This morning both President Barak Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney talked about their views on GITMO and the use of torture (which I talked about in the last post).
My view is that there is a lot of bad thinking on this whole issue.
For me, the prime issue is how we treat these people captured on the battlefield. As previously noted, most of these people are not covered by the Geneva Convention, but the United States, being the nation we are, should grant those people such rights. Plus, beside the idea that we are who we are and grant these rights due to our natural generosity, it is good politics. We should make it part of our strategic communications plan to point out they don't merit those rights, but we grant them anyway.
Now, which of those prisoners do we try? That is a good question. Those who committed war crimes, as defined by the Geneva Convention, should be tried. And here is where I think we need a reorientation in our thinking—detainees aside, we should change our Constitution so that the rights we demand for ourselves against our Government we grant to all others who fall into our control. It is illogical that we provide a Fifth Amendment protection to ourselves but not to someone we have swept up elsewhere. Human rights are human rights. This current approach, confirmed by the US Supreme Court, reminds one of the days when Black slaves were considered 3/5ths of a person.
I am not advocating that we bring all the prisoners in GITMO to trial. Remember, we counted them to be subject to the Geneva Convention. Thus, they are POWs for the duration, unless we believe they have committed war crimes. If they committed war crimes then we should try them, unless, of course, we have fumbled the evidence and can't prove the guilt with untainted evidence or without releasing highly classified information. If we can't or won't try them and convict them in an open court, then like the rest of the detainees, we keep them for the duration of the war on terror, or we find some other nation to take them.
Closing GITMO and moving the detainees makes sense. The idea that we are afraid to move them to prisons in the United States is astonishing. The President today said there were 240 people in GITMO, who need to be dealt with. Maybe there are a few supermen in that crowd, but very few. They are often people caught up in a war that passed through their area without converting them to the takfiri views of Osama bin Laden, but drew them in because the fight impinged on their province, their valley or their village. There are others who were swept up in Afghanistan who were there training to fight for liberation in their home nation, such as the Uyghur detainees, who are no longer classed as "enemy combatants." But, even so, Senator James Webb and Representative Frank Wolf, both of Virginia, reject the idea of settling some 17 of these people with their fellow Uyghurs in Virginia.
The President quoted Republican Senator Lindsey Gram as saying:
The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational.Here is President Obama's prepared remarks. And here are the prepared remarks of former Vice President Cheney.
Fresh air is the best disinfectant. Lets disinfect GITMO and move on. Let us give the lie to those who talk like we have Dr Josef Mengele down in GITMO running the program.
This is about helping to win the war against terrorism. We need to be smart and not just reactionary to the idea that we have terrorists in our custody.
TRANSLATION of my position: I support President Obama on shutting down GITMO and think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has caved in to political pressure in a manner unworthy of a Senate Majority Leader.
Regards — Cliff
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