March 9, 2009, What's wrong with this picture?
O.K... five GTMO "high value detainees" including Ron Jeremy Khalid Sheik Mohammed have long tried to confess their role in planning the September 11th attacks, as they did once again in a joint five-way document submitted to the now halted military commissions supposedly trying them for their terrorist acts. And of course, regular readers know that the horrifically inhumane conditions at GTMO include extreme isolation where, other than the occasional gloved hand of a guard, the prisoners have no human contact at all.
Which is why it seems so curious that the "high value detainees" are permitted to meet among themselves without counsel, to plan their legal stratagems. The premise of the isolation of the others, of course, is that they will somehow conspire to commit horrific acts, either against the guard, or against the United States, as they plan to chew through hydraulic cables to bring airplanes down (which is why we have released over 2/3 of them, and designated another 59 as "no threat," and haven't charged all but around 15 or so).
So you see the problem: here are the purported perpetrators of September 11th itself... who, of course, weren't originally at GTMO at all, but at some CIA torture facilities somewhere, who are there now, who have a history of plotting acts of terrorism, and while we won't let ordinary run of the mill schmucks, many of whom the military itself asserts are innocent, have human contact, the 9-11 perps are allowed to consult with each other?
Something is beyond wrong with this picture. I realize that "the deal" was that these guys would conveniently confess to everything, overlook the simple matter of their years of torture, and preferably go to Allah under conditions of martyrdom at the hands of the Great Satan while George W. Bush was napping... but the whole thing still seems... off.
Kind of like how President Obama allows his economic underlings to pump billions of dollars to financial institutions as counter-parties in credit default swaps honored by the now ostensibly government owned AIG (against the advice of smarter people, who suggest simply winding down the God damned credit default swaps and settling them for cents on the dollar, Goldman Sacks and Deutsche Bank be damned)... and then railing against those same institutions for taking that money and paying it to themselves in bonuses. Like... something seems... off.
Just saying.
Comments
I think you're right...that is odd.
"It appears that the men wrote the document at meetings they are permitted to conduct periodically at the detention camp without lawyers."
Who is letting that happen? And if the meetings occurred after Inauguration - when they would be pretty much pointless, with the military commissions on hiatus - well, that seems even weirder.
But your broader point is well-taken. To excerpt from the WaPo article on the Pentagon's report on GITMO:
"Little is known about Camp 7, which is at a secret location at Guantanamo Bay and off limits even to military attorneys representing the men there. It houses those detainees who were formerly held at secret CIA prisons."
Well, now we know you can hang out and write legal missives together.
Posted by back to our senses at March 10, 2009 4:29 PM