The Gitmo is go

Could this be the beginning of the end of a shameful chapter in American history?

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is set to trigger a diplomatic row between Britain and the United States by calling for Guantánamo Bay to close.

The decision by the government's chief legal adviser to denounce the detention centre in Cuba as 'unacceptable' will dismay the Bush administration, which has continually rejected claims that the camp breaches international laws on human rights.

But Goldsmith will tell a global security conference at the Royal United Services Institute this week that the camp at Guantánamo Bay must not continue. 'It is time, in my view, that it should close.' An urbane lawyer who eschews the limelight, Goldsmith is not known for shooting from the hip in such unequivocal terms; however, it is clear he has harboured grave doubts for some time over the legality of Guantánamo under international law.

'There are certain principles on which there can be no compromise,' Goldsmith will say. 'Fair trial is one of those - which is the reason we in the UK were unable to accept that the US military tribunals proposed for those detained at Guantánamo Bay offered sufficient guarantees of a fair trial in accordance with international standards.'

But the views of Britain's AG and George Bush really aren't that far apart in terms of closing the Gitmo prison and fair trials. Why, Bush paid lip service to fair trials just last week.

President George W. Bush said he would like to close the U.S.-run prison at Guantanamo Bay -- a step urged by several U.S. allies -- but was awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on how suspects held there might be tried.

"Our top court must still rule on whether they should go before a civil or military court," he said.

"They will get their day in court. One can't say that of the people that they killed. They didn't give these people the opportunity for a fair trial."

Yeah, these killers, these guilty suspects, can be assured of a fair trial from an impartial jury. The reason they've been detained for so long without trial or, in most cases, charges is that their guilt is so certain. I guess Scooter Libby is the only person on earth whom Bush considers innocent until proven guilty. Oh, and Tom DeLay.

The comments about Gitmo came during the same interview in which Bush said his best moment in office was that time when he caught a really big fish in his (stocked) lake.

U.S. President George W. Bush told a German newspaper his best moment in more than five years in office was catching a big perch in his own lake.

"You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best," Bush told weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001.

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake," he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Hey, cut the guy some slack. If you detained hundreds of suspects indefinitely because you couldn't find enough evidence to support charges (even though you were certain of their guilt), created the mess that is the Iraq war, staged photo-ops while New York smoldered and New Orleans drowned, and presided over record budget and trade deficits while wages fell and energy prices and health care costs skyrocketed, you'd find it hard to identify the best moment, too.

UPDATE: From that same bizzare interview, this nugget of Bushian wisdom:

That's George Washington, the first President, of course. The interesting thing about him is that I read three -- three or four books about him last year. Isn't that interesting? People say, so what? Well, here's the "so what." You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone. If they're still analyzing the presidency of George Washington -- (laughter.) So Presidents shouldn't worry about the history. You just can't. You do what you think is right, and if you're thinking big enough, that history will eventually prove you right or wrong. But you won't know in the short-term.

Talk about having your way with words.