You know, the Six Degrees of 9-11 can solve anything for Bush and the Republicans. Case in point: when you think of secret prisons in secret locations where prisoners naturally are held in secret with no outside contact with anyone - family, lawyers, human rights organizations, etc - do you think of America or the former Soviet Union? Call me crazy, but when you're talking about people disappearing and given no rights at all, that sounds more like KGB and Stalin to me than the CIA and Uncle Sam.
But not in Bush's America.
Meteor Blade has one of his usually good posts on the subject of
recently discovered US secret prisons. Secret prisons that our United States government, following the Bush mandate of ignoring all human rights, the Geneva Conventions, and plain old American rule of law, have been found to exist. And in typical Bush Orwellian irony, these facilities use former Soviet secret prison compounds.
From MB:
Some will say that secret prisoners in secret prisons in secret places are better than the alternative that was discussed and discarded: whacking al Qaeda leaders in a campaign of assassination. Presumably the people who make such distinctions don't have the problem I have: my marrow quivers at the thought that "my" government set up these prisons and would have concealed them forever if it could have. Crazy me. I thought being a shining city on a hill meant doing our utmost to dismantle all the world's secret prisons, not build new ones.
I just love the War on Terra. It's like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Only the Kevin Bacon number is always 9-11. Connect anything to 9-11 in six degrees of less and it is suddenly acceptable to Bush and Republicans. So for "secret prisons" it goes like this:
- Stalin used secret prisons to get rid of political enemies.
- Political enemies today are called terrorists.
- Terrorists attacked the US on 9-11.
There. You see, boys and girls? Secret prisons are completely acceptable for the United States government to use. You can get to 9-11 with only three degrees of separation! Why that's almost completely American.
Too bad the Constitution would differ. But I'm sure Bush has had Alberto Gonzales figure out a way to describe that document as quaint by now too.