Demagogue

In the wake of Amnesty International's report alleging U.S. abuse of prisoners, President Bush criticized the group for basing the conclusions of its report "on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America ..." Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin whined that the allegations of prisoner abuse had no credibility because they came from detainees who were given "explicit instructions ... (by al Qaeda) to lie ..."

But the White House and Bush sycophants will need to come up with a new talking point now that Time magazine has produced a Guantanamo Bay logbook (kept by U.S. interrogators) strongly suggesting that American officials are engaging in abusive practices at the prison. According to CNN:

The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay drew fresh criticism Sunday following a Time magazine report on a logbook tracing the treatment of a detainee .... (Mohammed) Al-Qahtani was denied entry to the United States by an immigration officer in August 2001 and later captured in Afghanistan and sent to the detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

... According to the logbook, which covers al-Qahtani's interrogations from November 2002 to January 2003, the Time article reports that daily interviews began at 4 a.m. and sometimes continued until midnight. The interrogation techniques included refusing al-Qahtani a bathroom break and forcing him to urinate in his pants.

"It's not appropriate," said Sen. Chuck Hagel on CNN's "Late Edition." "It's not at all within the standards of who we are as a civilized people, what our laws are.

"If in fact we are treating prisoners this way, it's not only wrong, it's dangerous and very dumb and very shortsighted," the Nebraska Republican said. "This is not how you win the people of the world over to our side, especially the Muslim world."

Now that our own documents (not just detainees' allegations) point to abuse, the Bush administration will need to come up with a different excuse for why the cloud hanging over Gitmo should be ignored.

It will be interesting to see if Bush loyalists within the GOP lash out at Hagel for daring to suggest that the U.S. has permitted cruel and shameful practices at Gitmo.