White House Spokesweasel Dana Perino: "What's Cuba?"

Believe it or not, she's far dumber (or to her boss, Bush, “dumberer”) than she looks and behaves (and those who follow White House press room sessions knows that is QUITE a feat given her past history). Ms. Perino, never short on attitude OR lies OR ways to blame everyone else for what the White House does wrong, not only claimed the 935 certified lies found by a government accounting agency in remarks by Bush and the White House leading up to the Iraq war were really mistakes made by those "other coalition members" who "forced" the Bush Administration to go to war in Iraq (which, uh... would be the Bushies themselves), came up with a new stunner this week.

Namely, Dim Dana announced – and seemed quite proud of the fact – that she had no bleeping idea what the Cuban Missile Crisis was. Yeah, you could cite her age (though I know all about it and I wasn't even old enough for a pacifier when it happened), but this event was a seminal one in modern American political history, is at the heart of our supposed rabid hatred of Castro and Cuba, and is at the core of our horrific anti-Cuba (but pro-rich-Cuban-exile bizarro behavior) policies.

But Dana, like her boss, the so-called MBA-holding history major (Bush), is sure that being deadly dumb as denuded, uranium-polluted dirt is a GOOD thing.

The National Disgrace Called Gitmo

We have committed at least as great atrocities against others - many of them just as innocent as so many who died on September 11th, 2001 - in the name of the national security we not only didn't have then but have even less of today. That we operate anything like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, or many other politically-oriented prisons like those Jose Padilla is held in as well as the countless "secret" prisons throughout the world does more than endanger us; it betrays absolutely everything that this country and we, its people, are supposed to stand for.

From The New York Times Op/Ed page Wednesday (June 6, 2007):

Ever since President Bush rammed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 through Congress to lend a pretense of legality to his detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, we have urged Congress to amend the law to restore basic human rights and judicial process. Rulings by military judges this week suggest that the special detention system is so fundamentally corrupt that the only solution is to tear it down and start again.

The target of the judges’ rulings were Combatant Status Review Tribunals, panels that determine whether a prisoner is an “unlawful enemy combatant” who can be tried by one of the commissions created by the 2006 law. The tribunals are, in fact, kangaroo courts that give the inmates no chance to defend themselves, allow evidence that was obtained through torture and can be repeated until one produces the answer the Pentagon wants.

On Monday, two military judges dismissed separate war crimes charges against two Guantánamo inmates because of the status review system. They said the Pentagon managed to get them declared “enemy combatants,” but not “unlawful enemy combatants,” and moved to try them anyway under the 2006 law. That law says only unlawful combatants may be tried by military commissions. Lawful combatants (those who wear uniforms and carry weapons openly) fall under the Geneva Conventions.

If the administration loses an appeal, which it certainly should, it will no doubt try to tinker with the review tribunals so they produce the desired verdict. Congress cannot allow that. When you can’t win a bet with loaded dice, something is wrong with the game.

There is only one path likely to lead to a result that would allow Americans to once again hold their heads high when it comes to justice and human rights. First, Congress needs to restore the right of the inmates of Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detentions. By the administration’s own count, only a small minority of the inmates actually deserve a trial. The rest should be sent home or set free.

Read the rest here (no subscription required).

While New DOD Chief Wanted to Close It Down, White House Reports Bush Will Likely Never Close Gitmo

This may be just about the ONLY information about Donald Rumsfeld's replacement as Department of Defense secretary, Robert Gates: that in his first few weeks in his new job, he sought to close down the American gulag known as Guantanamo Bay (a/k/a Gitmo) in Cuba.

Yet, as always (the only thing besides completely shredding the English language as he speaks and a complete and utter lack of understanding about history and everything else - odd for an history major at Yale), Bush is making it clear that he will NEVER allow the detention facility to be shut down.

Mind you, we've had more than 2,000 detainees go through there and subjected to truly abusive, torturous, and mind-bending/breaking psy-ops and interrogation techniques yet we have only lodged charges against about 10.

Ten out of more than 2,000. What the hell does that say about the Bushies, especially given their great comfort level with trumping up charges through lies, cooked intelligence, and a steady diet of torture (with the "dressed up" name of "extraordinary rendition")? Certainly, the Pentagon and all these defense contractors have acted as Bush's co-dependent enablers.