McClatchy report on Gitmo

America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men

McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.

This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.

[snip]

The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren't "the worst of the worst." From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there.

tuesday morning reads

Guardian UK

A multinational coalition of protesters will today begin their bid to physically prevent world leaders from gathering at the G8 summit despite widespread criticism of violent tactics during growing demonstrations in Germany.

Water cannons, riot vans and 16,000 police officers - one per protester - last night fanned out around the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm to end the protests.

More than 1,000 people were injured on Saturday in Rostock, the nearest city, in some of the most violent protests seen in postwar Germany. The authorities are desperate to avoid a repeat of the violence that marred the 2001 G8 in Genoa, where a student was shot dead by police.

Der Spiegel has some photos

Guardian UK

The Bush administration's plans to bring detainees at Guantánamo Bay to trial were thrown into chaos yesterday when military judges threw out all charges against a detainee held there since he was 15 and dismissed charges against another detainee who chauffeured Osama bin Laden.

In back-to-back arraignments for the Canadian Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national, the US military's cases against the alleged al-Qaida figures were dismissed because, the judges said, the government had failed to establish jurisdiction.

NYT

If President Bush and Vice President Cheney can blurt out vulgar language, then the government cannot punish broadcast television stations for broadcasting the same words in similarly fleeting contexts.

That, in essence, was the decision on Monday, when a federal appeals panel struck down the government policy that allows stations and networks to be fined if they broadcast shows containing obscene language.