Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Guantanamo, mon amour

Who else would describe Gitmo as a clean, safe, and humane facility, other than the poor military prosecutor who drew the short straw? Col. Morris Davis, who would also torture kittens if ordered by a superior, tries his hand at packaged vacation brochure writing in today's New York Times:
Today, most of the detainees are housed in new buildings modeled after civilian prisons in Indiana and Michigan. Detainees receive three culturally appropriate meals a day. Each has a copy of the Koran. Guards maintain respectful silence during Islam’s five daily prayer periods, and medical care is provided by the same practitioners who treat American service members. Detainees are offered at least two hours of outdoor recreation each day, double that allowed inmates, including convicted terrorists, at the “supermax” federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo.
Davis omits the fact that the majority of Gitmo prisoners, I mean, guests, have been held for years on little or no evidence. Or that the Bush Administration claimed that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to The War Against Terror®. Or that the CIA own's operatives have reported the same tales of abuse as the detainees themselves.

Davis tells us that Australian David Hicks told his sentencing judge that he had been treated humanely - more evidence of the benign nature of indefinite detention without charges at Club Dread. But Davis knows the US agreed to a shorter sentence (nine months) if Hicks agreed to lie about his treatment. The only reason Hicks even received a "trial" was because the Australian prime minister pressured Dick Cheney on the issue.

If we doubled Guantanamo, as Mitt Romney suggested, does that mean the US has to lie twice as much about what is happening there?

Glenn Greenwald has more.

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