6 years of Guantanamo

6 years on ... This sucks!
6 years of Guantanamo.... Scott Horton@ Harpers:

Around the world, Guantánamo is viewed as a stain on the honor and reputation of the United States. It stands as visual evidence of a decision by the United States to repudiate its human rights commitments and the human rights standards that every modern American administration up to the arrival of George W. Bush had championed. Britain’s Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, the senior law officer in the English-speaking world, called the existence of Guantánamo a “shocking affront to the principles of democracy.” And he and others have pointed to the opinions handed down in American courts that sustain and nurture Guantánamo as evidence of the corruption and collapse of the integrity and independence of American courts. This criticism is painful for American lawyers. Doubly painful because of its certain truth.

And clear evidence of the putrefaction that has set in came on Friday. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which has emerged as a bastion of Republican movement conservative jurisprudence, picked the anniversary of the opening of the Gitmo camps as the day to celebrate them and the abuses perpetrated there.