Massive Update Part II - Condi and Robbie are sneaky

Another thing that sickens me is the fact that Guantanamo is still open. This place is a modern day concentration camp for "enemy combatants." Whatever the hell that is? (Answer: Whomever the CIA deems.) Anyways, President Bush has spoken out and wanted the closing of Guantanamo to become a reality. Supposedly Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, were supposed to be some of top officials to attend a meeting discussing the dismantling of a Pandora's Box, so to speak, of human rights violations.
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the NSC explains why the meeting was canceled.

“The President has long expressed a desire to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and to do so in a responsible way,” Mr. Johndroe said. “A number of steps need to take place before that can happen such as setting up military commissions and the repatriation to their home countries of detainees who have been cleared for release. These and other steps have not been completed. No decisions on the future of Guantanamo Bay are imminent and there will not be a White House meeting tomorrow.”

Some analysts have purported the whole reason the meeting was shut down was because actual knowledge that the meeting was occurring was leaked to the public. If that was the case, why would they cancel the meeting? Wouldn't that project the outlook the administration was taking steps to get rid of a political/legal/human rights disaster that is known as Guantanamo?

I'm sure there are some of you out there saying, "Brandon you are an idiot! Guantanamo Bay is where we hold all those dirty terrorists, keep America safe, and find out about all those nasty plots they have on us! Why would we close down such a great thing?!"

Here's your answer from a special report from the NYT done on the overstated value of the detainees in Guantanamo from three years ago in June of 2004:

"While some Guantánamo intelligence has aided terrorism investigations, none of of it has enabled intelligence or law-enforcement services to foil imminent attacks, the officials said. Compared with the higher-profile Qaeda operatives held elsewhere by the C.I.A., the Guantánamo detainees have provided only a trickle of intelligence with current value, the officials said. Because nearly all of that intelligence is classified, most of the officials would discuss it only on the condition of anonymity."

Wait...did I read that incorrectly? Guantanamo's supposed main function and glorified intelligence are *GULP* basically non-existent? So, if other places house the actual valuable operatives, why are we creating yet another camp for these supposed and purportedly non-valuable and questionable enemy combatants?

Defense Department officials have acknowledged that American jailers in Iraq, under pressure to produce better intelligence, adapted some new, more aggressive interrogation techniques that were approved by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld for use at Guantánamo.

While refusing to discuss specifics, Pentagon officials called the interrogation methods used at Guantánamo humane and said they had applied more severe methods only sparingly. In at least one of those cases, they said, the techniques prompted an important Qaeda member to give up vital information.

Yeah sparingly? In the next article we'll talk about CIA's massive blanket of wool pulled over the general publics eyes. Sparingly? Prove it. Where is the legitimacy of the Geneva convention? Is it 1945? Do I hear Japanese Political Camps? How are we any better than all of these countries we criticize for human rights violations today? Are you tired of me screaming? ONWARD--->