Unintended consequences. Sometimes these are accidental benefits, serendipities. In these cases the lack of forethought preceding the result is forgiven with humble amazement of the thing called ‘luck’. But when the results are disastrous, then the question becomes could someone reasonably have foreseen the potential for disaster and stopped it.

So let me remove all doubt about the fact that there are a lot of unintended consequences coming our way due to the reckless decision by President Obama to close down GITMO. We all know these people are killers who we nabbed in military operations. They have not had due process per our normal legal processes (which we have never extended to our enemies in war during said war).

Interestingly enough, no liberal Democrat knows what exactly to do with these admitted killers, but they naively think they can be controlled here in the US in our federal prison system. Which to me is the dumbest, most ignorant BS I have heard in a long time. And since I follow politics I have heard some serious BS.

What these nattering nabobs fail to realize is that would be adding fuel to fire. The violent criminals in our penal system are not isolated. They have networks and they and their kind don’t really give a damn about America. They are usually motivated by envy fed hate and are not always the brightest.

In other words, they are the perfect feeding ground for Islamo Fascist thinking. Putting the Apostles of Bin Laden inside our federal system would provide them the means to spread their hate and grow their ranks right here inside the US. They could, quite easily, create a home grown al Qaeda from the most fertile grounds we have – our prison system. Especially with efforts to reduce the prison population through early release programs. 

A little brain washing, and some early releases can go a long way. Smooth thinking the dems.

think the storm is still gathering on this and still hasn’t broken. Half apologies from politicians like Durbin don’t amount to the will of those who’ve served.

And what they are going to find, to the Democrats’ dismay, is that there will be an awful lot of war heroes coming home…and they just might run for office. Democrat or Republican. Independit or Libertarian.

For example, Illinois has had a lot of Soldiers and Marines deployed in the War on Terror. The Mad Ghosts (2/24 Marines) that I featured here often are from Chicago. I’m sure you’ll find some of them interested in the possibilities of removing Durbin from office. Note to Illinois Republican leadership: If you EVER have to look outside of our great state for a political candidate again, then you need to be removed from leadership. Capisce?

After all, not only could a Soldier have the opportunity to try to change things, that Soldier could make a lot more salary, too. Nicer retirement package. Extreme Per Diem. Swimming Pool. Movie stars…um, I digress.

Suffice it to say that not being wet, cold, tired, or hungry ever again would also be a benefit. And our military knows how to make things happen.

Which brings me to the point of this post. For those of you serving, think about who represents you. Are they doing the job that they were hired to do? If not, you may want to follow Rusten Currie’s lead.

Keep your eye on this MilBlogger. He’s going to go after Maxine Waters’ seat in Congress when he gets home.

I can only hope this kind of response blossoms over the next 5-10 years.

John Lehman, a 9/11 commissioner, spoke to The Weekly Standard at the time the report was released. “There may well be–and probably will be–additional intelligence coming in from interrogations and from analysis of captured records and so forth which will fill out the intelligence picture. This is not phrased as–nor meant to be–the definitive word on Iraqi Intelligence activities.”

Lehman’s caution was prescient. A year later, we still cannot begin
to offer a “definitive” picture of the relationships entered into by Saddam Hussein’s operatives, but much more has already been learned from documents uncovered after the Iraq war. The evidence we present below, compiled from revelations in recent months, suggests an acute case of denial on the part of those who dismiss the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship.

Denial? how about criminal misinformation regarding the most serious aspect of our national security – where are the potential ties to terrorists which can allow them avenues and opportunities to attack us. Since the MSM jumped to conclusions they wanted to be true, they have given the wrong impression to the nation on what is a vital topic – where are we vulnerable.

Moreover, the following information was gleaned by the same people Dick Durbin and his liberal dead-enders in the Senate and Media joyfully likened to Nazi’s:

It details the case for designating an Iraqi member of al Qaeda, currently detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an “enemy combatant.”

1. From 1987 to 1989, the detainee served as an infantryman in the Iraqi Army and received training on the mortar and rocket propelled grenades.
2. A Taliban recruiter in Baghdad convinced the detainee to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994.
3. The detainee admitted he was a member of the Taliban.
4. The detainee pledged allegiance to the supreme leader of the Taliban to help them take over all of Afghanistan.
5. The Taliban issued the detainee a Kalishnikov rifle in November 2000.
6. The detainee worked in a Taliban ammo and arms storage arsenal in Mazar-Es-Sharif organizing weapons and ammunition.
7. The detainee willingly associated with al Qaida members.
8. The detainee was a member of al Qaida.
9. An assistant to Usama Bin Ladin paid the detainee on three separate occasions between 1995 and 1997.
10. The detainee stayed at the al Farouq camp in Darwanta, Afghanistan, where he received 1,000 Rupees to continue his travels.
11. From 1997 to 1998, the detainee acted as a trusted agent for Usama Bin Ladin, executing three separate reconnaissance missions for the al Qaeda leader in Oman, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
12. In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars.
13. Detainee was arrested by Pakistani authorities in Khudzar, Pakistan, in July 2002.

So now we know how alluring Al Quaeda was to many in a supposedly anti-AQ, secular regime like Saddam’s Iraq. And how these supposed enemies allowed people to cross back and forth within their very midst.

Dick Durbin, are you paying attention here?

And how did the liberal MSM deal with this bombshell story?

The Associated Press, on the other hand, probably felt obliged to run a story, since the “Summary of Evidence” was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP itself. But after briefly describing the documents, the AP article downplayed its own scoop with a sentence almost as amusing as it is inane: “There is no indication the Iraqi’s alleged terror-related activities were on behalf of Saddam Hussein’s government, other than the brief mention of him traveling to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi intelligence.” That sentence minimizing the importance of the findings was enough, apparently, to convince most newspaper editors around the country not to run the AP story.

They request the information and when it fails to support their political views they ignore it. Do you think the MSM would ignore the story if instead the sentence read

“There is no indication the man‘s alleged terror-related activities were on behalf of the US government, other than the brief mention of him traveling to Pakistan with a member of the CIA“?

Of course they wouldn’t ignore this sentence – it would mean a Bush conspiracy had finally been unearthed after all these years of searching!

Viking Pundit has a post questioning John Cole’s recent attempt to defend Durbin from the worst of his well deserved criticism. Viking is quite mild in his comment. I cannot be.

What Cole misses the point and the fact completely.

No matter how many times you say it, he did not call our soldiers Nazis. He just didn’t. It was a stupid remark to make given that he had to know it would be distorted, but there is no way to claim he called the troops Nazis unless you just see whatever you want to see.

Cole is focusing on the political game in DC and, to a smaller extent, America in general. What Durbin did was equate GITMO, and therefore America, with Nazi’s. And everyone understood the unspecified connection. Speech and communication is much more than the literal translation of the words, and Cole should understand this.

The damage was how our enemies took this comment, as an admission by a US leader that the US was the second coming of Nazi’s and Despot Communist dictators. Check the last update in my previous post and the date of this post. Dick Durbin had plenty of time to correct any misunderstandings and say what Cole only wishes he meant to say. But Durbin never did – not once. And all his apologies to date have been apologies to those saps who did not understand what he meant to say (as opposed to what he did say).

I have one question: Is John Cole simply agreeing with Durbin that we foolish, over-reactors did not understand what Durbin said?? Is he kidding? I hate to pop your balloon Mr. Cole (pun intended), but Durbin apologized because the polls told him he had to – not because he did not mean what we know he said.

I am beginning to really wonder whose side is Durbin and Dean on???

Comments from The News Blog post telling Durbin to take a hike (but not nearly so nicely).

Who really wants to follow Kerry, Biden and now Durbin?

I ain’t volunteering.

Maybe it’s time to try and fight in Democratic primaries – and get rid of these losers. We might lose the general elections but at least not in this pathetic manner.
…

all i could say to the republican rabble ( i mean, my officemates) this morning was, “well, he didn’t apologize for me.”

good lord, am i getting sick of being embarassed by Dem pols…
…

The guy leading the charge is always the best target to get shot in the back. Indeed where were any of the other jackal party members on this. Where was Reid, where Obama, where The California Ladies, where the darlings of New York State

And this little gem from DU on the same posting copied there

that cower under merely the MANUFACTURED right wing noise machine crises that are supporting the brown-shirts.

If these so called leaders can’t stand up to mere MEDIA censure, what are the odds they’ll stand up for us when “the going really gets bad.” – When they start taking more and more of our civil liberties.

The gutless leaders of our party are IMO helping the brown-shirts. I hope they ALL either find the courage to stand up and Speak TRUTH to Power OR get Promptly Voted Out. – no in-between is acceptable.

And then there is the head cheese himself, KOS!

I would post more, but the libs are so angry their posts are splattered with vulgarities and profanities.

As I posted earlier, Durbin and the dems were playing a dangerous game and they would either repulse the moderate middle or back stabbed the liberal fringe (again). Looks like Durbin was able to do both!

OK , I am going to go back to watching the liberals implode the democrat party.

UPDATE:

To prove my point further Scott Rassmussen has released a poll (which I am sure mirrors democrats private polls) which shows large support for GITMO, as is:

June 22, 2005–A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 20% of Americans believe prisoners at Guantanomo Bay have been treated unfairly. Seven-out-of-ten adults believe the prisoners are being treated “better than they deserve” (36%) or “about right” (34%).

The survey also found that just 14% agree with people who say that prisoner treatment at Guantanomo Bay is similar to Nazi tactics. Sixty-nine percent disagree with that comparison. This helps explain why Illinois Senator Dick Durbin apologized for making such a comparison.

As I said, Durbin and the dems played a very stupid, dangerous political game, and lost. They have succeeded in irritating their liberal base to the point of insanity and they repulsed the non-liberals. There is, by the way, an 20-80 break down in this country between liberals and non-liberals.

The question for dems and the MSM, is are they too slow to learn the lesson of all this?

The interviews are the results of hard work and diligence by others who are really making a difference. Hopefully by pulling them all together in one place, so congressional staffers can find them easily and the MSM won’t have the option of ignoring them, the old adage about ‘the whole is greater than the parts” will bear out.

In no particular order, except the ones I ran across recently and then the ordering of Google search results. Unfortunately these are all I can find with a simple Google search. If someone knows of any other first hand accounts from people there (besides the detainees) please let me know so I can add to this post.

Hugh Hewitt captured the thoughts of a GITMO veteran on his show recently

Right Thinking Girl has a very new interview with a GITMO interrogator.

CBS News did an interview with GITMO translator Erik Saar, which they claim “paints a picture of bizarre, even sadistic, treatment of detainees in the American prison camp”. Saar has many media listing for interviews done for his book tour – nuff said.

A Telegraph (UK) interview with a 14 year old detainee who claims he enjoyed his time at GITMO.

Washington Times interview of two guards on how violent the detainees can be.

Redstate Rant has a post containing an e-mail from someone stationed at GITMO describing the behavoir of the detainees.

Powerline has a letter to the Minneapolis Star Tribune from the same GITMO vet Hugh Hewitt interviewed in the link above

Most intriguing section to me was this:

RTG: Tell me once and for all, do the people in Gitmo have any information about 9/11?

Smith: Yes, without a doubt. I interrogated one detainee who was part of the Moussaui group of terrorists.

RTG: Were other terrorist attacks planned for that day?

Smith: It was supposed to be a larger operation.

RTG: What happened?

Smith: I can’t get into that.

Maybe it is time the American people were allowed to ‘get into that’ – to remind them of what we face. I am pretty sure the fuller picture can be presented in a way that avoids divulging intelligence gathering tools and sources.

Please read it.

Hugh Hewitt has this covered and it is revolting. Please read his posts on the continued bashing of our military with unsubstantiated claims of abuse.

But even as Durbin slinks away, Nancy Pelosi steps up to provide copy for Al Jazeera. From her statement yesterday:

“The treatment of detainees is a taint on our country’s reputation, especially in the Muslim world, and there are many questions that must be answered. These questions are important because the safety of our country depends on our reputation and how we are viewed, especially in the Muslim world.

“There are many questions that have gone unanswered: What was the atmosphere created that permitted detainee abuse, and why was it tolerated? What was the training and supervision of the troops? Who had this responsibility? What is it that the Republicans are trying to hide? How far up the chain of command does this go? Why is the Secretary of Defense not taking responsibility?
…
Anthony Lewis and the International Herald Tribune pick up the chant and spread it across the globe: The United States is a criminal state:

“No one can seriously doubt now that cruelties and indignities have been inflicted on prisoners at Guantánamo. Nor is there any doubt that worse has happened elsewhere – prisoners beaten to death by American soldiers, untold others held in secret locations by the CIA, others rendered to be tortured by governments such as Uzbekistan’s.”

In my post on Durbin’s tearful dodge I wrote

The more I think about the PR boon Durbin provided our enemies the more I realize I could care less about a 3rd bogus apology. What I want is for the senate democrats to come out en masse and admit Durbin’s comments were inappropriate and probably did more to recruit more terrorists than any faux story of Koran flushes and AC levels at GITMO. Durbin doesn’t need to anything more than step down. And dems need to pick which side of this battle they are on.

Well it seems clear which side they have decided to take. Liberals are now aligned with the terrorists and against out military and their efforts to control and interogate the terrorists. I guess it makes sense, they are the party of the trial lawyers and they probably see a huge potential cash cow for themselves.

UPDATE:

Michelle Malkin has a column out on this very topic today:

And now, the facts:

Every single detainee currently being held at Guantanamo Bay has received a hearing before a military tribunal. Every one. As a result of those hearings, more than three dozen Gitmo detainees have been released. The hearings, called “Combatant Status Review Tribunals,” are held before a board of officers, and permit the detainees to contest the facts on which their classification as “enemy combatants” is based.

Gitmo-bashers attack the Bush administration’s failure to abide by the Geneva Conventions. But as legal analysts Lee Casey and Darin Bartram told me, “the status hearings are, in fact, fully comparable to the ‘Article V’ hearings required by the Geneva Conventions, in situations where those treaties apply, and are also fully consistent with the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in the Hamdi v. Rumsfeld case.”
…
As former Attorney General William Barr noted last week in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, “Obviously, if these procedures are sufficient for American citizens, they are more than enough for foreign detainees.”

Read the whole sad story.

The more I think about the PR boon Durbin provided our enemies the more I realize I could care less about a 3rd bogus apology. What I want is for the senate democrats to come out en masse and admit Durbin’s comments were inappropriate and probably did more to recruit more terrorists than any faux story of Koran flushes and AC levels at GITMO. Durbin doesn’t need to anything more than step down. And dems need to pick which side of this battle they are on.

BTW, The Anchoress joins the not-convinced crowd.

Mark In Mexico has linked to me religously ( and for that I sincerely thank him), and today he has the classic quote on Durbin.

Or possibly this one from Mark Twain:.
It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Cheers to that!

Michelle Malkin has her usual excellent roundup

END UPDATE:

It is about time Durbin apologized, but I am not convinced of his sincerity and it is not a real apology (he’s more sorry we all misunderstood him).

Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,” the Illinois Democrat said. “To them I extend my heartfelt apologies.”

His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks.

“They’re the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them,” he said.

Contrast with this recent statement

The comment created a buzz on the Internet and among conservative talk radio hosts, but Durbin initially refused to apologize.

“This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure,” he said the day after his initial comments.

Sounds more like he is sorry he got caught.

Interestingly enough I was collating a GITMO-Durbin category to pull all the posts I had on this sad affair when I saw the news. Even I was stunned how much I wrote on this topic out of pure disgust with Durbin. But I did predict a few things that still make me feel his apology was driven more by this recent poll:

But the poll suggests that the public has yet to be persuaded. Overall, 58% say the government should continue to operate the facility, while 36% want to close it.

I predicted that the dems were playing a very dangerous game with this issue (and note there is still silence from his fellow democrats in the Senate) and that they had set themselves up for failure no matter what:

With the liberal base investing so much emotion into this debate the democrat leaders are in an impossible situation. If the dems do not call Durbin to task on this then the image of the democrats as knee jerk anti-military, anti-american, too quick to protect murderous terrorists, partisans will crystallize in the 80% of the electorate which is non-liberal. There is a reason 80% of the population does not want to be called a liberal, and these traits are why.

On the other hand, if the democrats do sanction Durbin then their core base will see another in a long line of surrenders to the ‘right wing bullies’, and feel more betrayed than ever.

It will be interesting to see which way the democrats cut. Will they side with America, or the lunatic fringe?

We have our answer. They sided with the lunatic fringe until the public began to turn on them. Which totally calls into question the sincerity of a forced apology.

Ed Morrissey has thoughts on this event.
Powerline is not impressed
Alexander McClure at Polipundit notes the bi-partisan pressure.
K Lopez at The Corner is not satisfied either
Little Green Footballs is not buying it either.
More at Vodka Pundit (and others at Hugh Hewitt’s place)
Jawa Report let’s him off too easy. Hopefully Rusty will realize a forced apology to stop political damage is not a real one.

Video at The Political Teen

Can you believe he tried to quote Lincoln?

Rusty at Jawa Report and Mark at Decision ’08 want to give Durbin credit for trying. I think these two good souls are projecting how they would handle this. I am still not convinced Durbin deserves their optimism. How I wish I could join them.

I get the feeling Durbin is not out of hot water yet.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist yesterday demanded that Sen. Richard J. Durbin make a “formal apology” on the floor of the Senate for comparing U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazi and Soviet regimes and that he strike his remarks from the Congressional Record.

In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican, said previous bids by the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat to clarify his remarks didn’t go far enough.

“Subsequent statements by Senator Durbin indicate only that he was regretful if people misunderstood his remarks,” Mr. Frist said. “We do not believe his remarks were misunderstood.”

The soon to be next, ex-democratic senate leader Harry Reid had this to say:

Reid spokesman Jim Manley called the Frist letter “pathetic.”

Standing up for our brave military men and women against erroneous, slanderous attacks is pathetic? Equating violent, murderous terrorists to the millions of women and children killed by the Nazis in places like Auschwitz – simpy for political points – is pathetic, sir.

UPDATE:

Ed Morrissey chimes in on this as well. Money quote from Morrissey:

It points out an odd set of priorities for the leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate — he gets more offended by a letter than he does with his deputy calling American servicemen murderous thugs

Exactly.

Let’s start with the Washington Post. Richard Cohen, a stalwart liberal, feels sorry for Dick Durbin because everyone is piling on. To prove his point he makes these statements:

Those of us who have read accounts of the gulag or of the interrogation methods of the Nazis and similar barbaric regimes are familiar with the infinite varieties of torture. Maybe for that reason I did not feel it was anything of a stretch for Sen. Dick Durbin to refer to those regimes when reciting what an FBI agent had seen at Guantanamo Bay

You know Richard, even though you may be well ‘read’ (as opposed to experienced) you have to find more than something in common to make a comparison of equality. Yes, all four examples have guards, cells, razor wire, shackles, dogs, etc. But all four did not have showers which killed millions of innocent men, women and children, whose crime was simply being Jewish. Are the killers being held at GITMO being slaughtered for their religion, along with their families? Coming from someone like you this is a stunningly ignorant comparison. Three of the four examples have the distinct honor of being factories for mass graves of innocent people who were removed from the face of the earth. That is why the are not equal sir. (Sorry for the yelling – but it seems Mr. Cohen is a bit thick and I want to make sure he can focus on what is important in these comparisons, as opposed to what is marginal and trivial)

Then Eugene Robinson steps in as public defender of the terrorists, making charges that these poor violent terrorists, who have no respect for law, international law or even chivalry (since they cannot fight army to army, but go after innocent unarmed and unsuspecting men, women and children) are not getting their due process.

The problems that apparently can’t be fixed so easily are the administration’s contempt for transparency, its disregard for due process and its habit of starting things without giving proper thought to how to end them.
…
Yes, the 520 or so prisoners still at Guantanamo have been given hearings before military panels. But that’s where the lack of transparency comes in, because a secret military hearing is the same as no hearing at all.

Since all military men and women are subject to the military code of conduct and the military legal system, what you are saying Mr Robinson is the legal system that applies to our brave people on the front lines is not good enough for these killers – they deserve better? Your saying that they deserve better than those who are fighting and dying to ensure your right to make mind numbingly simplistic claims with little bearing on reality? Of course Robinson ponders this from across the bay in cuba, presumably over an iced tea. Maybe he should be personally responsible for these killers and required to pay for any problems they cause or information he cannot get from them which could save lives.

Let’s jump over to the NY Times where it is clear this is about politics and saving the liberals from oblivion – and not about GITMO or the complex subject of detaining blood thirsty mad men who want to kill us by the thousands, yet cannot be tried in open court because of all the intelligence that would be exposed. Here is Anthony Lewis doing a very poor job of hiding his priorities through the language he uses.

WHEN Vice President Dick Cheney said last week that detainees at the American prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, were treated better than they would be “by virtually any other government on the face of the earth,” he was carrying on what has become a campaign to whitewash the record of abuses at Guantánamo.

Right-wing commentators have been sounding the theme. Columnist Charles Krauthammer said the treatment of the Guantánamo prisoners had been “remarkably humane and tolerant.”

Note the comment from Cheney is a ‘whitewash’ and there are ‘Right Wing Commentators’. Tony, let me remind you that these detainees, when they behave and assist us, are treated to gourmet meals, exercise facilities, etc. When they do not behave and become violent, or have some life saving information they are all too glad to hold back, then the get treated the way they deserve. Which, while we are making comparisons, is not much different from how some violent mental patients are handled(tied down for long periods and sedated – the difference here being no sedation). Let’s not even discuss the type of care mental patients faced only a few decades ago here in our great country.

Mr. Kahtani was interrogated for as long as 20 hours at a stretch, according to the detailed log. At one point he was put on an intravenous drip and given 3½ bags of fluid. When he asked to urinate, guards told him that he must first answer questions. He answered them. The interrogator, not satisfied with the answers, told him to urinate in his pants, which he did. Thirty minutes later, the log noted, Mr. Kahtani was “beginning to understand the futility of his situation.”

This man may have had information that could mean life and death to another 3,000 innocent people facing another 9-11. And Tony is concerned he peed himself? I find it impossible to believe someone so easily disturbed by this biological process is not out now monitoring the nations pools for people peeing themselves. Geez, there must be hundreds of thousands of poor souls peeing in pools (and oceans for that matter) everday. Gawd man, why aren’t you out saving these people as well?

What all these liberals have in common is they are playing a very partisan, myopic and dangerous game – just like Dysmal Durbin is doing. They are trying to get Americans to turn on those Americans who are doing their best, as humanely as possible with barely human subjects to deal with, to protect us from another 9-11. These terrorists would gladly rip a child from an infidel women’s womb and praise allah in the process, but Cohen seems them as the victims of Auschwitz and our soldiers as the Nazis. Eugene wants these thugs to have high priced lawyers (who will charge the tax payers of course and get that new pool put in) in order to allow these people to hide their critical information for years while exposing our intelligence processes in court. And Tony just cannot stand by why someone gets warm fluid down their pants leg – no matter how much they want to kill our children.

What these liberals want from us, America, is to use these lame examples to turn on the War on Terror, Bush, and our Military. Why? It’s not because they truly care about these terrorists – they want political power. They would use this opportunity to make a play for votes. They would turn us against ourselves to get votes. They would ask us to stop hurting the poor whittle terrorists and get out of the ME (and have the hole process collapse and blow up in our faces) to get votes.

The ‘right wing’ in this country is about to balloon to include everyone who remembers these people in detention, eating rice pilaf, are lucky we did not kill them on the battlefield and be done with them. They are the lucky ones – ones with some value to us.

BTW, remember who is probably in GITMO right now and who is the target of all this liberal support and angst: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind that horrible day 4 years ago. Back then we as a nation promised to never forget. Seems some have broken that pledge, a pledge we made to 3,000 fellow citizens who died a horribly and useless death. Now THAT was criminal.

UPDATE:

Bush has come out today trying to warn everyone this is one serious subject to be playing politics with:

“Make no mistake,” Mr. Bush said in an East Room press conference with European Union officials. “Many of those folks being detained — in humane conditions, I might add — are dangerous people.

“Some have been released to their previous countries, and they got out and they went on to the battlefield again,” he said. “I have an obligation, as do all of us who are holding office, to protect our people.”

To that end, Mr. Bush said he will not release Guantanamo Bay prisoners such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom he called “the mastermind of the September the 11th attack,” anytime soon.

“He is being detained because we think he could possibly give us information that might not only protect us, but protect citizens in Europe,” he said. “And at some point in time, he’ll be dealt with, but right now, we think it’s best that he be kept in custody.”

That is of course unless liberals decide his US constitutional rights are more important than the fact he wants to destroy that constitution and its rights.

UPDATE:

Michelle Malkin linked to this story on the same Cohen incoherency.

So, Bill Clinton, a former president, is now on record for believing the allegations of former detainees rather than the U.S. military which denies those charges. Yup, he shows more faith in a terrorist, trained to tell lies about conditions of imprisonment, than in the Pentagon.

Well Mr Clinton – would you like some more or have you learned your lesson for the day?? Remind me never to get on Betsy’s bad side.

1. By banning military recruiters from their campuses.

2. By voting against new weapons.

3. By using the military to debate social issues.

4. By voting against arming our soldiers.

5. By calling our soldiers Nazis.

He should note that – according to Dick Durbin – the liberals claim their support is obvious since they go to the troops’ funerals ,even though they compare them to Nazis. I would suggest that kind of act could be considered opportunism by folks like Durbin.

Oh….., never mind. It was torture of Iraqis by terrorists. I’m guessing Dysmal Durbin is only interested in stories about fellow Americans torturing people.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday that he regretted any misunderstandings caused by his comments earlier this week comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis.

Now here is non-apology from Durbin:

“More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country’s standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face.”

“I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration.”

“I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.”

He did not apologize for HIS comments and their impacts. This putz apologized for all us morons not understanding his (i.e., not buying into his spin about his true partisan) intentions.

Resign Dick.