Thanks, AP! Secret Club Gitmo Facility No Longer a Secret

Those foot soldiers in the War on the War on Terror have a real coup today, releasing more secret details about our facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

How did the New York Times not manage to get this scoop?

I've got to say, though, why the hell are we giving interviews to an obviously hostile press and confirming what's supposed to be secret?

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.

Well, so much for that.

Hey, why not just provide coordinates and allow for a Google Earth search?

Many operations have been classified since the detention center opened in January 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. More than four years passed before the military released even the names of detainees held on this 45-square-mile base in southeast Cuba — and it did so only after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

Detainees have been held in Camp Echo and Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Journalists cleared by the military have been allowed to tour some of these lockups, where 260 men are held, but aren't allowed to speak to detainees. Some lawmakers and other VIPs have passed through, and the International Red Cross has access, but doesn't divulge details of visits with prisoners.

But the Associated Press will be more than happy to.

Camp 7, where 15 "high-value detainees" are held, is so secret that its very existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security facilities.

"Under the gag order ... we are prohibited from saying anything more about their camp," lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez, who met with Khan in October, said Tuesday. Most of the lawyers' notes and memos have been stamped "top secret" by the government.

Buzby told the AP he is sharply limiting to a "very few" the number of people who know Camp 7's whereabouts.

Read the rest.

Gutierrez, naturally, works for the CCR and the America-hating Columbia professor and generous Democrat donor Michael Ratner.

Would be nice some day if the media bothered to ask those who've received Ratner's money whether they have a problem taking funds some someone who works so hard on behalf of terrorists.

UPDATE: Ringo the Gringo notes the inmates at Think Progress are wetting themselves over this news.

Fox Derangement Syndrome at the New York Times

The folks in the bubble over at the New York Times are whining that the Fox News Channel won't show an absurd ad from far-left actor Danny Glover and the even further left Center for Constitutional Rights, run by Marxist Columbia professor and Hillary Clinton donor Michael Ratner.

Fox’s Fair and Balanced Ad Policy

Actor Danny Glover has filmed a TV ad asserting that the Bush Administration is destroying the Constitution through the use of torture, rendition, and other war-on-terror tactics. Mr. Glover urges viewers to “rescue the Constitution.”

It’s hard-hitting. But a lot of people and organizations — including our Editorial Page — have been saying much the same thing.

That's true, they have been saying the same thing because they hate George W. Bush. Not that any of their spurious arguments have merit to them. But why let the facts get in the way?

There is, of course, plenty of documentation for the damage that has been done to the Constitution in the last seven years.

There is? Where?

Certainly not in this smarmy item. How about backing up that claim?

But in any case, we have news for Fox: Alka-Seltzer tablets don’t bounce around singing “plop, plop, fizz, fizz,” and whole sidewalks full of people don’t smile and cheer just because a guy is running around with a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

Huh? What the hell does that mean?

It seems that Fox’s literalism about advertising is limited to ads that take a liberal political position.

Fox gave considerable play to the Swift Boat Veterans’ false ads against John Kerry during the 2004 election. But as the website Media Matters notes, in 2005 Fox News refused to run an ad critical of then-Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. The network said the ad was “factually incorrect.”

Media Matters? There's a reliable source. But, excuse me, when exactly were the SBVT ads shown to be false? Maybe these idiots need to do some reading. Read the comments over there as well. The tolerant readers basically want Fox shut down.

Here's the Glover ad.

French Toss Rumsfeld Suit

Another smackdown for the far left antiwar kook crowd.

French prosecutors throw out Rumsfeld torture case

PARIS (Reuters) - The Paris prosecutors' office has dismissed a suit against Donald Rumsfeld accusing the former U.S. defense secretary of torture, human rights groups who brought the case said on Friday.

The plaintiffs, who included the French-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) and the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said Rumsfeld had authorized interrogation techniques that led to rights abuses.

The FIDH said it had received a letter from the prosecutors' office ruling that Rumsfeld benefited from a "customary" immunity from prosecution granted to heads of state and government and foreign ministers, even after they left office.

It said in a statement it was "astonished at such a mistaken argument" and said customary immunity from prosecution did not exist under international law.

The suit was filed in October during a visit to France by Rumsfeld.

The CCR is headed up by the odious Michael Ratner, who works hard on behalf of terrorists and is a generous contributor to certain Democrats.

Blackwater Meets the Leftist-Islamist Convergence

J. Michael Waller has a look at who is representing the Iraqi families suing Blackwater USA, and what do you know, it just happens to be a couple of the most radical lawyers in the United States, representing both sides of the Leftist-Islamist convergence.

Curiously, they're also big bucks contributors to the Democrats.

LAWYERS FOR TERROR: RADICAL ATTORNEYS IN BLACKWATER SUIT

HERE'S a new twist in the Blackwater story: A legal group with a four-decade record of aiding and abetting terrorists, spies and cop-killers is suing the company. Joining it is an Egyptian attorney who has been representing what the U.S. Treasury Department calls a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda.

The Sept. 16 incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square resulted in at least 17 deaths. Three families of the Iraqi victims, plus one injured survivor, are suing the "contract-security" firm. But their choice of attorneys is remarkable.

The legal team includes attorneys from the Philadelphia firm of Burke O'Neil LLC - plus the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, as well as CCR's president, Michael Ratner - plus Shereef Hadi Akeel of Akeel & Valentine PC.

The Center for Constitutional Rights calls itself a civil-rights group, working for the "least popular" in society in order to defend the rights of all. But it seems to specialize in defending the enemies of American society.

The CCR and its lawyers have provided legal aid to the murderer of two FBI agents; bombers and bank robbers from the 1960s, and '70s terrorist groups. It has even litigated on behalf of illegal-combatant detainees at Guantanamo and mounted a spirited moral defense of Lynne Stewart, convicted for conspiring with the spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

If a terrorist needs help, the CCR isn't far away. Its lawyers gave legal aid to the Puerto Rican FALN terrorists who planted more than 100 bombs in Chicago and New York. You know, the group that in 1975 blew up the Fraunces Tavern in New York City, killing four and wounding 54.

You should remember the FALN.

Mrs. Clinton's husband pardoned a number of them to help his wife's New York Senate bid in 2000.

CCR leader Michael Ratner went to the U.S. Supreme Court to get constitutional protections extended to captured terrorists and illegal combatants. He sued to weaken post-9/11 counterterrorism laws.

He's also an aggressive propagandist of the Soviet old school who knows how to make headlines to spin public opinion. Where he once pushed communist causes, today he's pushing Islamist extremism. His involvement in the Blackwater lawsuit must be seen in that context.

Not only that, he's--get this--a lecturer at Columbia University. His idea of justice is freeing all the scum at Guantanamo Bay.

The Washington Post gushes over him here.

Check him out in this YouTube clip.

Joining Ratner as counsel in the suit is Akeel, an Egyptian-born lawyer in Michigan [Michigan's Lawyer of the year for 2004! -- ed.] who has represented a group the Treasury Department says is a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda.

Akeel has been a defense counsel for the Islamic Relief Agency, which Treasury says supports Osama bin Laden. A federal court backed Treasury's findings in a decision earlier this year, rejecting Akeel's request that the government unfreeze his client's assets.

CCR lawyers, either individually or as part of the organization, provided legal help to the late Soviet KGB agent Wilfred Burchett, who operated undercover as a journalist; and to a U.S. Marine guard at the U.S. embassy in Moscow who was seduced to betray his country for the Soviet KGB.

They gave legal and political support to Leonard Peltier, an Indian militant convicted of murdering FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams. They've defended or litigated on behalf of cop-killers who left a trail of dead policemen and deputies in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

They gave legal support to Abdul Majid and Bashir Hameed, now in prison for snuffing the life from New York City Police Officer John Scarangella and attempting to kill his partner. They provided legal counsel for Joanne Chesimard, convicted of murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and now hiding in Cuba.

Read the rest.

I'm not passing judgment on the mertis of the Blackwater case, yet it's worth noting just who is going after them.

Ratner, by the way, cut a nice check from the CCR to the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee on June 28, 2007. He also gave another check for $3500 on July 12, and has donated to Jerry McNerney (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Al Franken (D-Mars), Barbara Lee (D-CA), the only member of Congress to vote against our excursion into Afghanistan post-9/11, and a slew of checks to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Carl Levin (D-MI), Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and a host of others.

In 2004, he donated $4000 to Ted Kennedy's 2012 campaign (!) and maxed out on donations to John Kerry and Howard Dean.

Back in 2000, he gave Hillary Clinton money (probably thanks for the FALN pardon), and what do you know, even gave money to one William Jefferson Clinton.

This source shows a Michael Ratner donating to to a host of radical NYC politicans, as well as Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Chappaquiddick), failed politican and Air America honcho Mark Green.

Akeel has been much more judicious in dispensing his money. He apparently only gives to elected Muslims in Congress.

Nice to see such avowed enemies of America lavishing so much cash on Democrats.

UPDATE: More today on Blackwater from the Washington Times. As an aside, I wonder what Mrs. Clinton and Mark Penn think about this?

UPDATE II: Instapundit links. Thanks!

UPDATE III: Looks like Blackwater will leave Iraq next spring. Who can blame them?

Nice job, Democrats. You can't force us to cut and run, but you can find other ways to damage the effort in Iraq. Take a bow.