Re-branding Guantanamo

One effect of transferring prisoners from CIA custody to Guantanamo is that Gitmo now has real terrorists people have heard of, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They’re trying to restore Gitmo’s reputation (!) as the place where “the worst of the worst” are stowed (albeit with volleyball courts and Harry Potter), rather than the place where low-level go-fers, wannabes and innocents sold out for the reward money are tied down in restraint chairs and forcibly fed (how many prisoners are still hunger-striking, by the way?).

The US Senate refuses (70-30) to limit the use of cluster bombs near civilians, or to restrict their sales to countries like Israel that refuse to do the same.

Harper’s follows up a Guardian story I must have missed, that a UN report on the history of human rights abuses in Afghanistan has been suppressed because it names those responsible, some of whom are currently prominent in the Afghan government, parliament or military (click here for the report in pdf).