Gitmo - the horror that will never go away. Every morning I check out foreign newspapers to see what's going on in America. It's a sad fact that we have to go out of the country to find out what's going on here. This headline caught my eye this morning:
Guantanamo inmates 'no longer any use'
Most of us who live in the real world have known this for a while now. The gist of the story is what turned my stomach this morning.
Follow on down and read what the Repubs are going to use Gitmo for now. . .
MOST of the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp no longer face regular interrogation and some have not been questioned for six months or longer, its base commander said yesterday.
Rear-Admiral Harry Harris acknowledged that 75 per cent of the 450 inmates were no longer deemed useful intelligence sources, increasing pressure on President Bush to either release or charge detainees. Rear-Admiral Harris's comments to Time magazine came after a decision by the Supreme Court on Friday that the military tribunal system at the Cuban base was illegal, forcing the White House to come up with a trial procedure that conforms with US law, and increasing calls for Mr Bush to close the camp.
Far from causing Mr Bush a big political headache, the judicial defeat has been seized on by the White House as yet another chance to criticise the Democrats. Republican strategists now see Guantanamo as a way to achieve political advantage before the mid-term elections in November.
Got that, 75% have nothing worth telling the US minders. These people are in limbo. But wait, the Repubs can use them for political purposes. Isn't that just nifty. Lock people up, torture them, treat them like dirt, and then use them for political purposes. That sums up the Repub party.
After a month in which the White House largely succeeded in turning the chaos in Iraq to its short-term advantage -- by highlighting Democrats' disunity on the issue and branding their calls for troop withdrawals as "cut and run" -- it is again using bad news on Guantanamo as a way to portray Democrats as soft on terrorism.
Republican leaders have pledged debates on the issue in both chambers of Congress in the autumn and hope to use them to ask whether Democrats believe that terrorists deserve the same legal protections as US troops.
Got that? The Repubs are going to use the troops again for political gain. They'll be screaming that the Dems care more about terrorists than the troops. 75% of the people locked away in Gitmo have nothing of value to cough up. Most were probably in the wrong place at the wrong time when they got caught. If they weren't terrorists before, I'd just about bet they are going to have a whole lot of hate for the US of A after they are released. And they will be released. A few weeks ago, 15 Saudis were realised back to their country and over a hundred more were being scheduled for release. I read this in the Arab News. Never heard a word about this in the MSM.
So just wait for it to come. 450 inmates of Gitmo are going to be used for political purposes in the upcoming mid-term elections to show the Dems as weak. No matter that these people have lived through torture. No matter they've been humiliated and broken. No matter many suffer from mental problems after all the years of being locked up. No matter that this country used to stand for Human Rights. The Repubs are going to use them to get votes. That's all that matter to them.
Gitmo is now going to be a talking point for the Repubs. I hope their (Repubs)God is taking notes on what these so called moral values politicians are doing. People mean nothing to them. Whether it be prisoners at Gitmo or us, the citizens of the United States. The thirst for power and their greed have turned them into 'Ugly Americans' for the world to look at with disgust.
For another year, I will not celebrate Independence Day. Not while my government is doing what's it's doing. On the day Bush & Co are forced out of Washington, I will then celebrate, because it will truly be Independence Day for America.