Gitmo: The Latest Hot Vacation Spot

Looking for a fun vacation spot this season? If you're a journalist, consider a trip to exotic non-Cuba, the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center!

Several times a month, the military parades groups of journalists through the detention camps at the naval station here in an effort to clear up what it says are "common misrepresentations" about the way the camps’ 176 detainees are treated.

The tours — part of a package deal complete with lodging, ground transportation and three meals a day from the Navy mess hall — offer what the Pentagon promotes as a behind-the-scenes peek into one of the government’s most secretive missions in the campaign against terror.

Well, that sounds like fun! A "package deal" with a bed for the night, a Personal Driver, and Navy mess hall haute cuisine? Better than a trip to South of the Border, that's for damn sure.

Unfortunately, journalists who actually want to "report" a "story" will likely find their attempts stymied by the military's famous Gitmo brand of hospitality…

During their visits, journalists must agree to limits on what they can report and document. Among the biggest sources of disagreement between the media and the public affairs officers on the base have been rules that restrict what kinds of photos can be taken. Every photo in a camera brought by a journalist to the naval base is reviewed — regardless of whether it was taken there or not.

This has led to some awkward moments between military censors and the reporters and photographers who have come to Guantánamo with personal pictures on their cameras.

So to recap: Bring your sunscreen and your penchant for fun, but not your cameraphone full of photos of you banging the office factchecker. Got it? Good!

Tags: Guantanamo Bay, Military, Terrorism

Federal Judge Rules Five-Year Imprisonment Without Trial No Serious Biggie

Did you know that it is totally fine and absolutely 100% okay to be imprisoned five years without a trial in these United States? You didn't? Oh, well you are probably not a Muslim person and had not heard of this rule, which is now posted in your local mosque. Here's a famous newspaper to help you…

A federal judge has rejected a claim by a terrorist defendant in Manhattan that his nearly five years of detention by the American government before being transferred into the civilian court system violated his Constitutional right to a speedy trial.

The ruling comes in the case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who last year became the first former detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be moved into the civilian court system for trial.

Let us imagine, for a moment, that Ahmed is innocent (he allegedly conspired in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998), since that is what we are supposed to assume (according to Law & Order reruns). In that case, he has spent five years of his life imprisoned for crimes he didn't commit, without standing trial, without receiving his day(s) in court, and without any knowledge of his fate. Might this perhaps drive an otherwise-healthy person a bit nuts? Might this anger someone who previously had no interest in committing acts of terror against the United States?

Now let us imagine that he is guilty. Oh, well, that's just great. We kept a murderer or an accomplice to mass murder jailed in Gitmo for five fricking years without trying him and meting out his punishment? Perhaps there are victims' families who believe they ought to receive something in the form of "justice" or "closure," i.e., seeing a criminal punished in accordance with the laws of the land in which they dwell and pay taxes.

Peope can talk ish about Obamarz all they want, but at least he's actually getting a move on with this effing judicial process thing.

Tags: Guantanamo Bay, Terrorism

Stephen Colbert on the Violation of BP's Cash-titutional Rights

It's really heartwarming to see so many of Joe Barton's friends — like Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Ben Stein and Rep. Michele Bachmann — lining up alongside Barton and BP and opposing the American government they've all been speaking out against for so these years…

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm / 10:30c.

Tags: Animals, Barack Obama, Ben Stein, Bill of Rights, BP, Constitution, Energy & Oil, Guantanamo Bay, House of Representatives, Joe Barton, Laura Ingraham, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Stephen Colbert, Texas, The Colbert Report, Tony Hayward

The Daily Show: Barack Obama Embarks on AssQuest 2010

Yesterday, the shocking news of Barack Obama using the word "ass" on television to prove how serious he is about fixing a hole in the ocean hit us like a ton of bricks (made of washed-up tar). Today, we begin following the President on his quest to find a suitable ass to kick. But will that ass wind up being closer to him than he ever could have suspected?

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.

Tags: Apple, Barack Obama, BP, Cocaine, Drugs, Energy & Oil, Guantanamo Bay, Gulf Coast, Haley Barbour, Jon Stewart, Mississippi, Science & Technology, Sex, Steve Jobs, The Daily Show

How Lobsters Who Live in Trees Define the Word "Terrorist"

Tree Lobsters! — a web comic about lobsters who live in trees, apparently — on the amorphous definition of the word "terrorist"…

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Tags: Guantanamo Bay, Star Wars, Terrorism