Orwell at Guantanamo:

Here's what the Bush administration has done to the values, traditions and honor of the United States of America: An accused terrorist claims he confessed to heinous crimes so that agents of the U.S. government would stop torturing him, and no one is shocked or even surprised.

There's also reason to doubt that the suspect -- Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, held in U.S. custody without charges for more than four years -- is the Zelig-like innocent bystander he claims to be. But we can't be sure, because George W. Bush disgraced himself and his country by ordering extrajudicial kidnappings of suspects in the war on terror, indefinite secret detention and interrogation by "alternative" methods that the civilized world calls torture.

On Friday, the Defense Department released a heavily redacted transcript of a March 14 hearing, held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine whether Nashiri should be classified as an "enemy combatant." I apologize for resorting to cliche, but the only way to describe this amazing, infuriating document is to call it Orwellian. Reading it gives you the chills.

None of the members of the military tribunal sitting in judgment is named. The officer serving as Nashiri's "personal representative" likewise is not named. Unclassified evidence is presented in summary -- an unnamed "recorder" reads a document quoting statements by witnesses that attest to Nashiri's involvement in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, in which 224 people died, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. The witnesses are not present, so, of course, there is no opportunity to challenge their statements.

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