Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: The bureaucracy of Gitmo, at Crikey:

Benjamin Franklin’s famous trade-off between liberty and temporary safety – for those who deserve neither — stands itemized in human form in the Gitmo documents, in those many files full of misspellings, malapropisms and justifications, the dream-diary jottings of a superpower nightmare.
In the 14-year-old boy abducted and raped by the Taliban, held by the Americans for over a year.
In the 89-year-old senile man whose neighbour had a phone with numbers of suspected Taliban in it.
In the 70-year-old man, found sleeping at a mosque, for whom no reason could be found as to what he was doing at Guantanamo in the first place.
In the Al Jazeera cameraman, released after six years, held purely because of the Bush Administration’s perverse hatred of the network.
In the inmate with a serious head injury, left, as his file makes clear, to reflexively undress himself and compulsively m-sturbate in public.
In the farmer who shared a name with a suspected terrorist, held over a year after the Americans realized their mistake.

There are more there.  It is absurd that so many people were held for so long, even after the U.S. government discovered the mistakes.  Gitmo is an embarrassment to this country, and a violation of human rights.  The fact that Congress has prevented the Justice Department from closing the prison there and bringing the remaining prisoners to trial shows how cowardly our public officials are.