BushCo Held Men NOT Because They Were Or Are Dangerous-But Because It Would Be Embarrassing

[kpete]

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Misplacing The Metrics
by digby

The Talking Dog has complied the most impressive set of interviews with lawyers and others about the torture regime on the internet. He's as well versed in the evidence and testimony of those involved in the issue as anyone. What he says here is absolutely right.

I cannot emphasize that strongly enough: we MUST hold The President's feet to the fire with respect to what he has made one of the signal aims of his Administration, to wit, the closure of Guantanamo Bay and related illegal facilities. So, although it comes as no surprise to anyone that, as WaPo reports, the Government's files re the allegations against Guantanamo detainees are in disarray (hat tip to Candace), we simply cannot stand by and allow one of the possible permutations raised in the article, that the Obama Administration may attempt to blame its precedessor for delays in doing what it said it would, i.e. closing Guantanamo, and its companion and (far) more important promise, restoring the rule of law.

Let me make this easy, based on my extrapolating from Candace's representations and from the dozens more I am familiar with from the interviews conducted on this blog: there's simply no there there. The reason that the Government's "evidence" is "in disarray" is because if it were well-organized, it would be obvious to all that it is, as the courageous Col. Stephen Abraham called it, "garbage". Nothing more than a bunch of guilt-by-association accusations, often derived from torture, or from other sources that the Government itself believes unreliable.

Look people: why should we believe the Bush Administration ON ANYTHING? Of the decisions that have gone that far, in actual "on the merits" hearings, detainees are winning 90% of them, even in courts that have demonstrated their predisposition to be hostile to the detainees at every turn heretofore. Now why might that be? Might it be because there is no there there... that the Bush Administration held men not because they were or are dangerous, but because it would be embarrassing to release them?

The administration wanted to "send a message" by creating a myth that they were omnipotent gods who were capturing all the "bad guys," giving them drugs and forced enemas and putting them in a concentration camp. But it was, like most Mayberry Machiavelli marketing, not reality. There is very little "evidence" and a whole lot of hype. They did use a flurry of useless paperwork as their "metric" in the early years, but it was all derived from torture, threats and lies.

more at:
http://thetalkingdog.com/archives2/001244.html

[mindwalker_i]

1. The whole point of "arresting" them in the first place...

It wasn't because these people were actually dangerous. Lip service was probably made so that some sort of reason would be there for later, like "he looked at a guard funny," or some such BS. The point was never to capture people who were dangerous. It was to make it look like Bush was doing something - pure PR.

[HillbillyBob]

2. This pretty much is what Democracy Now! has reported for several years

only slightly different language.
Some of those guys like the one that has been in the news supposedly being a second/lieutenant in Yemen was a freakin rug dealer before bushco captured and tortured him.
There are many cases where folks where arrested and sent to black prisons because a neighbor or rival wanted the mans property or jsut di dnot linke im and wanted to collect rewards for enemy combatants.
lies, damn lies almost all of bush cos utterances.

[gratuitous]

3. Oh, well, if someone would be embarrassed

That's one of the exceptions to the war crimes and crimes against humanity treaties, I'm pretty sure. If a high government official, especially a Republican, would be embarrassed, then all the torture, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and stuff is okey-dokey.

[polly7]

4. I've read from the start many were simply rounded up and sold for bounty ..

http://earthhopenetwork.net/Gitmo_Detainees_Say_They_Were_Sold.htm

[Usrename]

5. They had to come up with a narrative after 9/11.

The official story of the attacks is a whitewash. All of the confessions that were obtained through torture are supposed to make it more believeable, and to show that some evil people like KSM and Atta and bin Laden were doing all this because they hate our freedoms.

The whole Gitmo detentions and torture regime scenario helped to instill the fear and to mask the abysmal failure of the national defense system under the Bush/Cheney administration. How they could have rendered our national defense so ineffective in just nine months is still an uninvestigated mystery, to this day.

Torture is fundamental to the coverup. I have no idea of the extent of the coverup, but gaging by what they have done in order to hide the truth, it pretty obvious that it cannot be good. Capital crimes have been committed in the course of covering it all up.

[jazzjunkysue]

6. That's why they didn't bring the troops home: They're hiding the truth.

When the Iraqi troops return and they can tell us the truth, because their friends are home safe, the ugliness and wastefullness of it all will disgust americans.

So, they kept it going until they were out of office.

[catzies]

7. Yes, and I believe that's why we won't let Iraqi refugees in: they know too much. n/t