Guantanamo Bay is tainted from start to finish - from the choice of a non-U.S./U.S location beyond the reach of US law, to the internment of hundreds on flimsy evidence, including many who were likely given up by bounty hunters, to widespread reports of poor treatment that may include torture, huge difficulties in detainees getting any kind of legal assistance etc etc etc.

Gen. Hood, the commander from 2004 to 2006, was just rejected by Pakistan as our chief military liaison to that country, because of his association with Gitmo.

Meanwhile, of the hundreds who have been released, 36, including a suicide bomber in Mosul in April, have been involved in violence against the West. Here's what Alissa Rubin of the NYTimes wrote on May 9, "Their violent acts raise the question of whether the men should have been released, but also whether their detention radicalized them."

In the name of "national security" and "making us safer" we have imprisoned the innocent, perhaps released the guilty, and perhaps have dangerously radicalized others - the already released and the not yet released.

All Americans have been tainted by this quasi-legal prison where detainees have few rights, very little information is available even to lawyers trying to represent detainees, there is no national much less international accountability and no evidence that we or anybody is safer.

Now even a US military judge has ruled that Brig. General Thomas Hartmann is ineligble (ie tainted) to participate in a trial and another prosecutor Col. Morris Davis felt compelled to resign because of his unease with the process.

Gitmo is so tainted that even usually vociferous Alternet bloggers have nothing to say.

Very sad all around.

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As a retired Army officer, I understand how Brig Gen Hartmann is surviving in the USAF. They have a rather strange outlook on life and democracy. My concern is that no state or the USG, to the best of my knowledge, has started disbarment procedures. His conduct as a lawyer is pathetic. Kudos to Col. Davis and Capt. Allred for rising above the pressure and doing the right thing.

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that a show trial may be revealed for what it is.

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