Secretary of Terrorism

In case you are unclear about what is happening in Guantanamo, the U.S. is holding people they consider to be enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Most of those people are from the Middle East. The reason they are being held in Guantanamo and not on U.S. soil is that the President and Congress have consistently said that enemy combantants being detained by the U.S. who are not on U.S. soil do not have the same rights as U.S. citizens. In fact, they don't have the rights that are guaranteed them by the Geneva Convention. The biggest right that they are not offered is that of Habeas Corpus. That right gives any prisoner a hearing where they can testify in their own defense. They can exculpate themselves from blame. As it stands, the U.S. has flown people they deemed to be enemy combatants from the Middle East to Cuba. This exclusive U.S. practice is known as extraordinary rendition. Some of those victims of extraordinary rendition have been detained for up to six years with no trial or opportunity for telling their side of the story. How does that work? Well, the U.S. Government has said that a defense lawyer would necessarily need access to classified documents and if those documents became public the Terrorists would win. So instead the U.S. Government terrorizes people by holding them indifinitely without a trial. Donald Rumsfeld played an integral role in hashing out the plan and now that he has stepped down there is talk of him being tried for allowing torture to occur at Guantanamo and elsewhere. When the Secretary of Defense knowingly condones torture he should be considered a terrorist threat to domestic and foreign peoples alike. Why doesn't a foreign country fly in and take Rumsfeld via extraordinary rendition and hold him indefinitely?

The only reason people should be happy Rumsfeld stepped down is because he has further opened himself up to being prosecuted. Otherwise it is business as usual. Don't fool yourself for a minute into thinking Gates is any better. Afterall, he played an integral role in the Iran-Contra affair; yet another subversive terrorist plot.