The thunder by the Republicans is for interrogation prison at Guantanamo Naval base to remain in business. LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer:

Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, displayed for reporters Guantanamo-like prison entrees of lemon-baked fish and oven-fried chicken with rice, fruit and vegetables — "purchased for them by American taxpayers" — to illustrate conditions at the prison and to counter claims of mistreatment.

"They've never eaten better. They've never been treated better," Hunter said. "We don't beat them. We don't touch them. We've been treating people well."

This is a bold lie by Mr. Hunter which flies in the face of reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights First, and most recently Amnesty International.

Mr. Cheney states the obvious administration response, "At present, there's no plan to close Gitmo [Guantanamo]".


What is transpiring before the world is the Bush administration is critically damaging the moral and legal authority of our government and the underlying founding documents that this country is based upon.


The legal reasoning and ideology that Mr. Bush and his administration represents is profoundly anti-American. Even a casual reading of the thoughts of the founding fathers, like Washington and Jefferson, quickly collides with the philosophical conceits of the neoconservative's intellectual father, Leo Strauss. America has never been based upon spreading "freedom" by force of arms to the rest of the world.


What the world's citizens are witnessing is the religious obsessions of Mr. Bush and his closed circle of advisors being forced upon the rest of the world. The perfect paradigm is the interrogation prison called Camp Delta. The moral and legal depravity of Mr. Bush and his control of the various intelligence and defense organs both governmental and private is to our everlasting shame.


However, a first step to forgiveness by the rest of the world rests with our, the citizens of this country, own actions. Rep. Conyers has been at the forefront to begin this process.

Mr. Bush has gone beyond the bounds of any rational politician as has his administration's officials, from his cabinent to the senior lawyers at DoJ, and the vast organization of the Pentagon's senior military leadership, beginning with Gen. Meyers. The oath that Mr. Bush and those of his administration and the oath in the military is to the preservation and protection of the Constitution. It is not an oath to any one leader of this country. The Constitution takes precedence over the temporality of any one "President". This lack of essential understanding is what makes Mr. Bush and his cohorts an "enemy within".