Evidence that Guantanamo is still part of the universe

Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, visited Guantanamo Bay last week (along with Miss USA), and blogged it (not a perm. URL) (Update: in fact, the Miss Universe people have made her take down the post): “we had a wonderful time, this truly was a memorable trip! ... it was a loooot of fun! ... We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting.” The two Misses didn’t actually meet any of the prisoners, who were thus deprived of another opportunity to recreate themselves, possibly in the shower.

In other prisoner news, the Israeli government has decided to punish all Hamas prisoners in retaliation for the continued captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, stripping them of access to newspapers, education, family visits, etc etc. That’ll teach Hamas not to capture and mistreat prisoners in order to get their demands met.

A new Afghan law signed by Karzai, though not made public yet, will (probably) ban wives leaving their homes without their husband’s permission, including for medical treatment. Oh, and they can’t refuse sex. And only men get custody of children. And child marriage will be allowed. Freedom, ain’t it grand? Condemnation from Hillary Clinton should come any.... minute.... now....

An Army sergeant is convicted by a court-martial of executing four disarmed and handcuffed Iraqi prisoners and dumping the bodies into a canal in Baghdad in 2007. Joseph Mayo offered the excuse that the murders were “in the best interests of my soldiers,” who would have been in danger had he released the prisoners. He didn’t mean immediate danger but rather that given the lack of evidence that the prisoners were up to anything, they’d have been released in a few days. Mayo himself could be released in 10 years.