Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld Knowingly Kept Innocent Men at Guantanamo

[grumbler]

Reports I had seen from 2003 onwards were not quite from the "Booshitler" category.

Well, if you missed them, you missed them.  Nevertheless, those of us who had legitimate complaints to make about the legality of the Bush Administration's position on Guantanamo's "detainees" had a difficult time making our case because of the  need to distinguish our position from the mere "Booshitler" types.  That many of the detainees were not guilty of being an enemy combatant was known from the start; the problem was distinguishing the nuanced position that  some of the people there were illegal combatants, some were legal combatants, and some were non-combatants from the overwhelming flood of "Bush = Hitler!!!oneoneone" messages flooding the internet and media.

I find it ironic that, had Bush and co simply followed international law instead of working so hard to circumvent it, they could have had pretty much every advantage they sought from opening Gitmo, and would have been forced to forgo the stupid, time-wasting, and expensive jailing of hundreds of men and boys who didn't need the kind of security Gitmo provided.  Keeping them as POWs pending their separation into criminals, POWs, and releasees would have been a lot cheaper and would have given the innocent less inducement to become radicals.

[Sheilbh]

Pretty high level guy to go on the record by name.

Apparently Powell's simply saying 'no comment' to the allegations.

[Razgovory]

Pretty high level guy to go on the record by name.

Apparently Powell's simply saying 'no comment' to the allegations.

Sometimes I wonder if Powell secretly hates George Bush but it's against his person code of conduct to air those grievances in public.

[DGuller]

Sometimes I wonder if Powell secretly hates George Bush but it's against his person code of conduct to air those grievances in public.

I wonder that as well.  Powell seems to have the personality of Boxer from Animal Farm.  Loyal to a fault, even on the way to the glue factory.

[The Minsky Moment]

Pretty high level guy to go on the record by name.

Apparently Powell's simply saying 'no comment' to the allegations.

So . . . which way does that cut?

[The Minsky Moment]

Was there a blackout of American media ? These allegations had pretty much been reported at least by 2003, from people on the ground.

Allegations from Mystery Admin Source "x" and some NGO campaigners are one thing, allegations from a fairly high-ranking insider without cover of anonymity are another.

[Berkut]

Question:

Is the allegation that

A. Bush/Cheney/Hitler knew that out of this group of some 800 odd prisoners, some were certainly innocent (albeit we don't necessarily know which ones for certain yet), or
B. Bush/Cheney/Hitler knew that particular prisoners were certainly innocent, and decided to keep them locked up anyway?

We did end up releasing a bunch of them - most of them, in fact. So apparently there was some process for sorting them out. Is the complaint that the process was too slow? Or that it was intentionally made to be too slow?

If the latter, why? What was to gain from keeping innocent people in Gitmo, when you end up letting them go anyway? How is that more politically palatable than just letting them go to begin with?

I don't really doubt that Cheney would have no problem leaving innocent people in jail if he thought it was a necessary evil - but I don't see why he would think that in this case.

[Zanza]

Not really related: what exactly did Cheney do to have that reputation to be evil?

[grumbler]

Not really related: what exactly did Cheney do to have that reputation to be evil?

Evil deeds.

[derspiess]

Not really related: what exactly did Cheney do to have that reputation to be evil?

He once shot a man for snoring to loud.


Or because he thought he was a quail.

[The Brain]

Not really related: what exactly did Cheney do to have that reputation to be evil?

He once shot a man for snoring to loud.


Or because he thought he was a quail.

Well he apologized...

[Razgovory]

Not really related: what exactly did Cheney do to have that reputation to be evil?

He once shot a man for snoring to loud.


Or because he thought he was a quail.

Well he apologized...

And he was drunk at the time.  If you shoot someone when drunk it doesn't count.

[The Brain]

Not really related: what exactly did Cheney do to have that reputation to be evil?

He once shot a man for snoring to loud.


Or because he thought he was a quail.

Well he apologized...

And he was drunk at the time.  If you shoot someone when drunk it doesn't count.

The victim was drunk?

[Razgovory]

He also could have been drunk.

[garbon]

Not really related: what exactly did Cheney do to have that reputation to be evil?

He ran/runs the shadow government.