Let Us Count The Lies

Three years after it began, the prison experiment known as Camp Delta at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has reached a crossroads in its incarceration of those captured in the war brought on by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Military officials have completed tribunal hearings for all 558 detainees and have compiled their most comprehensive report detailing what they have learned about potential terrorist attacks. [...]

The new report appears to buttress the military's claim that it should be allowed to run Camp Delta without outside intervention because the camp has become "the single best repository of al-Qaida information".

Right. And the "repository" is so fucking reliable that the number of significant terror attacks has increased so greatly that the Feds are now hiding the relevant data.

The declassified summary cites more than 4,000 interrogation reports and says some indicated that al-Qaida operatives were pursuing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

This is supposed to be news? Newsweek reported more than eighteen months ago that bin Laden already has biological weapons, and is now trying to find a way to deliver them.

Even if it weren't the case, any kidnergartner could tell you that he's "pursuing" them.

According to the report, captives have described how al-Qaida trained them to spread deadly poisons, and at other times armed them with such things as grenades stuffed inside soda cans, bombs hidden in pagers and cellphones, and wristwatches that can trigger remote-control explosions on a 24-hour countdown.

Again, where's the news here? If this is what the Bush Administration considers its top-line intelligence extractions, it's no wonder the number of terrorist attacks has been spinning out of control.

Valuable intelligence would indicate when and where future attacks would be staged -- information which, of course, the detainees would not have access to (not only because they've been held incommunicado for three years, but also because al Qaeda's cell structure precludes one cell having any knowledge of others' operations).

If the Bush Administration were interested in reducing the threat of future terrorist attacks, it'd be very easy to do (as bin Laden himself has explained on numerous occasions): stop bombing Third World countries, stop supporting Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and remove the American military presence from the Middle East.

If, on the other hand, the above passage is intended to indicate that the detainees are dangerous terrorists who cannot be released, why fabricate such "intelligence" data? Why not simply bring out evidence at trial demonstrating their guilt? Because, obviously, there isn't any evidence to bring out.

Posted by Eddie Tews at April 19, 2005 01:55 PM