Monday, April 12, 2010

Bush knew prisoners were innocent

When 9-11 hit, everybody wanted to plant a bullet inside Osama bin Laden's brain.

OK, maybe not everybody, but I'm sure outside of Ghandi, Jesus and Buddha, everybody else was debating whether to nuke the terrorists or shoot them into the stone age.

The feeling was so great that, as Glenn Greenwald writes in his book "How Would a Patriot Act", after 9-11:

The bipartisan support for President Bush was so great that Democrats waived their right to present the traditional response to the president's address.


Anything Bush asked for the country gave him. New powers to wiretap people? Go for it. A war with Afghanistan? Awesome. Expanded military? You got it.

Turns out, it wasn't enough for the the Bush administration. Now we learn Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew there were people innocent of any crimes whatsoever, and wanted them kept in Guantanamo prison because it would hurt their case against Iraq.

A man taken from his home, his family, locked into a cell for no reason. Not even a chance at a trial so he can stand before a judge and say "I didn't do it", and people in power, people who swore an oath to defend the values of the Constitution that includes the right of habeas corpus - the right just to question why you've been arrested - they decided that "Well, we could do the *right* thing, but then we couldn't have this awesome war against someone who had nothing to do with 9-11 except that he's brown too."

Oh, I know, I know - "It was all in the past, John." "It was another time, John." "We need to look forward, not backwards."

Only whenever Cheney or his daughter step out to defend those policies, all I can see now are people who when they're confronted with the fact that they've done horrible, monstrous things, the response is a smirk and "So?"

If there's any reason to take any of them seriously, to ever accept them into polite society again, I can't think of a one.

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