Friday, July 22, 2005

GOP GITMO

President Bush Loves GITMO

Reuters reports that the Bush Administration threatened to veto a $442 billion defense spending bill if terrorist coddling Senators like Arizona's John McCain include any amendments to the bill requiring an independent investigation of detainees or establishing an independent commission to look into prisoner abuse a Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or any other detention facility involved in the war on terror.

The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney, that he still intended to offer amendments next week "on the standard of treatment of prisoners."

The Department of Defense today won an extension to litigation brought forward by the Center for Constitutional Rights surrounding photos of prisoner abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

They were given until today to produce the images, but at the eleventh hour filed a motion to oppose the release of the photos and videos, based on an entirely new argument: they are now requesting a 7(F) exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold law enforcement-related information in order to protect the physical safety of individuals. Today’s move is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world.

How can we be an example of justice and liberty in the world when we continue to hid the truth from ourselves. Horrible things happened and are happening to people at prisons the United States operates and contracts around the world.

The most horrible abuse of all is the abuse of our Constitution and to the
"decent respect to the opinions of mankind" that our the founders of our country held to be important to the success of our nation.