Sunday, March 21, 2004
I Wanted to Get a Writ Of Habeas Corpus, But I Should Have Gotten Rid of You Instead
I don't have the time or the inclination to explain precisely what is wrong with this front page Times article about Guantamamo Bay, suffice it to say that it clearly ledes with a re-written Pentagon press release and doesn't get into that messy "objectivity" stuff until paragraph 7 (I don't have a hard copy of the paper, so I can't tell you where the jump is, but I'd guess around graph 5 based purely on the tone of the opening and the headline, which is all pretty rah-rah). This is sloppy journalism. The simple fact of the matter is that these people are being held there in violation of any number of international laws, treaties, and our own constitution. Any article written about Gitmo needs to clearly state, as early as possible, that these people are being held indefinitely, without due process, without charges, without habeas corpus, without lawyers, and in conditions we're not allowed to know anything about. That is an objective fact that everyone in the country should know before they learn about all the fantastic intelligence we're getting from these guys.
And while we're on the subject, even a little bit of actual investigation into the claims made by the military here would have been nice. If this intelligence is so fucking great, why did Madrid happen? Without any of the "chatter" from all the fucking terrorist cells we should have infiltrated by now?
It's taken two years of pseudo-torture to learn this? Even the nutso-conservatives know all about how they raise money, boys -- Grover Norquist. |
And while we're on the subject, even a little bit of actual investigation into the claims made by the military here would have been nice. If this intelligence is so fucking great, why did Madrid happen? Without any of the "chatter" from all the fucking terrorist cells we should have infiltrated by now?
"Military and intelligence officials also said those detainees who were cooperative had provided information about Al Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons efforts, had spoken about the training of suicide bombers, and had described Al Qaeda's use of charities to raise money for its aims."
It's taken two years of pseudo-torture to learn this? Even the nutso-conservatives know all about how they raise money, boys -- Grover Norquist. |
