The pen scares the shit out of the swordsmen at DoD. Fuck them.
By Thoreau
From hilzoy, I learn that the Pentagon is circulating claims that people released from a prison in a Communist country are using their freedom to take up arms against the US. We’ve heard these claims before, and my response is that even if (for the sake of argument) these guys are engaging in terrorism, it’s just one more piece of evidence that unsupervised officials make bad decisions: If every case had to be examined in an open and adversarial forum where only reliable evidence is admissible, maybe we’d see better determinations being made. I’ve always believed that if the cops have to prove their case they’re more likely to do a careful investigation and get to the bottom of it and actually get the bad guy.
Well, my “for the sake of argument” proviso may not be so accurate. Guess what the Pentagon is counting as “returning to the battlefield”? Journalism. (See hilzoy’s post for the links.) The “Tipton Three”, some Brits of Pakistani descent captured in Afghanistan and tortured in Cuba (by people who claim to be Americans and even wear American uniforms but sure as fuck act like Communists) were counted as returning to the battlefield because they participated in a documentary. Some alleged Uighur separatists (people with a grudge against China, not the US) were also tortured at Gitmo by people who wear American uniforms but behave like Communists, and they are alleged to have returned to the battlefield because they wrote an Op-Ed in the NYT.
The sort of bureaucracy that would label Op-Ed writing an act of war goes a lot deeper than just Bush and Cheney and their immediate circle. There are a lot of people who need to be fired at the very least and prosecuted in many cases. Equating an Op-Ed with war suggests to me that Joe the Plumber is running the Pentagon.
Fuck the DoD. I submit that if you have an institution that spends hundreds of billions of dollars to go around torturing innocent people and claiming that Op-Eds are war, then that institution is a bigger threat to our freedom than a bunch of thugs in caves. Mr. President-elect, if you’re looking for some spending that you can cut to pay for your stimulus package, start at the Pentagon.
Comment by WJW —
January 16, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
I’m speechless.
Comment by Rick Taylor —
January 16, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
I’m not even surprised. When I heard that figure, I just assumed they were lying. That’s how far we’ve come.
Comment by Ugh —
January 16, 2009 @ 3:25 pm
as i noted in a comment over at ObWi, the only thing the pentagon says that I’ll believe without checking is that serviceperson X died (but not how, when, or where they died). They are a bunch of fucking liars.
further, releasing this information now is clearly a shot across Obama’s bow with respect to closing gittmo and they should be smacked for it (how one goes about doing that I don’t know).
Comment by Eric the .5b —
January 16, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
I’m with WJW.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 16, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Any involved persons who can be fired should be fired. Those with career civil servant protections or something analogous should be stationed in northern Alaska, manning radar stations. On the night shift.
Comment by Barry —
January 16, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
I didn’t post my original comment, because it might have been used against me. Suffice to say that I’d really like to ‘express my respect and frank feelings’ to the guys who made that up.