Lawrence Wilkerson: Some Truths About Guantanamo Bay -must read

[malaise]

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/03/some_truths_abo/?ref=fp2
<snip>
There are several dimensions to the debate over the U.S. prison facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that the media have largely missed and, thus, of which the American people are almost completely unaware. For that matter, few within the government who were not directly involved are aware either.

The first of these is the utter incompetence of the battlefield vetting in Afghanistan during the early stages of the U.S. operations there. Simply stated, no meaningful attempt at discrimination was made in-country by competent officials, civilian or military, as to who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation.

The second dimension that is largely unreported is that several in the U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.

The third basically unknown dimension is how hard Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage labored to ameliorate the GITMO situation from almost day one.

The fourth unknown is the ad hoc intelligence philosophy that was developed to justify keeping many of these people, called the mosaic philosophy. Simply stated, this philosophy held that it did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance (this general philosophy, in an even cruder form, prevailed in Iraq as well, helping to produce the nightmare at Abu Ghraib).
-------
Interesting comment about Cheney's attack on President Obama. Cheney is evil.

Lock them up and throw away the key.

[knowbody0]

1. have you ever met a terrorist who had NOT

been terrified? many of these prisoners were merely tribal enemies and given up for 10k reward, treated worse than any animal should be, tortured for years. IN OUR NAME!

I am reminded of Rumsfield's pathetic speech about the known unknowns. talking to us like we were just too dumb to understand.


we simply must atone for these crimes as a nation.

[malaise]

2. You know I've often wondered if the war criminals

were not living out their wildest movie fantasies. WTF were they thinking?

Atoning is not enough. They must pay.

[knowbody0]

3. Yes, our atonement can only be reached

by prosecuting the offenders to the fullest, and retribution to the victims.

[malaise]

4. Can you imagine what the families of the innocent

went through - most had no idea where to find their missing loved ones.
As many of us said ages ago, the real terrorists were the Bush gang.

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. The ideas they used to run the war and everything

associated with it are just stunning. Mosaic, the 1% doctrine.... Cheney and crew were mad scientists trying out whatever came to mind. If they thought it might work even if there was NO data or info to back it up, they just set it up.
I, myself, have a LOT of ideas I would like to try on Cheney and company that I think would get them to admit to some errors and express remorse. Can I try??