Sunday, January 25, 2009

Greetings From Gitmo!

Ohio Republican Representative and House Minority Leader, John Boehner expressed his disappointment at President Obama's signing of the order to close The Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, or "Club Gitmo" as trendy Republican Representatives in the know, call it.

At a press conference today, Boehner rejected the notion that Guantanamo had given the United States a black eye. To Boehner, the accommodations at Gitmo are figuratively, if not literally, to die for:

"I don't know that there's a terrorist treated better anywhere in the world than what has happened at Guantanamo. It is - we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a facility that has more comforts than a lot of Americans get."

That sound bite made its first appearance in June 2005 in the wake of revelations regarding the torture of Gitmo prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani. On June 12, Time published details of an 84-page document spelling out the abuse of Qahtani, treatment including sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, which left him in a "life-threatening condition." The result, as Americans learned last week from military commission chief Susan Crawford, is that Qahtani's case could not be referred for prosecution because, "his treatment met the legal definition of torture."

The abuse of Qahtani, however, did not meet the Republican definition of torture. As John Boehner, Dick Cheney, Duncan Hunter, Mel Martinez and Mike Huckabee alike attest, Gitmo is more beach resort than detention center.

6 comments:

mud_rake said...

Was Mr. 'Boner' sober for a change at the press conference?

Non Je Ne Regrette Rien said...

the scariest part is I'd bet 30+% of Americans actually believe his tripe.

Unknown said...

Yes, it's sad and frightening to think that some percentage of Americans buy this. I would think, though, that that number is diminshing and under Obama it'll get down to just the die-hardest Republicans out there. And those guys are a lost cause anyway.

microdot said...

The latest coming out of this is the utter disorganization and lack of accountability and irresponsibility of the entire process.
A story unfolding for the last 24 hours...
The entire Gitmo legal proxcess is in utter chaos, nobody can account for records or evidence.
stay tuned.

Anonymous said...

From Engineer of Knowledge
Hello All,
The only thought that comes to my mind is why hasn’t the World Community started demanding War Trial Counts be brought on those involved in this whole charade. Are we a world of United Nations governed by laws?

microdot said...

as of today, 44% of Democrat lawmakers believe that war crimes were committed by the Bush Administration and they should be prosecuted.