http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090315/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney

There are many other layers, of course, in brief, have to be studied & watched as well:
ONE::
The tricks of the US-CIA to play “both sides” — ie — to train & support folk connected to our supposes “enemies” to do our dirty work: U all know but for any who don’t see John Perkins work – “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” (see his chapters and sections on the mess US helped make in Iran and Iraq years ago) also his other books.

How do we know this doesn’t, isn’t going on right now? And the whole fairly recent history of the CIA as well.

TWO:
At the same time, we sometimes have to consider strategy, Talking Dog, such as how might we support Obama & his chosen carefully & wherever we might – in order to better have these leaders listen to what we know? Looks like to me, as progressive & concerned with these issue as Marjorie Cohn obviously is (President of the National Lawyers Guild) http://www.marjoriecohn.com — she has a tone befitting to being heard by any & all concerned.

JUST IN: Press release on Torture:
http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2009/03/press-release-council-of-europe-anti.htmlStrasbourg – 13.03.2009 – The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has published today the response of the Government of Denmark to the report on the CPT’s most recent visit to that country, in February 2008. The response has been made public at the request of the Danish authorities.The CPT’s report on the February 2008 visit was published on 25 September 2008.The response of the Danish Government is available on the Committee’s website: http://www.cpt.coe.intCouncil of Europe Press release–HREA – http://www.hrea.org

Hey TD,
You’re in a blaze of righteous anger today! Can’t blame you, of course. The number of prisoners estimated by the intelligence services as being connected with al-Qaeda is supremely important, as I’ve repeatedly tried to emphasize, and you’re right to point out that it is between 35 and 50 – which means that we’re all waiting for Obama to arrange for the release of at least 190 men.

However, we may indeed have created some recidivists through our treatment of these men, which would not be surprising, although, as I’ve said, in my meetings with former prisoners what has impressed me in particular is their fortitude and their decency, after all they have been through.

Particularly significant is your comment, “if we don’t know who we let out, then we must not know who we are continuing to hold,” and I’ll be hammering away at this one until the majority of the men are released. It’s where the importance of looking at individual cases really comes into its own: if the administration has never known who these men are, then, in theory, the prison could be full of terrorists, but when their individual stories are examined, what’s apparent, in many cases, is the distance between their own statements –- say, that they attended a training camp a few months before the 9/11 attacks –- and statements made by unidentified “sources” (often alleged members of al-Qaeda), who conveniently contradict this with more inflated claims about their significance.

Readers who want to know more should check out my definitive prisoner list, which provides links to some of these stories:
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/03/03/guantanamo-the-definitive-prisoner-list/

If we accept figures from Erik Saar, General Hood and guys like that from early on in GTMO’s sorry history
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shayana-kadidal/help-stop-the-guantanamo-_b_29664.html
GTMO (save perhaps the “14 high value terrorists”) never held more than 2 or 3 dozen A.Q. members or real terrorists EVER… that said, the vaunted “61 terrorists have returned to the battlefield” (which includes anyone who speaks critically of his illegal detention!) means we have an amazing “recidivism rate” of between 160% and 250%!!! We have more terrorists out than we had in… and, unbelievably, we can’t seem to figure out who they are, so THOSE ARE THE ONES WE RELEASED!

What I’ve never understood is why people fail to accept the inexorable logic that, if we don’t know who we let out, then we must not know who we are continuing to hold… since no reliable trial or vetting procedure has ever taken place, why is the public so willing to assume that we are holding “the right” guys?

Furthermore, the Bush Administration touted as its main selling point (its ONLY selling point, actually) the fact that the United States itself (we’re the only ones who matter, after all) has been “kept safe” from direct “homeland” attacks since 11 September 2001… that said, since the Bush Admin. gets CREDIT for that, since no one from GTMO has managed to attack THE UNITED STATES, why do we count any of their acts in places that don’t count as “terrorism” at all? And, to be fair, this includes killing American troops anywhere except within our borders… since the Bush Administration was never “charged” for this in “an accountability moment” (to wit, an “election”), it’s quite clear that the American people don’t care about this either… ONLY ATTACKS IN NORTH AMERICA COUNT (preferably involving investment bankers and insurance brokers and airplanes). So, judged by the criteria by which the Bush Administration judges itself, “it kept us safe from another September 11th attack”… NO ONE, whether released from GTMO, or anywhere else, has committed a terrorist attack on the United States that gets to count.

From my own perspective, I began interviewing knowledgable players starting in ’05 with a relatively open mind; my view was that we were probably holding bad guys, probably a lot of bad guys, but the arbitrary terms and conditions under which we were holding them were chillingly Soviet in their styling. As I interviewed more people, it became obvious that the information our own government compiled showed that the overwhelming majority of those held should never have been there, and since there was, and still is, no reliable screening method for who were holding and who we are releasing (the one and only release criteria has been political… does the detainee have “a lucky passport” from a country that cares about him)… well, one can see the problem, assuming there were ANY terrorists in their to begin with AT ALL… and the more and more people I talked to (the United States government, and even ex-officials responsible for the policies, wouldn’t talk to me), but those who did gave consistent accounts of abuse of those being held, and total arbitrariness. Don’t believe me? How about Darrel Vandeveld, an ex-prosecutor of Guantanamo military commissions, who says we’re past the point of even being able to give anyone at GTMO anything resembling a fair trial, and only a tiny number did anything for which they even could have been charged.
http://thetalkingdog.com/archives2/001262.html

So why, after so much arbitrariness, are so many people still willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a Government that has not earned it? The multi-year propaganda effort has been successful to a degree, to be sure, but I would bet sterling to starlings or dollars to donuts that the correlation is overwhelmingly partisan: that those willing to scream “we can’t release any terrrrrrrrrorists” are overwhelmingly supporters of the Bush Admin. and its policies… and so, the facts just aren’t going to change any hearts and minds under these partisan circumstances, much as we’d like them to.