One of the suicide victims, the NYT reported was about 21 at the time of his death. Being captured in Afghanistan nearly 5 years earlier, he was 15 or 16 at the time of his capture. A hardened terrorist, I'm sure.

I'm in the middle of Ron Suskinds's "The one Percent Doctrine". The scales have fallen from my eyes. (note sarcasm)

So, what's the problem here?

Gitmo as gulag or, hell. What difference does it make? Violations of international law and simple human decency are the hallmark of Bush administration policy. Genocide and illegal detention are where the rubber hits the road for the Bushistas. Torture is then just icing on a treason cake. America will reap whirling horrors for Bush atrocities for years, far into a bleak future.

Well, here is where I go ballistic again.
The ONLY country we need a war in is RIGHT HERE.
Look at what the sick scum that has taken over our county has done.

Burn Washington to the Ground and Start Over.

Shameful. Goes against everything this country stands for and tough to explain to our allies. If you don't stand for something, you'll go for anything.

Should come as no surprise that all this crap has been driven from the highest levels of the administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/13/AR2006111301221.html
To hell with taking impeachment "off the table".

Howard must pressure Bush on Hicks: Beazley
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20734503-601,00.html

November 10, 2006
from AAP

OPPOSITION Leader Kim Beazley says it's time for Prime Minister John Howard to demand US President George W. Bush bring terror suspect David Hicks to trial or send him home.

Mr Beazley said Mr Howard should put pressure on the US president to ensure justice for the Australian citizen.

"Have the conversation with Mr Bush that Tony Blair had with Mr Bush many years ago," Mr Beazley said.

"The conversation should go like this ... 'What we want you to do, George, is this: charge him and try him properly in a US civil court which everyone can respect. If you can't do that, George, send him back'."

Hicks has been held without trial at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba for almost five years.

Mr Beazley said Hicks would only receive justice in the US civil system, not a military commission.

"The US judicial system ... is a first class system, in which, at some point along the time everybody gets justice," he said.

"If you've done the crime, if you've committed offences against people in the United States, down you go. But you go down on a proper judicial process and no other way."

Source: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20734242-601,00.html
November 10, 2006
from AAP

STATE attorneys-general have criticised federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock for boycotting a meeting with the US-appointed defence counsel for terror suspect David Hicks.

Major Michael Mori today addressed the state law officers in the West Australian port city of Fremantle but Mr Ruddock said it would be inappropriate for him to attend the briefing.

The attorneys-general said later they were "shaken" by the information they had received about Hicks, who has been held in the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for almost five years but has yet to go to trial.

"I think it is fair to say that we are all shaken by the information that Major Mori has given us," NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus told reporters.

Mr Debus said it was apparent that the fundamental principles of law that were held dear by all were being ignored or overlooked in the case of Hicks, who is now awaiting trial under a revamped US military commission system.

West Australian Attorney-General Jim McGinty said Mr Ruddock had changed his plans to avoid meeting Major Mori, saying it was not helpful he had chosen not to attend.

A protester yelled out: "He (Ruddock) is a maggot."

"That is one explanation," Mr McGinty said in response.

Major Mori said he was happy to provide information to anyone who asked.

"I am happy to brief the state attorney generals, to provide as much information to anyone - let them make an informed decision on their view on the David Hicks situation," Major Mori said.

He said it was "disheartening" federal ministers were not fighting for an Australian citizen to have the same rights as an American citizen.

A small group of protesters calling for Hicks' release cheered Major Mori and chanted "bring David home" and "shame Ruddock".

Mr Debus also announced all attorney generals had signed the Fremantle Declaration which "affirms and upholds the basis of law which we rely" on.

The declaration upholds the right for a fair trial, the prohibition of detention without trial, the prohibition of torture and the prohibition of the death penalty, he said.

"We say that these are fundamental norms of our system and we say that these fundamentals are not being followed," he said.

"They are in fact being violated in one way or another by the processes that surround David Hicks."

Mr Debus said Mr Ruddock had given the attorney generals an assurance he would respond to a letter by the attorney-generals seeking an explanation for the circumstances that Hicks is presently being held under.

Campbell
Just how arrogant is Downer, Howard and Ruddock....

Dear friends,

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has now twice refused to meet with GetUp to receive your 50,000-strong petition calling for David Hicks to be brought home. This is nothing more than a slap in the face to you, and our collective call for justice and the rule of law.

Since he won't meet with us, we've decided to take your message directly to him. Right now we are working with the best media buyers in the country to book strategic, highly prominent billboards where Alexander Downer, Philip Ruddock and John Howard can't ignore you - on the roads between where they live and work.

David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David David Hicks David Hicks David Hicks David

The terrorists won the war already. In September of 2001 Bush told us the terrorists wanted to change our way of life because they hated us. So far only Bush has drastically changed our way of life. He has created the exact conditions the terrorists wanted in America. The terrorists beat our freedom out of Bush. Loss of habeus, patriot act, loss of individual health care rights, loss of American jobs, loss of border integrity,the list is endless if the American people would turn off Fox news and THINK using the brain for a change.

"A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.
Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before drank the "potion" and smeared some on his face.

"I don't hate Americans, but I don't like Bush," said Pamungkas, who believed the ritual would succeed as, "the devil is with me today."

Gotta watch this:

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20061116_hbos_hacking_democracy/

Gitmo. Big deal. For crying out loud. The overwhelming chunk(95%+) of these people are hardcore terrorists who want to destroy the USA. It's Club Gitmo as Rush says.
They have no right to be charged. They are terroristic enemy combatants who sure don't play by the Geneva rules as they slinked about in civilian garb, longing to cut American throats.
All these liberals need to go find some other country to complain about ... perhaps start with North Korea and Iran.

German Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, who was convicted at Nurenberg of war crimes and executed, held a similar view of those he had rounded up and sent to special detention facilities. He wrote that the Geneva Conventions were "quaint" and "obsolete" and they represented "outmoded notions of chivalric warfare." US prosecutor Robert Jackson called the Geneva Conventions "the building blocks of civilization" in this trial, condemning not only Keitel, but the lawyers who helped Keitel formulate the policy of disappearances and special detentions. Some of them got ten years.

For Rush, or Cheney, or Bush, or Gonzales, or Addington, or Yoo, or Robert Morrow to say basically the same things as Field Marshall Keitel is telling. Too bad there are no Robert Jacksons yet evident today to take such a stand in defense of common decency and justice. It sounds so cliche, but that is what these ideals represent..."the building blocks of civilization."

Notice Morrow, that Keitel was executed for his complicity in war crimes. A hardened terrorist can suffer the same fate under a regime of common decency and justice. Your finely-honed, nuanced sense of justice, like that of Rush, would rather kill them all, guilty or innocent.

"Gitmo. Big deal. For crying out loud. The overwhelming chunk(95%+) of these people are hardcore terrorists who want to destroy the USA. It's Club Gitmo as Rush says."

Yeah, fuckin' A, man. Who needs evidence, trials, attorneys, all that shit, right? After all, it is the Bush Administration that has determined these guys are "terrists", right? And we all KNOW the Bush Administration never makes mistakes.

Morrow, you are a God damned fool. Laws are designed to protect ALL of us, even blathering assholes like yourself. You can't simply point your fingers and declare someone an "enemy combatant" to erase the need for due process...

oh, wait a minute, I forgot, this is Bushworld....

What are you going to do, Morrow, if someday some despot points his finger at YOU?

Idiot.

Chicago Tribune every so often runs articles about German POWs from WWII taking bus tours through Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc.

Shipped out of the European theater, they'd been given food and shelter in exchange for doing farm work.

At first it was retirees, then in later stories they were older. They gazed out over the rolling hills in the Midwest prairies, remembering. They were off and on in tears.

Apparently they'd expected to be imprisoned. Treated harshly. Tried and senteneced. Maybe abused, who knows. They weren't even locked up.

Instead, the unexpected dignity and simple humanity with which they were treated had a life-altering impact. The resulting level of gratitude came from basic trust, real work, food, shelter, and being completely, safely away from the war.

They remembered the landscape and the fields. And they remembered the people.

Yeah, Rich, but that was before our politicians discovered waterboarding, lightsticks, and a complicit compliant treasonous Congress.

THAT was America. THIS is Bushworld.

I am not a game, I am not a world, I am WOWgame