Here's an example of the "torture" going on at Gitmo, according to a recent BBC Web report:

Headline: "US Detainee 'Mentally Tortured.' "

A Pakistani-born US resident detained at Guantanamo Bay has said he was "mentally tortured" there, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon. ... Mr. [Majid] Khan said,"I swear to God this place in some sense worst than CIA jails. I am being mentally torture here" ...

[Khan] complained about how US guards had taken away pictures of his daughter, given him new glasses with the wrong prescription, shaved his beard off, forcibly fed him when he went on hunger strike, and denied him the opportunity for recreation. . . .

Later, Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of "cheap, branded, unscented soap," the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that "hardly bounce."

Oh, the poor dear, having to deal with unscented soap and flat balls. I'm just crying myself to sleep at night thinking about it.

As for you, mr. bloomsbury, did you know the word "gullible" doesn't appear in the dictionary? Look it up!

["anonymous"]: The people in Gitmo are not criminals in the traditional sense nor are they POWs, since they do not fight in uniform under a recognized state. That is why a new category has been created for them: foreign enemy combatant, yada-yada-yada....

"Bart"! "Bart!" Is that you?!?!?

Cheers,

Forgot to include the URL to the BBC web report so everyone, including the oh-so-outraged bloomsbury, can see the real extent of "torture" at Gitmo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6659585.stm

This guy, who's name I don't know or remember, said he read somewhere that there's no torture going on at Gitmo. Plus, I got this email that said so, too. I don't remember who sent that, either. Maybe my brother, I don't remember. But he forwarded it from someone else, I think.

So there you have it. Voila! No torture!

Move along folks... nothing to see here.

Ah fuck it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25962-2004Dec25.html

This doesn't say anything about partially-deflated balls though, so it's probably all terrorist-loving crap from the left-wing FBI.

bucky1:

The Randolph Bourne Institute: http://randolphbourne.org/

... is the umbrella organization for antiwar.com and it says " ...all RBI projects attempt to provide a forum where the entire political spectrum – libertarian, left, right, centrist – can join together on the vital issue of opposing war. ...". Is this not enough for LWM to accept?

Is he trying to claim that antiwar.com is "evil" in some way? It is my home on the net, if I have one, --- does that alone make them horrors?

I went shopping a couple of hours ago, just after voting in the special election for Congress (CA-37). There, in front of the Trader Joes, was a bustling little table of anti-Bush organizing... by the LaRouchies. Possibly the only outfight in America more psychologically unfit to run the country than the gang that's actually in charge.

There are reasons why the idea of a united front appeals to authoritarians, it brings them legions of allies they could not otherwise secure.

I am all for rationally joining forces across lines that do not divide us--when our very constitution is under threat, all who support constitutional rule--with all its flaws--can join together without any need to compromise anything.

But other big tents have a small entry fee: your soul.

Thus, heed the warning: all big tents are not created equal.

p.s.

bucky1:

Randolf Bourne was a liberal in 1900, but that is what we call libertarians today. (or classic liberals, if you prefer)

Bourne was 14 in 1900, but was never remotely a libertarian. He was a man of the left, who wrote quite clearly in terms of class interests and struggles, he did not dissolve them into atomized individualities. You think because he criticized the state he must have been anti-statist, hence a libertarian. You forget that Marx, too, saw the state as an instrument of class interests, to be criticized as such, and wrote with anticipation about the withering away of the state.

But, then, you forget so many things.

Anyone have a clue what LWM is going on about?

orbitboy:

Except for the fact that the entire post was an argument stating why it's NOT important to bring bin Laden to justice. Or is bin Laden NOT a terrorist?

Of course bin Laden is not a terrorist! He's not locked up in Guantanimo, is he? And he's not fighting us in Iraq? Well, then, you have your answer: Not a terrorist.

Because if he were, BushCo would have locked him up in Guantanimo, and throwed away the key, no matter what your sorry commie ass said.

[Wait for it...]

Heh.

Ya got me!

It really shouldn't be about what "they" need...

but about who/what we want/expect to be. ;~)

Just to paraphrase a talking point relevant to the main thread here.

See this doesn't help. I used to live where people do this. This is not that. This kind of rhetoric really doesn't fix anything.

Paul R.'s last set me to thinking again about these recurrent abductions by certain interested ideologues of our defenseless political ancestors. I believe I understand Mona's brand of libertarianism, but the anarcho-capitabysmalism which seems to govern bucky1's political analysis, and kdwmsn's before him, absolutely baffles me.

This is probably no time to start this to-ing and fro-ing up again, but perhaps if I restrict my query to the subject of justice, I won't wander too far OT. While conceding the failures of our nominally democratic government in its use of force in other countries, as well as among its own citizens, I fail to see what other agency bucky and kd imagine would be worthy of replacing it. Just exactly how would they see to our collective security -- you know, all that stuff in the preamble to the constitution?

Bucky1, if I may address you directly, when you say that on occasion, the government abuses its monopoly on legal force and violence, I would agree. When you say that it must do so, is compelled by its very nature to do so, I would definitely disagree.

That's why I asked you some time ago if you thought monopolistic capitalist enterprises were any more likely to shelter us in their tender loving arms than the government (Ignoring for the moment the gross neglect of our own labor history that such a formulation requires even as irony.) It's also why I asked how one could reasonably expect to escape warlordism in the event that one succeeded in doing away with both the executive and judicial branches of our current form of government. Do you really think that we can each of us defend ourselves against the inevitable predators large and small without some form of social contract?

As I see it, getting rid of GWB might spare us the horrors of Guantánamo; getting rid of government most certainly would not.