Damned If You Do ...
... and damned if you don't.
McClatchy's DC bureau has been running a series of investigative reports on the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, and they have been outstanding. Outstanding, and very troubling. One of those reports, which I read in the Sacramento Bee, has been nagging at me for several days now because it raises a very important issue, one that will (in all probability) not be raised in public discourse, in Congress, or on the presidential campaign trail. What do we do with those who were detained wrongly but who have now been radicalized by the torture and conditions associated with their detention to the point that they really are ready to engage in terrorist activities against the US?
The article gives a pretty clear example of what is involved.
Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan. He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen who rode around in trucks with AK-47 rifles.
U.S. troops detained him in 2002, although he had no clear ties to the Taliban or al-Qaida. By the time Farouq was released from Guantánamo the next year, however – after more than 12 months of what he described as abuse and humiliation at the hands of American soldiers – he'd made connections to high-level militants.
This was made possible by the rank stupidity of the system into which he was dropped.
A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantánamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam – thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them – and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.
The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.
Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantánamo enraged at America.
The Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, an Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantánamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas – binding religious instructions – to the other detainees. ...
In a classified 2005 review of 35 detainees released from Guantánamo, Pakistani police intelligence concluded that the men – the majority of whom had been subjected to "severe mental and physical torture," according to the report – had "extreme feelings of resentment and hatred against USA."
"A lot of our friends are working against the Americans now, because if you torture someone without any reason, what do you expect?" Issa Khan, a Pakistani former detainee, said in an interview in Islamabad. "Many people who were in Guantánamo are now working with the Taliban."
So, there we have it. In our zeal to capture terrorists we offered bounties and rounded up all sorts of scalawags, anti-social miscreants, and targets of family quarrels, used "intensive interrogation techniques" on them, and slammed them into a prison thousands of miles from home right next to extremists who didn't have to advertise their recruitment efforts. Screw-up after screw-up after screw-up.
Now what?
If we continue to hold them, with or without charges, we just compound the hatred now being focused against the US by those being held, their families, friends, and countrymen, not to mention the rest of the world which is rightfully appalled by our overt breach of international law and basic human decency.
But if we release them, we run the risk of being attacked by these newly fledged terrorists, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, or New York City. As H. Candace Gorman, who represents several Gitmo detainees, has pointed out, only one of the hundreds of detainees who have been released has actually 'returned to the battlefield.' Still, there are still hundreds more who could very well do so.
What to do. What to do.
Well, in my opinion, it's not really such a hard choice. We do the right thing. We release those who have been wrongfully detained, radicalized or not. We take our medicine. We take responsibility for those screw-ups.
I am reminded of the story, apocryphal or not, of then Secretary of State Colin Powell who initially urged against the Iraq War. He said something to the effect of "you break it, you own it." Unfortunately, Mr. Powell didn't have the cojones to follow through on that advice, especially since his pragmatic approach would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, but his instinctive response was right.
My point is that it is time, in fact, well past time, to finally admit that we were wrong. When I say "we," I mean not only the amoral scoundrels who stole power, but all of us because we allowed them to retain that power. We screwed up. It's time to stop screwing up. We must finally admit our error and try to do whatever is still possible to mitigate the damage we have wrought.
We can begin by freeing those men, radicalized or not, who should never have been detained. Unconditionally and with our most sincere apologies.
And then, as to those whom we believe to be directly involved in crimes against this nation, we accord them all of the rights of others who have committed crimes, even as we accorded those rights to the German criminals of World War II at Nuremberg. If we do so, and if we make it clear that we will pursue with vigor those who commit such crimes in the future within the framework of our Constitution and international law, we will have begun to restore the only thing which is exceptional about this country, our belief that justice under the law (rather than blind revenge) is not only possible but essential to freedom.
Selah
McClatchy's DC bureau has been running a series of investigative reports on the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, and they have been outstanding. Outstanding, and very troubling. One of those reports, which I read in the Sacramento Bee, has been nagging at me for several days now because it raises a very important issue, one that will (in all probability) not be raised in public discourse, in Congress, or on the presidential campaign trail. What do we do with those who were detained wrongly but who have now been radicalized by the torture and conditions associated with their detention to the point that they really are ready to engage in terrorist activities against the US?
The article gives a pretty clear example of what is involved.
Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan. He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen who rode around in trucks with AK-47 rifles.
U.S. troops detained him in 2002, although he had no clear ties to the Taliban or al-Qaida. By the time Farouq was released from Guantánamo the next year, however – after more than 12 months of what he described as abuse and humiliation at the hands of American soldiers – he'd made connections to high-level militants.
This was made possible by the rank stupidity of the system into which he was dropped.
A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantánamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam – thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them – and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.
The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.
Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantánamo enraged at America.
The Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, an Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantánamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas – binding religious instructions – to the other detainees. ...
In a classified 2005 review of 35 detainees released from Guantánamo, Pakistani police intelligence concluded that the men – the majority of whom had been subjected to "severe mental and physical torture," according to the report – had "extreme feelings of resentment and hatred against USA."
"A lot of our friends are working against the Americans now, because if you torture someone without any reason, what do you expect?" Issa Khan, a Pakistani former detainee, said in an interview in Islamabad. "Many people who were in Guantánamo are now working with the Taliban."
So, there we have it. In our zeal to capture terrorists we offered bounties and rounded up all sorts of scalawags, anti-social miscreants, and targets of family quarrels, used "intensive interrogation techniques" on them, and slammed them into a prison thousands of miles from home right next to extremists who didn't have to advertise their recruitment efforts. Screw-up after screw-up after screw-up.
Now what?
If we continue to hold them, with or without charges, we just compound the hatred now being focused against the US by those being held, their families, friends, and countrymen, not to mention the rest of the world which is rightfully appalled by our overt breach of international law and basic human decency.
But if we release them, we run the risk of being attacked by these newly fledged terrorists, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, or New York City. As H. Candace Gorman, who represents several Gitmo detainees, has pointed out, only one of the hundreds of detainees who have been released has actually 'returned to the battlefield.' Still, there are still hundreds more who could very well do so.
What to do. What to do.
Well, in my opinion, it's not really such a hard choice. We do the right thing. We release those who have been wrongfully detained, radicalized or not. We take our medicine. We take responsibility for those screw-ups.
I am reminded of the story, apocryphal or not, of then Secretary of State Colin Powell who initially urged against the Iraq War. He said something to the effect of "you break it, you own it." Unfortunately, Mr. Powell didn't have the cojones to follow through on that advice, especially since his pragmatic approach would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, but his instinctive response was right.
My point is that it is time, in fact, well past time, to finally admit that we were wrong. When I say "we," I mean not only the amoral scoundrels who stole power, but all of us because we allowed them to retain that power. We screwed up. It's time to stop screwing up. We must finally admit our error and try to do whatever is still possible to mitigate the damage we have wrought.
We can begin by freeing those men, radicalized or not, who should never have been detained. Unconditionally and with our most sincere apologies.
And then, as to those whom we believe to be directly involved in crimes against this nation, we accord them all of the rights of others who have committed crimes, even as we accorded those rights to the German criminals of World War II at Nuremberg. If we do so, and if we make it clear that we will pursue with vigor those who commit such crimes in the future within the framework of our Constitution and international law, we will have begun to restore the only thing which is exceptional about this country, our belief that justice under the law (rather than blind revenge) is not only possible but essential to freedom.
Selah
Labels: Guantanamo Bay, Justice, Terra Terra Terra
posted by Diane at 4:06 AM
4 Comments:
Aaaaaamen, Diane! I couldn't agree with you more whole-heartedly. George Bush, Dick Cheney et al are war criminals, there is not a shred of doubt, and to allow them to retire into the sunset to live off their ill-gotten wealth and bask in the support of their deluded 20%-ers making even more money on the speakers' circuit (a la Oliver North, for Pete's sake) is completely galling. That is one reason that I'm especially disappointed that Barack Obama chose to demur on the FISA issue, because I believe that belies a disturbing willingess on his part to allow Bush lawbreaking to go unchallenged - a stance that is diametrically opposed to his promise of "change." Our country, nee the world, needs prosecutions and convictions for these crimes.
Barry O'Bama will NOT pursue ANY sanctions against the Busheviks.
He's already trotting out the dismissives: Errors in judgment, mistakes, etc. None of the rhetoric that would support indictment.
There's only one way the Busheviks will ever pay as they should: private actors, DSHs...
Change, as in "it's your turn to change the diaper"?, or "Hey man, where's my change?" Change is the line they use to distract you while their hand slips into your pocket. Remember the change we got in 2006? Things changed to the point where what tom delay and bill frist and denny hastert couldn't do got done with barely a whimper from those trusted agents of change. And just to point out how much things have changed in foreign policy, we will be having
a military blockade of Iran next. And that democaratic convention in Denver, where all the agents of change will be meeting? It will be a showcase of change, as the whole city becomes a theatre of urban warfare against anyone trying to rebuff the change.
Of course you're right, Diane. There's no legal way, there's no moral way, to keep these people under our custody at this point. To keep someone locked up because our abuse of him made him bitter and radicalized him is to compound the problem.
If a person should not have been imprisoned in the first place, then he should be released, with apologies and reparations. If he was wrongly arrested and then tortured, then he deserves a greater apology and reparations.
There are no guarantees that such a person will not turn around and attack the U.S., but this is, in my opinion, the only way in which such a person could POSSIBLY come to forgive us.
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