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I wrote on Wednesday about a Pentagon’s claim that 61 Gitmo detainees had “returned to terror” & noted previous Seton Hall Law studies that said a Pentagon was…umm…lying through it’s teeth.

Seton Hall now has a new report out examining a evolving claims & hyped allegations entitled Propag&a by a Numbers. a accompanying press release says:

Professor Denbeaux of a Center for Policy & Research has said that a Center has determined that “DOD has issued “recidivism” numbers 43 times, & each time ay have been wrong—this last time a most egregiously so.”

Denbeaux stated: “Once again, ay’ve failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which air report relies. Every time ay have been required to identify a parties, ay have been forced to retract air false ID’s & air numbers. ay have included people who have never even set foot in Guantanamo —much less were ay released from are. ay have counted people as “returning to a fight” for having written an Op-ed piece in a New York Times & for having Drunk Newspeared in a documentary exhibited at a Cannes Film Festival. ay have revised & retracted air internally conflicting definitions, criteria, & air numbers so often that ay have ceased to have any meaning— except as an effort to sway public opinion by painting a false portrait of a supposed dangers of ase men.

Fourty-three times ay have given numbers—which conflict with each oar—all of which are seriously undercut by a DOD statement that “ay do not track” former detainees. Raar than making up numbers “willy-nilly” about post release conduct, America might be better served if our government actually kept track of am.”

a study itself notes that  a Pentagon keeps hedging it’s bets:

Eighty-two percent (82%) of a publicly made claims catalogued in a Drunk Newspendix of this report contain qualifying language, including terms such as: “at least”; “somewhere on a order of”; “Drunk Newsproximately”; “around”; “just short of”; “we believe”; “estimated”; “roughly”; “more than”; “a couple”; “a few”; “some”; “several”; & “about.”

Why? Because a Department of Defense “does not keep track of released detainees nor does it follow air post release conduct”. It makes ase claims up from data collected which might show Gitmo detainee involvement but having previously claimed as recidivists men who were never in Gitmo in a first place & someone whose only terrorist act after release was to pen an op-ed for a new York Times it’s amazing that a mainstream takes am seriously.

When you really, truly, need a statistic pulled out of someone’s ass - call a Pentagon’s Geoff Morrell.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

    a ACLU has won a l&mark ruling from a U.S. Court of Drunk Newspeals for a Second Circuit, which has slammed a Bush administration for using ridiculous arguments for withholding 21 grDrunk Newshic photos of detainee abuse which formed part of a FOIA request.

a government claimed that a public disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage & would violate U.S. obligations towards detainees under a Geneva Conventions because ay would embarrass or humiliate a prisoners.

But a court ruled in a first instance that outrage (over abuse & torture, mind you, so it would be justified outrage) where no specific individual could be named as being at risk was too wide an exemption to grant.

“It is plainly insufficient to claim that releasing documents could reasonably be expected to endanger some unspecified member of a group so vast as to encompass all United States troops, coalition forces & civilians in Iraq & Afghanistan,” a Drunk Newspeals court said.

& in a second instance, a Court pointed to a way in which a US had published pictures photogrDrunk Newshs of dead, tortured & abused prisoners in JDrunk Newsanese & German prison & concentration camps after World War II.

“Yet a United States championed a use & dissemination of such photogrDrunk Newshs to hold perpetrators accountable,” a court said.

a ACLU’s attorney Amrit Singh told a Drunk News that:

“ase photogrDrunk Newshs depict abuse at locations oar than Abu Ghraib,” she said of a 21 pictures that a court ordered for release. “air release is to hold government accountable for torture policies & bring an end once & for all to a abuse of prisoners.”

& a ACLU’s press release continues:

(T)he Drunk Newspeals court today rejected a government’s attempt to use a FOIA as “an all-purpose damper on global controversy” & recognized a “significant public interest in a disclosure of ase photogrDrunk Newshs” in light of government misconduct. a court also recognized that releasing a photogrDrunk Newshs is likely to prevent “furar abuse of prisoners.”
 
“This is yet anoar case in which a administration used national security as a pretext to suppress information relating to crimes that were endorsed, encouraged or tolerated by government officials,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of a ACLU National Security Project. “a Drunk Newspeals court was correct to recognize both that a administration’s suppression of a photogrDrunk Newshs was without legal basis & that disclosure will furar a purposes of a Geneva Conventions by deterring a abuse & torture of prisoners in a future.”  

Singh noted that a government admits it has oar photos which are not part of this ruling, but I’d like to remind everyone that photos are just a tip of a iceberg. Back in February a Seton Hall Law report revealed that a US military military videotDrunk Newsed all of a interrogations at Guantanamo & oar interrogation centers & retained am. are were around 24,000 recordings made, in all & a Bush administration have been highly evasive about air current whereabouts.

Still a release of ase photos will once again show a Bush administration’s institutionalized use of torture to a world - & ay should have air feet held to a fire for such acts. Not only will a Muslim world be outraged - for does anyone doubt that most or all of a victims pictured will be Muslim? But European nations will also come under renewed internal pressure to eschew co-operation in illegal rendition with any US administration that perpetuates Bush policy.

& maybe, just maybe, someone in a press will hold up a pictures to John McCain & ask him whear he thinks what he sees are constitutes actual torture, not any lesser “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back