…but hold on. The story isn’t quite over. See, I don’t think it should surprise anyone that when a US Army officer investigates allegations of abuse at Guantanamo Bay he’ll conclude that there weren’t any. Sadly, I don’t think it should come as a surprise, either, how he came about that conclusion.

In an affidavit filed to the Pentagon’s inspector general, Cerveny - a member of a detainee’s legal defense team - said a group of more than five men who identified themselves as guards had recounted hitting prisoners. The conversation allegedly took place at a bar inside the base.

“The evidence did not support any of the allegations of mistreatment or harassment,” the Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba, said in a statement.

Investigators conducted 20 interviews with “suspects and witnesses,” the Southern Command said. Bassett did not interview any detainees, said Jose Ruiz, a Miami-based command spokesman.

“He talked to all the parties he felt he needed to get information about the allegations that were made,” Ruiz said by telephone from Miami.

That’s right, his investigation consisted entirely of asking the abusers if they did it. And the “witnesses”? Well obviously they wouldn’t be the prisoners, now would they? So he asked other guards about it as well.

Imagine for a moment if a husband is out drinking with a friend and he talks about how he beats his wife all the time. Now that friend calls the police. The police then come to the house, ask the husband if he beats his wife, believes him when he says “no”, and then drive away no charges pressed. That’s what we’re looking at here.

I almost forgot about these guys. So a quick pair of stories just to let you all know what’s happening in Iraq’s nutty neighbor. Apparently they’ve started on those centrifuges they shouldn’t have.

Iran has set up two cascades of 164 centrifuges each in its underground nuclear plant, laying a basis for full-scale enrichment of uranium and upping the stakes in a standoff with the West, European diplomats said on Monday.

The cascades were to be vacuum-tested shortly, without uranium feedstock inside, and fuel material would then be added if the trial runs were successful, they said.

The 328 centrifuges would be the vanguard of 3,000 planned for installation in the coming months.

Now, in all seriousness, this could be more than a little problematic. Naturally, Iran is still insisting that it’s all for civilian atomic power, but when you’re repeatedly stepping over the line and antagonizing the world at large, it does not help your case that you mean it peacefully. Tough to insist that you mean something in peace when you’re on the offensive.

I don’t like to call people crazy, though. I find it’s unfair and it’s used nearly always as an insult rather than a descriptor. So imagine my pain and torment at trying to think up an adjective to describe Iran now that they’re claiming they have a cure for AIDS, and… it’s herbal.

Along with the claim of nuclear “rights,” Ahmadinejad was set to tout a purported “herbal” cure for AIDS, the news agency Fars reported.

“The drug named ‘IMOD’ is completely effective and safe with no proven side effects,” Iran’s Minister of Health Kamran Bagheri Lankarani said.

The report could not be verified.

Well no shit it couldn’t. I’m hoping that it turns out it’s something incredibly asinine, like a plant they just had lying around that supposedly cures AIDS just by putting it in a tea. The less scientific their “discovery” is, the happier I’ll be. Simply for comedy’s sake.

Don’t get me wrong, a cure for AIDS would be great, but this is just absurd.