headlines

i’m suffering some re-entry burn this morning, so i thought i’d just run this little tidbit by you. take a moment to reflect on the headline to this article, what it emphasizes and the tone it sets, against what the article is actually reporting. leave your reactions in comments.

Court cites nonsense poem in ruling for Gitmo detainee

• Story Highlights
• Appeals court faults government argument in case of Chinese Muslim held at Gitmo
• Just because claim is repeated doesn’t make it true, court says, citing Lewis Carroll
• Suspect has been detained for six years, accused of attending terrorist training
• Court says he must be released, transferred, or get new hearing quickly

  WASHINGTON (CNN) — A federal appeals court has slammed the reliability of U.S. government intelligence documents, saying just because officials keep repeating their assertions does not make them true.

  A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington likened the Bush administration’s case to a line in an 1876 nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

  Portions of the court’s findings were released a week ago, including a ruling that a Chinese Muslim accused of being a foreign fighter was wrongly imprisoned. The full ruling was released Monday.

  Hazaifa Parhat is being held by the U.S. military at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. In its ruling, the court ordered that Parhat be released or transferred, or that a hearing be held quickly to determine whether he is being held properly.

  The judges criticized the government for offering unsubstantiated evidence, and referred to Carroll’s poem,”The Hunting of the Snark,” in which the line is uttered by a pompous character called the Bellman.

  “The government suggests that several of the assertions in the intelligence documents are reliable because they are made in at least three different documents,” wrote Judge Merrick Garland. “We are not persuaded. Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has ’said it thrice’ does not make the allegation true. In fact we have no basis for concluding that there are independent sources for the documents’ thrice-made assertions.”

full article available at CNN.com – used entirely without permission; Fair Use claimed under 17 U.S.C. &7 – “Not an infringement of copyright [if used] for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting etc.”