March 23, 2007, Pecker Pecking order
It seems that upon the arrival of the Carlyle Group's turnaround specialist Robert Gates to head up the Pentagon, the Grey Lady reports that one of his first activities was to try to close down Guantanamo Bay's detention facility. He did, at least, manage to greatly reduce the scope and scale of the expanded prison and adjudication facility there, permitting Halliburton to collect a measly $10 million instead of the $100 million it was hoping for, on the basis that the massive $100,000,000 project created the unwanted image of permanence... though let's face it, its residents have already been there for five years without charge or trial or particular hope of release.
Gates found an interesting ally in his quest to close Gitmo, Secretary of State Incompetetentalleezza Rice, who realized (several years too late) that Gitmo is an international public relations disaster (if not a millstone around this nation's neck) and it would make her job somewhat easier if we put it behind us (moving the prisoners either back to their home countries for those we are not going to try, i.e., almost all of them, and hold the rest in military brigs followed by proper courts-martial). Gates was thwarted, however, by Karl Rove the President himself, by the Vice-President and by Karl Rove Attorney General Alberto "Spanky" Gonzales... the Veep and Gonzo both lobbied hard to keep one of America's most visible moral outrages and public relations disasters open, front and center.
Just as, it seems, that the whole unprovoked war against Iran is being put on hold pending the resolution of "U.S. Attorney-gate" (ironically, Watergate itself was comparatively small potatoes compared to the current regime's attempted subversion of the entire American justice system for political advantage, though back in the 1970's, we had a functioning press corps, ethical Republicans, and network television consisted of programs other than Macchiavellian game shows... but I digress...)...Gates has surmised that Gonzales's presumably... somewhat compromised... position might create another opening to deal with Gitmo.
We'll see. The thing with Rummy, Cheney and Junior is that they always thought that they always had the biggest one in the room (and I don't mean brain.) And that's what the whole Gitmo thing is: the ability to abuse powerless men, for the twin goals of sadistic personal amusement and to show the rest of us that they can... because, you know, our leadership has, like... the biggest one.
Thus far, at least, SecDef Gates, the Emissary from the Grownups, hasn't been able to crack into the Guantanamo Sandbox... nor, for that matter, does it look like our Excellent Iraq Adventure is going anywhere either... Still and all, as Poppy's Fixer presents at least the possibility of a rational (or at least not insane) conduct of our military policy for a change... I guess it's in all our interests to hope that he succeeds in some of his endeavors.