-”Some really are awful. Some qualify as “the worst of the worst,”

“worst of the worst”? Where have we heard that before? Can Obama point to any convictions, of these prisoners, in REAL courts? No. Outside America, we have a saying: “innocent until proven guilty”. But of course a “constitutional law professor” should know that.

Indeed. The issue of detention without trial goes to the very heart of concepts of liberty and human rights.

The concept of liberty loses any meaning if detention without trial is acceptable. There can be no liberty if some authority can just decide to throw someone in a gulag arbitrarily.

“It’s not like we’re advancing liberty or making peace,” according to Mr. Fried, the man in charge of the “miserable” task of “cleaning up a problem” inherited from the Bush administration, by releasing or relocating hundreds of Muslim detainees swept up with great fanfare during the neocons’ seven-year global war on terror — all so that the infamous US military/CIA interrogation facility at Guantanamo can be closed.

I beg to differ. This is very much about advancing liberty and making peace.

If the folks in charge of carrying out this simple campaign promise of President Obama don’t recognize the significance of restoring respect for the rule of law and international human rights guarantees, this mindset is a big part of the problem now needlessly befuddling the DC beltway Democratic leadership.

It was neocon true believers like former vice president Dick Cheney and Senator Pat Roberts who created the Gitmo/Abu Ghraib black site gulag, largely for ideological hype and domestic partisan gain. Now, the same spinmeisters seek to Willie Horton themselves out of accountability for potential escapee/boogeyman blowback which may (or may not) loom ominously on the horizon.

If the DLC can’t figure out how to counter this fear mongering shell game, then it’s time for the White House to change not only tacticians, but also the whole frame of reference.

As to torture, I’d really never even get started on the “is it effective” argument; the fact that no one can point to an actual “ticking time bomb scenario” in non-fiction circumstances is neither here nor there; the instant one does, immediately, we will be told by torture-advocates (amateurs all, btw, as no professional interrogator would ever want to go near torture) the “moral calculus” suddenly changes… and my point is “THE HELL IT DOES.”

Civilization has agreed on very, very few things, but two of them are that torture and genocide are ALWAYS WRONG. ALWAYS. No exceptions, just because the Fox network runs a show where in its fictional context torture is effective (oh hell, man, its FREAKING AWESOME! WOLVERINES!) Wait… where was I… oh yes…

Just replace the word “torture” with “genocide”… such as “We must reserve the right to engage in ____ in certain circumstances where the lives of thousands might be on the line if we don’t get immediate information.” Well, I respectfully submit that genocide has proven much more effective than torture ever has in achieving political goals… we can point to the case of the Syrian massacre of the town of Hama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre) which effectively ended much internal terrorism inside of Syria… sure, between 7,000 and 40,000 people were killed, but then “thousands more were saved” from “the ravages of terrorism.”

See how easy it is? I mean, there are those who advocate dropping nuclear bombs on the Middle East (somehow not vaporizing Israel in the process… see above re “amateurs”)…. I assure you, such wholesale homicide (like that at Hama) would doubtless be far more effective at stamping out terrorism than “torture” ever would be… and yet, somehow, we at least for the moment, still acknowledge that such tactics are “wrong” (well, many of us do, anyway).

I’m kind of tired of the premise that legal (and moral) restraints on conduct are somehow “quaint” or “obsolete” simply because laws and practices that are longstanding military doctrine have proven inconvenient policy to the former Bush Administration amateurs… the laws were just fine; it was just that administering them was put into the hands of criminals, criminals whose handiwork Ambassador Fried finds himself stuck with, and criminals whose successor is more inclined to emulate than to investigate.

This would all be hilariously funny… if any of it were funny.