Oh, you have got to love this.
The Bush administration's efforts to circumvent the Geneva Conventions are well documented. If you recall, the attempts to circumvent the conventions were based on the argument that those held were "unlawful combatants", not prisoners of war, so therefore, the Geneva Conventions did not apply. By transferring detainees to Guantanamo Bay, the theory was that the United States could create an enclave where neither US domestic law nor international law applied, and the US could do at it wished without interference from pesky things like treaties and rights. The plan hit a snag when the US Supreme Court made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that the detainees did have rights in the US Court system. In the wake of the ruling, Congress, which has the power to regulate the jurisdiction of the inferior courts, then drafted and passed Bush's wet dream, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which attempts to give the illegal treatment of detainees the appearance of fairness. Its a kangaroo court.
And it appears that those who rushed this bill through Congress, like Senator Lindsey Graham, have contributed to the undoing of the Court. You see, way back when these prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, they were classified by a military review panel as "enemy combatants". Graham and his cohorts must not have checked the language. Judge Peter Brownback, an Army Col. hearing some of these cases, has just dismissed charges against Omar Khadr, noting that he had "no choice but to throw the Khadr case out because he had been classified as an "enemy combatant" by a military panel years earlier — and not as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant" which is what the Military Commissions Act applies to.
Oh, the beauty of a single word. Oh, the irony of simply redefining a person, only to have the same tactic done in response tot he definition that you assigned.
For all of you in favor of holding prisoners in Guantanamo without charges, and without access to friends, family and legal assistance, fear not. The prosecution has 70 hours to appeal the ruling to the court designated to hear the appeal, a court known as the military commissions review. The problem?
The Court does not exist.
Comments
Pretty amazing
The Bush administration directed the status review board only to determine whether detainees were enemy combatants, despite the statute explicitly disallowing jurisdiction for lawful enemy combatants.
I couldn't imagine that that directive was crafted at anything other than a high level ad DoJ. That's the danger of hacky political appointees, I guess. Ya get what ya pay for in the end.
Can't they just reclassify everyone?
I certainly have zero experience in law, but couldn't the Bush administration just reclassify everyone as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant" and start over?
r.johnson - I know you care about the safety of your kids and have a pretty solid sense of man's sinfulness so you aren't a throw open the gates of Gitmo guy. However, I'm pretty sure you support closing it down. My question is what to do with the minority of inmates who really are bad guys. How would you deal with that?
My own man Richardson has said he'd close Gitmo, but I just don't see what the options are for putting the truly dangerous folks behind jail forever.
Thoughts?
He's the Decider, right?
He can do pretty much anything he wants in Gitmo, except maybe reverse the field of gravity.
(oh, and I mean that legally)
With the bad guys, I couldn't care less what they do. The problem, which Kate notes, is that these things aren't clean; given the circumstances of capture, it's pretty tough to tell who the bad guys are. And it makes me sick to my stomach to think that anyone is incorrectly torn from their family and friends and locked up for years on end.
As Kate also notes, anyone of those people, regardless of guilt on the battlefield, is a danger: if I were one of those people, I'd be out for America's blood if released. And that creates quite a Catch-22: even the innocent people are dangerous.
And that's why I genuinely loathe Bush: he's made doing the right thing (releasing innocent people) a dangerous proposition.
The Root Problem
Expat,
The long answer- The irony of simply re-defining, or as you put it reclassifying, the basis for holding these individuals is what got us into this black hole to begin with. In order to say that the Geneva Conventions did not apply, we simply created a new definition and said it was not covered by the conventions. Even though these people were being held in US custody at a US prison, we said that neither US domestic law nor US military law applied, and when the US Supreme Court weighed in, it said that these people were entitled to some level of due process under US law. We can't just hold them forever without charges as we have been doing. Putting them in their most favorable light (not my normal view), these tribunals were set up to show the US Supreme Court that those we imprisoned were getting due process to prove their innocence. (Its an over-emphasis on procedural due process as opposed to substantive due process.) To simply 'reclassify' these prisoners by the stroke of the pen speaks volumes for how rigged the system is, giving rise to legal challenges to the already farcical hearings. Guilt or innocence is not supposed to be decided by the commander of "the opposing army", and if it can be decided by the stroke of a pen, without a hearing, that is not justice.
The short answer is that, in drafting the procedures for these hearings, a commission must first find "unlawful enemy combatant" status, and only after that hearing can this military commission take jurisdiction. In other words, procedurally, this is supposed to be a trial after a trial. It is quite possible that a new hearing could be set up, but you can't reclassify and still satisfy procedural due process if you don't follow the procedures proscribed.
Because I care about the safety of my kids, I never would have opened this prison in the first place. So what do you do now? You have to go back to the root of the problem. One, we can demonstrate our faith in our justice system and allow the courts of the United States to determine guilt or innocence. If some of these men go free because of that, then we can hold our heads high for following through with values (an independent judiciary- and if you read any state department reports, you will know that our state department most often criticizes other countries for either a failed legal system or the lack of independence in the judiciary). I am not afraid to apologize to those who are 'let go' and if they still want to attack me (or the US) because of their years of prison, I would hope that we would make a better choice next time. Sometimes admitting a mistake is the best course of action.
A second option would be preferable, but will never happen with this administration or with this Country so fearful of being attacked. If these people are really as bad as we say that they are, then it should not be a problem to convince others of their guilt. A judgment from a US court is viewed with skepticism, so why not turn them over to an international body or to an international tribunal to determine their guilt or innocence?
Instead, we will adopt the third option- tweak this kangaroo court again, delaying even further a day in court for those being held.
Our justice system is fully capable of handling the 'really bad guys' and if we are concerned about our image abroad, we will refrain from arguing that the Geneva Convention is out of date and incapable of addressing the problem. Instead, we adopt the arguments Adolph Hitler tried, asserting that the conventions did not apply. We are creating our own enemies, and plenty of people who would delight simply in seeing us hoisted on our own petard.
r.johnson
Gitmo
My Navy corpsman son worked at Gitmo for six months, up to last August. As he put it, this is a horrible situation for the US, but what else do you do with people like that? He said that everyone who is known to be harmless is out of there, except for people they cannot place. That is, those who cannot go home, because they would be imprisoned or killed at "home." It is harder unload the harmless than you might think.
What do we do with those people? Do we pretend they are nice? How does a lawyer collect evidence against them? They weren't detained in situations where clean and clear evidence was being collected. Under American rules of evidence and court proceedings they might well go free. Is that really a good thing?
Kate Pitrone
So, because we screwed up
And don't really have evidence, we should continue to imprison them. Kind of a totalitarian logic, no? 'You see, it's because we can't know you're guilty that we must keep you.' That isn't to say it doesn't have a certain elegance, but it goes to show that immorality in policy will rebound to the worse.
Which is virtue?
Yes, I do see, and that is why this puts the US in such a horrible position. Do we let those people go? As far as we have been able to ascertain, they are a threat and not just to the US. I am saying that there is really no one left at Gitmo, except those placeless harmless ones I mentioned, who is not known to be dangerous.
Are you saying that known Taliban and Al Qaeda thugs, of the most vicious sort, are to be let go because we hold those truths about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, to be self-evident? Yes, yes, this is the frightful and anomalous position that the US is in. To release those men would be to put the life, liberty, etc., of all sorts of people at risk, and to keep them is abrogating our essential principles of government and justice.
It is not just a matter of immoral policy. If it were that simple, the US would know what to do. It is the practical fact of the immorality and deadliness of those we are keeping in custody - "detaining" - not because there is no evidence of who and what they are, but because there is not enough evidence that would hold up in an American court of law.
What is the virtuous answer?
Kate Pitrone
It certainly is a tough issue
No, of course not. But your question isn't apposite: I'm not talking about people that we know are terrorists, but those that think may be terrorists.
None of this is about the proper punishment for factual scenarios that we already know; it's about what we should we do when we don't know the facts. What do we do when presented with a bundle of hearsay evidence from witnesses that are less than credible?
That's the real kicker here. I'm not especially concerned about the people we know committed terrible acts or intended to; George Bush can personally go to gitmo and waterboard and torture those people for all I care.
The bone in the throat, though, is that the evidentiary standards are so low for Gitmo that there's a good chance we're ruining the life of some innocent people.
I'm not suggesting we let everyone go in order to assure ourselves that we've released the innocent people, either. I'm simply raising the question - because it's a question that must be raised. As a nation, we have to be honest enough with ourselves to admit that we think it worthwhile to risk torturing innocent people in order to ensure the captivity of some evil people.
That's the minimum. This is enormously troubling stuff (one thing about the Bush administration: they've certainly brought to life all those weird hypos we got in Philosophy 101) - at the moment, all I'm asking for is clarity over the issues and honesty about our moral calculus.
Scary
What some of the comments to this post highlight is that these prisoners are judged guilty until proven innocent, and that the prospect of committing crimes in the future is used as a basis for detaining them now. That is scary, especially when the same argument can be raised about any perceived threat.
And lets put it in context. Islamic fundamentalists, mostly from Saudi Arabia, use airplanes as bombs to strike the United States. We want the guy who planned it and helped finance it, so we demand the country that is harboring him to turn him over. When they do not, we invade the country. (For a fascinating study of the political culture of Afghanistan and the Taliban, read Stephen Coll's "Ghost Wars".) Seeing everything as black and white, we say 'you are either with us or you are against us (Taliban)'. Our blood was spilled, and we want blood in return. Because we saw life in black and white, we wanted Taliban and offered local militia rewards for turning over Taliban. Rival tribes and ethnic clans became bargaining chips in an attempt to curry favor with the occupying forces. And when the US military used its considerable weapons, and people fought back, it did not matter whether those firing at US forces were doing it because they were ideologically opposed to the United States, acting in self defense, or simply angered by the occupying force, we treated them all the same. We sent many of them to Bagram for "questioning", where some, like a 22 year old cab driver named Dilawar, were beaten to death. Others were sent an ocean away to Guantanamo, with no word to family or even the Red Cross on where they were, why they were there, or how they were being treated. Once in Guantanamo, we forced tubes down their throats to keep them alive, yet still some committed suicide.
Are there bad people at Guantanamo? There probably are, but far fewer than the several hundred we are now holding there. (Kate, I balk at the statement that the only people still there are the truly bad ones, especially since the US has kept who is there as a guarded secret, and what they have done to get there, but more importantly, they have not been tried in any impartial proceeding.) Do they want to do us harm? Given all of the reasons we have given them to want to harm us, that seems to me to be the wrong question. Better to focus on how our fears and lack of faith in a transparent justice system are causing us to undermine the very freedoms and ideals we claim to promote.
r.johnson
Self-righteous indignation
The stand that the US is holding innocents at Guantanamo always begs the question as to why? What good does it do the US to hold people who have done no harm? Do not tell me that it is because we do not want word to get out about their treatment, as word is out. Could it be exaggerated, sometimes? Compared to what happens to our men captured by the enemy, how is their treatment? Naso-gastric tubes are horrible, but so is starvation. Were they supposed to be allowed to die? I am always confused by that complaint.
Part of the problem with war is that there IS no impartial proceeding. That's what war is, a matter of taking sides and in a rather ultimate way. Do you know many Marines? Those I know talk about the horror of being in situations where they have no choice but to shoot people who may or may not be actual enemy combatants because in battle you can't stop and ask, politely. Do you expect our military personnel to risk their lives further by asking the people shooting at them for their particulars?
You are being self-righteous and do not answer my question with your simplistic, although not simple, response.
"As of May 19, 2007, approximately 380 detainees remained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." according to http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay_detainees.htm
Kate Pitrone
It's easy, and we were paranoid
First, there's the administrative ease. We were presented with a bunch of people that may or may not have been guilty, and we had no system in place for judging whether they were actually guilty of anything. We found that many weren't guilty of anything, but what of the people where the evidence simply wasn't clear (Afghan warlords working on commission presumably had reason to fake evidence, cover up countervailing evidence, etc.)?
If we thought there was a reasonable chance the person was guilty, I'm sure we kept them. In other words, there was likely a presumption of guilt and/or continuing dangerousness that could only be defeated by evidence of innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
So it's absurd to postulate some eeeevil conspiracy to lock up innocent people; just flip the presumptions, though, and that's exactly what happens.
Simplistic Response?
It is a simplistic response to say that those we are holding at Guantanamo are not innocent or are dangerous because our government says that they are not innocent or are dangerous. It is a simplistic response to say that, having removed these prisoners from a world away, it is difficult to prove their guilt or innocence. It is a simplistic response to call for the continued detention of individuals because we are afraid of what they might do if they are released and commit crimes that have not occurred. Our justice system is well equipped to handle the complexities of this situation, but we have made it more difficult, and more complex, by attempting to circumvent justice.
I would be happy to discuss with you the 'treatment' we have dished out. On my own site I have tracked the number of those killed, beaten to death at the hands of US 'interrogators.' You may say 'they must have been bad people, but in the case of Dilawar, a 22 year old cab driver, US troops wanted to question him because his cab was seen near an explosion, hardly culpable conduct. Most of the interrogators thought he was innocent. He turned himself in to US interrogators, thinking that he had nothing to fear. They beat him to death over several days. http://www.desententia.com/desenarchive/2005/05/beaten_to_death_1.html Not all of our troops are like this, but we pay the price for this Haditha, and other examples.
Saying that we are 'humane' in force feeding prisoners because they would otherwise starve to death avoids the issue of why we are holding them without charges and without access to courts. It only makes sense if you ignore the moral issues of why we are holding them in the first place under these conditions. Assuming their guilt, or accepting without questioning a military statement that these people pose a threat is not good enough for me.
You are changing the subject when you talk about those in combat. We are not talking about a soldier in the field making a split second decision, but about a policy of our government of sweeping up prisoners in a battlefield a world away, and taking them to a place where the objective is to deny them rights, deny them contact with the outside world, and to deny them a day in court to prove their innocence. I am not being self righteous for pointing out how and why we have gone astray.
I am not sitting back and 'passing judgment' because I just thought I would 'spout off' spur of the moment in response to this comment. My legal education included a heavy dose of international law, national security law, and war crime tribunal investigations. At one point, I considered a position with Madeline Albright's state department. This is something I have spent considerable time studying and writing about. A law student I was mentoring is spending his next semester as in Intern at the Court of Justice at the Hague, writing judicial opinion for Bosnian war crimes investigations. And to put the dry legal analysis in perspective, I know what it is like to serve. My nephew, an eighteen year old, did one tour during the initial invasion. My cousin was on the front lines in Gulf War I as an army infantryman, and again during the 2003 invasion as a chaplain. He is still serving, although he is now in Germany. I have had regular email exchanges with ordinary enlisted men, intelligence officers, and even those 'interrogators' who were charged with crimes. (Note, even though the US military classifies many of these deaths in US custody as homicides, not one person has been charged in connection with a death- they are charged for making false statements, dereliction of duty, etc., but not for the death.) My law school classmate, who I spoke with not long ago, was an attorney representing some of those held in Guantanamo. While I am not a veteran, I get a broad perspective of what they face. It is not my intent to be self righteous, but to call for righteousness in how we treat these prisoners, and in redressing our wrongs.
r.johnson
Who swept up the prisoners?
Who swept up the prisoners? It was not "the government" but our soldiers in the field. As soldiers I know say, they are not trained to collect evidence against those they make prisoners, nor was there time in the circumstances. That cannot be their job. Therefore, there will not be evidence against those detained that will hold up in your court. Even bringing witnesses back will be difficult and expensive, tracking down veterans, who do not want to remember what happened, or have lost details of the events over the years. They may not even know the names of those they made prisoner, usually do not, by what I have heard. The problem is not the US circumventing justice, but finding the wherewithal to bring justice to bear.
No, it does the US no good when interrogators misuse their power, and a cruel man might like that job, which is horrible and a pity. I ask again what happens to our men when they are made prisoner? It is no excuse, but it is there.
Bringing evidence to court of incidents that happened in another country, years ago, often under battlefield conditions, against those accused of being enemy combatants by capturers who have long since retreated into civilian life doesn't sound easy to me. I defer to your legal education and contacts on that point.
I do look at those we have detained at Gitmo as wolves, and admit there might still be some mere dogs among the wolves. They may have excuse for becoming wolfish in prison. I also say that if we cannot prove guilt of prior crimes and must presume innocence, then we will be clinging to our American ideals at the expense of people's lives, if we let the wolves go free. I think it impractical and possibly irresponsible. You can call it justice.
Kate Pitrone
Rigging the system
Again, this is not about the soldiers on the battlefield who capture, swoop up, or otherwise detain individuals. Chances are they are acting on orders or out of self preservation. This is about what happens AFTER they have been detained, what procedures and policies are in place to allow those wrongfully swept up to go free, and what procedures and policies are in place for holding those we have a legitimate reason for sweeping up. Holding them forever is not an option, nor is rigging a system to ensure that they are convicted.
At the root of this issue is the protection afforded by the Geneva Conventions. (For background on what led to the Geneva Conventions: http://www.desententia.com/desenarchive/2006/03/unprecedented_e.html) This is not the first time that a country is faced with trying to sort out who is a hostile and who is not. This is not the first time that a country has had to hold prisoners of war. This is not the first time that a country has been faced with the task of documenting and tracking the actions of those it holds for possible war crimes prosecutions. The Geneva Conventions proscribe the methods for handling all of these things. And we don't want to follow them because someone may actually go free?
Sadly, its not the first time that anyone has argued that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the conflict of hand. That 'honor' goes to Adolph Hitler, and if you read the transcripts from the Nuremberg trials, you will see that the Americans, led by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, specifically sought to make clear that any arguments that the Geneva Conventions did not apply, or that they could be so easily avoided by an edict from a war making commander, were utterly wrong. In fifty years time, we have thrown that all away. And it plays out in our relations with our allies as well. Yesterday, George Bush tried to scold Egypt for not releasing jailed opposition leader Ayman Nour. The Egyptian parliament's foreign relations committee then issued a statement saying "The U.S. President should have talked about the prisoners of Guantanamo who are deprived of the simplest of legal defence guaranteed by all human rights conventions."
The biblical example that comes too mind is of the beam and the splinter in the eye. Removing the beam from our own eye makes perfect sense to me.
r.johnson
What system?
It is because of the way those individuals were detained in the first place that it can be difficult to sort out who is dangerous, who must be a prisoner of war, and who is not. I submit to you that this is not a war as we have had in the past, and sorting out the policies and procedures in many aspects of it are going to take time, thought, and a certain amount of trial and error is inherent in such a process. These individuals do not fit neatly into Geneva Convention categories. These are not uniformed soldiers. Al Qaeda is not a nation. Neither can armed combatants be treated as if they were civilians. So how do we treat them? Sorting out the Taliban detainees, as in who had no choice but to serve and who was a malign participant, can't have been easy. Many have been set free. We have not abandoned the conventions, but are trying work out how they apply in this type of warfare.
If George Bush had detained John Kerry, or Howard Dean, or Ralph Nadar, or r. johnson, I could see your log/beam analogy better. If you think the U.S. and Egypt are politically equivalent in terms of liberty and justice... well, I just cannot see it that way.
Supposing you were responsible for the security of the US, and responsible for the consequences of releasing those detained, how would you handle them?
Kate Pitrone
Total Security Is not What it Is Made Out to Be.
For how I would handle this, see my response to Expat above.
"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom." Dwight D. Eisenhower
Kate, with due respect, I read your comment and I see nothing but talking points that the Bush administration, or its defenders, have been repeating. My guess is that you are simply repeating these talking points without any real analysis. Why is this war somehow different than a war of the past? Because George Bush said so? I am pretty sure I could describe the Vietnam war in exactly the same way we are describing this conflict, and if you would like me to, I will. Have you read the Geneva Conventions? How do you square the belief that 'this is a different war' with Article I of the conventions, in which the high contracting parties (and the US is one of them) "undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances. Article 2 notes that the conventions apply in all cases of declared war "or of any other armed conflict" between two or more contracting parties, and Iraq is one of those. To say that this dispute is about person A from the United States and person B from Iraq, and not the US and Iraq, is specious. Nevertheless, the conventions apply to the occupied territory of a high contracting party, and like it or not, Iraq is occupied by US forces and is a high contracting party. Article 2 also provides "Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations." To put it plainly, the US as a party to the convention is bound by its terms since it signed it, so please explain for me why the conventions do not apply. (And as a parent, I am sure you have used the phrase 'two wrongs do not make a right', so just because someone else violates the convention does not mean that we can ignore it too.)
With respect to the 'not uniformed soldiers' argument, the Nuremberg trials are very relevant. In world war ii, allied paratroopers parachuted into occupied Europe. They did not wear uniforms, and their stated purpose was to blend in with the population and carry out sabotage operations. Hitler issued "the Command Order" which said that because the paratroopers were not uniformed soldiers, the Geneva Conventions did not apply, and the paratrooper commandos were to be shot on sight. The Commando Order became a central part of the prosecution of German officers who carried out the order. We convicted them of war crimes and executed them, again, to remind the world that the conventions applied to all conflict and in all circumstances when a contracting power was involved. So please explain for me why the order of George Bush to treat these individuals outside of the Geneva Conventions is any different than the order issued by Hitler. Because Hitler ordered them shot, and we are merely ordering them to be held indefinitely without charges? It is a distinction without a difference.
The argument that 'al-Qaeda is not a nation is not relevant since the conventions bind the US. The other problem with that argument is that there never was a connection between Iraq and what we call al-Qaeda until after we invaded Iraq. No one has accused Saddam of being 'al-Qaeda' (a term that we coined to refer to a loose group of individuals and organizations for easy reference), as Saddam's secularism was diametrically opposed by the Islamic militants we call al-Qaeda. By removing Saddam, we have given Islamic fundamentalists and militants a stage to operate in Iraq. I have not seen any published criteria for what qualifies as 'alQaeda' as opposed to an Iraqi fighting to free his country from an occupying power, but if you have, please share it with me.
And just where does it fit in to attack another country to change their form of government? You might be surprised to realize that the Geneva Conventions expressly prohibit an occupying power from altering the domestic laws of an occupied nation.
You don't have to take my word for it. You can read the Geneva Conventions, and transcripts of the Nuremberg War Trials- copies are available online. You can even research the Commando Order, and see how it played out in the war crimes trials. Read them and then tell me why, or what you are relying upon to say that they do not apply. Offering me the talking points used by supporters of these policies makes a discussion far more difficult.
Its because you do not see what we are doing as wrong that you do not see the beam splinter analogy.
r.johnson
Speaking of repetition
It seems to me you are just repeating what I hear on NPR or see on television, on the rare occasions that I watch TV. If you think your arguments are not a repetition, think again. I HAVE read the Geneva Convention, though not the transcripts of the Nuremberg War trials, having only read about them. I went back to the Convention and reread Article 4, as to who would be considered a prisoner of war. It is more expansive than I remembered, and I suppose if I decide that terror organizations are "volunteers in the conflict," then it applies and also confuses the issue on the ground as we are speaking of civilians, which leads to all sorts of problems. Yet, I do not know that the detainees have been handled in any way that contravenes the Convention. I have a citation here for my son because he collected all of the health information about each prisoner and developed charts for that information to establish that those detained were in better health than when they arrived. It is still a prison.
As to defining Al Qaeda:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/9126/
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/misc/janes010928_1_n.shtml
"5,000 Saudis, 3,000 Yemenis, 2,800 Algerians, 2,000 Egyptians, 400 Tunisians, 350 Iraqis, 200 Libyans and dozens of Jordanians served alongside the Afghani mujahideen in the war."
You will enjoy this: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/manualpart1_1.pdf
You think this war is the same as other wars? International communism as an aggressive force collapsed when the USSR did. What nation will fall and collapse jihad?
I think detaining someone and restraining them from killing you and yours is justified. But maybe you are right, and to have them killed is the same thing. Are you suggesting that is what ought to have happened, that they be killed without questions? I know Marines who, given folks like you and your arguments and the fuss about the propriety of keeping people from killing other people, say that by your logic they ought to have killed those they captured. How they would have lived with themselves after, even knowing the sort of person they killed, that was the rub.
I reread your response, above. It does not answer my question to my satisfaction, but if it does to yours, then that's that.
Wanting to see the context of your quote, I can find it quoted all over the Internet in that part, but never in context. It is true, but to suggest that Eisenhower thought we ought to remain wide open in terms of national security is silly.
As I say above, the conflict we are in is horrible for us in that it would force us to defend ourselves at the cost of our ideals. Just what good is a dead democratic idealist?
Kate Pitrone
Its not about repetition,
Its not about repetition, but about substance. Saying the world is flat one thousand times does not make it so. Sure, you can say I am only repeating what others are saying, but I have shown you what provisions of the Geneva Conventions I am relying upon to say that they DO apply. I have offered to explain how and why this war is is not fundamentally different than prior wars. What I have not seen in response is a reason why these conventions do not apply, apart from George Bush & Co. saying 'because I said so.' That does not cut it for me. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, who preached 'trust but verify', I see nothing to verify, so no basis for the trust in the statement.
The reference to the USSR does not fit. Using "as an aggressive force" to modify communism leads to another discussion entirely, but the reason for fighting the Vietnam war and the reasons we profess to fight this war are ideologically indistinguishable. The expressed objective of the Vietnam war was to keep communism from spreading, just as we say that THIS war is about keeping Islamic militancy from spreading. The talk of Iran interfering in Iraq is because we do not want Iran's form of theocratic government to take root in Iraq. We describe this conflict in terms of preventing islamic militancy from spreading, and also in terms of us spreading democracy. They are two sides of the same coin. To answer your question, our leaders tell us that the nation that will fall and collapse if jihad succeeds is the United States.
No, I am not suggesting that those we capture be killed, only that they be given a fair trial. A system that is skewed to find their guilt is not a fair trial.
Lastly, to put it in context, Eisenhower, the military man, recognized that peace and security at home came from three different strengths: moral strength, economic strength, and military strength, in that order. Paul Kennedy essentially adopts the same criteria in his great book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, and Eisenhower recognized how overemphasis on the military strength threatens our liberty, threatens our economic security, and threatens our moral strength. He advocated that we demonstrate the courage to follow our principles, knowing that what we are at home and what we do at home is far more important than what we do abroad. Noting how the military strength can destroy us, he noted that 'we will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.' That debate, on the balance between moral strength, economic strength, and military strength, is lacking in the US today, where we seem to promote a military solution with untold costs and few tangible benefits for all of the threat we see. Eisenhower most certainly did not advocate ignoring the military strength, but neither did he see it as the perfect cure for making us 'safe.'
r.johnson
What to do
I guess my 'liberal' views on closing Guantanamo are as liberal as Colin Powell.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Powell_would_close_Gitmo_not_tomorrow_0610.html
r.johnson
Equivalents?
Do you think Islamic militancy and democracy are equivalent? When George Bush says we want to spread democracy, do you find that morally equivalent to Osama Bin Laden (and others) saying that everyone on earth must bow down to Allah? The US saying, "every person ought to have the same rights as Americans, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and there should be no rule but by the consent of the governed," does not seem equivalent to sharia. If jihad succeeds, we all lose.
We have the right under Geneva to detain those we think will be fighting against on the field of battle. We just have to treat them well. We could have executed those enemy combatants on the field of battle and did not, taking them in and keeping them from the battlefield. We don't have to "TRY" them if we pulled them off the field of battle.
I wanted to know the actual context of Eisenhower's words that you quoted. Was it a speech and which speech?
I was trying to decide what I thought about the Al Marri vs. Wright case, and was reading Volokh http://volokh.com/posts/1181590920.shtml which might be interesting to you as it pertains. You probably agree with the liberal guys, who say what you say above, but consider what the conservative guys say. It is an interesting debate.
Kate Pitrone
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