Free Republic

They’re just as bad as we are, only worse. The prison at Guantanamo Bay was designed to interrogate terrorists and jihadists swept up from the battlefield: the idea was to keep them as prisoners of war in a war that was undeclared, and as enemy combatants without uniforms or officers. It had a no-win mandate, and will probably close soon due to international outcries about its supposed barbarity. Yet, for all the fury about its existence, not a single detainee has died there in over four years of operation. In contrast, the European Milosevic just dropped dead while under custody...

The Taliban’s former spokesman, Rahmatullah Hashemi, is now an undergraduate at Yale University, The New York Times reveals in a lengthy cover story by Chip Brown in its Sunday magazine this weekend. The cover line reads, “He was the Taliban’s spin doctor. So what’s he doing at Yale?" In fact, the story shows, Hashemi was at Yale once before—in 2001, appearing at a forum representing the Taliban, a few months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A small clip of Hashemi appears in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” film. “In some ways,” Hashemi, 27, says today, “I’m the luckiest person in the...

(Here is the relevant passage. Other than Speaker Hastert, the Illinois Congressional delegation has been pretty quiet. Except for Evanston's Jan Schakowsky, a human-hangover from the 1960s.) REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-9): "The Bush Administration and Republican leaders are engaged in a pathetic attempt to make Senator Dick Durbin's condemnation of the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay an issue. As a result of the revelations of conditions at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram prison in Afghanistan, the Republicans owe the American people, our soldiers and veterans an apology for undermining American values such as the Rule of Law, putting our...