Questions in my House

My three year old has been asking as of late "Do you have questions in your house?", to which I always answer "Yes, there are always questions in my house."

Sometimes he tells me what color the questions are as well, but that is grist for another entry.

Many things have changed here at Moronathon. We have moved a vast distance to a place filled with muggles (smuggle, juggle, snuggle, muggers - no muggles in the spell check). We have another child - PAK2 - who is quite a nice bundle of baby stuff. Mrs. set.element is getting ready for medical school and is freaking out. I am counting on my medication to carry me through the next few winters...

I have not been posting at all over the past half year or so and it has bothered me to no end. I have, in short, debited to return to my soap box and join all the other crazy people yelling out into the ether.

Just finished "Five Years of My Life, an Innocent Man in Guantanamo" by Murat Kurnaz. Perhaps somebody out there thinks that the official position Human Rights abuses over the past eight years or so has some sort of attachment to reality. I have been somewhat skeptical. This is a well written first person account which contradicts everything in the sack of 'common knowledge' about US (and allied) complacence in the mockery of Human Rights in Kandahar, Guantanamo and dozens of other so called Dark Facilities across the globe.

Thinking back on my time in Kandahaar, I can't cry, and when I talk to someone who was in Guantanamo, we laugh about it. We laugh a lot - about how we were beaten and how we used to listen to one another screaming. What else are we supposed to do? Sit down and cry? It happened, and not it's over. Either I talk about it seriously, or I feel like I have to laugh. So I laugh. But I haven't forgotten a thing.

So let us talk seriously for a moment.

Remember for a moment the dream that the Obama administration would bring an enlightened notion of Justice to the Human Rights abuses brought on by the last eight years and close Guantanamo Bay? That there would be Change? From The Nation

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, is drafting an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations. Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

Presidential Authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely.

Think long and hard about that one.

I have questions in MY house Mr. Obama. Who the fuck are you - someone who ran on a platform of Change, directly highlighting the need to restore a balance of power between the three corners of government, who directly stated the need to close Guantanamo not just from inconvertible Moral grounds but from legal grounds as well - who the fuck are you to allow this mockery of Justice to stand.

The Law does not incarcerate suspects indefinitely. Common Law has provided at least kabuli Justice over the centuries which would be an enlightened change from the crap that we are being fed here.

I do not want to hear that the republicans will throw a hissy fit if they don't get their way. Fuck them too. We are illegally holding human beings and torturing them. Period. If they don't like the Constitution and the legal system that has been built around it, perhaps they can go find some other place that has more plastic notions of human rights? Take the entire group of people responsible for the architecture of this mess - Republican and Democrat alike - and throw them at the World Court. Releasing the population that we are currently holding is only the beginning of Justice. We need to see impartial juries and Rule of Law for the creators of this mess as well.

Any way I have a great deal of work to get done so it is time to go. Good to be back.