Dogging Gitmo

by digby

I have been remiss in failing to highlight this series of interviews with lawyers and others who are involved with Guantanamo and other issues pertaining to the military commissions over at The Talking Dog. He’s talked to a variety of people who offer great insight into the miscarriage of justice and moral blight that is our system of military detentions in the Great GWOT. I recently read them all again as a piece and the big picture that emerges is just horrifying (scroll to the bottom of this post to see them all.)

Most recently he interviewed David Rose, the first journalist to pull the curtain back on Guantanamo in his early articles in Vanity Fair (from which I quoted liberally when they came out) and author of Guantanamo: The War on Human Rights.

The Talking Dog: Have you had a chance to return to Guantanamo since he publication of your book, Guantanamo: The War on Human Rights?

David Rose: I tried to go to Guantanamo last June (of 2006). I was all set to cover the first military commission trials, when the news broke of the suicides of three detainees. The Pentagon suddenly revoked my clearance. Then, as I was in Washington, I managed to get a new clearance, faxed to my hotel, and we arranged transport by a circuitous route on civilian aircraft via Miami and Kingston, Jamaica, but ultimately, the Defense Department refused to let me in at that time, and I have not been back.

The Talking Dog: Do you have a comment on why, to this day, American detention policy, whether at Guantanamo, Bagram, Kandahar, Iraq, or elsewhere, including the ghost prisons and rendition program, remain a much bigger issue in Europe and outside of the United States than they do inside of the United States?

David Rose: In all fairness, it has become a far bigger issue in the United States since I wrote the book. Of course, John Kerry did not mention this at all when he ran for President– not one mention of Guantanamo. Large numbers of Americans think it is just perfectly fine to hold people this way. They don’t see the broader issues– that Guantanamo and America’s treatment of detainees is virtually a recruiting sergeant for terrorists, and that the policy is misguided ethically and counterproductive in achieving the supposed goals of fighting terrorism.

It makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?

Rose is the guy who first profiled the man who was brought in to toughen up Guantanamo, the psychopathic artillery officer named Geoffrey Miller who they subsequently sent over to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, and praised as an “innovator” when he retired.

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