March 16, 2009
European Hypocrisy in a Nutshell
Europeans who offered to help us close Gitmo with promises to help resettle the prisoners in their countries reportedly are (surprise!) having second thoughts. Tom Maguire especially likes this part of the New York Times article:
The Bush administration often failed when it asked other countries to accept detainees, partly because those requests were usually accompanied by public comments defending the imprisonments by describing the detainees as dangerous terrorists.The new administration is sending a different message. "We are less vested in trying to prove that these people are rightly held," the senior State Department official said.Given that stance by the Obama administration, some European officials say Washington's focus on sending the detainees to Europe raises many questions.Germany's interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has suggested publicly that if Guantánamo detainees pose no security risk, there is no reason the United States should not take them.Let's see - if the prisoners are dangerous, Europe doesn't want them; if they are not dangerous, the US ought to keep or release them.
I think it represents European hypocrisy in a nutshell.
Anyone with any capacity to reason knew the complaints about Gitmo constituted nothing more than cost free America and Bush bashing. If they were dumb to catch on then, here it is.