Lifelong Imprisonment for Uncharged Detainees

Except for outrage in the blogosphere, there was little notice in the US press of the report in the Washington Post that the Pentagon is considering long-term imprisonment and interrogation of the detainees held in Guantanamo and elsewhere:

Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for
indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to
set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other
countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.

The plans include constructing a new prison in a secret location, and a continuation of the practice of "rendition" – i.e. outsourcing the torture of prisoners to third countries. 

At the same time, the US Justice Department posted a memo on its Web site that backs off from previous memos that advocated interrogation techniques that were tantamount to torture.   Bernd Pickert, writing in taz, explains the timing of the new memo.

Die Vermutung liegt nahe, dass die US-Regierung durch die
Veröffentlichung des neuen Memorandums kurz vor Beginn der
Kongressanhörungen zur Bestätigung Gonzalez als neuem Justizminister
Kritikern den Wind aus den Segeln nehmen will.

Florian Rötzer has been following the torture scandal for some time at Telepolis. In his article today he points out that human rights organizations will continue to oppose the confirmation of Gonzales as US Attorney General, notwithstanding the new, more liberal, definition of torture:

Menschenrechtsorganisationen wie das

Center for Constitutional Rights

lehnen die Berufung von Gonzales aus diesen Gründen ab. Im Weißen Haus
sucht man die Kritik zu unterlaufen und hat daher schon einmal den
vorgeblichen Willen der US-Regierung durch das neue Memorandum
vorzustellen gesucht, Folter abzulehnen. Trent Duffy, Sprecher des
Weißen Hauses, erklärte, man habe sich an das Office of Legal Counsel
gewandt, "um die Haltung des Präsidenten erneut zu bekräftigen, dass
die USA niemals Folter anwenden".

The US political blogger Digby tells us why speaking out against Gonzales is  of vital importance:

We should fight back with righteous anger and authority. We needn’t be
reasonable and argue like lawyers. Make them go on the record defending
torture, over and over again if possible. This is the real
values fight for the heart and soul of this country, not Janet
Jackson’s nipple or "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance. If we let
them blatently despoil the Bill of Rights without a furious battle then
everything else we care about will go right down the drain with it. It
is the source of it all.

Let them call us shrill.  At least people will know that torture is a line beyond which we will not cross. Jesus, to think there isn’t a consensus on even that…

Anyone who doubts that the Bush administration has inflicted permanent damage on the reputation of the United States with its detainee policy need only read the on-line comments on Telepolis.