White House, US media stonewall on Guantanamo. Obama admin criticizes Wikileaks instead.

[Karmadillo]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/pers-a27.shtml

White House, US media stonewall on Guantanamo
27 April 2011

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The response by the Obama administration and the corporate-controlled American media has been to dismiss the latest WikiLeaks revelations of American government crimes. A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military would not comment on the documents because they “are the stolen property of the US government. The documents are classified and do not become declassified due to an unauthorized disclosure.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney condemned the release of classified information by WikiLeaks, adding, “We think it’s unfortunate that the New York Times and other news organizations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally concerning the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”

He reiterated that administration was “committed to … working towards the ultimate closure of the detention facility,” one of Obama’s most notoriously broken promises, and went on to claim as Obama’s co-thinkers on Guantanamo “the previous president, George W. Bush, John McCain when he was a candidate, uniformed military leadership.”

This declaration of continuity between the policies of Bush and Obama is of utmost importance. It demonstrates the repudiation of basic democratic rights by American imperialism, under presidents of both the big business parties. Obama has not only kept Guantanamo open, he has embraced the use of military commissions to give drumhead trials to selected prisoners, as well as the indefinite—effectively lifetime—detention without trial of an even larger number of men, an action which is in flagrant violation of both international law and the US Constitution.

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