second thought

Well it is official, the worst attorney General in the history of the U.S. (and that is saying alot.....) has finally resigned. Gonzales has not cited the usual "to spend more time with my family"... which is probably good. If there is any justice left in this country (?) Gonzales will be spending more time with his attorneys. His own personal attorneys. The ones who will be working on his defense for perjury, war crimes, fraud... (I will add to the list in time but these are the three that jumped into my head as I am typing....)
May Gonzales' attorneys be as smart as he is....

GOOD OLD MOE

You have to give Moe credit. When he comes up with a plan he sticks to it. In case you do not remember Colonel Moe he is the Colonel who drafted a detailed propaganda plan for the military. I described the plan in an earlier post on Huffington: Cully's Mentor MOE and His Six Point Plan . Also if you look down the right side of this page you will see his name pops up in a few of my blogs (he is like the gift that keeps on giving). Seems Moe has alot of time on his hands now that he is done trying to intimidate David Hicks' military attorney (oops on that one, huh Moe?) .... and now that the military commissions are at a standstill because the military court says it doesn't have jurisidiction to hear the enemy combatant tribunals.

So how is Moe spending his down time?... he is just doing what comes naturally.... telling tall tales about the kinder gentler Guantanamo that he has come to know and love. And he even has pictures to try to convince you that all of the habeas lawyers are lying about conditions. So now you can see a picture of the cell that my client, Mr. Al-GHizzawi spends 22 to 24 hours a day in... alone... with no one to talk to, no natural light or fresh air, one book a week to read...(if he is lucky) and "recreation time" in a 4X4 foot cage (where he can either stand in the blistering heat or during the dead of night.... depending on the schedule)...

Boy Moe these men, who have been charged with no wrong doing, should be happy shouldn't they? I mean the cells are probably cleaner than the ones the Koreans used when they kept our men in similar isolation... so what is the problem huh?

Well one of the problems Moe is that we use to pride ourselves on not being North Korea.... not even a cleaner version of North Korea...

And as you know Moe, the evidence against my client was described as "garbage" by his panel members (a nicer description than I would have given it) but Mr. Al-Ghizzawi shouldn't complain should he? He should just quietly sit in his cell and wait and see if someone might get around to reviewing his situation. You never know it could happen...

I guess you are right Moe, we just don't recognize what a wonderful place Guantanamo is. Just one question Moe, if it were our guys (and gals) who were being held under these conditions, with this kind of evidence and for a similar duration (perhaps forever) would it still be ok?


If you want to see Moe's latest piece of Propaganda take a look at: "Defense of Guantanamo Bay" in the Yale law journal...

Al-Ghizzawi on SCOTUSblog

SCOTUSblog, a respected blog devoted to all matters concerning the Supreme Court, has picked up Al-Ghizzawi's original petition for a writ of habeas corpus and has posted a PDF of the petition HERE.

Writing on SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston notes,

[Al-Ghizzawi's] case was one of two that have become highly visible examples of what are called "do-overs" in the Pentagon system for processing Guantanamo detainees. That process is conducted by "Combatant Status Review Tribunals." Detainee lawyers have complained in court that, if such a CSRT panel clears a Guantanamo prisoner, it is routine for the Pentagon to order a new CSRT review, to establish a basis for a combatant designation. Al-Ghizzawi is one of several individuals known to have been involved in "do-overs." Another is Anwar Hassan, who already has an appeal pending in the Supreme Court (In re Ali, 06-1194) seeking an original habeas writ.

The original three-member military panel that examined the case against Al-Ghizzawi, found that "there was no credible evidence supporting the allegation," according to a member of that panel. The member was an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, Stephen E. Abraham. Since Colonel Abraham surfaced in filings in detainee cases in the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit Court as a critic on the inside of the CSRT process, Pentagon and Justice Department officials have undertaken a campaign to challenge his complaints about that process.

GTMO: Symbol of Failure

Ian Bell in the British Herald tells it like it is:

...All actual British citizens were out of the place by 2005 [not so for British resident aliens], most with dreadful tales to tell. As the parliamentary intelligence and security committee reported less than a fortnight ago (another non-coincidence, I think), Britain's security services were "naive" in their dealings with the CIA in these matters, when not actually complicit, and any subsequent complaints were in any case ignored. But we - delete as applicable - still went along with a programme of kidnap, incarceration, rendition and torture with few arguments.

Guantanamo is an excellent example of how best to lose an anti-terrorist struggle. It stands alongside the introduction of internment in North Ireland in advertising an absolute failure of understanding. The base - first leased as a coaling station, according to the fascinating Gazette [the base newspaper] - no doubt has a symbolic standing for average, all-purpose western liberals. They don't count for much. Among Muslims in the Middle East, seeing precious few trials, and no convictions worth the name, its name will be potent for decades.

If [U.K. prime minister] Brown understands as much, good for him. But if the Prime Minister also cares to explain where he's been hiding his views since the latter part of 2001, all the better. The trouble with a war of beliefs is that it is far easier to make a catastrophic mistake, such as Guantanamo, than to rectify it. The belated release of five men because the US Supreme Court has begun to stir, and because a new Prime Minister needs a fresh start, will not purge all past errors.

"Guantanamo - The Most Potent Symbol of Failure" - The Herald

Force-feeding Denounced in JAMA

A commentary in the most recent Journal of the American Medical Association has denounced the practice of force-feeding, which Guantánamo's medical authorities have used in a clearly punitive way in medically non-essential situations.

The statement urges military physicians to refuse to participate in the awful process, rather than violate their medical ethics by forcing a treatment upon an unwilling "patient."

From the AP via WSJ