great post, Don.

Miguel, regarding

"Does one have to be conscious of one's transgressions for karma to be operative?"

I've always thought to myself that if just one person is conscious of a transgression, and not necessarily the person who transgressed, then that is enough to activate the Karma sequence.

Well I did recommend this but my comment got lost in the web o sphere.

If Miguel is here, then you know you put together a good blog.

Well cheney, he sees the dark side, I mean he testified to this much on MTP or some such shortly after we were attacked. Of course he missed the fact that it all occurred under HIS WATCH while w was vacationing for over half of the time he was president.

This is all too troubling. I mean dickyc keeps attempting to defend himself.

It is interesting in that he was never a soldier in war, he had other priorities, if I recall correctly. I despise him more than any other human being in my entire lifetime. I mean he makes nixon look like a saint, he certainly makes w look like more of an idiot.

Good post. Even though you bring up thoughts that really anger me.

I recommend it for the title :-)

Thanks for posting this, Don. Not only the substance, but the sentiment. Out of the thousands of voices at TPM, yours always stands out for its astonishing gentleness. I don't know how you do that, but I always appreciate it and wish you would write more. You truly have a gift.

I can't read about how we've tortured people without experiencing an instant fury that seems to swallow me whole. I still have a vivid mental picture of my reaction the first time I learned we were torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Because of this overwhelming rage, I can rarely write about the issue of torture as calmly as you. But it's not just rage that I feel: I am sickened, disgusted, and shamed as well. These emotions seem entirely appropriate to me, and I am additionally saddened that I don't see them expressed by all Americans every single day.

In keeping with the subject of children, I can only supplement your excellent blog with (extensive) quotes from a superbly written article about teen prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. It was written by Jo Becker, the advocacy director for the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. I've left these passages intact because they are so well written, and any highlights I could make would only be clumsy underscores.

When Mohammed Jawad took the stand in a courtroom at the U.S. Naval base here late last week, he described a litany of abuse he has endured while detained at Guantánamo, including a sleep deprivation regime known colloquially as the "frequent flyer" program.

"Day and night, they were shifting me from one room to another room," Jawad said. "I don't remember how much time I slept, but it was only a short time before they were knocking on my door and shifting me from place to place. No one answered me why they were giving me this punishment."

Military records showed that during a 14-day period in May 2004, Jawad was moved from cell to cell 112 times, usually left in one cell for less than three hours before being shackled and moved to another. Between midnight and 2 a.m. he was moved more frequently to ensure maximum disruption of sleep.

Such tactics used against a detainee would have been severe under any circumstances -- Department of Defense guidance limits sleep deprivation to a maximum of four days -- but in the case of Jawad, they are particularly disturbing because he was a scared and suicidal teenager at the time.

[snip]

According to government records obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, more than 20 detainees under the age of 18 have been brought to the prison camp since 2002. The treatment of underage prisoners at Guantánamo, largely in defiance of international law, is one of various ways in which the Bush administration's policies have tainted prospects for Guantánamo detainees ever to be brought to justice under U.S. law.

Although most of the 20 juvenile detainees have now been released, three remain, having spent more than a quarter of their lives at Guantánamo. The other two juvenile detainees were each only 15 years old when they were apprehended. Mohammad El Gharani was arrested at a mosque in Pakistan and brought to Guantánamo in early 2002. Omar Khadr, a Canadian, was apprehended in July 2002 after a firefight in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of a U.S. soldier. Held for several months in Afghanistan, he was barely 16 when he arrived here later that same year.

The presence of juveniles at Guantánamo first came to light in 2003, when media reports revealed the age of the youngest detainee at Guantánamo -- who was only 13 years old. Unable to explain how a 13-year-old could be classified as being among "the worst of the worst," as top Bush officials had described Guantánamo's prisoner population, the Pentagon realized it had a PR problem on its hands. It quickly created a special camp for the three detainees between ages 13 and 15. At Camp Iguana, these children received math and English classes and access to a social worker and recreational facilities. Bizarrely and perhaps without any sense of irony, they were permitted to watch movies including "Cast Away." Defense Department officials proudly gave tours of the special facility.

[snip]

Unlike with the three boys held at Camp Iguana and released for rehabilitation, the Pentagon has never acknowledged the juvenile status of Khadr, Jawad or El Gharani. Although international law provides that anyone under 18 is a child and entitled to special treatment, the Defense Department created its own standard: Anyone who was 16 would automatically be treated as an adult. When I asked Defense Department officials in 2004 about the rationale for this policy, they had no reply. One official finally admitted to me that it was completely arbitrary.

During last week's hearing, Frakt, Jawad's attorney, asked the prosecutor who authorized the charges against Jawad: "You did not believe his age was worthy of bringing to the attention of the convening authority?" Lt. Col. William Britt's answer: "No, I didn't."