Take note of what your politicians do to foreigners

[dArKeR]

Human rights campaigners want justice for the terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay and Belmarsh -- but at what price?
By Nick Cohen
THE OBSERVER , London
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004,Page 9

Wendy Patten is the type of person you want on your side when you get into trouble. Fast-talking, clever and determined to win, the advocacy director of the civil-liberties group Human Rights Watch is one of scores of US lawyers fighting to extend the rule of law to Guantanamo Bay.

Before she took her campaign to Britain last week, she reasoned there were two means of helping the detainees: either the US' allies could put pressure on the White House administration to soften its policies, or the US Supreme Court could intervene.

I met her in London the day after she arrived and, like many US liberals, her warm image of the Tony Blair government hadn't survived contact with Blair's Britain. The papers were full of David Blunkett's plans for British terror suspects to be tried at least partly in secret. It wasn't exactly Guantanamo justice the Home Secretary was proposing, but the similarities were striking. About 660 people are held in the US base in Cuba. They're not accorded the status of prisoners of war, nor are they criminals under the supervision of the US justice system. No one outside the US government knows who most of them are or what they are meant to have done.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/02/17/2003099105

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. The project is very popular with US voters

Although some Washington insiders may have privately expressed concern about the potential for civil disturbance as the program is expanded to the continental US, that now appears unlikely.

As long as the seized are limited to Muslims, ethnic minorities and regime critics, the camps will enjoy wide bipartisan support.

[countmyvote4real]

2. I guess including gays will cost way too much money.

We'll see.

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. Not at all! They get in under "regime critics" Big tent. well, ok, cage.

It's about inclusion!