Detainees Still Guilty After Proven Innocent

Our nation has gone from endorsing the "innocent until proven guilty" motto to a more authoritarian "We'll imprison whoever the f*ck we want," especially so under the Bush Administration. If the Bushies don't give a rat's ass about the rule of law for their own crimes, why should it apply to the innocent that they just happen to not like (or those that they like to keep around as convenient boogeymen). Of course, they have a bullshit argument for keeping those proven innocent in jail.

From RawStory:

Some detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will likely never be released because of the danger they pose, and those tried and acquitted will still be subject to continued detention as enemy combatants, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, made the remarks as Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni, awaited a verdict in the first war crimes trial to be held under a special regime created for "war on terror" suspects.

Morrell said Hamdan, a former driver of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, could appeal the verdict in US courts.

"But in the near term, at least, we would consider him an enemy combatant and still a danger and would likely still be detained for some period of time thereafter," he said.

Morrell said there were plans for at least 20 more such trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba but he said a significant portion of the detainees being held there would neither be tried nor released.

Ah, how comforting does that make you feel? Basically the Pentagon (vis a vis the Bush Administration) is trying to set the precedent that they can detain anyone for whatever reason and not try them, shattering the laws our framers wrote for the Constitution. The only danger here is the fact that with the government we have now, Americans can kiss their liberties and rights goodbye.