Gutting the Constitution, one way or another
The real tragedy of the Republican party today is that they're all about one-upping the opposition instead of trifling affairs like the welfare of the nation or national security. Crooks and Liars has posted a darkly (but unintentionally) comic right-wing piece on today's presidential announcement that in fact there are secret US detention centers on other continents-- and it's high time we brought all that illegal action home. And legalized it.
The President just pulled one of the best maneuvers of his entire presidency. By transferring most major Al Qaeda terrorists to Guantanamo, and simultaneously sending Congress a bill to rescue the Military Commissions from the Supreme Court’s ruling Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the President spectacularly ambushed the Democrats on terrain they fondly thought their own. Now Democrats who oppose (and who have vociferously opposed) the Military Commissions will in effect be opposing the prosecution of the terrorists who planned and launched the attacks of September 11 for war crimes.
I honestly don't understand what the author is crowing about here. The greatest move of Fearless Leader's presidency is an attempt to legalize 'disappearing' people and subjecting them to torture? And you've gotta love the insistence that these prisoners-- who haven't had charges leveled against them, legal representation, or protection from torture-- are in fact all responsible for 9/11. It's just taking more years of solitary confinement and waterboarding to get them to admit it than we first estimated. At any rate, "Take that, Democrats!"
Plenty more nonsense through the link.
UPDATE: Listening to Condi Rice talk about the importance of this plan was another exercise in stupefying doublespeak. The main argument I heard was the importance of timeliness in intelligence gathering. If there's going to be an attack on the United States, we have to find out all we can as quickly as possible. This isn't a new argument, and it's been addressed before with a very simple question-- what sort of timely intelligence information are you going to get from someone who's been locked in a broom closet for three years?
The President just pulled one of the best maneuvers of his entire presidency. By transferring most major Al Qaeda terrorists to Guantanamo, and simultaneously sending Congress a bill to rescue the Military Commissions from the Supreme Court’s ruling Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the President spectacularly ambushed the Democrats on terrain they fondly thought their own. Now Democrats who oppose (and who have vociferously opposed) the Military Commissions will in effect be opposing the prosecution of the terrorists who planned and launched the attacks of September 11 for war crimes.
I honestly don't understand what the author is crowing about here. The greatest move of Fearless Leader's presidency is an attempt to legalize 'disappearing' people and subjecting them to torture? And you've gotta love the insistence that these prisoners-- who haven't had charges leveled against them, legal representation, or protection from torture-- are in fact all responsible for 9/11. It's just taking more years of solitary confinement and waterboarding to get them to admit it than we first estimated. At any rate, "Take that, Democrats!"
Plenty more nonsense through the link.
UPDATE: Listening to Condi Rice talk about the importance of this plan was another exercise in stupefying doublespeak. The main argument I heard was the importance of timeliness in intelligence gathering. If there's going to be an attack on the United States, we have to find out all we can as quickly as possible. This isn't a new argument, and it's been addressed before with a very simple question-- what sort of timely intelligence information are you going to get from someone who's been locked in a broom closet for three years?
posted by Matt Sandwich | 6:41 PM
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