So, a pretentious group of musicians is upset that their music is being used to torment America’s most dangerous enemies?
And now they want the U.S. government to release an official song list?
I can’t imagine that such a document actually exists. Are we supposed to believe that CIA and Pentagon interrogators around the world were issued [...]

If you didn’t believe me before about Guantanamo and why it was a remarkably dumb idea, will you believe these guys?
From Politico:
“It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at [...]

A bombshell story broke today about the Obama administration drafting an executive order that could be used to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely.
First, here’s the story…
Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential [...]

That’s right. We locked him up when he was 14 years old.
End result?
No evidence could be found that he was an enemy combatant.
More from BBC:
After Mr Gharani was arrested at a mosque, his lawyer said he was accused by the US of being a member of al-Qaeda in 1998, when he would have been only [...]

npr link to music torture…

2008 Senator Lindsey Graham seems to disagree with 2009 Lindsey Graham.
This is Mike Fritz and David Murdock from ANP.
Senator Lindsey Graham was a passionate critic of the Bush Justice attorneys during this past summer’s Armed Services Committee hearings on interrogation.
Lately, however, Graham seems to have had second thoughts on the matter. At a recent Judiciary [...]

Just when I didn’t think I could be shocked by the previous administration’s decisions…
From Wash Post:
President Obama’s plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials — barred until [...]

New Red Sox outfielder Rocco Baldelli, who left the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as a free agent after battling chronic injuries, just took out a newspaper ad in the St. Petersburg Times thanking the fans for their warmth and support.
C-L-A-S-S-Y.
Regardless of whether his mother reminded him to send a thank you note or not, Baldelli [...]

Also, the words “we don’t torture” will finally be true.
From NY Times:
The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, [...]

As promised, this is one of the first orders of business. And given that we eventually freed the majority of those we kidnapped and held indefinitely without access to legal counsel, this move is yet another signal that America is starting a new chapter.
From AP:
The U.S. moved Tuesday to halt the Guantanamo Bay war crimes [...]

They finally admit it…
The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure [...]

I’m not exactly sure what legal solution Obama will be applying to the enemy combatants currently being detained, but it seems that anything is better than the nothingburger they have in place currently.
From Wash Post:
A former military prosecutor said in a declaration filed in federal court yesterday that the system of handling evidence against detainees [...]

But it will happen.
Obama said as much on This Week today:
“I think it’s going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do,” Obama said in an exclusive “This Week” interview with George Stephanopoulos, his [...]

I’ve written at length about my opinions of extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay, etc., but the idea that people will vigorously defend policies that put a completely innocent man through 6 years of hell still leaves me completely baffled.
Seriously. This is one of those issues for me where there’s absolutely zero common ground because I simply [...]

This is Lagan from ANP,
We sat down with James Risen, the New York Times national security corespondent who broke the domestic wiretapping stories, to talk about the dilemmas Obama faces with the unparalleled executive power he will inherit.
Dick Cheney recently said that Obama would appreciate all of the power they are handing over, but Obama [...]

I still can’t believe we justified holding people indefinitely without access to council or hope for trial. And the following case shows just how egregious that practice was since 4 out of the 5 men ordered released weren’t even “enemy combatants.”
From Wash Post:
For the first time, a federal judge ordered the release yesterday of detainees [...]

One of the biggest symbols of post 9/11 American hubris is set to vanish.
Good:
WASHINGTON – President-elect Obama’s advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo [...]

Usually it’s the cartoonist that is tortured, but the CIA got a hold of my cartoon and it disappeared for awhile.  Thank god it survived and I was able to recover it.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t like to talk much and tends to curl up in the corner of my studio. Wash Post article

George Will takes issue with John McCain’s statement that the recent Supreme Court decision on Guantanamo detainees was one of the “worst decisions in history.”
Will’s complaint is as much about McCain’s hyperbole as it is about McCain’s opposition to the ruling. As Will notes, this is not a clear-cut matter and people of good will [...]

Can you tell it’s an election year?
From Swampland comes this transcript of McCain’s statements during a town hall…
The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country. Sen. Graham and Sen. Lieberman and I had worked very hard to make sure [...]