Gitmo and the G.O.P. Election Effort

BY Scott Horton
Harper's blog
March 29, 2008

In Karl Rove’s playbook, no turf is free from politics. The more sacred and by tradition the more beyond the political fray, the better suited for partisan grist. National security, for instance. The military. Foreign conflicts. So why not stage-manage the prosecution of terrorists as a media spectacle to serve as a thematic backdrop for the upcoming presidential campaign? The Romans, after all, entertained the Plebian masses with spectacles in the arena. Throwing assorted barbarians and the occasional Christian to the lions was good for business, it seems.

Absurd, you say? Well, we can now move this out of the column marked “speculation” and into the column of “factual contention backed by sworn testimony.” In fact, backed by unrebutted testimony–given that the Pentagon bigwigs involved have decided, thus far at least, not to dispute the heavy accusations which have been levelled at them.

Indeed, yesterday’s Miami Herald (see below) put the question very pointedly: “Are the prosecutions now pending before Military Commissions in Guantánamo part and parcel of a media strategy for the Republican Party’s fall election effort?” The question rests on solid premises.

In pleadings filed by military lawyers in Guantánamo on Thursday afternoon, the allegations of political manipulation of the proceedings by the Bush Administration—charges first leveled by the Guantánamo chief prosecutor, and now reinforced by the military defense counsel—continue to mount.

(Continued here.)