bu$h* Decides to Keep Guantánamo Open

i wouldn't have a beer with this fucking criminal for all the tea in china

WASHINGTON — Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials.

Mr. Bush’s top advisers held a series of meetings at the White House this summer after a Supreme Court ruling in June cast doubt on the future of the American detention center. But Mr. Bush adopted the view of his most hawkish advisers that closing Guantánamo would involve too many legal and political risks to be acceptable, now or any time soon, the officials said.

The administration is proceeding on the assumption that Guantánamo will remain open not only for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency but also well beyond, the officials said, as the site for military tribunals of those facing terrorism-related charges and for the long prison sentences that could follow convictions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/washington/21gitmo.html?pagewanted=print

the horrifying revelations the prisoners will make upon release. The secondary impact will be the calls that criminal charges be brought against the president and others who put the prisoners in Guantanamo, refused to try them in appropriate courts, kept them incarcerated without the benefit of habeas corpus and tortured at least some of them. The next president is going to have to make the horrible decision: charge or ignore war crimes of a predecessor.

And Guantanamo is not the only basis for charges against members of the Bush administration.

It is shameful that Congress continues to fund the illegal activities of this administration. It is shameful that Congress has not investigated the diversion of money from allocated purposes to illegal purposes by this administration -- beginning with illegal electronic surveillance to Guantanamo to the preparations for the War in Iraq. The list goes on and on.

So, the president is a criminal. That appears to be a given when it comes to the Bush administration. But why doesn't Congress do something about it? To the extent that Congress sits idle and wait for uninformed voters to push buttons and cross out squares on paper forms, it is an accomplice.

If I see a parent seriously abusing a child in the grocery store, I am supposed to call the police. Who do we call when our president seriously abuses his office? Congress. Why doesn't Congress understand that it doesn't just exist to talk about things?