The rule of law.

Good news!Or not.

Yesterday, President Bush has announced, among other things, that 9/11 perpetrators, held incommunicado until now in various and sundry CIA prisons abroad, would be transferred to Guantanamo bay. to be tried. He urged Congress to pass legislation to set up military tribunals to afford the alleged criminals a full trial, with lawyers, 5th amendment protection, albeit without right of discovery..

Other good news, the Pentagon is to issue a new manual on how to question alleged ennemies: gone are the hoods, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, the dogs, and other electric shocks.

And since good news always come in threes, the US is transferring to Iraq part of the responsibility for the Iraqi army. Onward to victory!

The sad history of this Administration entitles us to ask a few questions:

Is it really good news? First we learn that, what until now was only suspected and vehemently denied,was true: The US government, had broken the rule of law, disregarded the Geneva Convention, maintained a gulag archipelago abroad with the complicity of arab and European governments, tortured "enemy combattants", and never informed Congress, the co-equal branch of government.

Why come clean now?
Who will really believe that any of these practices have really ceased?
The upcoming November election looms as a disaster for the Republicans because the voters are angry about the war in Iraq. It was time for the Administration to shift the public's attention to FEAR. "We are still at risk. We have caught the bad guys, and if only the bad Congress gave us a law, we could judge them."
In a call-in program on WTOP this morning, 81% of the callers were in favor of torture and indefinite imprisonment of all "enemy combattants", more or less linked with 9/11.
The electoral move by Bush might save his party!
Another reason to make this announcement is that, if the Democrats win the House, and therefore get to chair hearings and inquiries, many members of the Bush Administration will need lawyers and could even face criminal charges. Alberto Gonzales, has quietly advised loyal financiers of the party to start constituting a war chest fot just that eventuality.