January 23, 2011, Deep sighs
Well, one here in New York could have such a reaction to the valiant second-half efforts of the New York Jets to come back from the immense hole they dug themselves, but still came up short losing to Pittsburgh Steelers, 24-19; the Steel Curtain will play the upstart Green Bay Packers in Dallas in two weeks for the Big Enchilada at Super Bowl XLV... where was I?
For further deep sighs, Candace reports that her client Razak Ali has lost his habeas petition at the District Court level; Andy has more on this, and all matters GTMO....
The great Carol Rosenberg gives us this piece detailing just some of wtf went wrong with the President's efforts to close Guantanamo now two years after he came into office, and one year after his self-imposed deadline to do so. The specific culprit would be Congress (both parties) and its refusal to allow resettlement of any detainees in the United States. At one point, all the Obama Administration had to do was nothing, and drop its appeal of Judge Urbina's directive to bring the cleared Uighurs to his courtroom for resettlement here... but nooooooo....
Of course, many countries wondered why we wouldn't take a single detainee, if they were so "not dangerous"... and wondered why this was true even where our own courts cleared people. And of course... it's still a fair question-- but the need to demonize the swarthy people was more important than the need to deflect diplomatic flak for holding avowedly innocent people.
BTW... my current working theory is that a huge part of the refusal to try anyone other than bit players for these nine years is because there is no one other than bit players... while we have been told that KSM and the "high value detainees" are somehow terrorist masterminds... none of these propositions have yet to be tested in any court-- even a controversial military court. So let's just say I'm not convinced that the government is convinced that it could even get flawed convictions... I think the Pakistani ISI, and the Northern Alliance, and whomever else was selling... sold us a bill of goods, as well as some "bad guys"... and then, our own law enforcement and intel people couldn't get the stories to stick... and hence, every excuse imaginable not to have fair trials was invented. And hence, the need to demonize the schmucks we have left, even as, at worst, they were bit players and hangers on... One really does wonder what "the real story" actually is... because the more I see and here of "the official version"... the more convinced I am that the whole thing is a kabuki arranged for the benefit of the rubes... as if they would ask too many questions anyway.
Well... just saying, anyway. I'd look forward to, you know, a trial... to actually test the evidence... That apparently is too radical a concept these days. And probably, you know, bad for business.