In Search Of Utopia: <strike>Hotel</strike> Club Guantanamo?

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August 02, 2005

~~Hotel~~ Club Guantanamo?

That is what ~~a lot~~ some IDIOTS on the Right like to call it. Any of us on the Left who express outrage over the goings on at Gitmo, get labled as soft on Terrorism, but take a look at two posts today that make Senator Durbin's comments look almost prophetic:

First from Dan Gillmor:

NY Times: E-mails raise question of fairness in Guantanamo trials. As
the Pentagon was making its final preparations for war crimes trials
against four detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, two senior prosecutors
complained in confidential messages last year that the trial system had
been secretly arranged to improve the chance of conviction and to
deprive defendants of material that could prove their innocence.

Fairness at Guantanamo? The very concept is absurd, given what's been
going on there since the Bush administration started making up new
international law and ignoring our own Constitution.

Now two of the prosecutors themselves couldn't stomach what was going on. Their honor prevailed in dishonorable proceedings.

And Salon.Com has another compelling piece:

Don't anybody tell Dick Durbin
Do you ever feel like you don't recognize your country anymore?
Maybe the moment came for you when five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court handed a presidential election to one of their own. Maybe it came when the president took America to war based on pretenses that turned out to be false. Maybe it came when you saw those photographs from Abu Ghraib, or when you learned that the man who helped orchestrate America's torture policies would become its attorney general. Maybe all of those things built up in your mind until your idea of America started to seem a long way off from the reality around you.
Maybe that hasn't happened to you yet. And maybe it will when you read about the plight of two young men from China who have spent the last three years locked up inside the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.
Abu Bakker Qassim and A'del Abdu al-Hakim are Muslims who left their homes in China to flee religious persecution there. As their lawyer has told the Boston Globe, Qassim and al-Hakim met each other at a market in Kyrgystan right around the time of the attacks of Sept. 11. They decided to make their way together to Turkey, where they apparently planned to set up new lives for themselves and the families they hoped would follow. Instead, Qassim and al-Hakim were arrested by Pakistani police, who thought they might be al-Qaida members. The Pakistanis turned them over to the United States -- apparently in exchange for a $5,000-per-head bounty. And the United States shipped them off to Guantánamo Bay, where they have been held ever since.
Why? Well, for no reason at all, it turns out. In March of this year -- which is to say, three years after the United States took Qassim and al-Hakim into custody -- a U.S. Combatant Status Review Tribunal concluded that the two men were not enemy combatants but merely had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the America in our minds, that means that they were released immediately with the nation's apologies, with something approaching fair compensation and with a guarantee of safe passage back to wherever it is they wanted to go. But that's not what happened in the America in which we're actually living.
Although Qassim and al-Hakim were cleared in March, the United States didn't bother to share that fact with anyone outside Guantánamo. And having been denied contact with their lawyers or their family members, the men had no way to spread the word themselves. So for four more months, they sat in Guantánamo, cleared but not freed.

Hat Tip The End of the World.

Read both pieces to completion!

Doesn't sound much like a ~~Hotel~~ "club," to me.... A Hotel you can check out of... What the hell HAS happened to our country? What happened when we turn a blind eye to this type of fascism, or in the case of so many on the Right, out and out support it, in the name of a Secure America?

What happened to the America who would have rode the people responsible for this out of Washington on a Rail? This is NOT my America, and if it is one you support, perhaps you need to go back and read those documents like the Constitution, that the Administration seems only too eager to use as a Door Mat!

Posted by David A at August 2, 2005 05:14 PM
Filed Under | 751 Words

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Comments

Also at Bayosphere, one of the Citizen Journalists challenged your trackback for a citation.

Where, precisely, have bloggers from the "right" made reference to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as "Hotel Guantanamo"?

Da_Wiz Sends

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 3, 2005 10:53 AM

Try Michelle Malkin to start, but there have been numerous post about how good the food is, the quality of the library, etc.

Posted by: David Anderson at August 3, 2005 10:59 AM

Michelle Malkin has a rather large body of work. I have read some of her comments concerning Guantanamo and the conditions there. The question, as per your assertion, is where did she (or any other pundit of the Right) refer to it as "Hotel Guantanamo" as you have claimed.

My search of her site just now returned no page matches for the term "Hotel Guantanamo."

Where, precisely (as in provide a citation) has a pundit of the Right used the term "Hotel Guantanamo"?

Da_Wiz Sends

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 3, 2005 11:48 AM

What difference does it make if she has used the exact phrase, the point is that she and others have implied that conditions there are soft on the prisoners, and please dont bother coming here with Strawman arguments, the stories above are clear, what is going on at Gittmo is shameful and a stain on our National Charector, you want to defend those acts, go ahead, perhaps then we can debate it...If you want to argue semantics, go somewhere else and do it.

Posted by: David Anderson at August 3, 2005 11:58 AM

Oh... I see. You made it up.

Just wanted to clear that up.

I'm up for the debate. What say Bayosphere as neutral ground?

Da_Wiz Sends

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 3, 2005 01:07 PM

Oh I see, you are one of the "lets put words in people's mouth's trolls." Eh you want to discuss the subject, you came here. I don't even know what Bayosphere is. And I will gladly discuss it here, otherwise, I have neither the time nor inclination to go to someone else's blog to play.

Posted by: David Anderson at August 3, 2005 01:12 PM

I just found the post on bayosphere. The name was Club Gitmo, with a bunch of photos of a luxury hotel setting, photoshopped in with pictures of Terrorist.
Something I have seen repeated on a number of pages.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/eibessential/illustrating_absurdity/clubgitmo.guest.html

Posted by: David Anderson at August 3, 2005 01:30 PM

How have I put words in your mouth?

The title of the piece I am commenting on is "Hotel Guantanamo?"

In which you state (in the very next line):

"That is what a lot of people on the Right like to call it."

Except they don't. Some have called it "Club Gitmo" as means of ridicule.

And you most certainly know what Bayosphere is, as you have linked and tracked back to it in you post above.

Da_Wiz Sends

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 3, 2005 02:33 PM

I had no idea Dan Gillmor's Blog was also called "Bayosphere," or whatever! Now, are you happy, club, hotel, Spa, whatever the hell you loony tunes call it, it is a disgrace, now you want to debate that, or is there something else I can do for you!

Posted by: David Anderson at August 3, 2005 02:44 PM

I guess not? Now that the strawman has been burned, it's on to something else. I kind of figured that would be the case.

Posted by: David Anderson at August 3, 2005 04:06 PM

Mister Anderson,

I apologize for the delay. Work (and lunch) interfered.

Thank you for that retraction/correction.

As regards the debate, it is well underway under the very topic you linked on Bayosphere (Dan Gilmor's Citizen Journalist project).

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 3, 2005 05:01 PM

Mister Anderson,

Who now avoids engagement on the issues?

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 4, 2005 11:13 AM

What are you talking about?

Posted by: David Anderson at August 4, 2005 11:15 AM

Mister Anderson,

You said now you want to debate that, or is there something else I can do for you! and then, when I did not immediately reply, you said: I guess not? Now that the strawman has been burned, it's on to something else. I kind of figured that would be the case.

When in point of fact you correctly, in un-graciously, corrected the mis-attribution in your original piece. For which I then thanked you, and asked if you were still game for the debate you had earlier proposed.

Well?

Do you wish to debate the issue or not?

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 4, 2005 01:03 PM

To quote your President, Bring it on!
I ignored your little snipe about a "correction," because it was obviously trolling. There was NO correction. The pictures on Limbaughs site are clearly of a Resort Hotel. Calling it Club Gittmo, is the same as "Club Med," so what is your point. Make it and I will gladly respond.

Posted by: David Anderson at August 4, 2005 01:05 PM

The debate of which I speak and which is already in progress (http://bayosphere.com/blog/dangillmor/080205/what_kind#comment-7283) is the issue of due process via the Military Commissions.

Da_Wiz Sends

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 4, 2005 04:04 PM

I have a blog. I dont engage in debate on other people's blog. You want to debate here, fine. I dont need a peanut gallery.

Posted by: David Anderson at August 4, 2005 04:12 PM

Your sand box or nothing, eh?

Nothing it is.

Best of luck with that factual accuracy thing.

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 4, 2005 06:28 PM

Okay, bye. Thanks for dropping by. Get a blog yourself, you will feel better and wont have to troll other peoples.

Posted by: David Anderson at August 4, 2005 06:47 PM

Snort...

You had to revise your post (for which you would deserve some praise, had you manage to avoid ad-homiem attacks), and I'm a troll.

Your happiness and fullfilment await in the utopia you seek!

Posted by: Outlaw_Wizard at August 5, 2005 02:08 AM