Gitmo Embarassment Keeps Going and Going

At Senate hearing yesterday, Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden asked Deputy Associate Attorney General J. Michael Wiggins whether the Justice Department had "defined when there is the end of conflict."

"No, sir," Wiggins responded.

"If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever, forever, forever these folks get held at Guantanamo Bay," Biden said.

"It’s our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity," Wiggins said.

Earlier, the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said the United States may face terrorism "as long as you and I live." He asked Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway, who oversees military trials of Guantanamo prisoners, if that means America can hold prisoners that long without charges.

"I think that we can hold them as long as the conflict endures," Hemingway responded.

"Guantanamo Bay is an international embarrassment to our nation, to our ideals, and it remains a festering threat to our security," Leahy said.

"Our great country, America, was once viewed as a leader in human rights and the rule of law, and justly so. Guantanamo has undermined our leadership, has damaged our credibility, has drained the world’s goodwill for America at an alarming rate," Leahy added.

When these two guys said this, the zombies of Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and Ben Franklin should have risen from the dead, burst into that hearing room, and ripped off the heads of those two people. Is the Constitution still on Display at the National Archives? Do we even continue to bother with the pretext?

And not surprisingly, you can expect the detention and torture to continue since Dick Cheney and his buddies have figured out how to profit from Gitmo. Did you know they actually plan on expanding it? According to Reuters, the Defense Department has hired the scandalplagued Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown, and Root to build "a new $30 million detention facility and security fence at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." The new two-story facility, called Detention Camp #6, will house 220 detainees and will be completed next year. Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown, and Root to build "a and security fence at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." The new two-story facility, called Detention Camp #6, will house 220 detainees and will be completed next year. According to Reuters, the Defense Department has hired the Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown, and Root to build "a and security fence at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." The new two-story facility, called Detention Camp #6, will house 220 detainees and will be completed next year.