I didn't care much for the speech, I guess it served its purpose.

But one thing I found encouraging is to read that his team's backing it up with lobbying Capital Hill hard to close Gitmo. Good for them. Like Obama? Lobby your Congresspeople. Give him a success, on something we care about. No more "some day, one day". Close it now, next week, last week. Amnesty International's still reporting abuse coming out of Gitmo, the "last chance to torture before they take it away" challenge. Get out now.

I don't want Gitmo closed to open another one. I want it closed because the whole concept sucks - military tribunals, indefinite preventive detention, torture and mistreatment that barely skirts the definition of torture. It all sucks. We have real prisons that have enough security and enough human rights problems to control. Better than one that avoids any oversight at all. And if we can't convict? Follow the American way, let them go, do a better job next time. The FBI and CIA and police work all the time on preventing crime, not just arresting after the fact. 9/11 didn't change that. The only that changed is we got scared. And now we can start to recoup that - better late than never. Vote. With your emails, telephones, feet.

PS - about releasing those pictures, seems Petraeus wants to get them out:

Petraeus argued in favor of release, saying "Let's lance this boil." He feared that the damage from withholding the photos would be greater than that from releasing them, because it would fuel suspicions that the photos are worse than they are. General Ray Odierno took the opposing view.

So it's not a slam dunk "this will hurt the troops" or "this will hurt Iraqi civilians" - our generals even disagree. So how about we resort to law and ethics and transparency in government and military - get them out there, lance the boil - show them Americans can face the truth about themselves.

 

Red Cross