Wednesday, June 1st, 2005

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

This is a long one. It’s been cut and pasted and restructured from comments on this post over at First Draft.

The argument started when the Washington Post took offense at Amnesty International’s description of Guantanimo Bay as “the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law.” True to form, the Right Wing Noise Machine is focusing on the word “gulag” instead of the very serious incidents detailed in the report. So here’s my argument with First Draft’s resident troll (in italics) when he complained that Gitmo isn’t really all that bad.

Using words like “gulag” to describe Gitmo is ridiculous.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
gu•lag also Gu•lag n.
1) A network of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union.
2) A forced labor camp or prison, especially for political dissidents.
3) A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp.

[Russian Gulag, from G(lavnoe) u(pravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh) lag(ere), Chief Administration (of Correctional Labor) Camps.]

In what way does Guantanimo Bay not fall under definitions 2 and 3?

Gitmo houses less than 600 prisoners, almost all of them caught on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

Almost all. And where were the others captured? Under what circumstances? With what crime are they charged? How long is their sentence?

[the other were captured in] various other counter-terror operations.

Such as? Without knowing the circumstances, how can you judge the likelihood of innocent people getting caught up in the arrests? We have confirmed reports of “neighborhood sweeps” in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Are these the “counter terrorist operations” you’re referring to?

And the ones captured on the battlefield–why are they not prisoners of war? Why do the Geneva conventions not apply to them? Since there was no official declaration of war, how will we know when the war is over and they can be released? Why are they not transferred back to Afghanistan, now that there is a new, sovereign government there?

They were not wearing uniforms and following the Rules of War. They are therefore not POWs and not subject to the Geneva Convention.

I am unaware that the Taliban resistance fighters have uniforms, so that would technically apply to all of them, wouldn’t it? Don’t get me wrong: I have no respect for the Taliban. I was quite glad to see them get taken out of power. But on the battlefield, there really isn’t an easy way to distinguish between a Taliban resistance fighter, a member of Al Qaeda, and an Afghani baker who grabbed a gun and fired back at the people who were shooting at him first.

That’s why I want investigations, then charges, then punishment. Punish those who deserve it–by all means–but until you have established in some legally acceptable way that they do deserve punishment, I will complain.

By the way, those military tribunals we were promised? They’re still working on those. Lawyers filing appeals on behalf of the prisoners had to go to the Supreme Court–TWICE!–to get the government to start on a procedure for them, for gods’ sake!

They are treated better than prisoners are virtually anywhere in the world.

But are they treated as well as convicted felons in US prisons? No other comparison is valid.

I would argue that until they have been formally charged and convicted of a crime, they should be treated better than a convicted felon. I would think that “jailed during investigation” rules apply.

If you are saying that you would be OK with police in the US stripping, waterboarding, and beating suspects–in several cases, even beating them to death–during investigations, I hope your values don’t ever become standard in America.

There is no comparison to what is or can be done by the police in the US.

Why not? What, exactly, it the difference between a member of Al Qaeda and Timothy McVeigh? They are both members of a militia who attack the US government by killing a large number of civilians in as dramatic a way as possible. Yet Timothy McVeigh somehow managed to get tried and convicted using standard ferderal court procedures–even when there was a classifed FBI investigation (still ongoing) into the group he belonged to.

Why is that not good enough for a member of Al Qaeda? We don’t change the court procedures based on how many people a person is accused on killing–there is precedent for all of this already. Why are we not using it?

These are not thieves or rapists, or even murderers. These are hardened warriors whose goal is to kill you and as many other infidels as they can.

Actually, that pretty much makes them murderers, doesn’t it? And until they have been tried and convicted, they are allegedly trying to kill me. I’m willing to wait until I see the evidence before I demand retribution. See, I’m vindictive enough that’s it’s not satisfying until I know that the guy who did the crime is in fact the one doing the time.

A number of those who have been released have already returned to committing terrorist acts in Pakistan

Well, you know, suspected killers in the US are released for insufficient evidence all the time. Some of those are actually guilty and go on to kill again. The fact that the killer is doing it for money or drugs makes him no less culpable than a killer who kills for ideology. And yet I don’t hear anyone screaming for every person who is accused of murder to be locked up until the police can prove their case. Or until he dies in custody, whichever comes first.

Also, simply because someone committed a crime after they were released from custody does not prove that they committed the crime they were in custody for. It is possible–perhaps even likely–that someone who honestly was not a terrorist would become one after 3 years of brutal treatment. and I’ll lay 8 to 5 odds that such a person could convince at least one family member or friend to join him, just because of the treatment he personally received. Part of the issue is that out-of-control tactics turn “the terrorists” into a Lernean hydra: for each actual terrorist these tactics stop, they create at least two more. Moral or not, that’s certainly a stupid way to go about things.

And you have missed the underlying point of my objection to the policies at Gitmo:

It honestly doesn’t matter whether you or I personally care about what Gitmo does to the people being held there. However, all Americans should care very deeply about what Gitmo does to us.

It undermines the very principles that make us better than the people we’re fighting.
It gives a rallying cry and encouragement to the people we’re fighting.
It gives other governments ammunition to use against us.
It diminishes our moral authority and legal credibility on the world stage.
It opens the door for these same tactics to be used against more and more people.
It is a noxious worm, eating away at the core of our country’s soul, leaving only a hollow, bitter shell of hate and fear.

All actions have consequences.
Everything we do has a price.
I can’t think of any act a terrorist could do that justifies the price we will have to pay for Gitmo.

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