They Said What, Now?

Happy Fourth of July!

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.

The high court ruling, which gave all detainees the right to petition federal judges for immediate release, has intensified discussions within the Bush administration about what to do with the roughly 270 detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"I'm sure that none of us want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods," White House press secretary Dana Perino said about al-Qaida's former third in command.

It's gotta be hard for them, I suppose. Like those rock bands who for a period of time are real hit-machines, and then tastes change and they devolve into ever more desperate attempts at another chart-topper, only to discover that they've become pathetic parodies of their former glory, churning out one derivative tune after another. How sad to realize you're not actually the Rolling Stones, able to reinvent and sustain, not even Fleetwood Mac, but, dare I say it, Air Supply?

Sure, they had a big hit with that rockin' Bring 'em ON!, and the release of their album Saddam completely dominated the airwaves in early 2003, with its tracks including Colin Powell on high harmony for Anthrax, Baby! and the gravelly voice of Don Rumsfeld on the dreamily atmospheric East, West, South and North Somewhat. Of course, the real chart-topper from that album had to be the whole band joining in for Smoking Gun:Mushroom Cloud (Aluminum Tubes) with a haunting lyrical image later immortalized in an episode of the period's hit TV show 24.

But they went on to a series of disappointments. As the magic faded, efforts such as Turning the Corner, Final Throes, and Generals On The Ground never took off with the public. The band started to break up, and new members never really seemed, well, quite the same.

So here they are. They're digging deep, and reaching back to the material that brought them to stardom. And they realize, if they're going to do it, they really need to go for broke, go all out. Sure, Rummy and George and even Colin have left the band, and Dana's no Scotty, but hell, Scotty turned out to be a back-stabbing little snot anyway!

So here it is. On the day celebrating the commitment of a rag-tag bunch of farmers, small businessmen and provincial yahoos to stand up and face down the most powerful empire the world had ever known, on the day when we celebrate the Founding Fathers decision to not let fear keep them from standing up to the indignities and injustices being imposed upon them, we get their newest, and I hope last, attempt at another great hit. And???

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods"? Really?

Seriously?

(Oh, Dana, they can't be paying you enough, if you could say that with a straight face.)

We're supposed to be upset about the Supreme Court decision on habeas rights because it'll somehow lead to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods? How stupid do you think we are? Oh, right. Yeah, OK, you have a point there. But still. Could you walk us through exactly how that would work?

I mean, the point of a habeas hearing is to determine that the government has the right person, and that the state hasn't arbitrarily detained someone. Dana, are you seriously suggesting that, at such a hearing, the United States government would NOT be able to produce evidence that KSM was, in fact, the financier of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings? Or that he conspired in plots in the Phillipines to blow up airliners? Wasn't he already indicted in 1996? Aren't his co-conspirators serving life sentences?

So, even supposing that, because you folks had the boys be a little rough with him once he was in custody, a court threw out anything learned from him since his capture, (because, well, you tortured him), we already have enough hard, solid, courtroom-proven evidence against that plot to put him behind bars.

So, seriously, woman: On what planet does Khalid Sheikh Mohammed end up walking around an American neighborhood. What judge, on what reasoning, would order him released from custody?

I realize that, since you-all have been staffing the Department of Justice with ideological hacks from Christianist law schools that competence over there has taken a hit, but are you really worried that they couldn't successfully prosecute this guy? I pretty much think even a 1L could do the job. And yes, I do mean in the real court system, not that mickey-mouse gitmo crap.

Dana, I'm more afraid of brain-eating zombies walking around my neighborhood than I am of KSM. But then again, you guys have always been singing to the low-information crowd, the kind who might actually believe in brain-eating zombies. Or scary men with dark skin, coming to kill them in their sleep.

But Dana, you and the boss forgot something. The Supreme Court decision on habeas for Gitmo detainees wasn't their only decision this term. They also issued a ground-breaking decision on the right to own handguns.

The actual scariest aspect of having Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around an American neighborhood is how many might get hit by crossfire in the rush to take the bastard out.

This is the United States of America, damn it! We are the inheritors of the hard-won freedoms our brave forebears fought and died for. It is simply disgusting to suggest that we should even for a moment consider taking issue with the rights afforded not just by the Constitution but by the hundreds of years of civilized legal principle that motivated the Revolution, based on some incoherent fear.

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence had legitimate, well-founded fears that by doing so, they were signing their own death warrants. Fighting had already begun, the British Navy controlled the sea, the Americans just had a hastily gathered Army and a bunch of militias. If the British won, they'd have all been hanged.

Now we, 232 years later, are supposed to be afraid of a balding man in a military prison? We're supposed to think that somehow, the system our Founding Fathers risked hanging for is so colossally broken that, despite the mounds of evidence, this guy might be set free and allowed to walk the streets of this country he hates so much (and which, I might add, hates him right back?)

It's insulting to suggest it. Even more nauseating is the fact that the suggestion came from the White House. The people who should be bravely leading us are asking us to cower and snivel. For the president and his people to choose this most patriotic of days to introduce this tripe dishonors the men whose actions 232 years ago we celebrate. It offends decency.

In support of the Declaration, those men, "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence," pledged "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

The current President would have us be afraid, because he has no honor.

I know which option I choose.