New court can silence captives who tell secrets
(http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/405304.html)
A new court at Guantánamo would allow the U.S. military to keep its secrets by cutting off terror suspects' testimony from the ears of observers at the flick of a switch.
The purpose of the switch is to allow the military to keep "its secrets." ?????

What secrets are they in possession of that the US military considers theirs ?

How did the suspects come into possession of the US military's secrets?

The answer of course as to why the secrets are being kept is that the suspects really worked for the US at the time they did whatever it is they are accused of .

if they dont talk, continue to old them indeffinately
if they do talk, it won't get out anyway, and they continue to be held indeff.

beautiful

How can it be a fair trial if you only hear half of the testimony?

...if u hear it

What secrets are they in possession of that the US military considers theirs? How did the suspects come into possession of the US military's secrets?We all understand that life is full of compromises. Military organizations especially have to break the rules on RARE occasions. But they should not be doing it so often that they need to pass a SPECIAL rule saying, "We can break the rules whenever we think we need to."

This accountability-vacuum is unsustainable. The constitutional degeneration of the USA will either proceed into outright fascism, or be rolled back by glasnost and reform. The security-state abomination that the neocons have re-animated demands to be either coronated or killed. If we keep pretending that there isn't a fateful choice to be made by this generation, the monster wins.

How can it be a fair trial if you only hear half of the testimony?
It only mutes the sound coming through the divider. The parties relevant to the trial process inside the room will hear everything. It is done this way to enable third party observation as much as possible, while avoiding compromising classified information. This is all pretty clearly spelled out in the article. I'm not sure what the problem is here.

The Constitution was made to limit what the government can do to people. Like Bush said, 'Its just a damn piece of paper.' If Americans really cared about what it says they would have revolted long ago. The'yre too fat and happy to care.

Stop throwing the Constitution in my face... It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!


Did a US President really say such a thing, and say it in public? I haven't heard about this outburst before.

desi: "If Americans really cared about what it says they would have revolted long ago."

I don't think we're quite so dead as not to revolt at an outrageous statement like that from a sitting President. I Googled (http://www.google.com/search?q=just+a+goddam+god-damned+piece+of+paper) what I could find about your quote. Every citation I found leads back to this article by Doug Thompson:
Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’ 5-12-2005 (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml)

The author claims three Oval-Office witnesses to this disgraceful statement, but neglects to name them.

Anonymous sources are not quite good enough to attribute a bombshell statement like that to the President. For USAmericans who understand the Constitutional foundation of our Republic, that quote is the equivalent of saying "Fuck the USA".

Where did you hear about this, desi? I'm not eager to come to the defense of GW Bush, or to attack your posts. But if the President undeniably said such a thing publicly, I find it very hard to believe that we're so asleep in the USA, to have just let it slide. If we really failed to respond to a slap in the national face like that, then we really are hopelessly brain-dead in the USA.

So I must challenge the credibility of your "quote", desi. Do you have a better source on it? We all know that many USAmericans, myself included, have long protested unconstitutional abuses of authority by this President. We're in an election season that is filled with cries for change, there have been bills calling for impeachment, and there are USAmericans of every political stripe who feel that this President's concept of "Unitary Executive" far exceeded its Constitutional bounds. Although actions do speak louder than words, that quote is much too over-the-top for me to easily accept as having gone over smoothly without a furor, and without a Führer.

A new court at Guantánamo would allow the U.S. military to keep its secrets by cutting off terror suspects' testimony from the ears of observers at the flick of a switch.
That "new court" of the Executive Branch's military has been already legally sanctioned by both Congress and the Supreme Court.

All that pointless frothing is unbecoming of your already established stature, don't you think?

/sarcasm off

This accountability-vacuum is unsustainable. The constitutional degeneration of the USA will either proceed into outright fascism, or be rolled back by glasnost and reform. The security-state abomination that the neocons have re-animated demands to be either coronated or killed. If we keep pretending that there isn't a fateful choice to be made by this generation, the monster wins.

Explain. Precisely which monster wins, and how? How are you certain of this outcome?

Sometimes in life, we confront situations with the potential to kill us. It is the same for democracy. When fascism creeps into a society, it will not be denied ascendency without an all-out fight, because fascism deceives many in an insidious, visceral way- it masquerades as machismo, as initiative, as patriotism, as vision, and even as virtue. When fascism comes creeping stealthily up on democracy in full psycho-ghillie-suit, one or the other must die- there's no quarter. The difference between me and you is not that you are a fascist, and I'm not. I only see what you're denying, and it's closing in enough for you to make it out, too. Just look for yourself. Soon, I think we're going to have to turn and fight it, maybe together.

Maybe not.

I think you're exaggerating a bit.

If McCain wins this election, you can say good bye to the US as you knew it.

How so?

I think you're exaggerating a bit. How much, do you suppose ?

Based on your own estimation of the degree to which the US governance has taken on fascistic ideology and and structure, I mean.

Fascist ideology? Where are the marches and torchlight ceremonies? The massive concentration camps? Suppression of freedoms? Who has actually had their free speech censored via the Patriot Act?

Sam's turn.

If you require all of those historic manifestations to transpire before recognizing right-wing authoritarianism in its formative stages, you haven't learned much from the history of the last century.

Oh, I think I've learned to discriminate fascism rather than well-meaning and/or wrongheaded conservatism, no matter the colourful language used in the description. Further, I've also learned to recognize the trappings of other types of fascism; still more incredibly, I can draw on even earlier historical events and their results. The fall of the Roman Empire, say. Not all are so well blessed as I.

Glad to hear it. When you seemed to require scenes of Nazi Germany to recognize it, you had me worried.

Well it's still not very fascistic. That's my point.

Don't be so critical- They've gotta start somewhere. Surely you can give them a little credit for trying.