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Orwellian Guantanamo
..."This is something the interrogators told me a long while ago," Idr complains during his so-called trial. "I asked the interrogators to tell me who this person was. Then I could tell you if I might have known this person, but not if this person is a terrorist. Maybe I knew this person as a friend. Maybe it was a person that worked with me. Maybe it was a person that was on my team. But I do not know if this person is Bosnian, Indian or whatever. If you tell me the name, then I can respond and defend myself against this accusation."

The tribunal president then responds, presumably with a straight face: "We are asking you the question and we need you to respond to what is on the unclassified summary."

The officer then tells Idr that he "was arrested because of his alleged involvement in a plan to attack the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, to which Idr replies: "The only thing I can tell you is I did not plan or even think of (attacking the Embassy). Did you find any explosives with me? Any weapons? Did you find me in front of the embassy? Did you find me in contact with the Americans? Did I threaten anyone? I am prepared now to tell you, if you have anything or any evidence, even if it just very little, that proves I went to the embassy and looked (at) the embassy, then I am ready to be punished."

"These are questions that I can't even answer," Idr adds. "I am not able to answer them. You tell me I am from al Qaeda, but I am not an al Qaeda. I don't have any proof to give you except to ask you to catch Bin Laden and ask him if I am a part of al Qaeda ..."

Idr may or may not be a terrorist. He may or not have been properly detained by the U.S. military. But he's right to mock the tribunal procedures in place at Guantanamo, procedures which the United States to its great discredit says are in compliance with the latest mandate from the Supreme Court. And he's lucky that there are judges like Judge Green who are willing to recognize that even men like Idr can perceptively call a sham trial a sham trial.

Fifty years after Joe McCarthy, and 70 years after the Soviet-style trials that inspired George Orwell, the Star Chamber is back, Cuban-style, in the name of protecting freedom and liberty. This is what we are fighting for?...