6.18.2005
Who We Are (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL
Published: June 18, 2005
For more than three and a half years since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress has been derelict in its duty to assert control over the prison camps created by President Bush in the shadows beyond the Constitution, the rule of law and a half-century of international laws and treaties. So it was a relief to watch the hearing this week by Senator Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee on the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to hear Mr. Specter declare that it was time for Congress to do its job and bring the American chain of prison camps under the law.
While the hearing was too long in coming, its timing was useful - one day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who should have been fired for bungling the Iraq war and for the prison abuse scandal, offered the bizarre declaration that "no detention facility in the history of warfare has been more transparent" than Guantánamo.
Mr. Rumsfeld seems to be confusing transparency with invisibility.
(More ... Who We Are - New York Times) ¶ 20:13
Published: June 18, 2005
For more than three and a half years since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress has been derelict in its duty to assert control over the prison camps created by President Bush in the shadows beyond the Constitution, the rule of law and a half-century of international laws and treaties. So it was a relief to watch the hearing this week by Senator Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee on the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to hear Mr. Specter declare that it was time for Congress to do its job and bring the American chain of prison camps under the law.
While the hearing was too long in coming, its timing was useful - one day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who should have been fired for bungling the Iraq war and for the prison abuse scandal, offered the bizarre declaration that "no detention facility in the history of warfare has been more transparent" than Guantánamo.
Mr. Rumsfeld seems to be confusing transparency with invisibility.
(More ... Who We Are - New York Times) ¶ 20:13
