Guantanamorwellian Logic

From Salon (subscription). As Salon asks, do you still recognize your country?

...Although Qassim and al-Hakim were cleared in March, the United States didn't bother to share that fact with anyone outside Guantanamo. And having been denied contact with their lawyers or their family members, the men had no way to spread the word themselves. So for four more months, they sat in Guantanamo, cleared but not freed.

The men were finally allowed to meet with the lawyers in late July, and they were able then to reveal the news that they had been cleared. The government confirmed that fact for the lawyers last week. So are the men free now? No. Their lawyers asked a federal judge in Washington to order their release yesterday, but the government is resisting. The U.S. says it can't send the men back to China because it fears they'll be persecuted there, and it hasn't found any other country that is willing to take them. Why not release them into the civilian population at Guantanamo until something better can be arranged? Can't do that, either, the government says. "They have been detained in here with some very bad people, under some very bad influences," Guantanamo spokesman and Army Maj. Jeff Weir tells the Globe. "We can't just release them into a hotel amongst the civilians on the base ... We understand the point of what the lawyers are saying, but it's an impossibility."....