What to do About Guantanamo?
The US Congress is refusing to allow President Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, a symbol of torture and abuse. Apparently their vote was driven by fears of public backlash if those detained were brought to prisons in the US. Obama had failed to specify exactly what would happen to the prisoners when the facility was closed, but one is slated to be tried in New York for the attacks on the US embassies in East Africa in 1998.
I don't understand the controversy. Perpetrators of the embassy bombings have already been tried and convicted in a New York court, some years ago, and are serving sentences in US supermax penitentiaries. Why would Gailani's trial and, assuming he were convicted, imprisonment be different?
And, weren't dangerous Nazis imprisoned in the US during WW II?
I don't actually think the US public wants to go on torturing people and holding individuals indefinitely without trial and without rights. Uh, the Declaration of Independence didn't speak of the rights of US citizens. It said "all men" have the rights it set out.
A federal judge has already rejected Obama's right, which he recently asserted, to keep people in prison for having shown "substantial support" (but short of taking up arms) for e.g. the Taliban. If you wanted to jail people for thinking well of the Taliban, you'd have to imprison 5% of the Afghan population, or nearly a million and a half people, and 14% of the Pakistani population, or about 24 million people.
Obama had better do something quick or he'll be forced just to let a lot of the prisoners go. Andy Worthington argues that many at Guantanamo were randomly picked up anyway, with some sold to the US by the Taliban!
I'm against the military tribunals. But why can't you hold civilian trials at Guantanamo Bay? District it as part of some civil US jurisdiction US and send a jury over. You could declare all civilians at Guantanamo Bay under the jurisdiction of the Virgin Islands federal District Court, e.g. You could use the security and facilities of the military base for the civilian trials. Those convicted could go into a supermax penitentiary in the US, from which no one has escaped, and which already hold Ahmed Rassam and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (look them up; few at Guantanamo are more dangerous). Or maybe since the Congress is so exercised by this issue, they will want to refurbish and start back up Alcatraz . . .
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/21/2009 12:07:00 AM
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14 Comments:
Devil's Island?
Looks like another instance of making a national issue out of thin air (or vacuum).
I imagine that the bruisers that inhabit our prisons would make quick work of the detainees, should they be left unguarded in the yards.
If Obama can't close Guantanamo and hold normal trials for its prisoners, then I think he will have lost his last chance at being a respected national leader. This is low hanging fruit compared to Iraq and Afghanistan. He's already left Bush's "state secrets" and the "torture accountability" fruit hanging. Is "don't ask, don't tell" far behind? Obama needs a "progressive Cheney" real bad right now.
"Apparently their vote was driven by fears of public backlash if those detained were brought to prisons in the US."
I think it's more fear of a right wing backlash as the wingers have been playing the organ of Obama bringing terrorists to our towns!!! Post WWII history makes no difference. The shame shoveled on the US by Guantanamo makes no difference to the organists. The growing peril to US troops captured in foreign deployments that the continuation of Guantanamo encourages makes no difference. The narrowmindedness that this attitude illustrates is absolutely breathtaking.
I think that the reason why Obama can't close Guantanamo and only offer military trials to those detainees, is because the Geneva Conventions and other HRL (human right laws) have been breached so clearly and so often that they can't let the rest of the world and the usual middle man in the US know about it.
If not, why would he reverse all his electoral promises ? He fears that the US will be know for what it is.
The only thing to do, to avoid these things is not to undertake a war. Once America has put the finger in the mecanism, it's very difficult to get out of it. Apparently things were much worse than Obama thought.. or he would have hold his electoral promises.
Any way, nothing new for the rest of the world, we know perfectly that the US always go with the law of the strongest, without regard for HRL, despite all her talk of freedom and democracy. Former examples abounds : Vietnam, South America etc.. etc..
I don't buy this "fear" story. I think it's being ginned up by Cheney supporters so he can be "proven right" when he said he didn't think Obama would actually close the facility.
The real "fear" isn't of holding these people in US supermax prisons, it's of being forced by the courts to let them go. If even one of them is released and goes on to commit a terrorist act, the Republicans and the media will crucify Obama. They may not have been terrorists going in, but a few of them damn sure be terrorists coming out.
West point historian discusses US treatment of prisoners
http://libraryautomation.com/nymas/podcasts/Paul%20Springer%20-%20POWs_001.mp3
The Gitmo prisoners evidently have achieved talking point status with the Republicans. During the Lonegan-Christie NJ Gov primary debate Christie proclaimed he would block the entry of Gitmo prisoners to NJ. He seemed to expect cheers from the audience, but nobody cared. Until your blog post I just thought Christie was just being weird.
If transported to the US, even in a super max they would be able to talk about their treatment. The Nazis were treated very well by the US during WWII. BTW, if Obama wanted to he could keep them in the resort area of the Gitmo base. Or provoke a constitutional crisis and bring them to the US.
Another issue is Republicans (and some Democrats) never accepted Obama as Commander and Chief of the US military.
One of the tragi-comic American stories is that 30 Guantanamo inmates "returned to terrorism" after being released, and therefore the current innocent inmates cannot be freed.
The thought that holding someone for years without trial, with constant abuse and humiliation, may actually make that person want to punish his abusers does not seem to register with the Exceptionalists.
The question is: What explains the pervasive resistance to
1. Releasing Guantanamo prisoners who would never be tried (largely because they were never even suspected of jaywalking, much less terrorism)?
2. Trying genuine suspects in the United States?
3. Imprisoning those convicted of terrorism in the United States?
Here are some explanations, all of which contribute to a complete explanation in some measure:
1. Released prisoners will be free to broadcast the truth of their capture, kidnapping, torture, and worse at American hands.
2. Released prisoners will be free to press criminal and civil charges against Americans in both US and foreign courts.
3. Trial in the US would bring the proceedings under US law, again allowing the accused to present facts that the US doesn't want released (officially because such release would undermine US security; in reality because the truth would expose atrocities of the Bush and now Obama administrations).
4. Trial in the US would be pre-determined to reach a guilty verdict (check to see the trial of any Arab or Muslim in the past 8 years to see how easy it is to convict in this deeply racist society). But the world would see such a rigged system for what it is -- corrupt and racist. Former AG Michael Mukasey knows this full well from his days as a judge.
5. Americans resist imprisonment in the US for (a) unjustified, hysterical fears of terrorists making their way into darkest Kansas to free their comrades and (b) because Americans are anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racists and they simply don't want 'their kind' in their 'backyard'.
I'm pretty sure that in while all "men" get all the rights our Constitution allows, in practice, that usually isn't the case ...
Of course reactionaries want to play up the terrorist-in-the-back-yard. It's a rich imagery, perfect for jawboning nonsense on national security fear.
Still, while the probability of some horrible contingency is minute, it's not zero. We live with a thousand things like that every day. But this one is perceived by a lot of Democrats to be on their own heads. They're choosing against this battle, as they often do, even if it means tearing up the rulebook and bucking a whole concert of court decisions that these prisoners deserve a "speedy" fair trial.
I think a lot of it is that the American public has been conditioned by years of Bush propaganda that all the inmates at Gitmo are evil terrorist masterminds when those of us who have been following the story since its inception know that many of them were just "sold" to the US for cash on trumped up charges. And for those that may be in fact be guilty of AQ membership the evidence is slim to none outside of conjecture and coerced confessions. So if tried in American courts, as they should be, many would be released. You think the Repulbican hysteria is bad now, imagine the "Obama frees 100 terrorist masterminds" meme.
Democrats are absolutely terrified of appearing "soft" on national security and the Republicans use this to play them like an orchestra. It worked to prevent any real opposition to Bush and it's working now to prevent any opposition to Bush's agenda.
Obama laid out 5 different categories of prisoner being held at Guantanamo. As he stated, the last group is the difficult one, because they are the ones who cannot be released and yet cannot be tried by either civilian or military courts. The mostly unspoken reason for this is because the evidence that would be used for conviction was "tainted" (obtained by torture) which means it can't be used by prosecutors in either court system. And no, we're not talking about somebody who should go free even though he murdered someone, because rule of law demands it. We're talking about Al Qaeda operational leaders who have sworn to kill Americans and will not be deterred. They should be treated the way most states deal with pedophiles: recidivism rates are so high that pedophiles are mostly kept in indefinite incarceration, long past any court sentence. The idea of indefinite incarceration obviously makes Obama queasy, which is why he has structured the system so that there is regular review, and so that the executive branch does not have sole discretion in determining who shall be indefinitely detained. I'm not thrilled with it either, but there you go. I assume the number of those held in this manner will be quite small, and frankly, the ACLU can bitch and moan about this all it wants to. There isn't anything unconstitutional about it.
Uh huh. Gitmo is a product of Neocon thinking. Which internationally prominent Neocon visited Washington lately?
Anonymous:
How do we know they are AQ operational leaders? Whatever pieces of information we have to ascertain this are called "evidence." If all we have is obtained by torture, I wouldn't believe the charge. You can torture people into saying anything. So maybe they're not AQ operational leaders? Maybe the government is wrong (not that that's ever happened before, but entertain the possibility). We should figure out for sure before we lock someone up indefinitely. I'm sure you would want the same done for you if you were accused of being a pedophile.
Now, if only there were some way to determine the truth of these competing claims. If only there were some way of having an impartial body review the evidence and arguments according to long-established procedures and rules, applying the law fairly and justly . . . and then determining their best judgement of the truth (for the sake of argument, call it a "verdict").
Oh well, I sure can't think of anything like that!
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