Glenn -

Is there any chance of getting some intelligent and reasonable person on to voice the government's side of these arguments?

I am not trying to be coy or snide or sarcastic - I just haven't heard any arguments against what you and Mr. Wizner are talking about here that have made any sense whatsoever, given the glaring and fundamental barbarities being committed against the foundations of justice here.

The government can grab you from the street, transport you thousands of miles to a secret location in an undisclosed country, subject you to treatment that every sane person on earth would recognize as torture; all without formally charging you with a crime, or presenting any evidence whatsoever that they thought you had done anything wrong.

This is monstrous, and I would like to see what justfication someone would offer for it not being so.

Even in your admittedly surprisingly even handed interaction with Hugh Hewitt a few weeks ago, I felt like agreement with the arguments he was making depended entirely on buying, whole hog, some unspoken aphorisms that seem to have eluded me. To Hewitt's credit, he gave you the time to make those arguments: without interrupting, or constantly reframing them, a la Hannity. But after all was said and done, he dismissed them somewhat cavalierly (IMHO, obviously) as basically some sort of foolish dirty fucking hippie idealism, not to be given serious consideration in his serious, grown-up, serious world.

If all they have is John Yoo and David Addington and Doug Feith and William Haynes and Alberto Gonzalez et al, then it is an indictment of our judicial system that it is taking this long to expose this for the fraud that it is.

'In his autobiography, Roman by Polanski, Polanski alleged that Geimer's mother had set up her daughter as part of a casting couch and blackmail scheme against him.'

Who knows the real truth?, still it does seem like the girl's (now woman's) emotion seems more guilt than anger - and the posters more like recovered memory vigilantes than dispassionate jurors.

I think you are missing the point here. No matter what the girl did, or what her mother did, SHE WAS 13. HE WAS 40, HE GAVE HER QUAALUDES AND ALCOHOL AND ANALLY RAPED HER. He has admitted as such. On what planet does the behavior of a judge or prosecutor, after the fact, mitigate those crimes at all?

Sweet Jeebus, I mean, really. 'A casting couch and blackmail scheme'? With a 13 year old? I can kind of see why Roman would sell this crap, what with trying to weasel out of the fact that he is an admitted child rapist and all, but why on earth are you buying?

From the British High Court ruling:

...there was nothing in the redacted paragraphs that would identify any agent or any facility or any secret means of intelligence gathering. Nor could anything in the redacted paragraphs possibly be described as “highly sensitive classified US intelligence.” It followed that it was (and remains) our view that the ordinary business of intelligence gathering would not be affected by putting into the public domain the redacted paragraphs as they contain only a short summary of what was reported to the United Kingdom authorities by the officials of the United States Government as to what they say happened to BM during his detention in Pakistan in April and May 2002.

Moreover, in the light of the long history of the common law and democracy which we share with the United States, it was, in our view difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.

{emphasis added}

paras 67-69

I know you quoted part of that, Glenn, but I thought it deserved some more attention. The British High Court, we can presume, are not trying to get one over on the US military or intelligence services. They [the British] do, in fact, rely greatly on the existing alliances within those branches of service and government for their own protection. Having seen the documents in question, they pronounce, very explicitly, that there is absolutely no material in them that is damaging to ongoing US or British intelligence operations.

Exactly what did the US then claim as a reason for the continued redaction? Did they dispute the judgment of the BHC or just cry "WHAA!" and threaten to take our ball and go home?

Well, a couple of paragraphs later, we get our answer:

No argument has been made that any of the ordinary considerations relating to the secrecy of intelligence gathering (such as the identity of agents or the location of facilities) would be affected.

This seems to be an appalling and myopic abuse of power and trust on our part as Americans.

I am not unmindful or completely dismissive of the idea that there might be sensitive military or intelligence secrets that warrant the complete lack of sensitivity being displayed here towards the public appearance of integrity. But the US government has, at this point, completely forfeited the right to expect the benefit of the doubt in such situations. This is one of the real and severe costs of the Cheney administration.